508 DoDemand - dangerous?

whit

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Original poster
Jun 10, 2006
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Does someone know how the 508 is handling the Movies-on-Demand thing in terms of storage? I've seen several reports on Usenet of 508 users finding hours (or in one case all) of their own recordings deleted after the update. In my case that hasn't happened yet - but I also happened to leave the unit on overnight after accepting the software update (and several days since) so it hasn't had a chance to download the 4 movies they want to shove down my throat (which I'd never watch at $5 anyhow).

Now, I see that for some of the more recent DVRs (the 510, for instance) there's mention that hard drive space was set aside in the factory. From the reports of programming loss on the 508s, though, I'm wondering if the movies are saved to the user's space with different ownership permissions, so that that would be why people are reporting loss of their saved programs.

If the latter is the case, does anyone know if it will be safe from downloads if the menu option is set to let the unit suspend when left on a single channel for whatever the time out interval is - that is, where the green power light stays on but the reception needs to be re-awakened when you return to it? Or do I have to leave it on with the suspend mode disabled to prevent it downloading its 4 movies into my recording space?

Or is the lost programming 508ers report the result of some other bug in the DoD software update, which, since it hasn't hit me yet (the update's in place - just no movies on the drive yet), won't now threaten my rather full hard drive?

I wrote Dish about this a few days ago, but of course they haven't responded, and neglected to put anything useful at all on this in their FAQ.
 
Dont know, no information from dish has come out about this and most likely these reports are nothing more than bogus reports or people that dont keep track of thir dvr events or another family member has deleted their porn.


I havent lost any events or space on my 508 and no one on this board has seen the issues you have posted. I would ask as to how they are shoving dod movies down your throat though, holding a gun to your head?
 
Both of my 508's took the upgrade and have not lost recordings or available space. One of them took the upgrade several weeks ago, the other just the other night and I checked the available space and it did not change, even after downloading the DOD movies.
 
Yea mine took the DL a month ago, only thing Im getting is the typical audio drop on dvr'd and paused events but thats an old issue.
 
whit said:
Does someone know how the 508 is handling the Movies-on-Demand thing in terms of storage? I've seen several reports on Usenet of 508 users finding hours (or in one case all) of their own recordings deleted after the update. <...>.
I have seen reports from 508 disk, one of them had info
Total: 156301488 sectors, 80 GB.
------------ <Name> <Begin> <End> <Size> <MAU> [size]
Partition 1: DwnldData, 156170417,156301488, 131071, 16 [ 67 MB]
Partition 2: OTVData, 155556017,156170416, 614399, 64 [314 MB]
Partition 3: EstarData, 153525802,155556016, 2030214, 64 [ 1 GB]
Partition 4: EstarAVData, 111582762,153525801, 41943039,4096 [ 21 GB]
Partition 5: DVRData0, 131072,111582761,111451689,4096 [ 57 GB]


VOD partition is #4 and took 21 GB from 80.
 
whit said:
I've seen several reports on Usenet of 508 users finding hours (or in one case all) of their own recordings deleted after the update.

That explains why my recording of XXX:State of the Union lost the begining of the video. It wouldn't rewind to the begining. I had already watched it before the update so I know it was there. But couldnt' refresh my memory of what happened when I got around to finishing it.

That 508 had 40 hours recorded on it.

The other 508 lost the last 5 or so minutes of Steath. I think I can figure out what happened though.
 
Smith said:
I have seen reports from 508 disk, one of them had info
Total: 156301488 sectors, 80 GB.

VOD partition is #4 and took 21 GB from 80.

Thanks!

Was that report from before or after the VoD software update? That is, was partition 4 there from the factory, as spare space unavailable anyhow, or does the VoD upgrade repartition?

Elsewhere someone's commented that software upgrades often just result in lost data anyway - but that's never been my experience.
 
Van said:
I would ask as to how they are shoving dod movies down your throat though, holding a gun to your head?

Well, the VoD movies download when the unit's "off" - which means that at minimum there's higher power drain to prepare a feature I'm never going to use. It ought to be a user option, IMHO, whether to even have this happen. Nationwide, the electricity being burned for VoD that won't ever be viewed does add up to something, at a time where we should be conserving.
 
If your concerned about resources then go off the grid with solar and wind, replace all of the appliances in your home with energy star compliant units, add more insulation to your attic and go with ambient infloor heating. All of the receivers are still running at a reduced rate when powered off, the dvr's hard drives are still running when in stand by mode. But if its really that big of a deal then unplug your dvr from the wall when your not watching it or just cancel your sub and go with another provider or none at all instead and save some electricity that your wasting on a luxury.
 
Van,

Nice snarky reply. Unlike Dick Cheney (a distant relative of mine) I'm not so concerned with what individuals do, but with what larger groups of people do. An individual's consumption doesn't cause climate change or raise the price of energy; but patterns over a society do. That said, I've already doubled the attic insulation, gone to compact florescent lighting, and get half my heat from wood. So at this point I don't feel bad about burning some watts on cultural input. But burning watts so that VoD can be there waiting for me, when I've no use for it ... what's the point? Why impose this pattern over tens of thousands of people who similarly won't be getting any benefit from it? It's just wasted. It would be so easy for Echostar to add a menu setting to just disable the process - a few hours of programming really, a far smaller cost than the electricity to be burned because they wouldn't spare those few employee hours to add this.

Fully turning the power off wouldn't be using it as a DVR; but to have it spend extra hours powered fully up to download stuff that's not for me? Why?

Whit

Van said:
If your concerned about resources then go off the grid with solar and wind, replace all of the appliances in your home with energy star compliant units, add more insulation to your attic and go with ambient infloor heating. All of the receivers are still running at a reduced rate when powered off, the dvr's hard drives are still running when in stand by mode.
 
whit said:
Thanks!

Was that report from before or after the VoD software update? That is, was partition 4 there from the factory, as spare space unavailable anyhow, or does the VoD upgrade repartition?

<...>
Partitionong scheme made from factory and stay like that forever.
 
Van got a little extreme there, you shouldn't have to unplug your box. You should be able to turn off the VOD feature though. Leave the options there, if I change my mind later I can re-enable it. THere is no reason to be downloading movies to my box that I won't buy. Just burning away hours of my hdd's life for nothing...

But I don't know how this update would corrupt your files when it's been split partitions from the get-go. It doesn't make any sense...
 
Purogamer said:
But I don't know how this update would corrupt your files when it's been split partitions from the get-go. It doesn't make any sense...

If the partitions have had that scheme since the beginning, you're right. I was being cautious about the downloads primarily because there were several reports of lost files on alt.dbs.echostar, specifically on 508s right after the software update. But I guess then that's the previously-unknown-to-me tendency of some units to lose saved files with any software update - which doesn't make much sense to me either.
 
Can you post the breakdowns for those 3 boxes. The 501 seems awfully low, the other two have 25% allotted, why doesn't the 501? 3 hours is one movie, or two short ones...
 
whit said:
If the partitions have had that scheme since the beginning, you're right. I was being cautious about the downloads primarily because there were several reports of lost files on alt.dbs.echostar, specifically on 508s right after the software update. But I guess then that's the previously-unknown-to-me tendency of some units to lose saved files with any software update - which doesn't make much sense to me either.

On my 510, I lost 30+ hours of recordings sometime after the upgrade. Not completely sure of the exact timing. They did make a change to the regular PVR partition. They added a 3 minute VOD teaser. I suspect that is what cleaned out all my recordings.
 
Purogamer said:
Unless your drive was full, they didn't remove anything.

Yes they downloaded that 3 minute movie, but that's nothing new...


Depends on how long the material had been on there, I had several movies saved and protected on my pvr for over a year and all were erased a year to the month. On the dvr's such as 522 and 625 the receivers will clean out stuff that has been left on them and unprotected after 3 - 4 months.
 
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