A new thread dedicated to the Vestel T815 PVR. Comments in other threads have incorrectly stated that the T815 doesn't exist. What I will do here is describe my T815. There may well be variants and branded versions but that I cannot say.

My T815 has also developed some recent problems that I'll describe in another post once I've got the information part out of the way


Identification
The packaging is an anonymous white cardboard box with a sticker saying (in big letters): "T815 DVB-T HARDDISC MODEM PVR"

The model number (from sticker on outside of box and on underside of PVR) is "DVB1010T815 NOBRAND T8102SC SLVOADRHS W"

The "nobrand" bit is pretty accurate. There is no branding on the packaging and absolutely no branding on the PVR itself.

The PCB silkscreen contains the legend "16MB46 T815 200206"


Dates
I'm guessing that the 200206 number on the PCB might be a PCB design layout date (i.e. 20th Feb 2006).

The manufacture date is "10/06" (i.e. October 2006) from the stickers on box/underside of PVR.

The software build date (from menu dialog box) is 2006-11-06 at 15:01:02

The PVR was shipped to me on 22nd November 2006 (i.e. only a couple of weeks after the software was baked).


Hardware
Exterior appearance seems to be pretty much the same as other T810 and T816 PVRs. The one exception is the addition, on the rear panel, of a telephone connection. This is hooked up to a modem in the PVR and allows for Sky box type services where commands are sent to the PVR via telephone and/or information is sent from the PVR to a central server.

Memory size is 64 Mbytes (a single Hynix 512 Mbit chip).

Hard disc is a Western Digital 160 Gbyte drive. This is split into two equal size 80 Gbyte partitions. Only one of these partitions is available for user recordings and timeshifting. The other partition is for Push VOD programming.

One difference from the T810/T816 (I think from what I've read) is that the hard disc runs continuously - i.e. it never spins down even whilst on standby. [Aside: standby power consumption is 17 watts which is only 1 watt less than the consumption when fully on.]


Software
As mentioned, software build date is 2006-11-06 and the software identifies itself as "V.1.0(UK)". From what I've read that's the same reported version as the twin record software some people have tried running on the T810. I notice that the date of the firmware file for that twin record software is 2006-11-19. That's the file date, but what is the reported build date? Someone who is running that software might be able to confirm.

EPG is the full 7/8 day EPG. Record timers use EIT now/next information for accurate programme start/end in accordance with Freeview Playback Group 1. [Aside: remember that this PVR and software date from some months before Freeview Playback was launched.] Group 2 functions (i.e. Series Link) are not supported.

OK, I've run out of time for now. I'll post more details in a day or so.

Pete

Ok, so you didn't buy it from a shop then I'm guessing . Perhaps part of the BBC trial - dates tie up, as does the mention of Cabot. Almost certainly the software is a different build to the T810 twin record software considering the hardware and functional differences.

Well deduced! The PVR was indeed supplied for the BBC's Catch-up TV trial. It was shipped to me direct from Cabot in Bristol. According to the delivery man (who knew all about the trial and was more than just a van driver) I was the first on the trial to get my box.



It's definitely a different software build. But not that different and the heritage is clearly the same. The main UI addition was an extra setup menu item to test the modem and enter trial id and telephone number. The software then dialed this number during the night to report usage statistics. The telephone connection was only used for this purpose so wasn't strictly necessary for the Push VoD service.

Another UI difference was that the PiP functions were all removed and some of the remote buttons were moved around. The Mute button became a new "Catch-up" button.

Behind the scenes the firmware obviously had some other differences (telephone stuff, managing the hidden hard disc partition, etc).

There was also a very snazzy UI for browsing the carousel of downloaded content. But, AFAIK, this UI wasn't technically part of the firmware but was an MHEG app downloaded via the normal BBC Red Button service. This UI can be seen on the Catch-Up home page here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/catchuptvtrial/

The home page is now a dead end but, as is the way with these things, the content is actually still all there if you know the page URLs. Put "catchuptvtrial" into Google and you'll find links to documents and pages which show photos of the hardware and give more details of the software. You'll also get some links to discussion threads on DigitalSpy.

It's a shame this UI never made it onto commercial PVRs.

Pete

Very interesting. My apologies for doubting your word when you original posted on the existence of the the T815. It would not have been the first time that bogus statements have been made in these forums. In view of the interesting history you have provided I hope I can be forgiven?

Colin

Very interesting . Maybe it's just my memory, but I'd never even heard about that trial or proposed service. Did the BBC ever publish their conclusions? I guess iPlayer kinda took over. Regarding the software, certainly it would have been very similar to the T810 twin record software given the time frame. The trend has been that the software has continually evolved on the old hardware before being fixed to new hardware when released. Slightly annoying - not sure if it was due to them finding the old hardware was not up to the job or marketing reasons.

You mentioned in the other thread that your interactive services have stopped working... Presumably you have tried rebooting the box? Unfortunately, the box possibly won't be able to pick up any channels come digital switchover if the software shares the same bug as the T810 software.

As a sidenote, my T816 came direct from Vestel in Turkey - literally in a wooden box/crate nailed together (which would have cost more to ship than the PVR itself I would have thought ).

(brief interlude for holidays)


There was some limited publicity around the time of the start of the trial (including discussions here on DigitalSpy). But easy to miss I guess. I haven't found any published results (and being a participant I have looked).

My own verdict on the trial was that I wanted to make my own choices about what ended up on my hard disk. At the very least, it needed a Tivo style thumbs up/down option and the ability to learn what you liked to watch. For example, I had loads of episodes of EastEnders and lots of kids programmes in my carousel. None of which I ever watched. I will concede to a couple of successes though where it introduced me to programmes I might not have otherwise discovered (Pulling and Lead Balloon).

Towards the end of the trial I went along to a focus group discussion with other triallists. They were generally favourable (other than crashes which we all experienced). However, all but one other than me had never used a hard disk PVR before. So it was those aspects (manual recording, pausing live TV, EPG, etc) that impressed them and not the Push VoD part.


Yes, my reason for seeking out this discussion group in the first place was to report a couple of problems that have just started to appear over the last six weeks or so.

I've been using the T815 continuously since November 2006. The Catch-Up trial ended in May 2007 but they let us keep the PVRs and, other than half of the hard disk being wasted (actually it's still full of two year old episodes of EastEnders) the PVR has worked OK. It crashes more than I would like and exhibits similar problems to those reported in other threads here. But basically it has worked OK.

But, a few weeks ago I noticed all Red Button services had stopped working (i.e. pressing Red does nothing and the "Press Red" caption doesn't appear at the times when it is meant to). On a couple of days it magically started working again -- but not on all channels (e.g. it worked on BBC ONE but not BBC NEWS). Has anyone else experienced this type of behaviour?

I'm wondering whether this problem is due to some sort of change in the data being broadcast or whether it is some sort of latent software problem that has remained hidden for over two years. [I'm on the Crystal Palace transmitter and a Windows 7 Media Center PC shows Red Button services just fine.]

A second quite different problem started at around the same time (but I can't be precisely sure if the events were coincident and, as you'll see, the problem is quite different). I started to notice programme recordings weren't happening as they should. About 50% of times the recording just wouldn't happen (but would remain in the timer list). Remember that this PVR has Accurate Recording and I checked a number of times that the Now/Next info was correctly changing. Initially, instant recording of the current channel did work but that then degraded and became unreliable. And in the last week or so all timer and all instant recording functions have stopped working. So it's basically useless as a PVR!

Again, is this down to some change in the broadcast EIT data or is it some latent software problem? Could the two problems be connected in some way?

Any ideas? I've tried obvious things like a full reset and channel re-scan. I haven't tried a hard disk format though.

My two options seem to be to do a reset with a hard disk format. Obviously a pain because I will lose existing recordings and, I think I will lose the funky Catch-Up library browser app (not really necessary but nice eye candy).

My second option would be to try installing one of the T810 or T816 software releases (plus full format too). But will these work on a T815? I could end up with a completely dead box. OTOH, I could end up with a better PVR with full use of all 160 Gbytes of the disk.

It's a shame nobody has found a way to save an existing firmware image via the Cabot boot loader. If I could do that then at least there might be a way back if other firmware images don't work.

Any thoughts?

Pete

The only red button / mheg services problems I can recall were with the T810 twin record software - I used that for a while and the red button never did seem to work properly, and when it did it was really slow and sometimes after browser a few pages in it would get "stuck" and just hang, but that's an old problem which always happened. I've never really had any problems with that on the T816 except it now seems really slow in comparison to my new TV - at the time it seemed really fast compared to previous boxes I'd owned .

I wouldn't have thought the lack of recording was a broadcast issue, otherwise we'd probably have some T810 (maybe T816 too) users reporting similar problems suddenly. This might not apply to you, but I remember similar symptoms being reported if the box was picking up two transmitters and was scanning in 2 copies of some channels.

I wouldn't have thought a HDD format would help, so I'd tend to recommend that only as a last resort. One possibility is that the hardware is failing - one of the most common problems reported here is the power supply board failing (usually blown capacitors). I wouldn't be too surprised if this issue has hit your box given its age. If you start getting problems with the front panel display then that would suggest a faulty capacity.

Hard to say if the T810 or T816 software would work on your T815 - it all depends on the ID it expects in the file header. It may well have it's own ID, or it may perhaps share the ID of the T810 or T816. That said, even if the latter is true and the software is installed, it might brick your box with no way to go back to your old software, as you say .

So, unfortunately it all comes down to the risks you're willing to take. Although if the red button doesn't work now, the box won't record either and this problem is set to continue, would it really matter if you bricked it? Unless you use it to timeshift or watch live tv, what use is a PVR that won't record.

Personally, if it were me, I'd first open the box and check all the connections and see if there were any visibly bulging/exploded capacitors on the power supply board. Then if nothing obvious to be fixed there, try a HDD format, and failing that try changing the software as the last resort.

I might be missing the point here, but now we know that the T815 does really exist, and that it was listed as one of the targets for an OAD on the DTG site recently, I'm curious whether the box did or didn't/wouldn't update? Or did you not want to risk it? It might well be intended to cure your current problems.

The OAD was v5.7 for the T810, despite what the DTG site said (just like the current "DIGI HOME DTR180" which is showing, for example - I doubt Digihome DTR80 or DTR160 owners will be getting an update, but instead it will most likely be the T810 v5.7 again). It would be a step back, in some respects, if that happened to be compatible with the T810, losing accurate recording and twin record, etc.

I've not seen any display problems and since only very specific functions have stopped working this doesn't seem likely to be a PSU problem. Still, worth checking those capacitors just in case. I did a visual check last night and they all look OK. I might look at the various power rails with a 'scope though to make absolutely sure.



Actually, it won't even timeshift live TV any more. I'd pretty much come to the same conclusion as you that since it now has less functionality (other than a load of saved recordings I still want to watch) than the cheapest set top box I've got nothing really to lose if it does end up bricked.



Done the capacitor visual check. Will check connections. Before going ahead with a HDD format I might try putting in a different drive and formatting that. Of course that might introduce its own problems but otherwise I need to either wait a few weeks to find time to watch all that's on the disk or extract the files (something I may also look at). I'll then try loading new firmware if all else fails.

Pete

I didn't attempt to do a upgrade when the Vestel firmware was broadcast a few weeks ago because at that time I didn't want to lose the current firmware. It would have been interesting though to see if the T815 would recognise it.

Although I didn't attempt an OAD update to the PVR, I did download the firmware to my PC (which has a DVB-T tuner). A file diff confimed that this was the 5.7 UK firmware for the T810.

Pete

Yeah, swapping out the HDD would be a good thing to try. What happens when you try to timeshift then? Obviously, accurate recording is not a factor with timeshifting, so maybe it could be a HDD issue after all - might be worth hooking it up to a PC or something and check it with S.M.A.R.T. tools to see if it is reporting a malfunction. Although that probably isn't going to explain the red button problems. Can you still play back old recordings ok?

If the worst comes to the worst, you could perhaps buy a cheap T816 box and put your T815 HDD in that and that way you wouldn't lose your recordings. Of course, as you can see from other threads, there are ways of transferring the recordings off the HDD too.

Short answer is that swapping the hard disk (i.e. effectively a HDD format) has fixed both the recording issues and the red button problem. Early days and I'm still testing but the signs look good.

Long answer is that I've learned a few things about what replacement hard drives do work and do not work in a Vestel PVR. I've also gone on an interesting diversion investigating the files and directory structure on the old hard drive (which I am currently keeping intact). I can see some possible reasons why recordings at least had stopped working. There's also some interesting stuff on there connected with the Catch-Up trial (e.g. usage logs, the MHEG Carousel browser app I mentioned earlier as well as a MHEG game called Nev it Up that was downloaded during the latter stages of the trial).

One thing I've noticed is that with a new clean HDD library browsing as well as the disk check function on switch on are massively faster. A disk check was taking around 15 minutes but now takes less than a minute.

I've started developing a utility to parse and process the dvr*.inf files to extract useful info such as programme titles and descriptions. I'd be interested to discuss with anybody else who has looked at this (there is at least one other thread on the subject in the main PVR forum).

When I have more time I'll summarise my findings in this and other appropriate threads.

Pete

Glad to hear you're getting on top of the problem. Did you try running SMART diagnostics on the old drive to see if it was reporting that the drive was not in good health?

With the new HDD fitted are you able to use all the space after formatting it? Certainly the T810 was very picky about the HDD, regarding jumper settings, makes and size. IIRC only 80Gb or 160Gb drives actually worked. The T816 is better in that it allows upto 320Gb to be used (somebody did try fitting a larger drive, but only 320Gb was available to use) and isn't quite so picky.

Haven't tried SMART diagnostics on the old drive. I think that the problem is more likely to be "cruft" (i.e. old unused files cluttering up the disk) rather than the drive itself. Still, worth checking with the diagnostics anyway.



I first tried a 120 Gbyte drive. But this wouldn't even spin up -- you could hear the PVR repeatedly attempting to start it. I suspect the problem here was power related. I noticed that its current ratings were a little higher than the original drive.

I next tried an 80 Gbyte Maxtor drive (after confirming current ratings on both rails were specified as being less than the Western Digital original). This spun up OK. The PVR displayed a format message and seconds later it was formatted. The PVR looked like it was working OK but I thought that I'd make doubly sure that the disk was correctly initialised by running Format from the menu. This turned out to be a mistake because it then hung during the disk diagnostics.

I tried a complete reset/format from power up by holding OK button during power on (BTW, not seen that tip mentioned anywhere here). That also got stuck in the disk diagnostics that follow a format (I lost patience after half an hour).

So, I took the hard drive back to my PC. Looking at the partitions it did look OK but there was a 0 byte file called "format_me" in the cabot/storage directory on the first partition which looked suspicious.

I re-formatted the drive as a single NTFS partiton, put it back in the PVR, let it do its automatic format and then resisted the temptation to run format from the menu. Timer recordings, time shifting, instant record and red button all seem to work OK so far.

The drive was formatted with a 2 Gbyte partition for the recordings info plus the remainder (around 74 Gbytes) for the storage partition. One thing I've learned is that the Catch-Up software does not use a separate partition for its recordings as I'd originally thought. They are all just mixed up with normal user recordings in the same partition. However, these recordings are not displayed in the Library view so there must be some flag on them that says that they are hidden. Also, the space reported in the library is only half of the disk size. So, on my old drive it reported around 80 Gbytes (out of the 160 Gbytes on drive). And the new 80 Gbyte drive reports just under 40 Gbytes. But this is all just a peculiarity of the Catch-Up stuff.

Pete

Three years later... I guess interest will be limited but I found this thread very useful recently so maybe someone else will too.

I have two vestel units, a T825 (Hitachi HDR163) and a T815 (unbranded, BBC catch-up trial). The 815 stopped being useful about 6 months ago; live TV was fine but recordings all stuttered horribly and volume control stopped working (volume level bar would display on the tv and go up and down as the rc buttons were pressed, but the volume wouldn't actually change). Then, a few days ago, I moved the 825 from one room to another and it refused to reboot; disk spins up and STARTING displays on front panel, but that's as far as it gets.

I tried swapping both disks and PSU's between the two units in all permutations and discovered that both PSU's and both disks seem fine. So I guess some hardware fault which I probably cannot fix in the 825 (I'm open to suggestions). Since the 825 disk had a bunch of recordings that I want to keep, I put it in the 815. And since I didn't want to waste half the 160GB (as noted previously, the 815 software only allows user record access to half the space) I crossed my fingers and tried to install T810 V5.7 on the 815. To my surprise, it works. The limitations (compared to the 825) are a pain - no twin record, no series link, poor EPG population. But it does work: volume control ok and recordings don't stutter.

I am toying with the idea of trying to install 816 software on the 815 but I'll probably quit while I'm ahead.