My mother had no end of problems since the Winter Hill DSO. Her Digihome DTR160 would operate intermittently and fail to record. She lives in Nantwich.

We have finally resolved the problem by taking two actions.

The first was to remove any signal amplifiers and boosters.

The second was to clear out the tuning memory of the device and then do a manual retune.

Instructions on how to do this follow:

Try a manual channel scan. This will only set up the channels for Winter Hill and avoid picking up others that could be a problem.
You will not lose your existing recordings.

The chan numbers are 55, 58, 59, 61, 62

Part 1
Remove the aerial lead from your box.
Disconnect any booster amp.
On the Digihome -
Menu-Setup-Installation-First Time Installation - "Yes" - OK

This will empty your channel settings list.

Part 2
Replace the aerial lead on your box.
Do not put the booster back in circuit.
Menu-Setup-Installation-Manual Channel Scan- Enter "55" - "Yes"- OK

Repeat but enter 58

Repeat but enter 59

Repeat but enter 61

Repeat but enter 62

Finish.

Re-enter any series recording info.

This method will probably work for others who are having problems as well.

Unfortunately didn't work for me in Salford on an M6 postcode (we're getting very strong overlap from Moel-y-Parc) on either of the DTR160's i tried it on (both boxes jumping like crazy on any mux but PSB1 while recording?).

I even tried installing an attenuator, but that didn't work either!

Just replaced them both with SAGEM DTR67320T's (I know what I said about Sagem in the other forum) and it's solved the problems.

Must be something specific to the Vestel chipsets

Still getting some problems with this Digifusion 160 box and "jumping" recordings, so did some more diagnostics yesterday.
All of the TV stations are viewable from Winterhill, but some of the TV stations will not record without jumping.
All the stations on the Muxes carried on 61 and 62 - basically BBC, Dave, E4+1, Sky Three - record perfectly.
All the other stations on the other 3 muxes (excl HD) fail to record without jumping.
As these other three include the low power mux - Film 4 etc - this is not a RF power related problem.
It is not an 8k problem.
Have tried the box on two different aerials with and without two different amps. So its not coax, aerial types or power levels.
The only thing in common is that we can record on 61 and 62 but not the other 3 muxes.
Is this a transmitter problem?

Will also post on the general technical forum.

It's a mystery no doubt. I don't remember problems like this with the Selkirk DSO - just the T810 boxes that didn't work with 8K mode, and which Vestel soon provided a fix for. Obviously, it's got to be signal related in one way or another - it's just strange that only some people are having problems with their Vestel boxes (T810, T816 and T825 boxes all seem to be affected).

Hi,
I'm in the Granada post DSO region and I've had similar reports from 3 of my customers of frequent momentary feezes on recordings to a level, making recordings unuseable, they also show this to a lesser extent just watching TV
They are all using the Digihome PVR80 T825 with original V2.7 firmware dated 13-11-2007. My own 2 x T810's can also do it a little.
I have not had any such reports from my customers using the Hitach HDR163 T825 with V12.3 but 2 of these have had to be returned to Argos for exchange due to daily crashing (in 1 case twice daily!).
These Hitachi units were exchanged for the Alba ALDTR160 T845R which together with a number of T845rs that I have recommended to people have remained trouble free through the DSO.
Chris

Update to my previous post.

I've just tried to record "Above Suspicion" on my Digihome PVR80 - T810 - V5.7 and this produced the frequent pauses making it bad to watch. This was also present whilst watching live as the recording was taking place.

Chris

Sorry folks!
I have confused the Make/model of the 3 units with the severe recording problems.

They are not PVR80's but are the Techwood AEDTR80S7 (the late version of the AEDTR807 which if I remember rightly was a T816 unit)

Anyway, I'm just going into the corner now to write out "I must pay more attention to accuracy" a hundred times.
Chris

Same problems with my Digihome DTR160 here in N Manchesterford.

I tried the first time install/manual retune but it didn't work.

All was OK until the DSO. It must be a transmitter problem???

I've had a good whinge about post-DSO performance of my Digihome DTR160 on another forum, so won't repeat every complaint here. Essentially it has exhibited the same symptoms as other PVRs based on the Vestel T825 mentioned by other posters. I live in a village just down the road from Winter Hill and doubt that weak signal strength is a factor - seems to be 'very good' when I check configuration.

I have complained to both Vestel and Digital UK, and have tried to get comments from Argos (via the web site). However, their customer services people appear unable to answer any queries unless you quote a catalogue number to them. It isn't in the current catalogue, because they appear to have replaced the Digihome with a similar Alba model sometime over the past year. If anyone has an old Argos catalogue kicking around with the Digihome DTR160 in it, I'd be grateful for a note of the catalogue number.

In case it helps anybody else, the Argos catalogue number at the time we bought our Digihome DTR160 was 532/1344. My wife remembered they print that on the receipt. No need to search through old catalogues.

I don't intend on repeating all the details on the various threads, but for those affected by these problems, you may want to help by adding your details to a list - see the red Winter Hill text in a box near the top of the page for full details.

I raised the issue with the suppliers - Argos. This was their response:

Subject: Digihome 160 Freeview PVR

Thank you for your e-mail regarding the freeview recorder.

I am sorry to read of the problems that have occurred with your freeview recorder. I can confirm that as the product is outside 12 month guarantee we would require an official engineers report to state that the item is failing due to a manufacturing issue and is not fit for purpose.

Please send a copy of the report to:

Customer Relations
Argos Direct
Acton Gate
Stafford
ST18 9AR

Argos said "... we would require an official engineers report to state that the item is failing due to a manufacturing issue and is not fit for purpose".

I seem to be in the same position as you and would be interested to know what Argos would accept as an engineer's report. Several engineers seem to have commented on this and other forums that there seems to be a design/manufacturing problem with the software. But who would they regard as being "official"? Their own engineer?

I hope the software upgrade that I understand is ready to be tested will do the job and that Vestel will make it available promptly.

Sounds like a roundabout way of saying "No, you can't have a refund" to me . You're right - I don't know who would be qualified to officially confirm that the product is not fit for purpose. Probably an admission from Vestel UK would be the only option, but then if it is a software problem it will no doubt be fixed anyway. There were/are a number of digital boxes / TVs that simply stopped working in the past due to DTT changes, and in those cases where the manufacturer no longer exists probably the relevant reports that Digital UK list would be "official" enough.

I'm losing track of the threads that I'm posting this on, but if anyone would like to volunteer to test a newer software version (via manual RS232 upgrade), feel free to mail me. I currently don't have the new software, but am awaiting details from Vestel. Others have also had success mailing Vestel directly. If the problem can be fixed by software, then I'm sure OADs will be arranged in the near future.

Is anyone willing and available to demonstrate the T825 problems to Vestel's "test expert" tomorrow (20th January) or even today in the Manchester area? Details I've been given are sketchy, but I'm presuming they'll visit you to see the problem in situ.

Anybody interested, please send me a PM asap with your full postal address and contact number, and I'll pass this on to Vestel in Turkey.

A lovely man all the way from Vestel in Turkey has been to north Manchester to play with my Digihome box, twice now. He's taken pic's of test screens, downloaded stuff from his laptop to whoever (using my wireless broadband connection!) and fiddled about endlessly.

I have no idea what the technical explanation of the problem is, but he seems to think it's signal related and can be solved.

I don't think Argos can insist a customer has to find their own engineer to verify whether an electrical item is 'fit for purpose'!
Not sure where that fits in with the Sale of Goods Act - 12 month guarantees have nothing to do with consumer legal rights. If it's got the 'Digital Tick' it should work after switchover; it's on that basis that we all bought the Vestel boxes.

Thanks for the update tblzebra - I hope this goes someway to showing others how seriously Vestel are taking the problem. My personal hunch is that this issue has been present since the older T810 model, because people have reported the same symptoms way before DSO was a factor, but the cases were isolated. Whatever the conditions are that cause the problem to happen is exacerbated by Winter Hill for some reason. Hopefully a solution can be found via a software fix, once Vestel have identified exactly what the problem is.

Mr Software and Mr Hardware men came all the way from Vestel Turkey to visit me today in Manchesterland, and have installed new trial software on my T825 Digihome v2.7.

Eureka! They seem to have cracked the problem (Mr S actually wrote the original T825 software) so watch this space...

Vestel man has emailed me, to say they plan to do an OAD in a few weeks, with an upgrade to v12.8 software.

That's excellent news! Do you know if that includes all Vestel PVR's having this problem? (Such as mine, the ALBA DTR160 )

Assuming your Alba DTR160 is a T825 model (not a T845R), then I'm guessing it'll pick the same update up as the Digihome - they are the same machine after all, apart from the name badge. Whatever, it'd be reasonable to expect OADs for all T825 models, and that alone is going to be quite a headache for Vestel to manage - OTMH, there is going to have to be around 10 different OADs for the T825 models alone.

Thanks futaura. It is a T825 according to the label underneath. We'll see what happens with the OAD. Fingers crossed for all of us!

So, three months on and still no update for our faulty unit.
Anyone any idea when the update will be broadcast?

I'm waiting for Vestel to update me with an ETA. If you should wish to perform an upgrade manually via RS232, I can send you the v12.8 software which fixes the issue.

Hi F - yes would like a copy of the update file please.

Thanks