Hi, just got an Hitachi 255 recorder, well actually got one on wednesday but had to have it replaced yesterday cus of some faults, anyway a few quick questions.

Does it have a feature to skip the adverts(or just time) on a recording? I can't seem to see a skip option anywhere, the only thing is obviously to fast foward through the ads? Is there a skip feature but i'm just not seeing it?

Secondly, there does seem to be a bit of a buzz to this machine, not just when recording, but just on normal viewing as well. It's not amazingly noisy or anything and you can't hear it over the tv, but the sound omitting from the machine is noticable if you have the sound quite lowor when theres quieter moments in a programme, is this normal?

Finally, when recording, the machine makes a funny noise every few seconds, sounds like theres a disc in there or something, can't describe it well but the kinda sound when a disc can't load/play but it tries to turn. If that makes sense? Anyway it does that every few seconds and although not loud exactly, you can actally hear it over the TV sometimes. Is this normal?

Have no idea about this kind of stuff so forgive me if all this sounds stupid!

There is a disk in there . That's probably the hard drive that you can hear. Did you buy it new? Normally the hard drives are very quiet in these units, in terms of noise when the HDD is spinning, but actually read/writes are relatively loud. You'll probably notice it most when deleting a recording from the library - is that the sound that you are describing? It is normal for the HDD to spin up every now and then, related to updating timers due to EPG updates, even when watching live tv and there can be what I'd describe as disk thrashing noises involved with this as the timers are updated. The unit shouldn't be buzzing when the HDD is not spinning though.

The advert skip buttons are not documented, I believe, but try the 4 arrow buttons around the OK button on the remote. These allow skipping of 30/120 seconds forward and backward.

Yeh bought it new, it makes that noise all the time whilst recording. Actually recording something now to test and i can hear the disc, sounds like it keeps starting and stopping?

I think you'll find that's normal - mine does that too. It's just the HDD writes that you can hear. I wouldn't describe it as loud, but I suppose it is relative to silence . That said, I have heard much louder - it's all down to the make/model of HDD. IIRC, these days the Hitachi boxes have Western Digital AV Green drives fitted - these are pretty quiet and power efficient, designed for use in PVRs.

Depending on where you have the box positioned, there could be some issues with vibration that will make it sound louder. For example, if you have it placed on top of a metal cased DVD player or something like that - the vibration from the HDD can sometimes resonate through other devices that the unit is touching (if this is the case, usually simply touching the box or lifting it up slightly will stop the sound).

Tried moving it but it's the same. It's not a massive issue but i'm just used to a normal freeview box with no noise/sounds, so all these new sounds are just a bit distracting to me intially. Sure i'll get used to it after a while.

Yep found the skip function now, it's a bit crafty it's not mentioned in the manual.

Another question though, theres no rewind live tv function on this is there? It's not mentioned but neither was the option to skip time!

What were the faults that the original unit had?

Well the picture was really bad, and it kept freezing an pixalating/jumping.

To be honest theres been a few of those issues with that with this unit as well but not as bad.

I've been watching itv for a few hours and theres been 3 or 4 'glitches' or whatever they are called. Each time i've just adjusted the ariel, but dunno if it's that or the box?

Do these boxes have an issue with that kind of thing?

To a certain extent, yes, in recordings. However, they can be mostly eliminated with a good/strong signal. Shouldn't happen when watching live tv though.

If you go to the setup/return menu, the manual channel scan will show the signal strength/quality for the particular channel that you were viewing. If you're using an indoor aerial, then I'm afraid that's not going to help matters.

I don't know if your manual is the same as mine which is for an earlier Vestel PVR (Wharfedale LP250(HDMI) but there is a hint about the Skip feature. On the list of functions for the Remote Control buttons shown (on Pages 8/9 in mine) in the table next to a drawing of the Remote the table lists the function of the Left and Right direction keys as "Skip 2 minutes (left/right).
The Vestel PVRs don't have a continuous buffer to provide rewind live TV. You have to press the Pause button to initiate recording a buffer and then you can use the RW and FF and the Skip buttons to scroll through the buffer. The buffer remains in operation until it is canceled by pressing the Stop button or changing channel.

Colin

I recorded an ep of The Simpons yesterday and watched it last night, the first half ran very smooth, then suddenly towards the end of the ads going into the 2nd half it kept jisttering and skipping ahead. Did that for pretty much the whole 2nd half. Just jittered, then skipped to a different scenes.

I've not tried aother recording since, but the couple i did before were ok on the whole. Dunno if it was just a bad reception on that channel at the time of the recording or whether it's the units issue or what?

Will record something else today and see if the same thing happens, if it does then the box is just not fit for purpose is it. But i'm stuck with either keeping this one or just getting a replacement cus Argos won't give a refund, just a replacement.

Oh and not an issue particulary but just been in the timers menu, and for some reason theres timers to record the repeat (if there is one) of the shows i've already recorded, watched and deleted over the last few days. Why is this?

No - this is just a "feature" of many Freeview+ boxes . However, it should be mostly fixed in the v3.4 software. If your box is running an older version, you're in luck because the v3.4 is currently broadcasting (until 9am Monday). If you do have an old version, without knowing the version that you have, I'd advise switching low power mode off and put the box into standby overnight because it should download the update at 3am. Alternatively try manually checking for the update (press OK over the version number on the configuration screen).

I knew that if something was series linked it might record repeats, but didn't know it was the case with individual recordings as well. None of the shows that i recorded and now have timers for the repeat appear as well were part of a series link and were just individual recordings.

Btw when i go into the config menu it says "Reciever Ugrade v3.4" which is what you say is the latest right? So does that mean thats the version installed already or the version thats ready to be installed?

That's the version already installed

Did you mean to say " No - this is just a "feature" of many Vestel Freeview+ boxes"?

Colin

No - my Sony RDR-HXD890 still records repeats just like the old Vestel software did. I remember reading about a couple of other PVRs that do the same too, so it's not that uncommon.

And to the original poster, the timers list has a habit of not being accurate and does not necessarily reflect the internal timer schedule. It may be that the repeats listed in the timer list may disappear after a reboot (or going in and out of low power standby), or won't actually record. Single timer events actually use the exact same mechanism as for series record, which is both a good and a bad thing .

Oh! right sorry.
I've also noted several spurious Timer events disappear before the event.

Colin