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elitefx
join:2011-02-14
London, ON

elitefx to sbrook

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Re: PVR Drive Cycling

Why don't folks just return these things to Rogers? 100 thousand people saying "We don't want it, it doesn't function properly" would send a serious message that customer's demand quality hardware for their dollars spent.

This dancing with Rogers is just a big waste of time.........

tinytommy
@bell.ca

tinytommy

Anon

Hard to return a PVR I bought six years ago... I think most of us own our boxes or have modified them to the point where the warranty no longer covers them.

elitefx
join:2011-02-14
London, ON

1 edit

elitefx

Member

said by tinytommy :

Hard to return a PVR I bought six years ago...

I hear ya. 6 years old though. That's ancient in tech terms. Could be half the problem. Me, I'd be trashing the thing and getting a 2011-2012 model. I have 3 year old high end rig parts nobody wants. 6 years in this biz is..........I can't even imagine the manufacturer worrying about patching firmware for something that old. Time marches on........

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

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elitefx ... you know how it goes ... it will cost money to downgrade the service then upgrade again ... and it will be too much of a hassle for people to visit the Rogers store.
puzz1ed
join:2005-02-20
Markham, ON

puzz1ed to elitefx

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I've had mine for 8 years. What's most surprising to me is that in all that time the current models are essentially the same with maybe a larger hard drive and still way overpriced for what they are. They never even bothered to incorporate more modern encoding to increase storage. Rogers or Cisco is making a ton of money on these things.

I'm thinking of getting a 32" HDTV for $300 and to get an HD box or PVR would cost as much or even more than the TV.

LFoot
@rogers.com

LFoot to elitefx

Anon

to elitefx
elitefx... I have a 2011 model rental PVR along with my 5 year old purchased unit both running different versions of the SARA firmware. The newer PVR also suffers from the drive cycling off and on every few minutes with a couple of differences. The drive in the 2011 unit is much quieter making the cycling almost un-noticeable and since it's a rental, I don't care if the drive fails prematurely.

elitefx
join:2011-02-14
London, ON

elitefx

Member

Has anyone ever actually had a drive fail because of the cycling? I know drives are supposed to be good for 50,000 power cycles and I also know newer drives park the recording heads and spin down when not in use even though they are still under power.

My main rig does the same thing in AHCI mode. My 2 internal Seagate 1TB storage drives hibernate when not in use. When I access them I hear the "click click" of the heads unlocking and the drives spinning up. Of course my main Mushkin Chronos SSD system drive is dead silent and always operational.

Point being, this could be the nature of the beast when using disk drives these days and have little to do with the actual PVR design or firmware itself...........IMHO Any drive failure could be attributed to a drive not performing to manufacturer design specs.

I've had to RMA 4 Hard Drives in the past 5-7 years both Seagate and WD out of about 15 drives purchased new.
LeadFoot
join:2012-09-21

LeadFoot

Member

In 2010 when this cycling first started we had 2 PVRs purchased at the same time. The one I was using, I kept running by setting wake-up timers and dummy recordings. The one my son was using was allowed to cycle on and off when powered off. After about 3 months of cycling the drive failed. I contacted Western Digital Engineering and they said that cycling the drive that frequently would likely shorten the drive's life. Using the 50,000 cycle number, if your PVR was powered off and cycling every 5 minutes for 16 hours a day, it would only take 261 day to reach 50,000 (12 cycles per hour X 16 hours per day X 261 days = 50,112 cycles). I think it's the high frequency not the total number of cycles that aggregates the problem. I blame Rogers/Cisco for the failure of my son's drive. At that time IDE drives were cheap and plentiful. That's not the case now.

elitefx
join:2011-02-14
London, ON

3 edits

elitefx

Member

said by LeadFoot:

At that time IDE drives were cheap and plentiful. That's not the case now.

For a device of this nature to be based on an obsolete IDE PATA Hard Drive platform is inexcusable. The hard drive capability is the very reason for the PVR's existence.

Taking the high PVR retail price factor into consideration, common sense says they would want the very latest SATA 3 technology incorporated into newer systems. SATA 2 at the very least for older units...........I mean, recording/data writing speed alone would be a prerequisite factor in capturing the higher framerates of HD video...........
decx
Premium Member
join:2002-06-07
Vancouver, BC

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It's not a system dealing with raw uncompressed HD or a highly used server serving numerous streams to many users. The 8300 just records a maximum of 2 compressed streams and doesn't even have WHPVR capability an old slow PATA drive has far more than enough read/write performance for the job.

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

anyway, you can always pick up a $10 sata/pata convertor.
decx
Premium Member
join:2002-06-07
Vancouver, BC

decx

Premium Member

True but I'm not sure whether it'll fit inside the 8300 so I can't recommend that as a solution.
LeadFoot
join:2012-09-21

1 edit

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The answer is for Rogers/Cisco to fix the SARA firmware and stop shutting off the hard drive. Other makes of PVRs like Motorola keep the drive spinning 24/7 as does the Cisco 8642 with the newest firmware. It's been decades since I've done any programing, but it could be as simple as a 1 bit change in the code. They need to find the routine that's turning the drive off and change it. This is not rocket science.
Warhorse
join:2007-09-25
Orleans, ON

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This has definitely gone on long enough!!! As an engineer, I sincerely wonder if Rogers has anyone in their Tech Dept. who has the foggiest notion on how upgrades/firmware changes should be made so that the customer is kept in the loop and for the minimum period of disruption!

From my engineering experience (38 years), what should occur is an in-house test period of sufficient depth to proof the firmware upgrade. Then there should be a BETA trial on a sufficient number of volunteers to ensure everything is working OK. Finally, all customers should be advised what is to be done, and a feedback link provided if the customer has problems to report.

As this is the second time this problem has occurred, it seems Rogers has not learned from the experience and customers are still being treated with total disrespect!!! Customers pay for service and many purchased the PVR.

I sincerely feel a class action suit should be initiated ASAP! Maybe that would wake up "the powers that be but don't care" when their money is involved!!!

sbrook
Mod
join:2001-12-14
Ottawa

sbrook

Mod

Rogers treat customers as Revenue Units ... The fact that Rogers is supposed to provide service is a fact that they conveniently overlook to maximize revenue.

Sadly, that's the way with most Corporations. Maximizing the remuneration for the officers of the company and maximizing shareholder return is what it's all about. It's the modern corporate morality (immorality) after all, officers and boards of corporations get tossed on their ears if they don't maximize returns. It's fiduciary responsibility by being morally irresponsible. Strangely socially and morally responsible companies can generate fiduciary responsibility. The reverse is not necessarily true, although fiduciary success can allow a company to show social responsibility.

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

With SSD's being cheap now, I wonder if a SATA SSD would work with a SATA/IDE converter? It'd be silent, and use less power no matter what Rogers did with their firmware...
decx
Premium Member
join:2002-06-07
Vancouver, BC

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I'm not sure this would be a good application of SSDs. When the the STB is on the PVR is constantly buffering stream from the channel on which it is tuned this would put excessive write/erase cycles on the SSD. And while it would be silent and save some power, the STB wouldn't benefit from any performance gain switching to SSD.

avernar
join:2002-05-23
Plattsville, ON

avernar to Warhorse

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I wish the CRCT had the intestinal fortitude to mandate CableCard. Ah well. Back to reality. Sigh.
Hooter
join:2009-08-17
Scarborough, ON

Hooter to pmd

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Both of our boxes rebooted over night. Another new SARA version was pushed out - 1.93.15.1. Too early to tell if it provides fixes for the last update - but just thought I would provide a heads up this morning!

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

said by Hooter:

Both of our boxes rebooted over night. Another new SARA version was pushed out - 1.93.15.1. Too early to tell if it provides fixes for the last update - but just thought I would provide a heads up this morning!

Seems my 8300HD rebooted overnight too, it was on Channel 01.

I'll check the firmware when I get home. I'm also in Scarborough.

elitefx
join:2011-02-14
London, ON

elitefx

Member

I think Rogers did something to the entire network overnite. My D3 Express was running like a dog recently but this morning:

Rogers_Chris
VIP
join:2010-12-15
Toronto, ON

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Hi Everyone. Once again, we’d like to thank you for your patience while the software update for the 8300HD PVR was being tested for deployment. We’re happy to report that the update began rolling out last night and will be completed within the next 10-12 days.

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

said by Rogers_Chris:

Hi Everyone. Once again, we’d like to thank you for your patience while the software update for the 8300HD PVR was being tested for deployment. We’re happy to report that the update began rolling out last night and will be completed within the next 10-12 days.

Well if this is indeed the fix, then I must say I'm impressed with how fast Rogers fixed it this time around...

It still doesn't excuse the fact that they don't test the firmware enough to spot such a glaring flaw, especially that it was a hot issue before...
technocar2
join:2009-05-29
Brampton, ON

technocar2 to Rogers_Chris

Member

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said by Rogers_Chris:

Hi Everyone. Once again, we’d like to thank you for your patience while the software update for the 8300HD PVR was being tested for deployment. We’re happy to report that the update began rolling out last night and will be completed within the next 10-12 days.

This is for SA 8300HD and the newer STBs?

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

said by technocar2:

This is for SA 8300HD?

Did you even read his reply?
technocar2
join:2009-05-29
Brampton, ON

technocar2

Member

said by HiVolt:

said by technocar2:

This is for SA 8300HD?

Did you even read his reply?

lol I did but I replied too quickly.

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

LOL...
Rogers_Chris
VIP
join:2010-12-15
Toronto, ON

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I should add that this update addresses the following:

1. Hard Disk Spin Up Down
2. For a future show, instead of ‘record show’, IPG shows ‘tune to this channel’
3. List always defaults back to the top/beginning of the recorded show list, instead of last recording

HiVolt
Premium Member
join:2000-12-28
Toronto, ON

HiVolt

Premium Member

said by Rogers_Chris:

I should add that this update addresses the following:

1. Hard Disk Spin Up Down
2. For a future show, instead of ‘record show’, IPG shows ‘tune to this channel’
3. List always defaults back to the top/beginning of the recorded show list, instead of last recording

You know, I always wondered this, Why the PVR can't have "folders" for shows... I dont have that many, but always having to scroll down to find what was recently recorded is crappy... At least it should be an option, to start at top or view last recorded... I don't know about you, but I tend to want to watch what was recorded most recently.

pmd
join:2012-08-08
Manotick, ON

pmd

Member

New firmware is great news. Does anyone in Ottawa have it yet?

View version of SA8300HD (plugged in):
On the front panel
1. Press & hold the SELECT button until the "mail" symbol flashes.
2. Press INFO button. Information page 1 will display.
3. Press the Volume+/- button to view other pages.
Page #17 has the SARA version
1.93.14.1 September
1.93.15.1 October