Forum Archive Home -> DVD Recorders -> Dish Network DVR510 Pixelating When Recording to Hard Drive
Dish Network DVR510 Pixelating When Recording to Hard Drive |
| Number Six posted 2009 Feb 26 21:18 |
| As the subject line states - I have a Dish Network DVR 510 that recently started pixelating when playing back programs that are recorded on the hard drive. I have not noticed any problem when watching live TV programs as they are being received, but that does not mean that it is not doing it at all - Dish Network transmission quality is not what it used to be :-x . The unit is over 5 years old, and all original, so the hard drive has a lot of time and wear on it. I am convinced that the hard drive is the cause of the problem, but I would like to get some opinions and feedback from you knowledgeable people before I make any repairs to the unit.
There are no diagnostics that I can do to the hard drive while it is inside the unit. I am also sure that it is not compatible with any format that you find in a PC. The hard drive is a Maxtor DiamondMax 16 - 120GB ATA / 133 - 4R120L0. The hard drive can not be directly replace because it needs to be programmed with the units ID numbers, but I do know how to clone the old one to the replacement drive - but that needs to be done while the old drive is still alive. I own the unit - it is not leased - so I am free to open it up and replace modules if necessary. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. |
| crazy14muzic posted 2009 Feb 26 22:49 |
| http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dishrip/ has alot of useful tips and tricks. They even explain how to change out your harddrive if needed.
There is another method you could try, but only as a last resort. it is explained here http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-technical-discussions/96 ... e-dvr.html dish may be phasing your box out. I had the 501 and they told me that they can no longer replace it. i would need newer equipment and i was under a lease agreement. i used to be able to take the drive out and hook it up to a pc for quick rips of program but with all of dish firmware updates to the equip has rendered the audio stream encrypted. I havent been over on the dishrip groups for sometime since i no longer have dish service, who knows maybe someone has cracked it so that you could rip your programs. |
| Number Six posted 2009 Feb 26 23:49 |
| crazy14muzic - Thanks for the info - very useful.
I am a member of DISHMOD - but the only useful info I found there was how to clone and marry the hard drive - DISHRIP seems to have a lot more useful info. I also have been to SATELLITEGUYS, but I did not find that thread before - I used different search terms, was not looking to reinitialize drive - very interesting info, I will not try to do this at this moment, but maybe later. I am wondering if it low level formats the drive - they say that it does not wipe out the firmware. I would like to have a replacement drive all ready to install before I do this because I do not want to live without the unit. I am not worried about wiping out the recordings because anything that I want to save is already backed up to DVD - unfortunately some of the new stuff is unusable because of the pixelation issue, and has to be recorded again at a later time after I get this problem solved. I have to watch some older recording on the drive and see if they play back properly - if they do, then I am convinced portions of the disk are failing to record properly. |
| samijubal posted 2009 Feb 27 02:24 |
| DN has been having problems since back around Thanksgiving last year when it was pretty bad for about a week. They never went back to where they were before that. I told them about it a few times, they don't seem to care. |
| neomaine posted 2009 Feb 27 08:37 |
| Number Six:
More than likely your problem is not with the hard drive. The video stream is saved without any compression as-is to the hard drive. I'm guessing that the decoder on your unit is going bad. There should be no difference between playing from the hard drive and watching it live. |
| Number Six posted 2009 Feb 27 08:47 |
| neomaine - I was thinking the same thing, but live TV is OK and newer recordings are horrible. I am watching an older recording right now, and it is good. I do not really understand why the hard drive would cause pixelation, except for the fact that the magnetic material is really worn in some places - I have been doing heavy recording lately on the second half of the drive because the first half is full of older recordings so it does not get constant use rewriting data to it. I also wonder if I have a serious fragmentation problem on the hard drive that could be causing this problem. |
| neomaine posted 2009 Feb 27 12:03 |
| Number six,
You have no control over where/how the recordings are saved on the hd. As long as your receiver is powered on, I believe it will run a defrag nightly (morning?) at 3:00 AM or some such time...I forget off hand. Again, the hard drive will NOT cause pixelation. That is a function of the decoder (chip) and what was actually recorded. I'd be very doubtful of a hard drive issue. Can you pause live tv for, or rewind - and does it play fine? If you own your unit and have the know how to copy the drive to another you have a possible solution if it is a hd issue. You can always replace the existing one if needed. |
| Number Six posted 2009 Mar 06 11:42 |
| OK - here is a followup to this problem.
I finally caught the pixelation problem while I was watching a program as it was recording to the hard drive, so I went to the other room where I have a non DVR receiver that I rarely use - I was getting the exact same problem there too. So, either Dish is having transmission issues, or my LNB is starting to fail - I did have to replace the LNB about 2.5 years ago because it could not receive all the channels. I am glad that I do not have to replace the hard drive - thanks neomaine. |
| oldfart13 posted 2009 Mar 06 12:23 |
| Interesting that Dish told you they were phasing out your box. They replaced my friend's 7100 with a 508 and then sent him a new card for it. Updated and works fine I'm told. They never offered him a deal on a newer receiver at all as I have heard some people were. He'd have gone that route in a minute if they had I would think... |
| Number Six posted 2009 Mar 06 12:36 |
| crazy14muzic mentioned that Dish may be phasing out my box - I did not speak to Dish about it or the problem - I find that their tech support, as well as almost everyone's tech support to be useless. I own this equipment, and do not want to go on lease for any newer hardware. |
| oldfart13 posted 2009 Mar 06 12:55 |
| I asked my friend and he said that though it's classed as lease, he pays no lease fee as it was a free upgrade. Buying would be best but Dish wants all it's receivers to be lease in future. Better get a newer one while you can.... |
| dLee posted 2009 Mar 06 16:10 |
| I've got a 510 along with some HD Dish boxes.
In the last few months I've noticed macroblocking, mostly on HD channels after scene changes, which I'm interpreting as bit starving. (I know the 510 is an mpeg2 receiver that doesn't do HD.) Collective wisdom is that Dish wants to replace all mpeg2 receivers with the newer mp4 ones, because less bandwidth is required for the same (or better) quality. Subjectively, I think the mp4 receivers display higher quality SD than the older mpeg2 receivers, although that can be manipulated at Dish's end to "encourage" their customers to make the switch. The overall quality on the 510 fell off months ago and probably won't be back. |
| Number Six posted 2009 Mar 06 16:21 |
| Yes, I am getting the same thing when the scene changes - but it is very intermittent, and it is on both boxes. I noticed that this happens mostly during the morning and afternoon, but rarely at night - this is why I have not seen the problem first hand until today - I record most of my shows while I am at work, and watch them later when I have time. It does sound like Dish is messing around with the transmission quality - I am going to keep an eye on it before I address the LNB. Thanks for the confirmation dLee. |
| LCSHG posted 2009 Mar 06 16:31 |
| Number6
As a DN customer for many years I would very much agree with samijubal also They push the receivers to the limit for resolution also they have other problems I doubt the HDD is at fault [They don’t do that all by self] ------------------------------------ samijubal Quote DN has been having problems since back around Thanksgiving last year when it was pretty bad for about a week. They never went back to where they were before that. I told them about it a few times, they don't seem to care My view on DN I’m tired of there BS. I want reception PERIOD That I pay for I want two new receivers [not leased] Two dish’s one for 110 the other for 119 properly connected to receive both and do not want to here about Dish 500 Skew, Signal Strength or anything else Either that or goodbye DM and I don’t give a ----- if they don’t |
Login/Register to our forum to be able to post here.