GEOSATpro MicroHD recording issues

[Dee_Ann]

Well amazingly enough, I began to have some recording issues.

I have an external 600gb disk plugged into the tuner and have been recording PBJ and RTV daily for months.

About a week ago I started losing signal because the drought has dried the ground up badly and the dish pole drooped..
I put a soaker hose around the pole for a few days and got the ground damp again and the pole straightened up and I got signal back.

But about 4 days ago it stopped recording (on the 25th).

Saturday I walked past the tuner and saw the red LED on so I assumed it was recording Wolfman Mac and Offbeat Cinema like usual. I didn't check it at the time because I was watching MeTV in the other room on a different system.

Sunday I looked up at the tuner and the red LED was on. Hmmmm... ???

So I turned the TV on to see what it was recording but it did not show that it was recording anything.
I checked the DVR files and I could see the last thing it recorded was PBJ Harvey Toons on Saturday at 2pm. The recordings for Harvey toons at 10:30 was missing and both Wolfman Mac and Offbeat Cinema was missing for Saturday.

I played back the recording from 2pm and it was fine. Obviously the external disk is connected and operating properly.

I checked all the schedules and they all had the right times and dates and the system clock was correct.

Still, the red recording light was on. So I powered it off and when it rebooted the message came up that USB Disk A was connected (or something like that) and the green USB light was on.

Today I checked and there were no recordings for yesterday and it did not record today at 2pm even though the red recording light came on at 2pm. It should have gone off at 2:30 (it used to) but it did not turn off and there was no recording for today even though it indicated that it did record.

The disk shows that it has about 450gb free.

I thought maybe it could be a firmware issue so I checked and the firmware was dated 2/18/13.
So I saved my channels database to the disk then I tuned to the update channel on G19 and did a firmware update to the current one, it's dated 6/26/13 now.
I rebooted then reloaded my channels database.

I am hoping this will fix it. I guess I'll find out tonight at 10:30 when it's supposed to record Harvey toons.

Does anyone know what this might be about? It's worked great for the 9-10 months I've had it and just started acting funny after my dish poles got loose and and I lost signal.
This week I plan to plant a new pole at least 4 feet deep, like my C-band dishes.

Thanks!

 

[SatelliteAV]

Sounds like the USB drive handshake did not properly initiate.

Remove the microHD power source and remove the USB drive plug.

Power cycle the USB drive.

Restore the microHD power source. After the microHD reboot, reconnect the USB drive.

Press the Manual record RCU key. Does the DVR record start? Press stop RCU key. Does the DVR recording stop?

 

[Anole]

Dee - see also this thread for ideas.
Particularly starting at post 12 by rv1pop:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/315851-MicroHD-Pre-programmed-recordings-failed

Probably not what's bugging you, but one more thing to check. :up

 

[Dee_Ann]

Sounds like the USB drive handshake did not properly initiate.

Remove the microHD power source and remove the USB drive plug.

Power cycle the USB drive.

Restore the microHD power source. After the microHD reboot, reconnect the USB drive.

Press the Manual record RCU key. Does the DVR record start? Press stop RCU key. Does the DVR recording stop?

I did that and the message comes up that the disk is connected.

When I press record a message pops up that asks if I want to record PS or TS, either one I press I get a message that says LIMIT: CAN not record!
The red recording light comes on however and then stays on even through channel changes.

The disk is far from being full and several months ago before I dumped it to my Mac, it had 10 times more files on it than it does now.

Here are a few relevant screen shots... I have no idea what "TMS Size 0GB" means but could that be what it's blowing up on?

?

 

[Dee_Ann]

Oh, sorry about the big photos. Stupid iPhone takes crap grade photos at gigapixel file size.

One thing I should also mention, the disk is powered by it's own power brick, it's an old Mac disk that I formatted for windows.

I have saved stuff like the allcode file, the userdb, etc. then reloaded them after the upgrade (but not the allcode, only the userdb)...

I can play back ANY of the previous recordings just fine. It has no problem reading from the disk. And it let me save it's firmware files to it as well.

It just doesn't want to record TV for some weird reason.. ???


edit: Attached picture of what the disk looks like. It has two 300gb disks inside the case.

 

[SatelliteAV]

There is an indexing issue with the drive. Do you disconnect the drive in the microHD menu when disconnecting?

Try a disk repair using the computer or transfer the recordings then slow format.

 

[Dee_Ann]

There is an indexing issue with the drive. Do you disconnect the drive in the microHD menu when disconnecting?

Try a disk repair using the computer or transfer the recordings then slow format.

Ooops.. No, I didn't disconnect via the menu. I just pulled the power cord on the tuner then removed the USB cable.

It's a LaCie brand and when what ever it's plugged into shuts off, the disk powers off by itself then powers up when it's host powers up.
I still went ahead and removed the USB cable though and powered up the tuner. After powering up the tuner I plugged in the disk and it powered up on it's on and the tuner gave me the message that the disk is connected.

I guess it's messed up though from what you are saying so I'll remove it, dump my recordings to my Mac, format it as an HFS Mac disk (only takes a few minutes) then plug it into the windows PC and have it do a sloooooow windows format. I did that several months ago and it took HOURS.... After that, should I then plug it into the tuner and have the tuner reformat it again? Or just leave it as it comes from the PC, formatted slow as NTFS?

?Thanks!


Edit: It's currently dumping the disk into my Mac, it has about 25 minutes left to go. When I first plugged it in my Mac gave me an error messages saying that ~something~ NTFS related error'd and timed out. The message went away before I could screen shot it but it was a definitely a disk problem. Probably because it's so old and slow. The disk originally belonged to my son, I think he bought it in like 2004 or 2005 for his Macbook. One of the disks died in it and he left it here. I found two old 300gb disks from an old PC and replaced the two 250's that were in it. I really need to just pony up and buy a new 2 or 3tb disk. I really want one that has network ability built in so as it fills up I can pull the files over the LAN to my Mac and convert them with Handbrake to .mkv files for permanent storage. I'm really obsessed with recording ALL the Harvey Toons I can. Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and assume the disk is old and cranky. (Like me.... )

 

[cyberham]

Your described story is my story. Since I had nothing of importance on my external disk anyway, I decided to simply do a quick format via my PC of the external disk. After doing this, the microHD started talking to it again and they've working together like an old married couple. I would conclude that before you disconnect that external disk, always use the disk disconnect menu item in the microHD first.

 

[Dee_Ann]

So I dug through my junk box and I found a USB dock I bought back in January. I couldn't get it to work on the windows PC so I tossed it in the pile.
Then I took a 1tb disk I had removed from my security camera DVR because it kept telling me the disk had errors. I didn't believe that was right but I replaced it anyway.

I stuck the disk in the dock and formatted it on the Mac and it verified error free. I put it on the windows pc and formatted it sloooooow and ran a scan for bad spots and it verified error free there too.
I think that cheap, Chinese camera DVR was at fault, not the disk.

So I removed the stupid old LaCie disks and put the 1tb disk/dock on the tuner and it seems to be quite happy with that. I recorded stuff and it works fine.

What I don't understand is some of the stuff on the information screen.

What is TMS Size? On the old disks it said zero. On the new disk it shows about half of the disk size.
It also says "Record size" and it gives a number that's also about half the size of the disk.. What does this mean?

Also, when I formatted the disk, I googled and found stuff suggesting that for huge video files that you format the disk with 64k size sectors rather than 4k sectors. Could that have anything to do with the numbers that are showing up on the info screen ??

Thanks!
?

 

[SatelliteAV]

Great to hear that your "new" build is working.

TMS is the amount of space available for time shift recording. Your old unit was not recording as no valid space was available.

 

[Dee_Ann]

Great to hear that your "new" build is working.

TMS is the amount of space available for time shift recording. Your old unit was not recording as no valid space was available.

Oh ok, cool!

Now here's another dumb question... Can I adjust that TMS number to be much smaller? I have no need for that much time shift.
I'll never really use it that much, at most maybe an hour. Sometimes I'll pause a show then go to the kitchen for awhile or take a shower then come back and resume.
I can then jump through commercials like a boss!

I noticed on the top of the screen there is a yellow bar showing how much space is available. It has two little arrows under it, a red and a green one.
I've tried moving them with the remote buttons but no luck. I tried the red and green remote buttons but nothing happens.
I really don't understand what they are showing or how that works..

Am I just missing some simple, obvious thing here? Or do they just really do/mean nothing special?

Thanks!

P.S. STILL loving my little µHD !!

 

[cyberham]

All questions I've wondered about. I guessed that TMS meant "time shift", but I tell design engineers they've got to allocate more digits for abbreviations/acronyms if they want anybody to understand what they mean. The way the brain works, a better abbreviation with only 3 digits might have been TSh, but TSHFT would have been better still. I've got almost 500GB reserved for TMS! And those little arrows: I want to grab and slide them with a cursor. Is any of this in the manual?

 

[SatelliteAV]

The Timeshift partion size is not a user setting. No idea what the two pointers are in the graphic. Don't think many users ponder over this info screen as this is the first question in 13 months. I could turn to ALI engineers, but probably will withhold consultation for operational issues.

A few operational observations:

1.I would not have Timeshift enabled if you are only using as a pause feature. Why have your drives spinning 24/7? Instead, press the record button rather than pause for those few occasions that you step out of the room. Save your drives by letting them spin down when you are not viewing programming.

2. Select PS Record - OFF. This will remove the requirement to select PS/TS at the start of each manual recording. Why the choice of a PS recording over a TS recording is beyond me, but we left it as an option for those who like options and want to tinker.

No additional screen information is available in the manual. It is just the standard display of memory allocation data provided by the chipset. Personally, I never paid much attention other than an occasional check for available space. Not inclined to spend time refining a menu that has little bearing on the STB operation. It provides the available and total disk space information. If you want more refinement, let us know what needs to be done and we will place on the development priorities list.

TMS vs Tshift vs TMshift .... Toomahto vs Tumaytoo ... It's six of one and a half dozen of the other. In a technical information screen, it makes perfect sense to abbreviate. How it is abbreviated is open to debate.

 

[cyberham]

Never think that no questions means no issues or problems. Only the most aggressive take the time to write or ask a question. Dee Ann gets today's lollipop for asking.

Some good tips especially about not allowing the disk to spin 24/7. But, I use TMS to replay a news video that is spectacular or I missed seeing clearly the first time. A good example was the train in Spain that ran off its tracks. For that, you need TMS on all the time. Unfortunately, with TMS on all the time, the second INFO screen showing transmission protocol is not accessible. This is why I'm constantly turning TMS on and off.

Will TS and PS formats both play using something like VLC on a PC? If so, and if quality is the same, then I agree just keep it simple and stay on the default TS.

Human interfaces are the subject of lengthy engineering meetings in Japan with passionate arguments among engineers and support staff. You'd be surprised at the resources allocated to this. Even going so far to hire foreigners whose native language is English for their opinion on the matter. Users may lose all faith and abandon a product that is difficult to use, no matter how great its technical features.

 

[SatelliteAV]

TS (Transport Stream) and PS (Program Stream) file types both play on VLC, but most HD content will not record in the PS file type.

We have written the most comprehensive owners manual of any DVBS S2 receiver in North American distribution. Do we assume that it is the end all? NO... In this case, how do users suggest that we correct or clarify?

I have developed this receiver to meet the majority of my needs as a hobbyist and also simplify and default the operation for a basic user. If anyone has suggestions on how to better achieve this, the suggestion box has always been open! Developer interaction and continued product is the one thing that has always set GEOSATpro products apart from other products.

 

[cyberham]

All good to hear. If I could get an audience with the chairman/founder of one of the companies I work with, I would take 15 minutes and show the interaction that has taken place between this forum and the development of the microHD. This is a model to hold up for any company designing a consumer device. Getting legitimate feedback from potential and actual customers for any product in development or newly released product is valuable. Maybe you should go on a high-priced motivational speaking tour of companies to push them to do this better. Can you spell Tony Robbins?

 

[Anole]

I'm with Dee and Cyber . And appreciate Brian's point of view.
Two hours of buffer at the maximum expected recording rate would be massive overkill for all the SD out there.

As for "time shift", I'd go with "TmS", if limited to three characters. :up
(but "TmSh" would make far more sense)

 

[rv1pop]

At the risk of ruining my "clean" reputation ... Around here when you hear TMS, it means the manure pile is getting too high and the farmer's wife needs to get her nose plugs, hip boots, wagon and tractor out...

But PMS has a different meaning ... He had better not even mention TMS!


Sorry, --- the smoke is thick and satellite reception is breaking out or up or down or something... (Which way is up?) and after a week we are no longer under a 1 hour evacuate warning. The relief feeling is .... interesting? And ... even in the smoke, the internet is only slow because of packet retransmits, not system overload. 26 thousand acres burned, no homes lost and NO serious injuries - just heat problems!

 

[Dee_Ann]

TS (Transport Stream) and PS (Program Stream) file types both play on VLC, but most HD content will not record in the PS file type.

We have written the most comprehensive owners manual of any DVBS S2 receiver in North American distribution. Do we assume that it is the end all? NO... In this case, how do users suggest that we correct or clarify?

I have developed this receiver to meet the majority of my needs as a hobbyist and also simplify and default the operation for a basic user. If anyone has suggestions on how to better achieve this, the suggestion box has always been open! Developer interaction and continued product is the one thing that has always set GEOSATpro products apart from other products.

On the readability scale, 1 to 10, the µHD manual is a strong 9+
In comparison to all other manuals of pretty much anything in modern existence, on a scale of 1 to 10, it's 1000 !!

EVERYTHING these days comes with a miserable Engrish manual or shall we call it a "mangle" that is so unreadable that it makes me want to punch whoever writes them!

It's an EXCELLENT manual and you guys did a fantastic job with it!

There are some things about the features that I didn't understand but I do understand that it's not up to you guys to write an encyclopedia of DBS...
For the rare few that have learning gaps, the forum here covers it.

I didn't understand what the TS/PS stuff is about. I've been experimenting with it trying to figure out if I should bother with it or not.
The new disk is plenty fast enough but the question I have been trying to figure out is if the quality is there.

I dump the recordings into my Mac and use Handbrake to convert them into .mkv files for long term storage anyway.


I also have some questions regarding multiple disks. It turns out that cheapy disk dock I have is actually a USB hub and has all sorts of connectors to plug in flash drives. It also has two other bays on top to plug in one more sata disk and an old type pata disk. It's supposed to be a cloning gadget but I never could figure out how it works, thanks to the wonderful Engrish mangle (manual) that came with it. I plugged a flash drive into it and it showed up as Disk B and I could read media files from it but I can't figure out how to save or load config files for the tuner to/from disk B. Not a big deal, I'll search to see if this has been discussed in another thread..

Anyway, thank you for a quality product with an EXCELLENT manual !!

 

[xtgold]

ps actually records as a .mpg file,which makes it smaller than the full .ts and easier to burn to dvd for some people.
But like mentioned previously it's just for sd recording,hd recording forces .ts