I am getting pissed off with the time it takes to delete recordings.
The Thomson is our 2nd DVR and as such I only get to maintain the recording list every week or so.
When I do, it takes a long time to delete the dozen or so programmes that have accumulated.

The sound and picture go when you are doing this and so it seems even longer.

And don't say you should delete them as you go along - it doesn't happen!!!

The Humax does this in an instance. Tick the programmes you want to delete and hit confirm. done in a few seconds.

Yes I reckon it's almost the worst thing about 6300, and still hope that the imminent software update will deal with it, as well as the FF/RW problem, and non-functional skip buttons

As someone else pointed out, the amount of time it takes to delete each recording varies considerably, almost unrelated to its length, but if you press 'info' button first (so that the synopsis replaces the thumbnail) it might be a bit quicker

- hints suggest that new functions will soon be available as well as fixes for 'most' problems, so it should indeed be an excellent machine!

Same as you 'nineteen' this is my 2nd PVR/DVR, my first being a Humax 9200, this delay when deleting is almost too painful at times, today it lasted 5mins and then I got fed up waiting and just pressed the power button, I then panicked, turned it back on and thankfully all was ok, recording deleted ok as well.

As for the fast forward still jumping back if this was my only PVR I would have taken it back by now irrelevant of how old it is on the sheer legality regarding a product not doing as it's supposed to.

Come on Thomson for gods sake sort this out, it's becoming a joke!

Is this the Thomson forum or the Hummy? Seriously, though I have both and agree with all above. The 6300 is my 4th PVR if u count the Sky+ I had and the Virgin V+ I have at the moment. The Thomson really needs sorting, the rewind bug really is a particular pain. Now waiting for the Humax Freesat PVR so I can get rid of the subscription laden V+ box.

By the way, with ref to the previous threads on fan noise on the 6300, I fiited a Fanmate which reduiced it to acceptable levels. The 6300 is in the bedroom and I had to turn it off at night to get to sleep but with the Fanmate fitted it stays on, but can still hear it a little. I wake up and think its raining outside!

b rgds, Pete

Hi PGS, I was under the impression form other posts the the noise was from the spinning hard drive, what is a fan mate?
The delete bug was not a problem when i purchased my machine last July so updates fix and cause problems.

Both the hard drive and the fan generate noise but the fan was the worst offender on my box. I ran without the fan connected for a month with no ill effects but the temps got to 50 deg +. So I fitted a Zalman Fanmate, which is a variable speed controller for the fan, available from Custom Pc's, Amazon etc for a couple of quid. Not a direct plug in job though as the small fan on the 6300 has a very small 3 pin plug that connects to the main board. So had to cut the bigger plugs off the fanmate and do a soldering job so not for the fainthearted never mind the warranty implications. Runs at around 39 deg now though with reduced fan noise so a worthwhile mod if the fan noise bothers you.

So the deletion function can takes several minutes to complete? I must admit I'd simply come to the conclusion that my box was crashing each time. Switching it off an on again does the trick, but I'm worried it may cause permanent damage. After all, the problem seems to be getting worse and worse on my box, affecting about half of all recordings. (Stuff my old Grundig box used to delete in a trice).

Another problem which I've only seen mentioned here before is the tendancy for the recorder to shunt back to the beginning of a recording while fast forwarding. I thought that was me pressing the wrong button! Mind you it happened so many times that I had begun to wonder if even I could be that daft!

This is a cheap box, and presumably uses inferior components - hence the need for the noisy - and electrically wasteful - fan. It's a good intro to PVRs, but anyone buying one must realise that if they are serious about their TV viewing, it will let them down time and time again. Recordings - 'missed' for no apparent reason - are a way of life.

I'm sure the manufacturer would have addressed these bugs if they were able to by now by offering downloads. Either that or they are not interested in people buying a second box from them.

That may be a misunderstanding - deletion of a recording usually takes ten or twelve seconds max. and is possibly quicker if you turn of the preview window by pressing 'info'

If it does take five minutes as mentioned earlier then fair enough to do a reset, and perhaps it was a crash due to corruption?

I guess most problems are due to poor reception, made worse if the aerial or installation are not up to scratch

While digital TVs and stbs can shrug off a few lapses of proper signal, a pvr needs a consistently good one because stuff is being written to hard drive. There is more of the same here http://www.ukkafka.co.uk/phpBB2/index.php

I have found that pressing the info button makes no difference to the delete time.

As for poor signal, I can see that causing problems in record, but surely not delete, where the info is on the disk already.

The file structure is probably to blame here, where the recordings are linked lists of bits of disk - which explains why it sometimes bombs out and restarts itself before reporting the deletion of a corrupted recording, - and if it seems to take longer to delete over time then maybe disk fragmentation may be to blame ?

Does a reformat of the disk improve this?

I was wondering if the recording itself was damaged...

PS
Haven't seen it myself, but apparently recordings can play ok but are shown as being much longer due to corruption. Maybe they could also suffer deletion probs?

That's a good idea about the structure, a format has indeed been reported to help with some recurrent problems. Are you ok with getting it up to 14 day epg etc after a format?

I think the time taken to do deletes increases with the amount of content on the box. The fuller the hard disk is, the longer it takes.

From what I gather the box is running linux underneath and the disk is formatted using ext2 and recordings are made up of several small files which go to make up the 2GB/hour that it requires. Linux ext2 file system is pretty old now - ext3 has been in use on most recent Linux distros for about 5 years now. From memory, ext2 always did have problems with large numbers of files in a single directory making access slow.

Sounds likely.
Not knowing too much about Linux, is the move from ext2 to ext3 likely to be a trivial one - at the application level?
I wonder if Thomson have it under consideration?

The answer is "it depends". I have no idea what version of linux they are running but if it's based on a reasonably recent kernel then it should be easy and transparent to an application. If it isn't then it's much more difficult.

i too have noticed this, infact i must say i think this box is crap. its rubbish.

im really considering buying a 2nd hand sky+ off ebay. the way it leaves that damn hard disk spinning all night must shorten its life spinning all the time

You still have to subscribe to a $LY package to get the recording facility........don't you?

Get a Humax 9200

It's better for hard disks to be running all the time rather than keep spinning down and up again, and with temperature changes. Most are designed to work that way. You could say the same of the thousands of servers running 24/7....like the one running this forum for example