PVR standby
 

Hi there,

I'm thinking of finally moving into the 21st century and replacing my
VCR with a PVR, such as one of these:

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...9c2e0a9078de69

However, I have a couple of questions. I've already tried these on the
Richer Sounds people, who replied to my Email but clearly did not know
the answers. I'd appreciate general answers, even if people here don't
have direct experience of the specific box above.

1. I gather these devices update the schedules at night. However, I
prefer to switch off unused devices at night to save power (and,
nominally, the planet). Will the device know to update once I give it
power again, even if it's not the middle of the night? Or can I
explicitly tell it to update?

2. I usually switch off my TV/DVD player and so on by just switching
the whole lot off at the wall. If I do this to a PVR, will it do nasty
things to the hard-drive and so on?

3. I've seen some complaints that PVRs can be noisy with processor
fans and disk spinning. Am I going to notice this? Does anybody know
how noisy the Hitachi thing above is?

Thanks in advance for any insight,

Peter

PVR standby
 

wrote:
I'm thinking of finally moving into the 21st century and replacing
my VCR with a PVR, such as one of these:

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...9c2e0a9078de69

However, I have a couple of questions.

snip

I can't provide definitive answers to any of your questions, I'm
afraid, but I can suggest an additional one ...

It's not clear from the blurb on the Richer Sounds website whether
this PVR will let you record two channels simultaneously; 'watch one
and record one' isn't the same thing. And it doesn't explicitly say
that you can play back a recording while recording something else,
though I expect you can.

80GB isn't huge, though whether you'll find it a problem will depend
on your pattern of usage - i.e. how disciplined you are at watching
(and then erasing) what you've recorded!

André Coutanche

PVR standby
 

wrote in message
ps.com...
Hi there,

I'm thinking of finally moving into the 21st century and replacing my
VCR with a PVR, such as one of these:

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...9c2e0a9078de69

However, I have a couple of questions. I've already tried these on the
Richer Sounds people, who replied to my Email but clearly did not know
the answers. I'd appreciate general answers, even if people here don't
have direct experience of the specific box above.

1. I gather these devices update the schedules at night. However, I
prefer to switch off unused devices at night to save power (and,
nominally, the planet). Will the device know to update once I give it
power again, even if it's not the middle of the night? Or can I
explicitly tell it to update?

Will depend on the device.

If there is a ban on [mains] powered standy, expect to see them battery /
solar powered instead. For example my Honeywell CM51's (now ~15 years old)
manages to switch a 3A solenoid many times a day in the winter, keep time
and maintain a program and runs for 2-3 years on a couple of Duracell AA's.
I had a PP9 last nearly twelve years backing up memory in a receiver.
Should be easy.


2. I usually switch off my TV/DVD player and so on by just switching
the whole lot off at the wall. If I do this to a PVR, will it do nasty
things to the hard-drive and so on?

Modern hard drives should be OK, and unless the PVR has just been used they
should spin down anyway.


3. I've seen some complaints that PVRs can be noisy with processor
fans and disk spinning. Am I going to notice this? Does anybody know
how noisy the Hitachi thing above is?

Look it up for the dB figure. Anything over 30 is likely to be noticable.


Thanks in advance for any insight,

Peter

PVR standby
 

It isn't correct to say that the schedules (I think you mean the Electronic
Programme Guide - EPG) update overnight - in fact they update continuously.
Therefore you don't need to worry about switching it off overnight.

Note: some PVRs, such as my Humax 9200T, don't store the EPG when on standby
or unplugged. That means that the EPG always starts off empty when you
first switch it on, and then populates over the next five or ten minutes.

(For what it's worth, I think this is a major weakness of the Hummy - my old
Digifusion PVR stored the EPG to disk, and then only had to update it when
switched on with any last minute schedule changes. Humax have repeatedly
been asked to do this, but won't play ball.)

I don't know about switching a PVR straight off at the mains. Like you, I
do that overnight, but always do the proper shut down sequence first. To be
honest, they must be designed to cope with unexpected power cuts, so I can't
believe it should do any harm.

Steve

PVR standby
 

"Steve Thackery" wrote in message
...
It isn't correct to say that the schedules (I think you mean the
Electronic Programme Guide - EPG) update overnight - in fact they update
continuously. Therefore you don't need to worry about switching it off
overnight.


That is not universally true.

Those DTT PVRs which use 4TV for the EPG do update overnight - at 0300.

PVR standby
 

wrote:
Hi there,

I'm thinking of finally moving into the 21st century and replacing my
VCR with a PVR, such as one of these:

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...9c2e0a9078de69

However, I have a couple of questions. I've already tried these on the
Richer Sounds people, who replied to my Email but clearly did not know
the answers. I'd appreciate general answers, even if people here don't
have direct experience of the specific box above.

1. I gather these devices update the schedules at night. However, I
prefer to switch off unused devices at night to save power (and,
nominally, the planet). Will the device know to update once I give it
power again, even if it's not the middle of the night? Or can I
explicitly tell it to update?

2. I usually switch off my TV/DVD player and so on by just switching
the whole lot off at the wall. If I do this to a PVR, will it do nasty
things to the hard-drive and so on?

3. I've seen some complaints that PVRs can be noisy with processor
fans and disk spinning. Am I going to notice this? Does anybody know
how noisy the Hitachi thing above is?

Thanks in advance for any insight,

Peter

A Humax 9200T (which is what I have) updates continuously when in normal
running mode, so the only reason to leave it on standby overnight is to
ensure you receive any over-the-air software updates. This is quite a good
reason to leave one on standby though. My PVR is the only device in my
entire system that gets to sit in standby overnight (or in fact, any time
I'm not using the system)! Of course, another reason to leave it on standby
is to ensure it actually records stuff you've asked it to record!

powering off, I'd probably put it into standby first just to be safe,
but it should not cause a problem.

noise, mine is fine.

R.

PVR standby
 

On 30/07/2007 13:52, Steve Thackery wrote:

It isn't correct to say that the schedules (I think you mean the Electronic
Programme Guide - EPG) update overnight - in fact they update continuously.

In general it isn't, but some STBs use the 4TV EPG info rather than the
8day EIT and *they* do use an overnight slot to download the data.

PVR standby
 

On Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:20:41 -0700, wrote:

Hi there,

I'm thinking of finally moving into the 21st century and replacing my
VCR with a PVR, such as one of these:

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...9c2e0a9078de69

However, I have a couple of questions. I've already tried these on the
Richer Sounds people, who replied to my Email but clearly did not know
the answers. I'd appreciate general answers, even if people here don't
have direct experience of the specific box above.

1. I gather these devices update the schedules at night. However, I
prefer to switch off unused devices at night to save power (and,
nominally, the planet).

To put the energy saving/usage in context: Let's say the unit consumes 10W
on standby. In 4 days it will use 1kWh or one 'unit' of electricity. That
equates to about 1/9th of a litre (1/40th of a gallon) of petrol. I'll
leave you to figure out how easy it is to burn that and wipe out 4 days of
standby saving.

Steve

PVR standby
 

wrote:
Hi there,

I'm thinking of finally moving into the 21st century and replacing my
VCR with a PVR, such as one of these:

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...9c2e0a9078de69

However, I have a couple of questions. I've already tried these on the
Richer Sounds people, who replied to my Email but clearly did not know
the answers. I'd appreciate general answers, even if people here don't
have direct experience of the specific box above.

1. I gather these devices update the schedules at night. However, I
prefer to switch off unused devices at night to save power (and,
nominally, the planet). Will the device know to update once I give it
power again, even if it's not the middle of the night? Or can I
explicitly tell it to update?

2. I usually switch off my TV/DVD player and so on by just switching
the whole lot off at the wall. If I do this to a PVR, will it do nasty
things to the hard-drive and so on?

3. I've seen some complaints that PVRs can be noisy with processor
fans and disk spinning. Am I going to notice this? Does anybody know
how noisy the Hitachi thing above is?

Thanks in advance for any insight,

Peter


The EPG will update when you switch it on. Some devices
will check overnight for a broadcast firmware update, so
you'd lose that facility. The spec. says standby power is
0.5W, so not much of an impact.

Of course, you can't record anything when the power's off,
or when the power is turned on but the device left in
standby - the device won't know what time it is until you
switch it on and it updates off-air.

As long as the system is on standby AND not recording, the
disc will be spun down and safe to power off. Since these
devices are recording all the time when on, there may always
be a risk in suddenly removing power, unless they're
specifically designed to cope with this.

Some manufacturers specify low-noise discs designed for
consumer devices. They can still be audible when placed on
a glass TV shelf, but there are ways to reduce this.

PVR standby
 

One of the biggest problems with switching off the mains is that
switch mode power supplies seem most likely to fail at switch on from
cold. There has certainly been an increase in powersupply failures in
recent times since so many customers have been taking to switching off
appliances which were made to be left on.
Generally capacitors like to run at an even temperature and older ones
can be very poor when cold causing power supply breakdown.

I agree with the comments re Humax PVR9200 EPG. Although I am a great
Humax lover, the loss of EPG population in standby often defeats the
usefulness of the product when I want to switch it on and set a timer
recording quickly. The PVR8000T is perfectly ok in this respect. (I
have both)