DVD recorders - replacing HDDs and DVD loaders

I'm wondering what is involved in replacing a HDD or DVD loader in a DVD recorder. Assuming that both devices use standard PC type IDE interfaces and power connectors, is there anything that would preclude a simple swap? I imagine that the HDD must be able to be formatted in the recorder (mine allows this). I'd also expect that I would need a drive that was not affected by "thermal recalibration" issues, assuming any still are. As for the burner, I'm wondering whether region coding will be an issue. AFAICS, the decoder board would handle region coding, so I would need a region free loader. Or am I misunderstanding something?

- Franc Zabkar

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Franc Zabkar
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Franc

The only thing that I've seen regarding replacing hard drives in PVRs is that it is recommended that you stick to the same manufacturer as the original drive, and make sure that the spindle speed of any drive that you put in, matches that of the original, due to timeout issues on the spinup speed of cheapo slow-spindle drives. I recently replaced one in a Yamaha. The genuine Yammy replacement was a huge amount of money, but the guy at Yammy Tech told me that I could put in a drive of as big as I liked, from the same series as the original. I did, and it worked just fine.

Arfa

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Arfa Daily

I don't believe I've even seen any current DVD players, let alone DVD recorders, which use a standard DVD burner with IDE interface. There were a few models of DVD player around a while back which used a standard IDE DVD ROM, but the one I was repairing (I forget the make/model) would not accept any other type of DVD ROM, it had to be an exact replacement. I can't speak for other models though.

Dave

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Dave D

That's interesting Dave. I seem to see quite a few here of various makes, but particularly Bose, and the ' supermarket special ' real cheapos. I've never tried putting any other drive in than originals though, because this DVD recording technology is such uselessly unreliable crap, that they are all only a few months old when they fail, so up for free issue genuine replacement warranty parts from the manufacturer, or just free replacement of the whole unit.

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

Replacing a HDD shouldn't be a problem since it lets you reformat it. People have even found ways to replace the hard drive in devices that can't format they drive.

Replacing DVD player drives is usually a simple job, but I've never tried it with a recorder. There may be driver issues with a recorder. You could try installing the bad recorder in a PC in an attempt to identify it. Most of these drives are based on PC drives, so the equivalent PC drive is the most likely to work. You may need to flash the replacement with region free firmware from

formatting link
Andy Cuffe

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Andy Cuffe

On Sun, 02 Apr 2006 22:01:03 GMT, "Arfa Daily" put finger to keyboard and composed:

My DVD/HDD recorder uses this Samsung model SV1604e 5400RPM drive:

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It appears to be purpose-built for this application.

There is also this (similar?) SV1604n model which makes no PVR claims:

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This is the SV1604e spec:

============================================================ Reliable Design for CE Application -PVR -HDTV -Set-Top Box -DVD /HDD Recorder -Game Console -Home Media Server 80GB Formatted Capacity Per Disk AV streaming performance NoiseGuard? technology SilentSeek? technology Fluid Dynamic Bearing Spindle Motor Technology Thermal monitoring system ATA Security Mode Feature Set Lock'On Drive? (Optional AV Security feature) support Enhanced Auto Reassign Low spin up current technology ATA S.M.A.R.T Compliant ============================================================

This URL seems to suggest that the HD may need to support DRM and "AV streaming":

formatting link

- Franc Zabkar

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On Mon, 3 Apr 2006 15:47:23 +0100, "Dave D" put finger to keyboard and composed:

I recall that a certain ESS chipset whose datasheets were inadvertently (?) released to the Internet was hacked in such a way that some models of DVD player (eg Apex) were able to be fitted with HDDs. I'd be willing to buy one of those no matter what condition it was in.

As for DVD recorders, this is the parts list for mine:

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The HDD, a Samsung model SV1604E, appears to be a "reliable" version of the SV1604N.

The reason I posted my original questions was that I intend to hang on to this unit for as long as the logic boards are still working. I was hoping that the most unreliable part of the unit, the DVD burner, would be easy to replace with a standard, region free PC IDE unit. Hopefully serial ATA will not completely eliminate parallel IDE from the marketplace in the next five years. Otherwise I'd consider purchasing a Seagate drive with a five year warranty.

My fear is that future DVD recorders will shift the drive logic to the decoder PCB, rendering these units disposable.

- Franc Zabkar

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Franc Zabkar

On Mon, 03 Apr 2006 18:30:20 GMT, "Arfa Daily" put finger to keyboard and composed:

What usually goes wrong with these recorders? Mine has lots of smt electros which I'm going to be watching. I'm also considering heatsinking the larger chips. Other than that, I'm expecting to see failures in either the HDD or the DVD burner.

- Franc Zabkar

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I don't see a lot of failures of HDD based recorders, but endless numbers of DVD recorders. Almost always, the faults are obscure - such things as stops recording half way through, or won't finalise a disc, or won't play back a disc previously recorded or won't play some disc types, or won't recognise some manufacturer's discs - the list is endless. There are of course some that are straightforward failures of power supplies etc, but these are few and far between. Many faults are cleared up by replacing the drive, but if you've got an electronic problem on the digital processing board, you may as well just forget it, as you will struggle to get any detailed service info or technical help from the manufacturers. Their usual solution is to just replace the board if it's under warranty, so that's what I do, as I've got a living to make, and don't have time to prat about.

I really don't know why these things are so unreliable. You have been able to buy a DVD burner for your computer for several years now, and you just stick it in and forget it. The first one we ever had here is just starting to get a bit iffy, but it has been hammered hard for a couple of years, but as soon as they put them into a domestic recorder, even the standard computer drives, die like flies.

I really don't think that this technology will last long as a VCR replacement. The ideal seems to me to be the combo HDD - DVDR units, where you use a nice reliable disc drive for your timeshift recording, and the DVDR for archiving.

Arfa

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Arfa Daily

Yeah, ignore the first part of my post, even I'm not sure what I meant!

Definitely. They've had long enough to get the technology right, and it still isn't. I refuse to buy a DVD recorder for that reason. If and when I do buy one, it'll be a HDD/DVD recorder so the optical drive doesn't get hammered for stuff like time shifting.

Some of them don't even work properly out of the box, or are really fussy about media. They've got some work to do to get them as reliable as the trusty old VCR.

Dave

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Dave D

Can't agree with you more, Dave. I've still got my Tosh VCR in the stack with all the other gubbins, but for the last year, I've used my Sky+ box for all time shift recording, and it's brilliant. A friend of mine came round yesterday crowing about the Hitachi plasma and DVDR he's just bought ( gets delivered today ... ) He actually said that he'd bought the DVDR because they were cheaper than HDD recorders, and that he'd managed to further badger the poor sales kid and his manager for an extra thirty quid off, after having got the plasma at the internet price of 300 quid cheaper than the store price. He thought he was jolly clever, until I told him that he would probably be regretting the purchase of the DVDR in six months time, when he has to take it back for the third time. You never know, by tomorrow night, or at least Saturday when there's some footy on, he might be regretting replacing his Tosh CRT set ( he copied me on that one a few years back ) with an Hitachi plasma ...

Did I see that you were a ticketed amateur in the thread on running a car based monitor off the mains ? Me too.

Arfa

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Arfa Daily

On Mon, 03 Apr 2006 23:51:06 GMT, "Arfa Daily" put finger to keyboard and composed:

Thanks for the feedback. I have absolutely no experience with these units so it's good to know what to expect. Mine has an exhaust fan - is this a normal thing, or do the cheaper units do without? Could the high failure rates of these units be the result of poor ventilation? I imagine that many people may not make adequate allowances for airflow in their hi-fi cabinets. Anyway, at the risk of voiding my warranty, I think I will add some stick-on heatsinks to the bigger chips.

FWIW, one observation I have regarding quality is that my Aldi/Tevion unit uses a "high reliability" Samsung HD (SV1604E) whereas a Panasonic DMRE95HS uses the standard version (SV1604N).

- Franc Zabkar

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Franc. The heat thing is an interesting question, and one that I've asked myself on more than one occasion. It is almost certainly a factor in the long term failures of regular DVD players, satellite boxes, and formerly, VCRs. The thing is with these DVDRs, as Dave says, they are often faulty right out of the box, or if they do fail, it's within the first few months. Also, the failures don't seem to be heat related, in the 'traditional' way that we're used to. Nevertheless, I don't think that its any bad thing to emphasise the heat angle to customers who have their gear in a stack in a cabinet.

Friend of mine has a company manufacturing custom designed high-end home cinema furniture ( for the likes of those sportsmen and movie stars who earn in an hour what we do in a year !! ), and he actually incorporates a tangential blower unit at the bottom, and a couple of regular fans for extraction at the top, purely because of heat build up, if it's just left with the doors shut.

As far as the fan in your DVDR goes, I'd keep an eye on it from time to time. A few of the home cinema type DVD players have fans fitted, notably, a JVC model, and obviously some other makes that are cloned badge jobs, and they are poor quality sleeve bearing plastic frame types. The motor has just about enough torque to shift the fan blades round on a good day when its snowing outside. As soon as the bearings get a bit 'gummy', it seizes up ...

Interesting that the Aldi unit has a high reliability version of the drive that Pan uses. In my opinion, Pan products, and the service backup - particularly when you need technical assistance - has gone right down the toilet in recent years. They used to be one of the best, but now, it takes all day to get past that awful theme from Mash music ( "Suicide is Painless" - was someone having a laugh when they picked that ? ), if the phone system doesn't bump you first. Here's a good question. How is that " YOU WILL BE THE ( whirrclick ) NEXT CALL TO BE ANSWERED " can go on for 15 minutes? Do they always speak to callers for that long, or only when I'm trying to get through ?? Are there really engineers out there that are so dumb that they need 15 minutes of assistance ? Or is it maybe that the phone system defaults to this message when they take all the phones off the hook for a break ...

Arfa

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Arfa Daily

On Tue, 04 Apr 2006 08:27:37 GMT, "Arfa Daily" put finger to keyboard and composed:

Unfortunately you're right. :-(

The fan is a Sunon model KD1204PKS2:

formatting link

The specs are:

12V, 0.8W, sleeve bearing, plastic frame, 6000 RPM, 6.5 CFM, 25.5 dB(A)

The fan is positioned to draw air past the chopper in the PSU. I can't see that it achieves much else.

In any case I've added heatsinks to both Cirrus Logic chips. The larger one gets too hot to touch for any length of time.

- Franc Zabkar

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Franc Zabkar

Sounds like a good plan to me. Keep an eye on that fan !

Arfa

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Arfa Daily

On Wed, 05 Apr 2006 09:16:53 GMT, "Arfa Daily" put finger to keyboard and composed:

I've ordered a ceramic replacement. Thanks for your tips.

- Franc Zabkar

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Franc Zabkar

No Probs Franc

Arfa

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Arfa Daily

I passed around 1990, and played around for a couple of years then gave it up for various reasons. My licence lapsed and I didn't bother renewing it. I have very little proper AR gear now, mostly handheld stuff and quite a bit of ex PMR stuff. I still scan 2M and 70cm occasionally, and listen to out of band stuff (tsk tsk!) on a Yaesu FT727 I picked up for about 25 quid a couple of years back.

Dave

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Dave D

Got mine in '94. Not been very active though, of late. Still do some ATVing on the local box, but the 70cms box is full of oddballs, TVs and assorted other cross-dressers, and 2 is pretty damned quiet now, sideband and FM. I've got HF gear, but can't be arsed to put up any decent antennas ...

Arfa

Reply to
Arfa Daily

I was astounded at the lack of activity on both 2M and 70 in my area when I started listening in again. 70 is so bad that I discovered that my local repeater was closed down.

At this rate, the Amateur Radio bands are likely to be taken away from us or at least slimmed down a lot. We already have to share 70 with the LPD band, and some of those 'LPD' devices are illegal European handies. In fact, one of my sets of PMR446 handies has a secret menu with 69 LPD frequencies (at

500mW!) and 6 'KDR' frequencies.

LOL! One needs rather understanding neighbours to indulge in HF, and the ERP and HF aerial sizes do not go well with the high density housing we have in the UK. HF is amazing and potentially very fulfilling, but it takes a lot of dedication and effort, and sadly I lost interest in AR before I had a chance to indulge. I'd probably have gone down the QRP route- working long distances on a watt must be a real kick!

Dave

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Dave D

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