..........in other words Leave the unit "On" at all times (don't shutoff the microHD with the Remote Control), but shut off your TV to maintain the right time?
GEOSATpro Micro Timer issues.
- Thread starter rgk
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Thanks Babadem,
I will keep the unit on all the time and see if this solves the clock lagging. I had not yet checked for the clock problem on past posts. I assume that the MHD reverts back to the selected on/standby mode after it completes recording. Selecting on means that the USB hard drive is also on 24/7. Is this a problem?
Cheers, iHenry
I will keep the unit on all the time and see if this solves the clock lagging. I had not yet checked for the clock problem on past posts. I assume that the MHD reverts back to the selected on/standby mode after it completes recording. Selecting on means that the USB hard drive is also on 24/7. Is this a problem?
Cheers, iHenry
If you place the receiver in standby, it returns to this mode between event timers.
Is Timeshift turned ON? Unless Timeshift is set ON and the receiver is constantly recording, drives will go into sleep mode until a playback or record command is sent.
Another thing to consider: an unavailable drive will cause recordings to be skipped. How long does it take the USB drive to spin up to speed and be recognized by the receiver after pressing record? If the drive takes a long time before being ready to mount, a timer could be skipped..
Is Timeshift turned ON? Unless Timeshift is set ON and the receiver is constantly recording, drives will go into sleep mode until a playback or record command is sent.
Another thing to consider: an unavailable drive will cause recordings to be skipped. How long does it take the USB drive to spin up to speed and be recognized by the receiver after pressing record? If the drive takes a long time before being ready to mount, a timer could be skipped..
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Hard drive spinup/recognition is a good point. My Seagate GoFlex takes more than 30 seconds to be recognized after power up. Might have something to do with the USB-SATA bridge, not sure. It is always recognized, but it does take a bit of time.
I have a number of items to report on. First, my clock seems to be keeping perfect time now that I never put my MHD on standby. Second, my Seagate hard drive is also continuously running, not ever in sleep mode (I can tell by the vibration) and I do not have any recording latency problems. Three, the experiment on weak/strong signal recording is still continuing. Everything has worked flawlessly so far. But I suspect that my overnight recordings have benefitted from better nighttime reception of the weaker signal. Or else the spitfire lnb is able to deal with a signal that fluctuates between the 0 to 20% quality reading when I positioned the satellite. I'll reposition the satellite try to make the weaker signal even worse and repeat the weak/strong recording cycle.
Cheers, iHenry
Cheers, iHenry
Thanks for the update and great to hear that the timers are now working!
Is Time Shift turned ON? The USB drive should spin down into sleep mode with Time Shift turned OFF.
Is Time Shift turned ON? The USB drive should spin down into sleep mode with Time Shift turned OFF.
Thanks Brian,
Timeshift is turned off. The Seagate GoFlex Desk 1.5TB drive has always been on and spinning when the MHD is on, timeshift on and off. I have not changed any settings since taking it out of the box. Perhaps this is something that must be set by a computer with the Seagate setup program. I have a MacBook Pro and haven't tried or figured out how to change settings on the drive. It seems to work well as it is, both on the MHD and MBP. Is continuous running a problem for the drive?
Cheers, iHenry
Thanks again,
I will take that chance. The drive has a 2 year warrantee and a MBTF of over 10 years. On my test of recording alternating weak/strong signals the MHD worked great. I had to get the weak signal quality below 10% in order to do this test. Anything above 10% would record OK with only occasional artifacts, a tribute to the MHD/Spitfire combo. The weak signal recordings timed out and did not record but the strong channel recorded as scheduled. So my timer problem seems to be something to do with the movement of the dish.
Ahhh, so this is why my time ends up wrong eventually! Is there a reason seconds is rounded to the nearest minute during each cycle, because I would rather it did not. Alternatively how can I manage the clock on my microHD so it is always correct? I seem to recall having it get the time from satellite can be trouble since not all birds have the right time, which is why I chose the manual clock setting.
Ahhh, this may be why I "lost" a timer event that one time! I have a 1 TB toshiba drive to record timer events to. Is there any way the timer event can wait to start until it sees the drive? Alternatively is there some way for me to work around this (other than leaving the microHD powered ON all the time)? The reason I would not want to leave the microHD powered on all the time is I like to use the time shift buffer. I realize it may come down to getting time shift buffer OR timer recordings always working, but I would like to have my cake and eat it too!
This is the way that the chipset handles power interruptions. We have placed the issue into review with ALI to see if a work around could be implemented. At this time, proper time sync in the manual time mode relies on uninterrupted power and minimal toggling between Operate and Standby modes.
Do not place the microHD into Standby mode when using the manual time mode selection.
Not able to accommodate a slow mounting drive without providing (requiring) additional buffer time between recordings.
Only work around for a slow mounting hard drive is to try another drive that spins up to speed faster or keep the drive spinning at all times.
Should a restriction be placed on high performance cars because an owner wants to run HR instead of ZR rated tires...
LOL! 
Scanned back in these postings on timers Saw some mention of timers deleting themselves, ran into that yesterday on a daily record of ME-TV. Was manually recording ahead of the event on closeby satellite. Had one minute between (manual) end of the close-by satellite recording end, and the Me-TV.
Me's scheduled recording never began. So, I started it manually and set it for 59 minutes.
Tonite, I went to check for the startup of the regular ME recording, it was gone.
Has it been determined that a manual start of a regularly scheduled recording will delete the daily timer? I didn't see this conclusion, but scanned many pages and could have missed this.
Still on original firmware, as I have not experienced any serious issues, but if necessary can save my files to the program-recording drive (hard drive, not USB thumb is okay, right? that's what's always connected to grab my shows) and update if that "fix" is in the update first issued.
Still very happy with overall reliability, and the small quirks are much less than any other receiver I"ve had since joining the FTA club about 3 years ago!
Me's scheduled recording never began. So, I started it manually and set it for 59 minutes.
Tonite, I went to check for the startup of the regular ME recording, it was gone.
Has it been determined that a manual start of a regularly scheduled recording will delete the daily timer? I didn't see this conclusion, but scanned many pages and could have missed this.
Still on original firmware, as I have not experienced any serious issues, but if necessary can save my files to the program-recording drive (hard drive, not USB thumb is okay, right? that's what's always connected to grab my shows) and update if that "fix" is in the update first issued.
Still very happy with overall reliability, and the small quirks are much less than any other receiver I"ve had since joining the FTA club about 3 years ago!
Several updates since original firmware, so will only suggest to upgrade to current and see of it can be replicated. Not troubleshooting any issues without current firmware.
Thanks for your understanding!
Thanks for your understanding!
May get brave this weekend and do that! Latest (non beta) is the one posted on this site, correct?
In all reality, if that's the only issue I run into, there's almost no need to update. It really "ain't broke!"....for my needs and use! Minor work-arounds are more than acceptable.
Logically there's no reason not to use the connected hard drive to store user info, is there? (for updating and restoring after update purposes)
Thanks so much!
In all reality, if that's the only issue I run into, there's almost no need to update. It really "ain't broke!"....for my needs and use! Minor work-arounds are more than acceptable.
Logically there's no reason not to use the connected hard drive to store user info, is there? (for updating and restoring after update purposes)
Thanks so much!
You might want to wait a few days for the new release.
No problem storing file back-ups on the connected drive.
No problem storing file back-ups on the connected drive.
I lost a timer set to recur weekly last night.
I have a weekly timer set to record Red Green Show on Friday nights at 10:00pm on OETA 125W, 12112V8703. The dish was initially positioned on 30W with the receiver tuned to Cubavision. When the timer fired, the dish would have to move from 30W to 125W on a V polarity, which would take probably a minute or more for the movement. The end result is that the show was not recorded and the timer was automatically deleted. I've had this timer running successfully for probably 4 weeks now. The receiver was tuned to OETA the following morning. I usually make a point to leave the dish pointing at 125W because almost all the timers I set are on that location.
I tried to recreate the issue. First I set a recurring timer for OETA and set the dish and tuner looking at the 103W Huntington Beach feeds. The timer fired, moved the dish and began to record.
Second, I set a recurring timer for OETA and tuned the dish to 30W Cubavision. When the timer fired, the dish began moving and took 1min 37 sec to make the transition to 125W and lock on OETA. Nothing was recording and the timer had been deleted.
My suggestion for a workaround is to create a "Channel" timer to just tune to the satellite for which you need a high priority timer set to record.
I have a weekly timer set to record Red Green Show on Friday nights at 10:00pm on OETA 125W, 12112V8703. The dish was initially positioned on 30W with the receiver tuned to Cubavision. When the timer fired, the dish would have to move from 30W to 125W on a V polarity, which would take probably a minute or more for the movement. The end result is that the show was not recorded and the timer was automatically deleted. I've had this timer running successfully for probably 4 weeks now. The receiver was tuned to OETA the following morning. I usually make a point to leave the dish pointing at 125W because almost all the timers I set are on that location.
I tried to recreate the issue. First I set a recurring timer for OETA and set the dish and tuner looking at the 103W Huntington Beach feeds. The timer fired, moved the dish and began to record.
Second, I set a recurring timer for OETA and tuned the dish to 30W Cubavision. When the timer fired, the dish began moving and took 1min 37 sec to make the transition to 125W and lock on OETA. Nothing was recording and the timer had been deleted.
My suggestion for a workaround is to create a "Channel" timer to just tune to the satellite for which you need a high priority timer set to record.
The "goto satellite" timer fixes one of the causes of deleted timers but it isn't the only cause. I've seen the pop-up that preceeds the start of recording but the light stayed green and the micro doesn't record. When the end of the event that didn't record occurs another pop up appears as if the recording is being ended. The timer is then deleted. This happens with weekly and daily timers.
A DVR recording is allowed 1 minute to acquire a satellite signal. If no signal is acquired within one minute, the recording is cancelled. This time out period could be increased in the microHD to 2 or more minutes, but the side effect would be that all timers (even for fixed dish and single satellite systems) would need to be separated by two or more minutes. This is not a practical solution as most users are not typically dealing with such long move times. The complaint then would be that back-to-back timers could not be scheduled.
We have determined that a DVR recording must have a signal and obtain Transport Stream information before the recording can be initiated. This is a requirement for building the TS file header. We have tested with resending multiple record commands, but there must be a timer failure cut-off point so multiple program DVR recording is available. This would not be an issue if the DVR was recording in a different format, but the ALI DVR is a Transport Steam based recording profile and this cannot be modified on the SOC.
A suggestion for timeouts occurring die to slow motorized hardware would be to drive the motor at a higher move rate so the positioning will occur in a shorter time frame.
There was a modification on the forum a few years ago that would provide external 18vdc to a HH motor regardless of the selected transponder polarity. We have been asked to modify the microHD to output 18vdc during all motor moves, but then the LNBF voltage would be also switched during the motor movement and until the motor movement was completed, a vertical transponder would be unable to be tuned. I do not believe that this would be a good option or default as it would eliminate the ability to fine tune a motor position using a vertical transponder
Drive time was one of the reasons that I prefer an old school analog receiver driving the actuator jack at 36vdc compared to the lower voltage G/V-box with slow dish positioning because of the lower voltage. Maybe it is time that someone works on a modification to a G/V-box to provide higher voltage and current. Seems like a simple and inexpensive modification.
We have determined that a DVR recording must have a signal and obtain Transport Stream information before the recording can be initiated. This is a requirement for building the TS file header. We have tested with resending multiple record commands, but there must be a timer failure cut-off point so multiple program DVR recording is available. This would not be an issue if the DVR was recording in a different format, but the ALI DVR is a Transport Steam based recording profile and this cannot be modified on the SOC.
A suggestion for timeouts occurring die to slow motorized hardware would be to drive the motor at a higher move rate so the positioning will occur in a shorter time frame.
There was a modification on the forum a few years ago that would provide external 18vdc to a HH motor regardless of the selected transponder polarity. We have been asked to modify the microHD to output 18vdc during all motor moves, but then the LNBF voltage would be also switched during the motor movement and until the motor movement was completed, a vertical transponder would be unable to be tuned. I do not believe that this would be a good option or default as it would eliminate the ability to fine tune a motor position using a vertical transponder
Drive time was one of the reasons that I prefer an old school analog receiver driving the actuator jack at 36vdc compared to the lower voltage G/V-box with slow dish positioning because of the lower voltage. Maybe it is time that someone works on a modification to a G/V-box to provide higher voltage and current. Seems like a simple and inexpensive modification.
As I pointed out in my previous post the micro will fail to record and then delete a timer even when the dish is already pointed at the correct satellite. In fact I have seen it fail and delete a timer when the channel (with a strong signal) was being viewed at the time.
Haven't received a reply to this query:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/290055-Micro-Timer-issues?p=3013237#post3013237 "Have you tried saving your .udf file, performing a Factory Reset, reload the .udf then set new timers? If so, we will go in another direction. "
Another thought: Could these timer deletions be due to the drive not mounting? Have you tried another USB drive to verify if it is or is not drive related?
Have had short term (two and three week) tests on four side-by-side units on the test bench on a switched (fixed dish) system and also on the motorized C-band system. The only recording failures that we documented was when the dish didn't land on within the time-out or the signal was interrupted causing the recording to abort.
Update on my home testing: For the past 4 months since this thread started, I have had a mixture of 6 daily and weekly timers for 82w - KU (motor), 97w - KU (motor) and last week added 2 - 3 hour daily prime-time timers on 99w - C (fixed). The reference is set to manual local time. Satellite list is set to ALL Satellites. I empty the drive as I watch or wish to delete recordings. In four months, one timer has been lost once when the power went out. Reset the local time and the timers picked back up for reserved events. Maybe I am not using it in a manner to induce timer issues?
In this thread, there usually has been a reason with a menu setting or with supporting hardware to affect timer events. Not sure why your system has a timer gremlin, but I would suggest that your system configuration is quite typical and usage routine.
We remain committed to continued review of specific documented events, provide input and suggestions and to firmware improvement!
