Last night, while watching our HDR, we had a powercut for about 4 to 5 minutes. I noticed that when the power was restored the HDR automatically switched itself back on, rather than just reverting to standby mode.

This got me thinking.... although not ideal, surely if you leave your HDR on while you go away on holiday (not very ECO friendly I know) if you were to suffer a power cut the HDR would restart itself. This would mean all subsequent recordings should carry on as normal.

Just don't forget to disable the Auto Standby setting if you have enabled it!

Anyone else tried this with any success?

This is a known "partial solution", but there is concern at leaving the HDR on for any prolonged length of time, as the box needs to do its housekeeping at 03:00am in Standby, and what the effects would be of not doing it for, say 2 weeks. Do you want to volunteer?

Rgds.

Les.

I am amaze at how many people suffer from power cuts. I hav’nt had a power cut here since I can remember other than cuts that are very very rare for maintenance for which we where given notice.

I must be just lucky.

Any bets all the lights will go out in a minute.

I don't think it needs to be what a normal person would recognise as a "power cut" to upset the HDR. Glitches which leave most other things untouched seem to upset ours.

FWIW I left ours turned on for a week (while we knew the electricity was going to be on and off without warning) without any apparent problems on the box.

The obvious worry is that you're going to wear the HDD out more quickly - it's constantly buffering all that live programming that you're not even there to watch! I wonder if leaving it on a part time channel will stop it doing that some of the time?

Cheers,
David.

I leave mine on 986 all the time, the teletext channel - it's great because when I bring up the tv guide it is positioned just at the top of the major channels list so I can see easily what's on, plus I get no distracting channels while I am looking at the recordings I have saved.

I wouldn't think it would do any buffering or recording at all on that channel either. It might be an ideal channel to leave it on - should you want it left on for 2weeks!!

Patrick

Try leaving it on radio-- less signal to record.
I just checked that it does record radio !

Just read Patrick's post. That might be better if it doesn't record.
Does anyone really know ?

David
Last edited by SWIZZ? : 12-11-2009 at 10:10

Well it definetely won't record teletext, conundrum though how to set one tuner to teletext and the other to radio

I think your location might be a clue. Try living on the end of a piece of wet string that's called an overhead line. Joking apart overhead connections are subject to all sort of problems, Ice on conductors dropping off and causing the conductor to bounce into others, wind induced conductor galloping, lightning induced flashovers, carbonised blowing straw in crop burning season, rapidly growing trees in spring, I could go on but it might get a bit boring

There is a positive to over head power lines....

no TV but a nice romantic candle lit dinner with the OH, that is assuming you cook on gas.

When I fist got my HDR, I left it on 24/7 and it wouldn't last more than about 7-8 days before running out of memory, slowing down and eventually locking-up.
The firmware has a "memory leak" so it eventually runs out!
I presume Humax haven't addressed this (or ever will)

Even the very old sat. boxes had programmable "power on" behaviour so it is not too much to expect from a "current" box.

Perhaps its the push for very low standby power consumption that makes this difficult?

Frank

Might do wonders for the birthrate too

Les, what if in settings the configuration is set for everyday to switch to standby at 02:55 and to switch on at 03:30 - to take care of any concerns about housekeeping omission when left on over the holidays.

Yes, that's a good plan.

I think richard_g_uk might have done something similar when he went away on holiday - perhaps he will comment, here.

Rgds.

Les.

Marc, here is a link to Richard's experiences.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s...9#post35886139

Partially, successful, but there was a "freeze" on his box, for some reason.

Rgds.

Les.

I was reading this thread at work and thought I must post the link to my thread when I get home but I was beaten to it - cheers Les you saved me the hassle of searching for it

I never thought to set the on channel to the teletext channel to save the live buffering. As to why it locked up I don't know however I'll probably attempt simething similar this Xmas when I go away for 10 days (assuming I still have the HDR of course).

Les thats interesting. The timed standby coinciding with the housekeeping would have helped (if Frank1's theory of there being a memory leak) it continue scheduled recordings beyond the first week. Shame about the lockup killing it anyway! Assuming lockups aren't a problem on ones machine, I wonder what is the best channel to use for the 'power on' settings; the least demanding, or preferably one that won't TSR at all, that has no MHEG...?

EDIT: Sorry Richard I didnt see your post when writing mine. But I see we were on the same wave length

Any answers not involving a chain-saw??

Problem with this is ANOTHER BUG.
After a reset to defaults, the on/off timers work OK but after a short time, the ON timer fails.
I haven't had the OFF timer fail previously but this morning the box had not powered off as it should.

Emailing Humax is like "talking to a black hole".. nothing comes out!

Frank

Interesting.

Richard's post reports that he had his running with his On/Off timer workround for 2 weeks before his holiday with no problems

BTW, Humax, like many customer service depts have very aggressive (some would say too aggressive) spam filters on their email servers, so many do not get through. Telephoning is always the best option.

Rgds.


Les.

My solution to the powercut issues was installed today. My Sky+ HD viewing car hasn't arrived yet and i'm trying to watch as much content on the HDR as possible before i turn my Foxsat HDR off for the last time.

Not a pleasant 10 months.

Jono

When it arrives will it be 4WD, or nitro-boosted?

Oops Savvy, well spotted. Speaking of which though i might see if i can get a new mobile phine and get some Sky content on it whilst stuck at the M5/M6 junction that has become terribly sticky recently. Only joking of course!

Noticed that Bob_Cat has said in other threads that there are no more new features planned for the HDR. That's fine with me but (I think you know what's coming) are there any plans to fix the power cut bug (the only real major bug still remaining as far as I am concerned)? I would rather have had this bug fixed than the iPlayer update anyday.

Last year the electricity people cut our power for a few hours to cut trees down a few miles away. The trees had been knocking the lines and the power would die in high wind.

Our main trip switch is VERY sensitive also. If a halogen bulb in the hallway blows, all house power is cut. It's incredibly annoying. I have UPS and surge protectors on the good stuff, it's so regular.

Your sockets shouldn't be on the same RCD as your lights.

There was a short period (when RCDs were first mandated for house wiring) when this design of house electrics was common, but it's now frowned upon, and against modern regs. It's a nuisance, and it's also dangerous if the RCD trips at night to remove power from someone getting an electric shock - but simultaneously turns all the lights out so you can't see to help the person who has just received an electric shock!

For most of the last decade, the common standard has been split-load consumer units, with half the house on an RCD (downstairs sockets etc), and the other half of the house not on an RCD (lights etc).

Recently this has changed, and now almost every circuit has to have its own separate RCD (which, with an MCB, means having an RCBO for each circuit).

Cheers,
David.