Ditto. T835 (Hitachi HDR255) bought this morning from Argos.

Stutter/glitch when recording BBC1 and BBC2 at the same time, also I was messing with FF/RW at the time. Sometimes just the audio, sometimes some breakup of the image as well.

I think it happens like this:
- record BBC1 and BBC2 together
- go to the library and start watching one while it's still recording
- press stop to go back to the library screen
- glitch/stutter
But sometimes it seems to "just happen" even when I'm not playing with the box too much.

I have signal quality "very good" and signal level looks to be at >90%. I am on Redruth transmitter.

Software V2.6 as it came out of the box.

My Sagem DTR67250 never stutters on the same signal. Same chipset IIRC.

Pants. Just missed the OAD as well, but not clear if it might fix this issue?

Any suggestions?

According to futaura's website here the T835 Vestel units "are believed to be unaffected" by the DSO issue. The recent OAD of version 3,4 was to cure a different issue See futaura's webpage here,

Occasional stuttering has been a "feature" of most of the Vestel Freeview featured units even with good signal conditions. I have owned fiveT816 and T825 units which have all suffered from this during the first week or so of use, Rather oddly this behavior has for me and other users improved significantly after a few weeks use.

Colin

Colin, thanks for the link and the advice. Here's an observation which might be interesting to you guys:-

I have a years old Thomson DHD4000 with the original STM chipset. The box is still wonderful & beats the pants of most of today's units. But after the move to 64QAM during DSO it developed a stutter. The stutter got more frequent as we worked the box harder. Eg, recording 1 channel, stutter every 5 minutes, recording 2 and watching a recording, stutter every 30 seconds or so.

IIRC the STM chipset was certified for 64QAM. We never got to the bottom of it. The fact that the stutter depended upon system load seems really odd because looking at the internal architecture the 64QAM-ness is stripped off in the tuners and never reaches the digital parts (CPU, HDD, internal buses) and so 64QAM shouldn't affect these parts. Maybe there was a simultaneous move to variable bit rate or higher bit rates which the Thomson couldn't handle (IIRC the problem was particularly bad on BBC which might make sense)

Anyway the T835 suffers similar symptoms to the Thomson, albeit less frequently. We have a SAGEM DTR67250 which IIRC uses the same chipset. It's garbage in most respects, but the picture is rock solid. It never, ever stutters however hard you thrash it. We had a TVonics DTR-Z250 briefly, that was crazy for losing lip sync, stuttering and picture breakup.

Will persevere for a few days then...

cheers

A question, Colin

How do I remove channels from the EPG? For example I have dozens of radio channels in the EPG at the moment in which I have no interest. Setting Favourites doesn't seem to do anything to get rid of them, it only seems to affect the channel list.

the manual is very unclear on this point

thanks in advance

I think some of the issues on the Vestel PVRs and probably other brands also is that the demand on the processors have increased significantly as additional features have been added. There was a step change in response times to Remote commands when Accurate Recording was incorporated in the T816 and again when Series Record was included on the T825. These features incurr much more real time monitoring for recording control data and EPG updates compared to earlier PVRs which relied entirely on the system clock for recording timing.

A phenomenon of the Vestel PVRs is that the response of the unit gets progressively worse the more Timer events are scheduled and with the length of time since the last re-boot of the unit. Re-booting the unit restores responsiveness to optimum. Units with the Low Power feature benefit from this being used overnight regularly. Pressing and holding the Power button on the front panel for about 5 sec also activates a re-boot (on most software versions) as does power cycling of course.

Colin

I had never considered doing this so I hadn't a clue but I just looked and it's straightforward.

Whilst watching Live TV press OK to display the Channel list. Highlight the Channel you wish to Delete. At the bottom of the screen are various options including Delete. Select Delete and press OK, then confirm the deletion in the following screens. This deletes the Channel from the Channel list and the Guide.

Colin

Thanks Colin!

That seems truly bizarre. I don't mean to doubt you, but are you sure your tolerance level doesn't just rise to compensate? I can't imagine a mechanism for this to happen. Any thoughts?

How low level does the stuttering get? For a baseline, I watched "Wonders of the Solar System" on Sunday night, it stuttered 10-20 times in 1 hour, ranging from a small audio glitch up to a full blown picture breakup. What's a realistic expectation after a week or so?

cheers & thanks for advice

Interesting, I hadn't thought of it like that. Explains why my Thomson DHD4000 is so snappy - no Accurate Record.

Also your comment about rebooting for responsiveness might apply to my Sagem as well. The remote responsiveness can become farcical. Perhaps I should instigate a daily reboot while I have my breakfast.

"Units with the Low Power feature benefit from this being used overnight regularly." .... but I guess since I'm on V2.6 software I might have a problem with missing scheduled recordings. Best to do it by hand

I also was reluctant to accept that it actually happened to me but was convinced when others reported the same. The only logical explanation I can think of is that when we get a new toy we play with it very intensively. In the case of PVRs we probably try lots of actions in quick succession almost to the extent that we try to deliberately break it and on some occasions that happens. It's certainly not my tolerance level increasing but my pattern of operation does become more "normal" in time.
I don't watch hardly any programmes live, recording virtually all programmes we intend to watch and a good few we never get around to watching. It was usually Live TV that gave the most stuttering problems. It's nearly 2 years ago since I got my current LP250 Vestel PVR so I can't remember in detail how things progressed but I would guess that in the case of most of the Vestels I have had the stuttering was initially un-acceptable but after two weeks it was tolerable and after a month was acceptable. When I got my first LP250 I initially found it generally un-acceptable (see posts here and here) and returned it to Argos. However, after getting my Humax 9200 and liking it in general but disappointed in it's Accurate Recording performance I got another LP250 a few months later (see below). Incidentally you may be interested in some of the other posts in the thread containing the linked posts above.

I'm currently using my Vestel LP250HDMI (T825) as a back-up to my Humax 9200 so so it is virtually used only for playing back recordings. I don't recall seeing any stuttering for as long as I can remember, at least a year or so. I do get random recording failures for no apparent reason as I do on the Humax also. Hence one of the reasons for having a back-up plus also because the Accurate Recording performance of the Vestel is so much better than the Humax.

Colin

It's just occurred to me that this is an outrageous thread hijack! I'll post a new thread with my thoughts in the next couple of days (I'm actually getting to like this unit a bit more now).

I'll either do it in this Digihome section or maybe in the main PVR section, since I find the Digihome classification very confusing. Unless anyone can suggest a more appropriate thread to post on, eg is there a dedicated T835 thread?

Colin, thanks for the links to the Wharfedale thread. Cheers all

Most general discussion of the T835 Vestel units has been in the "New PVRs at Argos" thread here, although the title does not make this clear.

Colin

Just had a few goes at updating two Logik LPVR88 via cable. I did it with great success on a Digihome I also own. However the Logik just aint having it.
Thanks to futaura and the guy who saved the software, but the Logik just keeps the 10.2 software.

Yes - unfortunately, for some unknown reason the Logik boxes refuse to apply any updates applied via the RS232 port using the usual method. Everybody I know who has tried has had the same problem.

There may be a possibility of a repeat OAD for the Logik in the coming weeks, seeing as there is a v13.0 repeat currently broadcasting now for the Sharp models. This is the first repeat broadcast for v13.0 since they were originally broadcast.

Thanks for the ultra fast reply. The version 13 has worked on my Digihome, so all is not lost.
I missed your post on the update for the Logik, and wasn't in the country for the Digihome. Murphy's Law.
Cheers

Hi guys,

I've chanced on this thread, and thought you might be interested in some of the Thomson DHD4000 threads, where fixes for the power usage have been tried. check http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s....php?t=1237619, http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s....php?t=1176061, and http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/s....php?t=1286528, particularly the posts by tghewett.

I have replaced the 3.5" drive in my Thomson with a 2.5" drive, and the stuttering etc have been greatly reduced, although not totally eliminated. I don't know if this would work in your machines, but it may be worth a try.

Colin.

Hey, thanks for that. I spent ages trying to debug that. I assumed it was the CPU choking, but power is so mundane! It's a bit moot now that the EPG has stopped being broadcast.

I was gutted when my DHD4000 didn't survive the DSO. It was absolutely fantastic. Fast, intuitive, and it had features that we don't even see today (like grabbing bits of programmes out of the buffer if you asked it to record).

The T835 is not bad, I'd recommend it over Sagem & TVonics. Shame there are still some loose ends though.

I've learned to live without the EPG, and will soldier on with my two Thomsons until I can buy an HD Freeview twin tuner that works out of the box as well as the Tommy

It could be a long wait! :yawn:

Colin.

I like the T835 more and more. It works a lot like the Tommy did - more so than the competition. If Creddish is right and the T825 is functionally identical, I'd recommend that. I've seen T825s for sale for £60 ish online which is cheap as chips. I know it's not HD, but for the price of a tank of diesel you can get a pretty good Tommy-clone.

Not all the T825, T845R and T835 Vestels are totally identical in functionality. Basically they are very similar but there are variations in features depending on the software versions. Such variations include Low Power standby, HDMI and USB ports and CAM slots.

There are also differences in hardware notably SATA HDD drives rather than IDE in later models and less connectivity on the T835, having only one SCART and no RCA audio and video connectors.

Futaura's site here is a very good reference for detail comparisons.

Colin

Thanks, that's useful to know. Some time ago when my first Tommy packed in (yellow light of death), I bought a Bush from Argos, and it was such a load of crap I took it straight back. I had niaively assumed that after five years things would have progressed and that new PVRs would be better than my old Tommy!

Then I went on to this forum and learned how to upgrade the PSU with new capacitors, and got my old Tommy back working again. Since then this forum has been a great help, and I now have a second Tommy bought from Ebay with upgraded PSU. I'm about to fit the 2.5" HDD to it, and hopefully that will do me a while. If, however, one of them becomes terminally bust then I'll consider a T825 from Ebay.

Colin.

Sorry, should have said "similar". Putting words in your mouth and all that!

No prob.

Colin