[radical1]

OK - I thought it time to try a new Vestel as I like them so much - love the menus and ease of use etc... I have a single record 80GB T810 V5.7 at moment - no problems...

But i wanted to try out the new freeview playback (+) features like twin record and series record etc so I ben looking around and found..

Techwood AEDS807 80GB in Tesco - Its T825 and V2.7 (£69.97 on offer by the way)

As usual, nice and easy to set up and I like the new darker blue menus etc...

Few problems though...

1 - The main thing is during the night the hard drive keeps spinning up, takes a couple minutes and the spins back down, and then repeats on and off.... Why is this? Its annoying and its a bedroom setup so I need silence when the unit not in use...

2 - I set a bunch of series recordings, the soaps and ITV news, Celeb etc... About 7 different series I set to series record. I then looked through the timers list and great they were all highlighted to be recorded apart from Centarl News on ITV1 at 6.30 each evening. I have cancelled that series now from the timers menu and tried to highlight them the old way by going to the program and pressing the record button so it highlights it in red, but it comes up with a message saying its already sceduled to be recorded. But its not highlighted in red and its not in the timers list. I did a clean install from scratch to try and clear out any bugs but it will not let me record this Central News saying its already sceduled.

3 - With the series links on several programs, navigating the menus and using the machine has become a nightmare, extreme lag. So slow to respond.

I have gone through now and deleted all my series links and gone back to doing it the old fashioned way which is each Sunday night I sit and spend 15 minutes highlighting everything I want recording for the upcoming week. The machine seems to be back to normal operating speed now....

Would I be correct in my guessing that maybe the reason it was spinning up and down last night was because the series links were active and as a new day came onto the EPG it was loading the programmes into the EPG and having to spin up to set them to be recorded (I only had it 24 hours by the way).

After all my rambling my biggest concern is the spinning up and down through the night so advice and ideas, explanations would be appreciated. Also whats the point in having series record if when you use it it renders the machine almost unuseable..

To be honest, if it is the series record feature that is causing these problems i can easy live without it and do it manually. But centreal News is now stuck in a tranwarp conduit thingy (sorry - star trek fan) and spinning up and down is not good..

I love the record 2 channels at same time though, and playback etc has been fine, and also (fingers crossed) I not had any live TV freezes which I know the T816 and T825 have suffered from, but its still early days

[creddish]

Originally Posted by radical1

OK - I thought it time to try a new Vestel as I like them so much - love the menus and ease of use etc... I have a single record 80GB T810 V5.7 at moment - no problems...

But i wanted to try out the new freeview playback (+) features like twin record and series record etc so I ben looking around and found..

Techwood AEDS807 80GB in Tesco - Its T825 and V2.7 (£69.97 on offer by the way)

As usual, nice and easy to set up and I like the new darker blue menus etc...

Few problems though...

1 - The main thing is during the night the hard drive keeps spinning up, takes a couple minutes and the spins back down, and then repeats on and off.... Why is this? Its annoying and its a bedroom setup so I need silence when the unit not in use...

2 - I set a bunch of series recordings, the soaps and ITV news, Celeb etc... About 7 different series I set to series record. I then looked through the timers list and great they were all highlighted to be recorded apart from Centarl News on ITV1 at 6.30 each evening. I have cancelled that series now from the timers menu and tried to highlight them the old way by going to the program and pressing the record button so it highlights it in red, but it comes up with a message saying its already sceduled to be recorded. But its not highlighted in red and its not in the timers list. I did a clean install from scratch to try and clear out any bugs but it will not let me record this Central News saying its already sceduled.

3 - With the series links on several programs, navigating the menus and using the machine has become a nightmare, extreme lag. So slow to respond.

I have gone through now and deleted all my series links and gone back to doing it the old fashioned way which is each Sunday night I sit and spend 15 minutes highlighting everything I want recording for the upcoming week. The machine seems to be back to normal operating speed now....

Would I be correct in my guessing that maybe the reason it was spinning up and down last night was because the series links were active and as a new day came onto the EPG it was loading the programmes into the EPG and having to spin up to set them to be recorded (I only had it 24 hours by the way).

After all my rambling my biggest concern is the spinning up and down through the night so advice and ideas, explanations would be appreciated. Also whats the point in having series record if when you use it it renders the machine almost unuseable..

To be honest, if it is the series record feature that is causing these problems i can easy live without it and do it manually. But centreal News is now stuck in a tranwarp conduit thingy (sorry - star trek fan) and spinning up and down is not good..

I love the record 2 channels at same time though, and playback etc has been fine, and also (fingers crossed) I not had any live TV freezes which I know the T816 and T825 have suffered from, but its still early days

It's been reported that switching of Automatic Updates stops some of the HD spinning up in the middle of the night but I'm not sure it stops it entirely. It may be checking for changes to the EPG and re-programming Timers if it finds some.

Regarding attempting to set individual Timers and finding the programme in the Guide is not underlined in red and the unit saying it's already set to record. This usually means that a Timer has been set for that same event occurring at an earlier time maybe on a different channel. The Vestel PVRs incorrectly implement the Freeview+ spec in that they record the first instance of a particular programme irrespective of the channel that it is on. It should according to the Freeview+ spec only record the programmes in the series on the channel on which it was set up. Have you tried deleting the Series (Press OK on progarmme in Guide and select "Delete Series"). That should clear all the Timers for that event and you can start again.

It is normal unfortunately for the Vestel Series Link PVRs user interface to slow down dramatically when a significant number of Timer events are set up. This will occur whether they are individual or series events. Things start slowing down with about 30 events getting very dodgy with about 70 events and virtually un-usable with more than 100. You can get temporary speed-up by doing a power cycle but it deteriorates again after a few more events are added (e.g. after a new 8th day set of series events are populated in the Timers list) or recordings are completed, watched and deleted. Some users recommend power cycling once per day.

Colin

[radical1]

Thanks Colin - youre a star with your replies as always.

Ive tried this unit out for aweek now and I dont like it so Im giving it my sister for Xmas (LOL) she wont mind the HD spinning up and down as it is for living room use.

OK - I had already done a first time install to clear all dsta and settings and then switched auto updtaes off , and also deleted all series links from the timers menu. Just been trying to use it with no series links set. Just settin the programmes for the week ahead that i want recording. (About 25-30is) Doing it this way the speed resolved. But still could not set to record Central news On ITV as says already sceduled (not really a biggy but annoying) But the BIGGY BIGGY problem is the contant spin up and down of HDD. Does it all the time Ive discovered, day and night - every 10-30 minutes it spins up for 2 minutes. I gotta say its actually very quiet which is good but it just makes it an impossible unit for the bedroom as in the dead of night its like a dripping tap torture and sounds louder.
Why would it have to spin up to update EPG - The T810 dont. And no series links set so why the need to keep spinning up. Dont make sence.

And just what exactly is a "power cycle" mate? Is it just turning on and off at wall.

Its really annoying as I love my T810 single record.
I just want the same again with dual record and funkier features and that nice dark blue interface. GOTTA BE A NON SPINNER UPPER though !! LOL

If anybody knows of a machine let me know...

Going completely off Vestels ( I think) there is a goodmans £59.99 in Asda Im tempted to try . I only buy stuff from places I know can take back no quibbles LOL. I am borg seeking perfection! LOL Well OCD anyways! LOL

Cheers Col

Nick

[creddish]

Originally Posted by radical1

Thanks Colin - youre a star with your replies as always.

Ive tried this unit out for aweek now and I dont like it so Im giving it my sister for Xmas (LOL) she wont mind the HD spinning up and down as it is for living room use.

OK - I had already done a first time install to clear all dsta and settings and then switched auto updtaes off , and also deleted all series links from the timers menu. Just been trying to use it with no series links set. Just settin the programmes for the week ahead that i want recording. (About 25-30is) Doing it this way the speed resolved. But still could not set to record Central news On ITV as says already sceduled (not really a biggy but annoying) But the BIGGY BIGGY problem is the contant spin up and down of HDD. Does it all the time Ive discovered, day and night - every 10-30 minutes it spins up for 2 minutes. I gotta say its actually very quiet which is good but it just makes it an impossible unit for the bedroom as in the dead of night its like a dripping tap torture and sounds louder.
Why would it have to spin up to update EPG - The T810 dont. And no series links set so why the need to keep spinning up. Dont make sence.

And just what exactly is a "power cycle" mate? Is it just turning on and off at wall.

Its really annoying as I love my T810 single record.
I just want the same again with dual record and funkier features and that nice dark blue interface. GOTTA BE A NON SPINNER UPPER though !! LOL

If anybody knows of a machine let me know...

Going completely off Vestels ( I think) there is a goodmans £59.99 in Asda Im tempted to try . I only buy stuff from places I know can take back no quibbles LOL. I am borg seeking perfection! LOL Well OCD anyways! LOL

Cheers Col

Nick

To be honest I'm not aware of the HD spinning up issue as I don't tend to hear it. My unit is always fully on, I hardly ever uses standby as the power consumption is no different from being left fully on (except on the Low Power models set to the LP mode). A number of posters on Digital Spy claim to have stopped the HD spinning up.

Even though you haven't set any Series Links it appears that the unit thinks you have so that may be a factor contributing to the HD spin up issue. I would be inclined to check this further. On the Central News programme have you tried pressing OK on one of these programmes in the EPG? If so what options does it show. Along with other options it should show "Delete Timer" and "Delete Series Timer" if the programme has been set as part of a Series. If the programme has not been set as part of a Series then the options should show "Record" and "Record Series". If it does show "Delete Series" have scrolled down to this option to select it and pressed OK to confirm? Have you also checked the Timers list to confirm there are no entries for any Central News programmes? Although this is not always a conclusive test as Series events are not always shown in the Timers list at all times but usually seem to appear later, always before the actuall start time in my experience.

The Vestel user interface on all the T816 and T825 versions I have used has been slower than any other make of PVR that I have used and particularly on the Series Record units. I suspect that as new features have been added the processor is becoming less able to cope with the demand. I find that my LP250 is reasonable to use with about 30 scheduled events in total, mainly Series events. I'm using a Humax 9200 as my main PVR mainly because it responds very much quicker than the Vestels. But I am also using the LP250 as a back-up as the Humax suffers from delayed starts and missing endings to recordings which often loses actual programme content.

Yes "power cycling" is a phrase often used on these forums to distiguish in the minimum number of words between the unit being set to standby and being totally powered off and powered back on again at the mains.

Colin

[radical1]

Thanks again Colin, yes I tried what you said about the Central News programme. There is nothing listed in the timers as i have told it to cancel the series record. From the EPG if i click the programme it does not give me an option to cancel series or record it. If i try and press the rec button it says already scheduled for record. Its all very mysterious. I think I do agree with you that the reason why the unit is spinnin up and down all the time is because it thinks it has to find series links etc that are not supposed to exist and it makes sence what you say about the processor.

Ive given up on it now, which is a shame - Ive plugged Old Faithfull back in (T810) and will wait a while longer and see what Asda and Tesco are givin away in january maybe! I always joke with my mum (I dont buy - I just rent for 48 hours) ! LOL Im forever takin stuff back!

[creddish]

Originally Posted by radical1

Thanks again Colin, yes I tried what you said about the Central News programme. There is nothing listed in the timers as i have told it to cancel the series record. From the EPG if i click the programme it does not give me an option to cancel series or record it. If i try and press the rec button it says already scheduled for record. Its all very mysterious. I think I do agree with you that the reason why the unit is spinnin up and down all the time is because it thinks it has to find series links etc that are not supposed to exist and it makes sence what you say about the processor.

Ive given up on it now, which is a shame - Ive plugged Old Faithfull back in (T810) and will wait a while longer and see what Asda and Tesco are givin away in january maybe! I always joke with my mum (I dont buy - I just rent for 48 hours) ! LOL Im forever takin stuff back!

You seem to have tried everything I can think of apart from formatting the disk. You may want to try that before taking it back.

Just to be certain about checking the programme in the EPG. Are you sure you are highlighting the programme and then pressing the OK button before doing anything else. e.g. before pressing the Record button. Is so what happens? Are you saying you don't get a list of any options displayed? If you do get some options what are they? I think this detail of the operation may be different from the T810 as you can probably do most things like pressing Play and Resume without pressing OK first on the T810.

Colin

[radical1]

I did a disc format.

I cant tell you exactly what it says now when you highlight and press ok on a programme in the EPG because Ive boxed it all back up - It just had 2 options though, som,ething like change channel and cant remeber what other was - but no record or cancel series record or set series record options for sure....

[creddish]

Originally Posted by radical1

I did a disc format.

I cant tell you exactly what it says now when you highlight and press ok on a programme in the EPG because Ive boxed it all back up - It just had 2 options though, som,ething like change channel and cant remeber what other was - but no record or cancel series record or set series record options for sure....

It's academic now but the other options are "Select Channel" and "Set Reminder". I guess this is just another of life's unsolved mysteries.

Good luck with whatever you get next?

Colin

[radical1]

Yes that was it - set reminder or select channel. no record or cancel record or cancel series record options. unable to highlight red with the rec button as says already scheduled. nothing in timers list. basically misbehaving! GREMLINS!

Thanks for the interest Colin, always good to have somebody to talk to (moan to).

I may try Asdas own make next. They got 160GB Freeview+ at £88 quid but Im gonna wait till they givin em away in Sales!

Merry Christmas mate...

Nick