report your pvr results here

[arboristman]

report your pvr results here.
let us know what hard drive your using.how easy it is to setup and use.your likes and dislikes about recording and any limitations features/missing features of everything having to do with the personal video recording of the 360 premier please.

[baltimorechip]

just to add, haven't used the PVR yet, but after the latest bin, 1 of the options, PVR SETTING has been removed! not a good start for the new 360P

[baby07]

Hi,
When i turn off the power, the time Flashes if you look at carefully, why?

[goober55]

• When I try to record, it records for about 5 min then the picture freezes. I stop the recording & try to play back the little that it did record & it wont play it. Tried multiple hard drives

• Also when you use pause, then hit play in timeshift, shouldn't you be able to fast forward ? Mine does not respond to hitting the fast forward button on the remote.

• "DVR Settiings" still has not reappeared in the DVR menu. Was there originally when I got the box, this allows you to change from manual to auto timeshift. The very first bin erased this from the menu. I am using the latest bin & did do the clean sys file also & followed those steps, but am still having the problems listed above.

[powerx86]

I now am back from traveling and have been playing with this receiver and I like it better than the CW800 I got rid of.

EPG - Superior to the CW800 and close to the Coolsat 7000s/Visionsat IV200. It like the Coolsat/Visionsat has a feature to look at 1 channel listings (hitting Blue button while in EPG mode), but the EPG displayed for this feature only shows a couple of hours - even though the guide is populated beyond 2 hours(actually several days).
The EPG is nice - but wanted to know if any User knows what the arrows left/right of the date can be utilized. For instance it shows the date June 6 and I see these arrows - I wonder can you move the date to another day instead of cursoring or I guess you hit the Next day or Previous day colored buttons. It just make you think you can tab up there and change the day. Just a nit but it makes you think that it can be used with Cursor keys. No complaints nice to be able to move to another day with the click of the colored button. CW800 with KROUND code is sorely missing this feature - User must cursor thru the guide to get to next day very very slow.

USB button - I am not sure why you hit this button it has to read the contents of the USB Storage has to be re-read. This is very slow for a machine that has wonderful specs. My Coolsat/Visionsat receiver instantly reads contents and gives you a directory listing. The CW800 also read very quickly. It at least takes up to 5-10 seconds and displays a message "gathering information". This is painful because it does it everytime. I basically am using same drive from Coolsat/Visionsat which has a FAT32 format(Seagate external 320GB). This is annoying especially when looking to play something recorded.
Another annoying thing that I would hope that was added to this receiver was when the User was browsing their recorded list, is that the User could hit info button on the recorded show and get the same info that came from the guide. This is not their just like the CW800 PVR - but at least on PPVs the title of the PPV is the title of the movie - not like the CW800 which just shows PPV in title and no info on what it is. The 360 Premeir is much better than the CW800 in this regard but falls short again to the Coolsat/Visionsat PVRs. I keep referring to the Coolsat/visionsat PVRs - because testing these different receivers makes me appreciate how close they got to TIVO/Time Warner DVR/PVRs.
USB ports - nice to have 2 ports but I think this thing acts like one. It appears they do not co-exists at the same time. The User must choose which one to activate and it would be nice if the Receiver automatically would pop up the dir list of the files when USB Storage is plugged in. At least for the front of the unit. My suggestion would be to use the front to load code and the rear for PVR USB Storage. Again, would be a nice feature to whenever the User plugged in the front panel USB the dirlist would come up automatically and ask the User what to do or the User could take appropriate action.

I will not make this post to long - I will write more on this receiver as I review the options.

Overall - this receiver is a much nicer receiver than the CW800 that I just got rid of - but I have learned every receiver has it's quirks and shortcomings and clear advantages, but right now I feel this receiver is worth keeping for contiuned testing.

[powerx86]

Here are some things they have done good/great:

Search - Very Nice Search facility when you hit the Green Button. It is cool by default looks like it brings up all movies first, then you can put a program name for what program you want to search for.

Search by hitting the Magnify key by the SAT Button - here you can search for a channel - very nice.

SAT Radio - has built in Screen Saver - plus info button shows track playing!!!

Setup - Like that I can use the SAT Setup and choose favorite SATs - sometimes hard looking thru list and this checkmark helps. Also like the way you can SORT by frequency or alphabetical.

Channel Edit - Not sure why there is no Channel Skip - just see delete rename and lock. Not sure why this is there - I use it so I do not have to rescan for channels - I just add skipped channels back that weree previously skipped.

Time shifting is annoying with the current code - Basically it looks like all u can do is hit pause. I hit the pause button and it always checks 1st to see if there is enough disk space - suggestion here would be to do it like the NORW group with setting aside disk space for dumping video/audio to file when time shifting instead of allocating when the
User 1st pushes the button. Coolsat/Visionsat still have everybody beat here and they allow you to move backward and forward on a time shift using << >> plus cursor keys. It looks like all I have available is pause with this new code? Does anybody know if that is the way it works for the 360 P??? The CW800 is pause is a clumsy also but it allows u to go backward/forward. Again, if they allocate the diskspace before hand and just write to file when changing channels this would be world's better or more like a TIVo/TimeWarner PVR/DVR.

Again - I think this is a nice receiver but it can be better based on its specs. It needs some work on TimeShifting and less checking of USB Storage when up storage listing.

[hammer2]

Just bought one a week ago still locking up my pan### works great. NOT LOOKING GOOD AT ALL.

[jesfknkrys]

The Premier has recorded every show I've programmed. Have not had any issues with the PVR fuction as of yet. The Premier only Fast Forwards and Rewinds at one speed. I was having trouble with receiver reading the HDD. I figured out that the HDD has to be plugged in while the reciver is on for it to read.

[Allan23]

Just got my SV 360PVR P yesterday put new fix in and down load the satellites and recorded my first movie no problems here .why do they tell you to download 119 first

[SystemDude]

Originally Posted by Allan23

Just got my SV 360PVR P yesterday put new fix in and down load the satellites and recorded my first movie no problems here.

PVR was a priority for me in choosing the 360, and I have not regretted the choice. Congrats on your success.

Originally Posted by Allan23

why do they tell you to download 119 first

I think it's an urban myth. My dealer told me to do 110 first. As long as you get both with good quality, then it's right.

[cruncher]

recently acquired sonicview 360 premier, and I am pleased with the performance. although I am having some issues with recording.
as some of you have experienced, my unit for some reason will record for around five to 15 minutes, and then freeze up! This seems to occur whether I set the unit to automatically record, or I just press the record button. I am using a Maxtor 75GB external hard drive. the strange thing is, when I first got the unit, everything worked properly, and I was able to record a couple of half-hour shows without any glitches. I have also experimented with recording straight onto USB sticks, and this seems to work without any problems. I would appreciate any suggestions to see if I can get recording bugs worked out.
The Crunch Man!
PS: in order for me to safely remove a USB device from the unit, I have been simply turning the unit off from the switch on the back before removing a USB device. is this acceptable? Should I be doing this a different way? What is the proper method? Thanks again.

[conazo]

Originally Posted by cruncher

recently acquired sonicview 360 premier, and I am pleased with the performance. although I am having some issues with recording.
as some of you have experienced, my unit for some reason will record for around five to 15 minutes, and then freeze up! This seems to occur whether I set the unit to automatically record, or I just press the record button. I am using a Maxtor 75GB external hard drive. the strange thing is, when I first got the unit, everything worked properly, and I was able to record a couple of half-hour shows without any glitches. I have also experimented with recording straight onto USB sticks, and this seems to work without any problems. I would appreciate any suggestions to see if I can get recording bugs worked out.
The Crunch Man!
PS: in order for me to safely remove a USB device from the unit, I have been simply turning the unit off from the switch on the back before removing a USB device. is this acceptable? Should I be doing this a different way? What is the proper method? Thanks again.

I have many repeated channels, on my SV 360 Elite can you please explain the steps on how to get rid of them? Thanks

[chill dawg]

Originally Posted by conazo

I have many repeated channels, on my SV 360 Elite can you please explain the steps on how to get rid of them? Thanks

a factory default and reprogram should do it, you'll probably have to set sats, antenna settings and rescan afterwards.

[SystemDude]

Originally Posted by cruncher

as some of you have experienced, my unit for some reason will record for around five to 15 minutes, and then freeze up! This seems to occur whether I set the unit to automatically record, or I just press the record button.

Many users have been experiencing similar mysterious effects. Apparently the freezeups can be triggered by a number of different activities, and it is starting to look very much like a true operational glitch. According to research by several users, freezes can (sometimes) occur if you enter the main menu while recording (as, for example, to start playback of a previously-recorded program). Or sometimes just by changing channels, or activating certain heavy-duty processor-intensive functions such as program category search. My personal experience, after some weeks of intensive experimentation, is that I can achieve almost 100% recording success if I do it in the middle of the night when the box is otherwise not being used. Not completely satisfactory, but acceptable for now.

You might want to read the pvr thread under the 360 Elite help section, as most of what has been said there also applies to the Premier.

Originally Posted by cruncher

in order for me to safely remove a USB device from the unit, I have been simply turning the unit off from the switch on the back before removing a USB device. is this acceptable? Should I be doing this a different way? What is the proper method?

Well, that will accomplish most of what is intended, but is not ideal and is quite hard on the box because of the start-up inrush and heating/cooling cycles. If you have the time-shifter set to "Auto", it also interrupts the time-shift stream in an abrupt and uncontrolled fashion. Whenever the power gets interrupted on my stb, I find I must do a scan of the hard drive to get it back up again.

Much better is to use the specifically-provided "Safe Remove" function located in the main menu area (depending on your options settings, it may also be available on the blue function key during normal viewing). This function provides a controlled stop of all data streams to the drive. When the device is reconnected later, the box will automatically detect its return and re-initiate communication.

[cruncher]

Thank you System Dude for your help. The freezing seems to occur weather or not I use any features, or just record. However, last night I tested using a 2gig usb stick, and had flawless recording, & playback, using manual & timer settings. I also noticed that the unit communicates much faster with the usb stick, as there was virtually no wait time at all when recalling recorded material! I think an 8 to 16 gig usb stick would make the ideal external hard drive for this STB!! Works great for me! The Crunch Man!!

[SystemDude]

Originally Posted by cruncher

Thank you System Dude for your help. The freezing seems to occur weather or not I use any features, or just record. However, last night I tested using a 2gig usb stick, and had flawless recording, & playback, using manual & timer settings. I also noticed that the unit communicates much faster with the usb stick, as there was virtually no wait time at all when recalling recorded material! I think an 8 to 16 gig usb stick would make the ideal external hard drive for this STB!! Works great for me! The Crunch Man!!

You're very welcome. Ain't it great when a plan comes together......

I begin to wonder if some hard drives (well, actually, some USB - to - hard - drive - adapters) are just not sufficiently compatible to work well with STB's. It would go a long way towards explaining why different users have such vastly different experiences.

And I am right with you about the USB sticks. The speed, reliability, and portability are all huge. I have been reading for decades that solid-state memory was going to take over the world -- maybe it still will. After all, a 16Gb stick would store over 10 hours of SD video.......

[cruncher]

SystemDude is right on with this! The ultimate functioning drive to use with the SV360 series is USB flash drive type memory! Here's the cool thing, aside from the previously mentioned benefits, is the fact that this type of memory basicly doubbles in size every 3-6 months, so for those of you who are holding out a little longer there will most likely be something in the neighborhood of 20 Gigs on a stick in time for Xmas! Compaired to my hard drive experinces, flash memory is just the best!

The Crunch Man!

[SystemDude]

Thanks Crunch..... one thing I like about technology is its tendency to get cheaper with time (so how come that doesn't work for cars???)

Specifically, I just received an email from TigerDirect offering a 32 Gb stick for US$84.99 after mail-in rebate! That's actually cheaper than some hard drives of similar capacity. And it would easily store 10-15 full-length movies.

I have NOT tried this with the SV 360 myself and so cannot guarantee compatibility, but it does have all the right specs.

[RagingBull]

USB stick may work great for a while and then stop working. Most of them are not designed to work for hours continually without a break and will eventually overheat and burn out. There are many instances of this reported with other boxes PVR. Just a heads up. Better that people report what hard drives do not work well with this box and we just avoid using those ones.

[smileygrl2004]

I dont have pvr settings how do I get it?