My PVR80 continues to give stirling service but for ages I've been meaning to replace the drive with a 2.5" IDE drive (to reduce noise, power consumption etc and also to give me the opportunity to copy off lots of recordings we want to keep).

However, I think I may have missed the boat as the cheap 2.5" drives are all SATA now. Has anyone seen any good bargains on 2.5" PATA drives recently? I'd be happy to stick with a 80GB drive if these are the cheapest.

Thanks.

I can't help with a cheap 2.5" drive, but if noise reduction is one of your reasons for wanting one, then there may be something wrong with your PVR80 anyway, because they don't normally make any noise except a little whirr or click occasionally when the hard drive wakes up and works. My PVR160 is still dead quiet.

parthena

To be honest, it is fairly quiet and only makes a noise when it spins up or is working very hard. In an old post, someone said that they replaced the drive with a 2.5" drive and, not only was it very quiet, but it also stopped the live picture from stuttering when the drive powered up.

There was a suggestion that the power drain when the full size drive starts momentarily disrupts the tuners, whereas the smaller drives don't. The tuners aren't very sensitive so need all the help they can get!

To be honest, I think you'll find that 80Gb drives are not much different price-wise to larger drives, since 80Gb is considered smaller than small now . Ebuyer still have an 80Gb Western Digital PATA 2.5" drive for under £40 - SATA drives of the same type are around the same price. When you look at larger drives you notice the difference more - I just bought a 320Gb 2.5" SATA for my PS3 for £50. Obviously, with the PVR80 you won't really want anything larger than 160Gb as it won't be used and might not work anyway.

I was pondering about getting a 320Gb 3.5" SATA drive for my T816, since SATA->IDE adaptors are only £3 on fleabay. But, having said that, by the time I'd bought other necessary cables it'd be just as cheap to get a PATA drive instead. Also, I'm not sure how big those adaptors are, but since it's a PCB that slots upright into the connector on the motherboard, I'm thinking it might be too high for the Vestel casing.

Of course, the other consideration once you start adding things up is whether buying a T825 is more cost effective, especially when they're on offer. For example, £35-40 for a new HDD (80Gb or 160Gb) or, £66 for a 160Gb T845 or £80 for a 160Gb T825. I didn't realize those T845 Top Up TV boxes were now so cheap, especially compared to the T825 - guess they are not so popular. I think I might have to check with Vestel whether they have any non TUTV software for the T845 .

I guess we'll have to take the posters word on that other thread, seeing as I haven't tried it myself. I'm not entirely sure that HDD power in spinup would affect the tuners directly. I get the impression that it's more a lack of cpu "power" - the software is working the cpu too hard and it can't keep up. Certainly this seems to be the case on the T816 and later. Then again, I guess somebody could always test the PVR by powering the drive externally - or did somebody already try that (seem to remember a thread about it).

I suspect the TUTV units are cheap because they are partially subsidised by TUTV (like Sky) as they get their profit from subscriptions to their TUTV Programming.

Colin

Good point but I like - and trust - the autopadding on the T810 (I'm still on the single record software). I don't think I'm ready to embrace the new fangled accurate record function yet.....!!

I can always find a use for a second hard drive but I don't think "she who must be obeyed" would be too keen on another PVR cluttering up the place. It does seem a bit wasteful.


Now thats a plan. I might hate being wasteful but I do like a bargain!


All I can say is that the live image and sound can get interrupted momentarily when the HD spins up even when just doing something simple like opening the library. If it is still spinning (but not under load) and you do the same thing, there is no interuption. But I would agree that the CPU limitations seem a more likely issue.

And, as most posters here already know, the T810 only has 32mb RAM.

Thinks : Must seek out reviews of T845

parthena

I think the only reviews available for T845s currently will be those using the TUTV software so this will mainly be a review of the software rather than the T845 hardware.

Colin

Oh. Thanks, Colin

parthena

Just as to not raise anyones hopes, the T845 is definitely TUTV only - there will not be any non-TUTV software for it.

Why is the TUTV software so rubbish? do we have piccys of it so we can all see, i assume we will all have to move to it in the end? Are the T845 more stable than the T816 etc?

Bogget

It is the TUTV software which determines the stability rather than the T845 hardware. As there are no T845s with Cabot/Vestel software installed you can't make a valid comparison with the T816,T825 etc. Read the threads in the Top Up TV Sub-forum and make your own judgement on the stability of the TUTV software.

Colin