Pardon my stupidity here but how are you transferring the file to your computer? Can't see an obvious way of doing this with a 9150 except by opening it up and fitting some sort of SATA to USB cable.

Hi, all!

I've not yet tried recording FG and AD on my pc as I've started recording them on a Sony HDD/DVD recorder (faultlessly). Unfortunately my Humax let me down with Dr Who this w/e. I'd recorded the BBC1 show on Saturday (the episode with an aged Amy and the hand-bots). Playing it back was fine until the finale when the Doctor said "It's just an anaesthetic - she'll be fine!", at which point the Humax jumped from 39:53 to 45:20, thus missing the ending and going straight into the trailer for next week's episode. Rewinding would let me get to 45:10 before jumpting right back to 39:53. The 'commercial skip' and 'instant replay' buttons would not let me into the missing five minute section, and the 'instant replay' facility could not get further back than the 45:10 point. Looks like I'll be using my pc and the old Sony RDR-HXD910 for all important programmes from now on. The one plus point in all this is that I can now record four different programmes simultaneously, although with the reduced channels we receive from the relay transmitter that's not likely ever to be needed.

@EEPhil, what I meant by "consistent within the recording" is this: let's say I record an episode of FG twice, versions A and B. When I watch A the skip patterns will always be P, Q & R, whereas watching version B gives skips at X, Y and Z. Once recorded the skip pattern doesn't change with that recording. I've not yet been able to generate identical skip patterns but I might have a go later this week.

My signal strength hovers around 75% which provides 100% quality (according to the strength meter), but I have seen brief freezes at times, for fractions of a second. Checking the meter afterwards doesn't show anything untoward so I don't know whether the mini-freezes were due to the signal strength. There were problems on Friday night and Saturday morning with loss of signal entirely several times, but afaik things were fixed by noon - I've not witnessed it happen since.

OK I get that. I think my confusion was that I don't think I'd seen anyone report a problem where once a programme was recorded the skip pattern changed on each viewing. That is, I assumed everyone was reporting "consistent within the recording". I'm finding it difficult to repeat the problem I had with The Shadow Line - that is the first skip occurred at exactly the same point in the repeat. Life's too short to check all the skip points!

Always thought it was just me and the signal or something but I've always had problems recording Family Guy and American Dad on BBC3, too. I've given up trying now, to be honest. Just another fun joy with the PVR-9300T

Not a stupid question. Yes, one uses a SATA to USB canle and the software explained here:

humaxdisk.wikispaces.com/HumaxRW

There are also alternatives to that which GingerBen has pointed out.

If you computer has an eSATA or an eSATAp port then connection via a SATA/eSATA cable is possible.
If all you want to do is extract recordings and do not like using line command then an alternative to humaxrw is HumaxReadFiles. Version 0.94 is available from the MyHumax site http://myhumax.org/blog/?page_id=153

Thanks to Luis Essex and GingerBen. I don't think my old computer equipment has heard of eSata or even Sata - so that's a no-no. Might look into it one day.

I bought a SATA external hard drive caddy for about £12, put the drive in and connected it to my pc via USB.

Hi,

Just to add another 9300t voice, Family Guy does exactly the same thing with us. Drives my son mad! I also noticed it on Torchwood on BBC1. The main programme was fine but the end credits skipped as soon as they started.

cheers

Sorry to bump this up again but it is the relevant thread.

For the first time my Humax 9150 bodged a recording or playback of a BBC4 programme. About 1 hour into "Montalbano" the Humax did its skip ~30s trick. Checking back in slow motion, ALL the picture information is there, the Humax just skips over it.
We were told that Humax were looking into this problem, but it seems to be spreading. Instead of keep repeating the last OTA update it's about time Humax fixed this problem and provided a new update. The Humax software is not fit for purpose.

I forgot all about this thread!

Mine still does it with Family Guy for some inexplicable reason, and all the missed 'footage' is viewable in slow motion reverse, as EEPhil says.

Sometimes if you persevere you can get it to play some of the missing bits by repeatedly rewinding in slow motion, but it never plays everything that it missing.

I'd love to know why it only has problems with specific programmes. Is this really a Humax problem, or a problem with the channel that is transmitting the programmes?

I have no proof of this - but I suspect the problem is both a BBC and a Humax one. The BBC may be introducing something into the data which the Humax wrongly interprets. I used to think it might be an editing suite that did this, but since it has happened on live programmes ("Andrew Marr", "BBC Breakfast") that theory is obviously wrong!
I am going to have another go recording this weeks "Montalbano" just to see if it jumps in the same place.

Family Guy and American Dad replay correctly on my 9200 and my friend's 9300, we are both in the Nottingham area. However watching an old recording of Ultimate Force the other night I did see a few seconds of jumping replay. I thought at first it had been interference during recording but I was able to see all the video by careful use of the 'jump back 7 seconds' button. Ultimate force was recorded from channel 24 I think, certainly not the BBC.

Is this just old FG or the new ones as well? How old an episode of Ultimate Force?

Various, or indeed most, of the people who have this problem seem to get it mainly on BBC3 and with FG and in any part of the UK. That would rule out one particular transmitter, a local interference or an individual disk fault.

The question is, what makes your/your friend's 9200/9300 different from those that have reported the problem? A different version of the software? Probably not, I guess the 9300 is using HPTTF 1.00.26.

I've not had this problem on ITV4, but then I rarely record anything from there. I vaguely remember a problem on Film4 once - but that was ages before DSO.

We have not had a problem with any Family Guy (and I record loads of them) or American Dad, new or old, repeated or otherwise. I have no idea why we don't have a problem but I'm guessing with the number of people that do it is spread across several software versions. Both our machines are up to date. My 8000 also replays both programmes without problem.

I didn't check when I recorded Ultimate Force and it's deleted now but it would be the last time it was on, probably early to middle of last year, and that was a repeat. Only a few seconds of this programme was affected.

Well, that messes up all my theories on what the problem might be. Dodgy batch of Humax hardware?

I too have long had the FG and AD problem. Hadn't realised till I read this thread how common it was.

More of a problem is that that my Humax 9300T now can't received channel 5 - it comes up as scrambled (but is fine on the actual TV). I can't reinstall as the installation button on the menu is inoperable.

Do I take it that this means the humax is slowly dying?

When you say it is inoperable do you mean it is greyed out. This happens if you are recording, it shouldn't be greyed at other times.

Yep greyed out, and you're right - it was trying to record the scrambled channel 5, which for some inexplicable reason has now returned, though breaking up every now and then. If the thing is dying on me I'll have to try and follow those earlier instructions about how to get my films on to the pc.

My signal strength btw is 76% and quality 100%.

I doubt that it is dying if only channels from a single multiplex are of poor quality. I would start by trying a manual tune using the detailed instructions by Big-les that are posted here pretty frequently.

Manual retune show left me with missing channels (as did an automatic retune). Having looked at some other threads on here, I decided to replace the aerial cable with a better one. Bingo, missing chanels restored and the pictures are no longer breaking up. Haven't tested AD and FG yet, but definitely hopeful.

I can confirm that the same "skipping" thing happens with my Humax PVR-9150. So it's not just your 9300's. It has happened very infrequently on other BBC recordings in the past, but seems to happen WITHOUT FAIL these days on any Family Guy episodes on BBC3. I've quite given up recording them. I've never had it happen on other BBC3 shows like "Being Human" or anything like that. So it must be a unique combination of cartoon strips and BBC3?!

My friend's v26 9300 is now skipping on Family Guy playback, up until recently Family Guy and American Dad played back fine. I have noticed that once the skipping starts it continues but can be stopped by pausing and restarting, play is then normal until another part of the programme triggers the skipping. I can also wind back to just after the point that triggered the skipping and then play normally through the part of the programme (after the trigger point) that previously skipped.

I have know idea why my friend's 9300 has started with this problem now.

The very recent FG that time-travelled to episode 1 was very bad in this respect!
You can wind back to just after the skip-point, but it's a b*gger to do accurately. The pausing and restarting usually works, but not always.

The fact that your friend's 9300 has just started this is very odd. Is it a problem just with older units - as in some component wearing out? (I don't think so, because I'm sure I've heard of it happening with new Humaxes).

Doesn't seem to be any news on someone (BBC or Humax) fixing the problem, even though they know it exists.

Stevewy's comment: "So it must be a unique combination of cartoon strips and BBC3?! " - Absolutely not! BBC1's Points of View is a good example of a programme that's a pain. As others have pointed out, it usually jumps when a letter is displayed. Have I got a bit more news for you (BBC1 or 2) has been known to jump about a bit. Some drama series on BBC1/2/4 as well. I don't think there is an obvious link between cartoon and skip (no kangaroo jokes, please).
Although the BBC like to say their data stream conforms to whatever standard, I still think there is something in it causing a problem with certain Humax products. I just can't prove it.
Last edited by EEPhil : 18-06-2012 at 20:29

Yes it is difficult to wind back to just after the trigger of the start of skipping but it's interesting that you can then watch the programme normally until the next bout of skipping is triggered. It's like once the trigger has occurred then the 9300 (and presumably the 9150) can't help but continue to skip.

As you say, pausing then restarting doesn't always work, I assume when this happens there is just a lot of triggers. The skipping is happening on new series episodes and new repeats of old series episodes. Unfortunately we don't have any old recordings to check their playback. My friends 9300 is about a year and a half old.