I recorded something from my Verizon Fios box yesterday, and Verizon thought
4pm was a good time to upgrade the firmware and reset the box, so I lost a big part of the recording.Do DirectTV or Dish Network boxes ever do any nonsense like that, even in the wee hours?
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I have an old Directv box. The first few years I had it, there were firmware updates. Those occurred during the night, AM hours. I think it was their policy.
Cheers
On a sunny day (Tue, 2 Aug 2011 19:04:37 -0400) it happened "Tom Del Rosso" wrote in :
Sounds like US. I am in Europe and have a PC running Linux with a satellite card in it. No satprovider originated software upgrades are possible. But there is enough software around to watch anything. I can record sat TV and make nice DVDs from it. Only drawback is perhaps that the PC consumes some more power than a settop box, but it is on most of the time anyways. BTW many stations are free to air here. Haupppauge makes a lot of sat TV cards, also for the US system.
"Martin Riddle" wrote in news:j1a4sm$gh1$1@dont- email.me:
why should software/firmware updates wipe your recorded data on the hard drive? seems like bad coding. or maybe it's intentional.
-- Jim Yanik jyanik at localnet dot com
Yes. But it should hold off doing anything if the unit is in use.
Some of them refuse to work after firmware updates if you have upgraded the hard disk with an unapproved higher capacity unit (ie. not the overpriced bespoke version bought from the ripoff merchants). eg.
This was a while ago. There is a similar problem with the BBC iPlayer on some portable Apple platforms at present (though in this case it sounds more like generic incompetence than profiteering).
Regards, Martin Brown
I was watching a program a bit after 2:00 AM last night that I was very interested in, when, "ZOINK", the cable box rebooted! Most annoying, since it takes a VERY long time to complete the process. I have complained (to no avail) to the cable company, pointing out that there is often good programming on at times some of us consider still good for "prime evening viewing". UGH!
--DR
That doesn't necessarily solve the problem. I have Verizon and wanted to record a movie in the early hours of the morning while I slept. They did the same to me as they did to Tom.
The box simply doesn't work during an update. Its like re-installing the OS on your computer.
-- Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply indicates you are not using the right tools... nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.) --------------------------------------------------------------
John S wrote in news:j1bu4d$cht$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
I have Comcast.Same same.
There's also a menu selection to search for other occurrences of a program and to pre-set a recording. I record while I'm at work when possible, and it usually is even if occasionally a day or three later.
Mark L. Fergerson
That's not what the OP reported. He said that the update interrupted the recording that was taking place at the time of the update. That is a natural consequence of the update.
The provider should be a little smarter - and *kinder* - about when updates occur...
-- Gene E. Bloch (Stumbling Bloch)
*Sigh*.
-- Les Cargill
Yes, of course. However, I wanted to see the movie as soon as it was available, so I chose the nearest date which was in the early hours of the morning to record it.
John S
It didn't wipe my recording, but the box was reset so I recorded black after that until the next time the box got a remote command.
My DVR is my own and not part of the cable box.
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I have Hauppauge but I didn't know they make satellite cards. What kind of box do you need then, between the dish and the coax? Is there just a converter mounted on the back of the dish?
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The existing firmware should be smart enough to know a recording is in progress and delay the updates until that event is complete.... AFAIK that is how Virgin Media do their updates.
On a sunny day (Wed, 3 Aug 2011 16:40:09 -0400) it happened "Tom Del Rosso" wrote in :
I am not sure what you mean, but the setup is dish -> LNB -> satcard -> software. with common interface | CAM (=conditional access module) | card
I dunno if your sat program are encrypted, but there are several Hauppage models that accept a common interface that will accept a card. You would have to check with that sat provider if their cards work in something like this setup.
I have 2 sat cards, an old skystar 1 (that has a car interface), and a wintvnova (Hauppage) that does not. In the old days there was much software to decrypt programs, these days people get executed for mentioning the existence of software to do things like that, so I cannot comment on that, although this morning I had a cool idea on how to do Europe wide cleansing without viewers even needing the internet.... LOL.
I assume you don't have waveguide going into the card, but I don't know if there is a standard downconverter that is the same for all satellites.
So that module must be specific to the satellite you use, but who sells those?
OK. I had no idea that satellite subscription services offered that kind of hardware.
Does free satellite simply bypass that module?
You can record before decryption? I thought that would be impossible because some stages of the tuner hardware need frame sync or something, although I don't know the structure of MPEG.
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Some channels are duplicated into east and west coast feeds, with a 3 hour offset. If I record at night I sometimes do both, since there is also the weekly test of the Emergency Alert System.
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On a sunny day (Thu, 4 Aug 2011 13:33:37 -0400) it happened "Tom Del Rosso" wrote in :
There is a standard downconverter, 'LNB' for the normal commercial sats.
No it works like this: The transmitter 'transponder' in the satellite has a bandwidth of about 38 MHz. In that bandwidth a stream of data called transport stream, 'TS' is send. This is a packetized (word?) stream, consisting of little 188 byte packets. In each packet is a stream indentifier called program ID, 'PID". As the name says, the PID says which TV channel the data in the 188 byte packet belongs to. The receiver hardware or software parses the TS stream and filters out the program you want to watch. There are many types of other streams transmitted apart from the program stream, each with their own PID, some hold information about what PID belongs to what SID (service ID), the service ID being that what the sat provider gives you. So for example lets look at a real case, I run my software and type: show bbc2 > so I cannot comment on that, although this morning I had a cool idea
No problem recording an encrypted stream. But if you ever wanted to decrypt it (and view it) then you also need to record the PIDs for the ECM PAT PMT etc that hold the changing encrypted keys. That then later can be decrypted by the card - CAM combination. Recording is never a problem, I can simply record a whole transponder.
This can be nice if for example BBC1, BBC2, BBC3 are on the same transponder and good movies on at the same time. You need a lot of disk space though, 38 Mbits/s gives several GB / hour.
No no frame sync, maybe you are talking about Viterbi decoding, that needs to be locked. I usually have zero bit errors all the time, but sometimes a big thunder cloud completely wipes ou the signal, but that is rare (mayfe 2 times a year).
Monthly. First Wednesday.
Weekly tests are for things like Amber Alerts and other more local alert management systems.
Oh wait... you might be one of those "over there" people.
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