Humax DRT800 Owner's Club

[BigDog9721]

Okay guys... someone could make a mint if they would create a hack / software upgrade to EDIT TiVo recordings on the Humax DRT Boxes... any takers out there?

[justmike]

You should look elsewhere I seem to remember something about a deal on a data base .... Hummm .... That might be where I saw this topic discussed ... :)

[gcsheph]

Apologies if this is a silly question, but I'm new to these technologies. Are there any products, prefrerably Tivo/DVD combo like Humax, that have the capability of recording more than one event at the same time? Thanks in advance.

[Hank]

Apologies if this is a silly question, but I'm new to these technologies. Are there any products, prefrerably Tivo/DVD combo like Humax, that have the capability of recording more than one event at the same time? Thanks in advance.

My motorola HDTV cable box from RCN has two tuners, and can record two things at once, while playing a third. I think some DirectTivo products can do this, but I don't know more than that. Check with your cable company.

[azitnay]

Apologies if this is a silly question, but I'm new to these technologies. Are there any products, prefrerably Tivo/DVD combo like Humax, that have the capability of recording more than one event at the same time? Thanks in advance.

Currently, the only TiVo products with the ability to record two things at once are the DirecTV models (which work with DirecTV only). And none of them have DVD burners.

Drew

[sting]

I lost TiVo service on my DRT800 due to "The Recorder has not connected successfully to the TiVo service for more than 30 days". The fact, hwever, is that the DRT800 has connected successfully with TiVo. As a matter of fact, I've just done a few successful connections and I still received this message.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[sting]

I lost TiVo service on my DRT800 due to "The Recorder has not connected successfully to the TiVo service for more than 30 days". The fact, hwever, is that the DRT800 has connected successfully with TiVo. As a matter of fact, I've just done a few successful connections and I still received this message.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Called TiVo support and was told that they're aware of this serous 7.2 problem (which caused the DVR not usable) and they had no idea what was causing the problem. I was also advised that this problem should go away by itself within 24 to 48 hours and a couple people had reported that a complete guide setup would solve the problem. Well, I did a complete guide setup and I still have the same problem. I guess that I'll have to wait 24-48 hours to find out.

Has any of you experienced the same problem? Thanks.

[urungus]

Your command looks good except : 127Mb is not enough swap for a 300. You need about 1/2 MB per Gb, so you need about -s 150.

But then... any swap larger than 127 does not get initialized properly by mfstools, so you need to use tpip to fix it.

So you would have to

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdc | mfsrestore -s 150 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hda

For tpip version 1.1 then : tpip -swappwd -s /dev/hda
For tpip version 1.2 then : tpip -s -1 /dev/hda

You can get tpip pn the PVT CD image or from the web site LATEST TPIP (http://www.courtesan.com/tivo/tpip.html) which would be version 1.2.

What I did was I copied the tpip executable (thats the file just called "tpip" to the fat32 drive somewhere and that way I had it available to use.

Hope all this helps. BTW, the -s 150 is an estimate. ANother estimate I have heard is -s 192. I would sugest you go with the 192, is little space to pay to make sure you don't run out of swap.
There is a typo in the above instructions for tpip 1.1, which should be (note the TWO dashes in front of, and correct spelling of, swapped):
tpip --swapped -s /dev/hda

I successfully replaced my Humax DRT400's 40 gig drive with a 300 gig drive as follows:

Downloaded the lba48 boot CD (http://www.ptvupgrade.com/products/software/lba48/lba_4.01_license.html) (version 4.01 default boot no-byteswap) from ptvupgrade.
It contains mfstools, tpip 1.1, and large hard drive support -- all you need.

PC configured as follows:

primary master (aka /dev/hda) - fat 32 hard drive for backup of the Humax software
primary slave (aka /dev/hdb) - uninitialized new 300 gig Humax drive
secondary master (aka /dev/hdc) - bootable CD-ROM drive loaded with lba48 disc
secondary slave (aka /dev/hdd) - original 40 gig Humax drive

After booting from the CD, and pressing enter at the byteswap prompt, I typed in the following commands and the new drive was ready to go:

mkdir /mnt/dos
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/dos
mfsbackup -f 9999 -6so /mnt/dos/tivo.bak /dev/hdd
mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdd | mfsrestore -s 192 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdb
tpip --swapped -s /dev/hdb
umount -f -a -r

Finally, press Ctrl-Alt-Del and wait for the 'No more processes ... ' message or the system starts to reboot, then power down.

The third command writes a file called tivo.bak on the primary master drive, containing a backup of the Humax's operating system (but not any recordings you may have). Filesize will be several hundred megabytes, perfect for archiving to CD-R.

The fourth command copies everything, including your recordings, from the original Humax drive to the uninitialized new Humax drive.

There are two backups in case anything goes wrong: the original 40 gig drive, and the tivo.bak file

[eugene.k.liew]

Has anyone tried to Placeshift the DRT800 via a Slingbox? I cant seem to get the proper IR Codes to control the DRT800 via my slingbox.

Help?

Eugene

[ashu]

Should be no different than standard Series 2 TiVo codes. Is the SlingBox capable of handling that? What about the various remote codes? Perhaps you've changed the Remote code (see Sys Info screen) to something else on the DRT800.

[lajohn27]

I took a look in the manual, and it does indicate that this option is only for component outputs. Sorry.

I'm using Component outputs.. And I can't find this option either.

J

[kasjes]

Does anyone have an answer to 1)? Do you DRT-800 owners multi-task burning at the same time you are doing normal tivo tasks? I ask because I have a 1yr old XP PC system, where they tell you to "shutdown other programs when burning cd's". Does the DRT-800 have similar warnings? Have you destroyed dvd media when burning and tivoing at the same time? Or is the DRT-800 software setup to disallow any other tasks when burning?


I have the Humax, Great idea on a club by the way!
The answer about the quote above is. The Humax will record on DVD as well as record a show while you are viewing another saved program at the same time and still allow you to pause or rewind etal. I have recorded programs on tv in basic mode then put 6 hrs of video on one DVD-R disk in @ 40min while watching live tv and useing all tivo options. This is truely TV my way! I LOVE IT.

[Stout]

Burn Baby Burn!!!... Have always burned while recording and NOT 1 problem... FUSeeKay WinDoze... This is LINUX....

Burn while rec w/ no prob... At least 4 me...

JJ

[dhughes248]

I am dismayed. I have two T-800 conected via network, along with a Series 2 80-hour. I can not transfer from Sereies 2 SA to either T800 or from one to another to record on DVD. I just purchased a 300-hour to use as bulk storage/record and later trans to DVD. I get a audio/video incompatablity error message along with a circle with diagonal line or "X" on these transferred programs.

Any help appreciated.

Dave Hughes

[azitnay]

Yes, this is expected functionality -- no burning MRV'ed programs. Your Series2 doesn't record in a standard DVD-compatible format. Sorry.

You can, of course, use TiVoToGo to transfer recordings to a computer, where they can be burned to DVD.

Drew

[juanian]

I am dismayed. I have two T-800 conected via network, along with a Series 2 80-hour. I can not transfer from Sereies 2 SA to either T800 or from one to another to record on DVD. I just purchased a 300-hour to use as bulk storage/record and later trans to DVD. I get a audio/video incompatablity error message along with a circle with diagonal line or "X" on these transferred programs.

Any help appreciated.

Dave HughesYup - that's why I didn't buy a Humax when they came out. You can't transfer from a non-DVD TiVo to a DVD TiVo and expect to burn the shows to DVD. The non-DVD TiVos don't encode the shows in a DVD-compatible format, and the TiVo's don't support transcoding to a DVD format. (I bought a standalone DVD burner to transfer shows to DVD; not as convenient, but I can edit what goes onto the DVDs.)

Sorry

[nrnble]

Yup - that's why I didn't buy a Humax when they came out. You can't transfer from a non-DVD TiVo to a DVD TiVo and expect to burn the shows to DVD. The non-DVD TiVos don't encode the shows in a DVD-compatible format, and the TiVo's don't support transcoding to a DVD format. (I bought a standalone DVD burner to transfer shows to DVD; not as convenient, but I can edit what goes onto the DVDs.)

interesting.... so the Humax STORES\encodes the files in a standard MPEG2 format?

with my SAS1, I used unsupported software (ty studio) to get the job done. It is somewhat of a hassle, so i don't do it very often. I use a stand alone DVD recorder most of the time. Takes longer, but simpler to use. I just bought a Humax yesterday just for the hell of it.

[ThreeSoFar]

FYI, I can also confirm that a show recorded on the Humax, then transferred elsewhere, then transferred back to the Humax, can NOT be recorded to DVD.

[juanian]

FYI, I can also confirm that a show recorded on the Humax, then transferred elsewhere, then transferred back to the Humax, can NOT be recorded to DVD.Now that's odd. You would think that the Humax would check the format of the recording, but maybe it just checks the latest source of the recording (poor programming!).

Big question (I don't think I've seen answered anywhere): If you transfer a movie from a PC (using TiVoToGo), and if it is in a DVD-compatible format, will the Humax allow it to be put onto a DVD?

EDIT: Now, when you say "elsewhere", do you mean to a non-DVD Series 2, or to a PC?

[azitnay]

It's been mentioned in the past that the MRV / TiVoToGo doesn't preserve some of the metadata needed for a successful burn. Something that could perhaps be fixed in the future, but there's no guarantee.

AFAIK, it's never possible to burn anything that was transferred (unless you're talking about an analog "transfer" via A/V cables).

Drew

Drew

[ThreeSoFar]

Now that's odd. You would think that the Humax would check the format of the recording, but maybe it just checks the latest source of the recording (poor programming!).

Big question (I don't think I've seen answered anywhere): If you transfer a movie from a PC (using TiVoToGo), and if it is in a DVD-compatible format, will the Humax allow it to be put onto a DVD?

EDIT: Now, when you say "elsewhere", do you mean to a non-DVD Series 2, or to a PC?
To a non-dvd S2.

[Ipaqjoe]

:confused:

I just got off two hours of 5 phone calls with Humax, Tivo sales and Tivo customer service.

They say they are no longer making the 80 hour Humax Tivo with DVD recorder.
My 80 hour Humax lasted 15 minutes (Broken remote sensor)

I have been waiting 2 weeks for a replacement and I called today to find out where my new unit is (tracking number) when they gave me the news. We no longer sell it, Humax no longer makes them. Only the 40 hour Humax with DVD recorder.

My new dilemma is the 40hr Humax DVD-RW sells for $50 more than the 80hr unit. Tivo says they will refund the difference (fingers crossed)

To add salt to my wound :mad: I already paid for the lifetime service on the 80 hour so Humax told me if I want a replacement 40 hr unit without the 12 months of pre-paid service I have to jump through the rebate hell to get back the $150 sometime in the future :rolleyes:

Anyone have any news on what's going on over at Humax?

:mad: :mad: :mad:

[HIHZia]

I ordered an 80 unit off Tivo's website on the 21st and it finally shipped on the 30th of November. When I called to get a tracking number I was told that it was backordered and that was the reason for the delay. I knew they were going to be tough to find but I really wanted to replace the one I had that was stolen. I was always near capacity on the 80hr and didn't want to go down to the 40. Hopefully I won't have any problems with the new one, I never had any with the old one. All I can say is it's been hell without my TiVo.:(

[rb_9999]

It is easy to upgrade the drive. I upgraded my Humax 40 hour with no problem.

[HIHZia]

It is easy to upgrade the drive. I upgraded my Humax 40 hour with no problem.
I may upgrade eventually, but I wanted to at least get back to where I started.

[Ipaqjoe]

It is easy to upgrade the drive. I upgraded my Humax 40 hour with no problem.

Upgrading is no issue, I always do once the 90 day warranty runs out and I get up to date on the software that is the current version. A backup is a nice thing to have in case the drive dies on you someday.

I was just really pissed that there was no warning, no email, nothing!
Nothing that told me my replacement was on back order, no word that they don't even make them anymore, no clue I would never see a shipment!

What kind of way is that to treat customers?
Then they have a higher price on a lower capacity unit and say "Sorry we don't control the prices, we just place the order"

Hopefully this story has a happy ending...

[juanian]

Whoa! Are you saying that the 80-hour Humax DVD recorders aren't being made anymore?!? Also, I just checked TiVo's web site, and they didn't even list the 140-hour standard TiVo for sale. Is that model being made anymore? (Gee, what's the price difference between an 40GB and 140GB IDE drive these days?) Looks like marketing mayhem to me if it is true! (Or, maybe if a 300-hour TiVo wasn't priced at $700, more people would buy it instead of taking a $200 40-hour TiVo and adding a $100 drive to it to get the same capacity.)

[RhinoGang]

We've had our Humax DRT800 for less than a week now...IT'S GREAT! After some issues with getting our subscription working properly, and having to upgrade the software, we wireless networked the unit to our home network...IT'S GREAT! We have been listening to Christmas music, from our computer, through our home stereo for the past 5 hours...while we decorate for the season...and still have hours to go. No more switching CDs every couple of hours...IT'S GREAT!

Have I mentioned that in thinking about this unit we think IT'S GREAT!?

[RhinoGang]

We're a long way from filling the HD on our DRT800...when we do need to upgrade the hard drive, where can I find the information for doing the HD swap? Can more than one HD be hooked up at once? How about the existing HD and an external one? Thanks for your help!

[Ipaqjoe]

Whoa! Are you saying that the 80-hour Humax DVD recorders aren't being made anymore?!? Also, I just checked TiVo's web site, and they didn't even list the 140-hour standard TiVo for sale. Is that model being made anymore? (Gee, what's the price difference between an 40GB and 140GB IDE drive these days?) Looks like marketing mayhem to me if it is true! (Or, maybe if a 300-hour TiVo wasn't priced at $700, more people would buy it instead of taking a $200 40-hour TiVo and adding a $100 drive to it to get the same capacity.)

Yes, that is what three different people told me at either Tivo ordering, shipping and customer support. They gave no reason why they are gone even though I asked several times. One person also mentioned that the 140 hr was gone as well. As I look at their site today looks like just the 40 and 80 hr standalone and the 40 hr Humax DVD-RW are the only choices. I don't see the 300hr Humax anymore either.

[Ipaqjoe]

We're a long way from filling the HD on our DRT800...when we do need to upgrade the hard drive, where can I find the information for doing the HD swap? Can more than one HD be hooked up at once? How about the existing HD and an external one? Thanks for your help!

This is a good start
http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php

or read the Tivo Upgrade Center section of this forum.

Yes people have put more than one hard drive inside but beware as far as I know no one makes a nice "factory like" bracket. You would have to just set it inside and tie it down with zip ties or something. The issue is there is very little room inside with the installed DVD drive compared to the Non DVD-RW models.
May lead to heat issues as well (less air flow) more heat producing drives inside.
I myself would stay away from dual drives inside. With a DVD to archive stuff off the unit I would think a 300-400GB single drive unit would meet most peoples needs.

External drives:
I have not heard of anyone using one. I am 99% sure the USB ports cannot be used to add a hard drive (If that is what you mean)

[rubbinsracin8]

I have the DRT800, and was wondering how to upgrade the hard-drive. What type to use, hot to format, how to install. I can build a computer, but is it the same for the Humax? Just oper her up and put a new drive in and plug her back in and let Tivo format? Help would be great! :up:

[azitnay]

Not quite that simple... See the link in Ipaqjoe's post above.

Drew

[howardfin]

One other thing, I have heard of issues with MRV and the Humax. No probs at all. Got it going last night. Have not tried to burn a transferred show. I was told that it was not possible.

Thanks for the information you've collectively provided, all! (Maxi-kudos to petew, also kudos to gastrof, rcobourn, and (maybe) "too many to name"

KNOCK ON WOOD or something: I guess I've had beginner's luck with my TivoHumax (non-upgraded drive) in service nearly 1 year. I've burned a few hundred discs and was surprised that several of you had the problems indicated so early after purchase because the only unit I have to compare is a Lite-On All Write 5005-6 which has been SO bad, SO often, that the Humax seems like a healthy workhorse, and an earlier Series 2 TiVo @ version 7.2.1-oth-01-2-140 but with no dvd writer/player.

Tivo/Humax issues (beyond personal non-preferences discovered) have been near non-existent or minor, until the last few weeks when failure frequency increased in dvd-burning.

I'll try to watch your threads/opinions as to whether imminent HD failure, software version, etc. Naturally, I'd like to replace the "80 hour" HD with one of greater capacity, but a) it scares me and b) I wonder if too late to be effective now that problems are increasing albeit slowly, which may mean I will just replace the "whole thing" and be glad for as long a run as has been. Wouldn't like a replacement unit to be less satisfactory.

This unit's version is 7.2.0-elm-01-2-595. Would any among you conjecture that the next software version to come along will just make matters worse?

[ThreeSoFar]

Upgrade is relatively easy.

I made TiVoOpsMgr aware of the perceived problems with the Humax DVD burning since the last software update. Haven't heard anything from them on it though.

[howardfin]

Upgrade is relatively easy.

I made TiVoOpsMgr aware of the perceived problems with the Humax DVD burning since the last software update. Haven't heard anything from them on it though.

Thanks. I was glad to see your IR information as well; that had been unsatisfactory early on: sometimes recorded wrong channel altogether. With the serial connector, no more wrong channel, but TiVo begins recording before the channel changes, and records the change. I'm surprised I haven't noticed anybody else annoyed about that. In many cases, I program five minutes separately, before the beginning of a show I want.

I joined the forum(-a) to read others' theorys about fragmentation, searching on defrag in case of a manual method I missed. I wondered if my disc failures might be due to having been running the HD quite nearly full for a while, and maybe the 5 minute recordings. I'd already turned off "record suggestions when space allows" and I reduced the shows in Now Playing, but from reading here, neither nearly full HD, nor fragmentation are that likely of causes for disc failure/internal error.

[nrnble]

I'm one of the first owners of a SAS1, bought in 1999 or early 2000. Love it, still have it, still use it. Also have a DirectTivo and UTV.

I've upgraded my new Humax to 250hrs and just begun to use it. So far i like the simplicty of it because it is a Tivo, but as others have noted, there is a noticable drop in video quality. We'll see if I become accustom to lower quality after a some period of use.

Question: Is there any way to trim the "start" and "end" of a recorded program before burning. Example. I have a basketball game recorded and want to archive it on DVD. I want to start the burn right at the tip off (trimming 10 minutes of pre-game) and trim the end (15 minutes) shortly after the game has ended.

if not, i'll just keep doing what I've been doing, using a SA DVD recorder, which also allows me edit out the commericals and get a game onto a single 2hr DVD at a decent video quality.

thx

[azitnay]

No, no way to trim a recording before burning. Sorry.

Drew

[nrnble]

No, no way to trim a recording before burning. Sorry.

That is a disappointment. I work in software development, so I understand that software can't have all the features each person wants, and every feature increases support costs. But damn, no trimming before burning. Yeah, i do understand its not technically easy to accomplish as one might think. More than moving the Start\End pointers around


Another question: Typically, will 4 1-hours shows (ie CSI) recorded at Medium, fit on to a single DVD, or does the 4th show spill over onto a second DVD?


I've been using a SA DVD recorder for a few years, and I have grown accustom to making very clean dvds that contain only the content I select. I knew the Humax could not edit recorded shows before i bought it, but i am going to wonder how often extra dvds are going to be required because the content has lead in and lead out stuff. Its not an issue of cost, just simply keeping the content on a single DVD rather than spanning it over several if i can avoid it.

[azitnay]

Four shows recorded in medium quality that are all exactly one hour in length will fit perfectly on a single DVD, but if even one of the shows is 1:01 in length (as NBC and ABC seem to love to do), you'll probably need a second DVD.

Drew

[rkester]

I'm guessing that if it could edit out commericals, it would have been shut down quickly. And we'd probably not have a Tivo at all to use.

As far as content on mutiple discs. I have never had content that required 2 discs. But i plan my dvd archiving based on the length and rec quality of the program so it always fits.

[ReaDOnlYP]

Why did Tivo stop selling this model? Guy at work wants to get it!

[nrnble]

Four shows recorded in medium quality that are all exactly one hour in length will fit perfectly on a single DVD, but if even one of the shows is 1:01 in length (as NBC and ABC seem to love to do), you'll probably need a second DVD.
Thanks Drew.

What you say doesn't make me too happy because that means realistically I can only put 3 1-hr shows on a 4 hour dvd , or I need to spend extra time\energy\focus making sure each show is exactly 1 hour or less. The later being more of a hassle than using a SA DVD recorder that has more flexibity and higher quality. When I edit out commecials with my SA DVD recorder, I get three 1-hr shows on a 2 hour DVD, thus the quality is very high.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how I decide to use the Humax with its pros/cons. In the end, I'll use which ever (humax or SA DVD recorder) is easiest to archive shows.

[aizjanika]

It's been mentioned in the past that the MRV / TiVoToGo doesn't preserve some of the metadata needed for a successful burn. Something that could perhaps be fixed in the future, but there's no guarantee.

AFAIK, it's never possible to burn anything that was transferred (unless you're talking about an analog "transfer" via A/V cables).

Drew

Is this true even if you transfer the files to your computer and then transfer them back?

Like what happened with so many others, my DRT800 won't burn to DVD any more--very suddenly after I've used it for a year and burned hundreds of DVDs. We finally called Humax yesterday and they said they'd send us another unit to swap out with the one we have. The man on the phone suggested we transfer the programs already on the hard drive to the computer and then transfer them back to burn them to DVD. (I do have a DVD burner in my computer, but I don't have the right software--and I didn't want to have to buy it. I have the version of Sonic...whatever-it-is that came with my computer. I don't really liked the program, so I can't see paying $80 for another version of it.

I don't really have a clue how any of this works, but it was my understanding that the quality of the video wouldn't be as good if burned from my computer either, so I've wondered it that was due to the transfer process, which would mean that even if I *could* transfer the programs back and burn them, they would be of a lower quality than I'd like.

Hmm...

[aizjanika]

Tivo/Humax issues (beyond personal non-preferences discovered) have been near non-existent or minor, until the last few weeks when failure frequency increased in dvd-burning.

This was my experience. I bought the unit and once I had it set up, I've never experienced any problems at all. With my first 100-pack of DVDs, I had maybe 5 failures, if that. Since then, I've had none at all until this week. Now I can't burn anything, and one DVD I burned recently wouldn't play all the way through when I tried it tonight.

[aizjanika]

Yes, that is what three different people told me at either Tivo ordering, shipping and customer support. They gave no reason why they are gone even though I asked several times. One person also mentioned that the 140 hr was gone as well. As I look at their site today looks like just the 40 and 80 hr standalone and the 40 hr Humax DVD-RW are the only choices. I don't see the 300hr Humax anymore either.

That's odd. We called Humax just yesterday and they said nothing about this. My DRT800 (80-hour) isn't burning to disks any more. The guy on the phone was so nice. He said they'd send us a new unit within 5 - 7 business days. He said nothing about a backorder or that they weren't making them any more.

[azitnay]

Is this true even if you transfer the files to your computer and then transfer them back?

Yes, I believe any transfer invalidates the ability to burn to DVD.

Drew

[lajohn27]

Once the file is transferred to a computer.. You cannot burn it on the TIVO directly.

It does appear that TIVO and / or Humax are trimming some of the larger capacity and more expensive models from the lineup.. My theory is that this is in anticipation of the launch of new models in the New Year.

J

[aizjanika]

Yes, I believe any transfer invalidates the ability to burn to DVD.
Once the file is transferred to a computer.. You cannot burn it on the TIVO directly.


Well, that sucks. The guy told me I'd be able to transfer the programs back and burn them to DVD that way. :-( So now my only option is to buy the expensive software for my computer or lose the shows. :confused: :(

Thanks.

[HIHZia]

Well, that sucks. The guy told me I'd be able to transfer the programs back and burn them to DVD that way. :-( So now my only option is to buy the expensive software for my computer or lose the shows. :confused: :(

Thanks.

Just hook up the non-burning unit to the front jacks of the new one and do a manual record of anything you want to keep. You'll be able to burn them since they weren't "transfers". You might see some PQ loss due to extra compression but I did it for a friend who was getting rid of Direct Tv and had some shows on his D*Tivo. He thought they looked great. :up:

[lajohn27]

DTIVO to DVD would be fine.. DVD to DVD would look like crap.

There are ways to transfer the shows to your PC and then burn them with a standard piece of burning software.

They cannot be listed here. Send me a PM.

[aizjanika]

Just hook up the non-burning unit to the front jacks of the new one and do a manual record of anything you want to keep. You'll be able to burn them since they weren't "transfers". You might see some PQ loss due to extra compression but I did it for a friend who was getting rid of Direct Tv and had some shows on his D*Tivo. He thought they looked great. :up:


Thanks. Maybe I'll try that. Should I leave the old one hooked up, and then hook up the new one to that first? Or hook up the new one, set it up with Tivo, and then hook up the old one...

LOL I'm already confused. It sounds simple enough. Could you post instructions? Thanks.

[RhinoGang]

Howdy Gang!
What is the difference between DVD-R/-RW and the DVD+R/+RW? I know the R & RW part, but am confused about the '-' & '+'. Also, did I read somewhere that we can only use the DVD-R/-RW?
Thanks for your help!
jim

[azitnay]

They're simply differents of formats of recordable/rewritable DVD media. If you buy a DVD burner, say for a computer for example, it'll support one or both formats (many are dual +/- nowadays).

For the purposes of your Humax (at least at the present time), you can ignore DVD+R/RW, as it only supports DVD-R/RW.

Drew

[rkester]

The - and + are just alternative forms of disc burning, here is a complicated explaination of the 2:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/113

I dont udnerstand it, so I opt to think - is better since i can use it on my home player and friends players so I stickw ith it.

[Mr. Coffee]

The - and + are just alternative forms of disc burning, here is a complicated explaination of the 2:

http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/113

I dont udnerstand it, so I opt to think - is better since i can use it on my home player and friends players so I stickw ith it.

Seems to be harder to find the - stuff, though.. I know around here there were many choices for "+" media, but only 1 or 2 for "-".

[HIHZia]

Thanks. Maybe I'll try that. Should I leave the old one hooked up, and then hook up the new one to that first? Or hook up the new one, set it up with Tivo, and then hook up the old one...

LOL I'm already confused. It sounds simple enough. Could you post instructions? Thanks.

Hook up the new one for normal use. Then take the Video, (S-vid) if you have the cable and audio outs of the old one to the Vid&aud inputs on the front of the new one. In the Tivo Menu of the New choose to do a manual recording (from VHS or Camera) I'm not sure where the menu is exactly but you should be able to find it. It will then ask you how long you want to record so you should know what shows and how long before you start. I will then let you see what is coming through the front inputs so you can cue up your "tape". Either choose your show using the front button on the old Tivo or really shield the remote so it doesn't try to control the new one as well. Then start recording.

It sounds more complicated than it really is.

Good Luck.

[RhinoGang]

Thank you all for your help in understanding this. Have any of you found a good source for buying the -R/RW discs? The only place I can find it locally (small town) is at our Super Wal-mart...would like to find less expensive alternatives if they're available.

[azitnay]

http://www.pricewatch.com/ lists DVD-R's as cheap as $0.17 each, depending on how many you're willing to buy.

Of course, the quality of the cheapest ones is probably a bit suspect.

Drew

[ThreeSoFar]

Hook up the new one for normal use. Then take the Video, (S-vid) if you have the cable and audio outs of the old one to the Vid&aud inputs on the front of the new one. In the Tivo Menu of the New choose to do a manual recording (from VHS or Camera) I'm not sure where the menu is exactly but you should be able to find it. It will then ask you how long you want to record so you should know what shows and how long before you start. I will then let you see what is coming through the front inputs so you can cue up your "tape". Either choose your show using the front button on the old Tivo or really shield the remote so it doesn't try to control the new one as well. Then start recording.

It sounds more complicated than it really is.

Good Luck.

You can also program your two TiVos to different remote codes, but probably not worth the effort unless they'll be cohabitating in the same room for good.

[nrnble]

Objective: install TivoWeb Plus on the Humax

Need: a boot CD that has large drive support and includes the tivoftpd and tivobin

About 2 years ago I installed TivoWeb before on a SAS1 box. The problem I have now is that old CD boot disk (jenkins.iso) does not support large drives (humax has 250gb), so now I am looking for another boot with cd the right kernal and software to first install tivoftp and remote shell. once can ftp into the and get a remote shell, i know pretty much I need to do.

thx

[ThreeSoFar]

No help here. But if you have those on a non-boot media, keep in mind you can mount them once your boot CD is booted. The (most of the) boot CDs use a RAM disk and do not use what's on the CD once you have the # prompt.

[azitnay]

Objective: install TivoWeb Plus on the Humax

Need: a boot CD that has large drive support and includes the tivoftpd and tivobin

About 2 years ago I installed TivoWeb before on a SAS1 box. The problem I have now is that old CD boot disk (jenkins.iso) does not support large drives (humax has 250gb), so now I am looking for another boot with cd the right kernal and software to first install tivoftp and remote shell. once can ftp into the and get a remote shell, i know pretty much I need to do.

thx

Unfortunately, there's really no software-only way to install hacks like these on Humax units (and other units whose TSN starts with a 5)... You'll have to hack the PROM first, which isn't trivial.

Drew

[nrnble]

Unfortunately, there's really no software-only way to install hacks like these on Humax units (and other units whose TSN starts with a 5)... You'll have to hack the PROM first, which isn't trivial.

thx. I'm not going to do any hardware hacking. Yet another disappointment about the humax besides the lower video quality.

If I understand what has been written, installing pretty much any hack\enhancement (remote shell, ftp, tivoweb, etc) will not run unless a PROM is hacked first.

....and other units whose TSN starts with a 5

where can I read up on what has changed in these units so I can understand why these software hacks nolonger work. Are there other threads that talk about it?

[MKREdit]

I've been considering picking up a DVD burning tivo to add to my setup. The 2 humax units I see are the 400 and the 800. I have not been able to figure out what the difference between the 2 are. does anyone know?

[aizjanika]

I've been considering picking up a DVD burning tivo to add to my setup. The 2 humax units I see are the 400 and the 800. I have not been able to figure out what the difference between the 2 are. does anyone know?

I'm not sure but the 800 has an 80-hour Tivo. It could be that the other one you're looking at has a 40-hour Tivo. That's one of the reasons we bought the 800. (Even the 80-hour isn't large enough, though I've made it work for me for now.)

[ThreeSoFar]

40 hour yes. I believe they're not making/selling them anymore.

Upgrade is pretty easy to larger size. My 800 now has a 200G in it, for 224 hours or so.

[azitnay]

where can I read up on what has changed in these units so I can understand why these software hacks nolonger work. Are there other threads that talk about it?

There's probably not much discussion around here, but I'm sure DDB has plenty.

Drew

[lajohn27]

The DRT 400 is the 40 hour .. this unit is still generally available.

The DRT 800 is the 80 hour and this unit seems to be harder to find. It appears that they are letting the stock in the retail channel deplete for the 80 hour units without being replenished.

The HUMAX DVD burning units (and probably all TIVO DVD units) have both better and worse picture quality.

The DVD units store their video at 720x480. This is a higher resolution than the other Series 2 TIVOs. Therefore, it takes more memory per frame of video to store the image.

Personally, at the HIGH or BEST setting, I find the image from my DRT-400 to be super crispy and very pleasing to watch. Definitely way better than any of the settings on my old S2.

I used to use MEDIUM on all my S2 recordings. I can't do that with the DRT unit. But, I fully plan to upgrade the hard drive to the point where this doesn't matter.

I'm enjoying the crispy image on HIGH or BEST set recordings too much to care about the decrease in HD space.

[RhinoGang]

Hi Gang!

Is it just my unit, or is there an inherent problem with these units randomly rebooting? On at least 4 occassions since we got TiVo (since 11/27/05) the unit powers down and reboots. Most recently when I was about 97% into burning a DVD. The last time when we were just sitting down to watch a recorded program. Any ideas?

Also, I am using DVD-R discs to burn to, but am averaging 2 discs for every movie/show I am recording due to 'recording error'. This can't be normal...can it? One of the movies I recorded hung up in the last 5 minutes of the movie...couldn't watch the rest. Any ideas on this topic?

Thanks for your help and insights!

jim

[Xenophod]

The DRT 400 is the 40 hour .. this unit is still generally available.

The DRT 800 is the 80 hour and this unit seems to be harder to find. It appears that they are letting the stock in the retail channel deplete for the 80 hour units without being replenished.

....

I used to use MEDIUM on all my S2 recordings. I can't do that with the DRT unit. But, I fully plan to upgrade the hard drive to the point where this doesn't matter.







Yeah, I bought the DRT 400 because I couldn't find the DRT 800. I would have liked the DRT 800 right from the get go, but alas, none were around...

Since I've seen where people have said that the DRT 800 doesn't have enough space, I'm Seriously thinking about putting a larger hard drive in there. Especially now that you've said the High Quality setting is best for this brand...

Is that easy to do?


Edit:

Also, I'm going to network these units.
I'm thinking about getting the D-Link DWL-G122 USB Wireless Network Card.

Does anything have Good/Bad things to say about that adapter hooking up to the DRT400/800?

[lajohn27]

Random Reboots:

Got my unit on Nov 18th (god I love presents).. and no random reboots whatsoever. (Discounting my initial failed attempt to upgrade the HD)

As for Ethernet - for transferring shows and the like - nothing beats a wired Ethernet connection. I suppose few can accomplish this.

I have cable internet, so the router/hub is behind the TV and the TIVO gets a wired connection using the D-LINK DUB-E100. The computer is actually on the other side of the wall behind the TV - so it too gets a wired connection.

I found wireless to be generally.. just too slow. Admittedly, I did NOT try the 108 Mb/s wireless adapters.

[danieljanderson]

Yeah, I bought the DRT 400 because I couldn't find the DRT 800. I would have liked the DRT 800 right from the get go, but alas, none were around...

Since I've seen where people have said that the DRT 800 doesn't have enough space, I'm Seriously thinking about putting a larger hard drive in there. Especially now that you've said the High Quality setting is best for this brand...

Is that easy to do?


Edit:

Also, I'm going to network these units.
I'm thinking about getting the D-Link DWL-G122 USB Wireless Network Card.

Does anything have Good/Bad things to say about that adapter hooking up to the DRT400/800?

As you select your quality, keep the thought of burning a show or shows to DVD in the back of your mind. Higher quality means more disks.

[humax4u]

I have a Humax series 2 ...40hrs recording. my problem is I'm tryng to link the unit to internet via cable network, I have a Linksys router and I find it hard to obtain a wireless adapter, linksys that is. I need a series "b" version 2.6 or 2.8. They don't make those, the only linksys adapters are G series. has any one tried using a different brand with the linksys router?

[alexcue]

you don't have to use a linksys wireless adapter, any brand will do as long as it's recommended/certified by TiVo. Check the Tivo website for compatible ones.

And yes i've used Microsoft, Buffalo Tech, Intel, geez the list goes on and on... all work fine with my Linksys WRT54G.

[TivOkie]

This was my experience. I bought the unit and once I had it set up, I've never experienced any problems at all. With my first 100-pack of DVDs, I had maybe 5 failures, if that. Since then, I've had none at all until this week. Now I can't burn anything, and one DVD I burned recently wouldn't play all the way through when I tried it tonight.

Had similar experiences. Bought my 800 in September and it worked great. Now I'm getting "Internal Errors" every time I try to record a DVD!! Tried several different brands of DVDs and nothing seems to help.

[ThreeSoFar]

Pretty easy, yes, if you've ever done any hardware stuff inside a PC (changed a hard drive, for example).

Google "hinsdale howto".
Yeah, I bought the DRT 400 because I couldn't find the DRT 800. I would have liked the DRT 800 right from the get go, but alas, none were around...

Since I've seen where people have said that the DRT 800 doesn't have enough space, I'm Seriously thinking about putting a larger hard drive in there. Especially now that you've said the High Quality setting is best for this brand...

Is that easy to do?


Edit:

Also, I'm going to network these units.
I'm thinking about getting the D-Link DWL-G122 USB Wireless Network Card.

Does anything have Good/Bad things to say about that adapter hooking up to the DRT400/800?

[Xenophod]

Pretty easy, yes, if you've ever done any hardware stuff inside a PC (changed a hard drive, for example).

Google "hinsdale howto".



Sweet! Thanks!

I think I'm going to hold off on upgrading the Hard drive for a while though...
It looks like the Humax line of Tivo/DVD-R units have high failure rates.

I don't want to void any warrenty by jumping in there.


Thanks!

[SurfPine]

Does anything have Good/Bad things to say about that adapter hooking up to the DRT400/800?

The below was an issue I had recently. I have since resolved the issue. I did email Humax about this issue and to date have not received any response from them.



This issue has been an ongoing problem for the last 3 months. I have been just dealing with it by plugging in a phone line every week or so to get updated schedule information.

Here is the story, which by the way I have seen other similar stories with no real resolve to the problem.

I have two series 2 networked Tivos. A Humax DRT800 and another series 2 Tivo, forget the exact model. Both Tivos were wireless connected at one time with D-Link DWL-122 adapters. I received a new laptop from work and the wireless router I was using had to be replaced because the new laptop would not stay connected. My new wireless router is a Linksys WRT54GC and I am having no problems with it outside this Humax DRT800 problem.

My current wireless network settings are no encryption, no ssid broadcast, DHCP and MAC filtering. I used to use WEP, but I have disabled that because of the Humax problems. The Humax used to connect to the old wireless router with WEP and MAC filtering.

I am very competent with computers and networks, part of my job I get paid for. During the troubleshooting phase, I removed the WEP and I was able to get the Humax to connect but had to revert back to the WEP settings so my wife could work from home until I could make the change permanent. This weekend was the time to change the network permanently. Now, I can't get the Humax DRT800 to connect with WEP or no WEP. It will not get any signal. I enabled the ssid broadcast, still no connection but it can see the ssid name. I have connected the phone line in an attempt to run through the entire set-up again. I removed the wireless adapter, set the Tivo connection to phone line, then rebooted the Humax. I walked through the set-up again, using the phone line for set-up. Once complete, I tried to add the adapter. It saw the adapter but will not connect to my network. I have swapped the network adapter with the upstairs Tivo and the upstairs Tivo continues to connect fine. So, the DWL-122 adapter on the Humax has been proved good.

What I need to know is how to completely delete all information for the adapter on the Humax. I know that the programming geniuses for the Humax are retaining network information some where on the Humax DRT800. This has got to be what is causing this stupid problem. Right now I don't dare call Humax tech support because I refuse to be treated like an idiot with someone telling me to reboot the Humax or that it is an adapter problem or my network. I am so frustrated with this, I would probably end up getting very short with them for not listening to what I would be telling them. I am very UNIX knowledgable and have no problems going to the command line to remove some settings if needed. I just do not know what Linux settings to touch on this Humax and if it is possible.

Does someone have any helpful information on this? I have not seen any resolve to this type issue when I have searched for this, many times on this forum.

Followed by:

I finally got this thing to connect. I have a feeling that the signal strength the DVR reports is way off. I would receive 20% - 35% when it was not connecting. It just did not make sense. I added a high gain antenna to the wireless router to increase the signal. The signal now reports 40% - 55% and will connect. Since I have it working now, I am trying to avoid making any more changes by adding WEP. Connection now is broadcast of the SSID, MAC filtering.

My suggestion for anyone else experiencing a similar problem is to move their WAP right next to the DVR wireless adapter and see if that allows a connection.


EDIT: Just noticed you were asking about the 'G' version DWL adapter. I am using the 'B' version. Maybe the info will be applicable, maybe not...

[frodneb]

Interesting Phenomenon...

I have a DRT 800 with a D-Link DWL-G122 v. A2 and a D-Link DI-524 router. Although every time I check signal strength at my Humax I show a connection, and if I remove the USB adapter the connection ceases, so there is communication with my router. I can do an ipscan from my computer and not show the Humax. Then, if I reset the router and again perform another ipscan the Humax comes up. It will stay up of about 5 minutes, and then the ipscan does not show the Humax...it appears that the problem is in the router as every thing remains the same with the Humax. Any insights, suggestions, or ideas?

Rich

[subtvdan]

You can easily burn a dvd and watch live tivo or tivo "now playing" with all your normal tivo options. You can also add to the default name of the disc (example Mythbusters can become Mythbusters #1 or Mythbusters nov05). When you play the dvd back in othe players your title will appear and if more than 1 program was put on the disc the are divided into chapters like a normal dvd. Hope this helps

[netserf57]

My 1st ever TiVO purchase is the DRT800 which I got from TiVo for $199. I added a second used series 2 that is a 60 hour unit for my bedroom. I purchased a refurbed Netgear WG-111 which may be flaky and I am waiting for another Netgear for the second TiVo.

I am having the flaky remote problem with the Humax. I am confused by some threads here because when I called earlier this week, I got the comment they knew the problem and were working on it with TiVo. then some here report it as a hardware problem that Humax is swapping units over.I will give it more time and hope it gets fixed before calling back to complain.

quick question - is the capacity of the DVD-RW that is in the box limited? It wanted three media to record a 2 hour movie - wow.

another question - will TiVo to TiVo transfers be fast enough to stream the date from one to the other and view at same time?

Looking forwatd to modding one of these to increase capacity. It just is not big enough. Is the preformatted way through Weakknees value added enough to justify the extra cost?

[rkester]

flaky remote........ let me guess... it sometimes doesnt register button presses. and sometimes it does 2 presses. right?

tivo2go transfers....... yes, more or less. once its streamed a while you can start watching it. however I found that the playback was jumpy when I did this on mine (from a pc to my humax). supposedly tho it should work fine from one to another during transfer. unless your connection is reeeeally slow.

[Hank]

flaky remote........ let me guess... it sometimes doesnt register button presses. and sometimes it does 2 presses. right?


Yes!!! I've had this problem for a while, and have been meaning to post about it. Any solutions?

Also, the UI on the program guide is slow as molasses - about 1 second to just go "down" one line on the channel list. Very frustrating. My SA1 is instantaneous.

[rkester]

I know of no solution to the remote problem. Its one many of us have. I've complained to tivo and humax but got nothing but a "sorry" type response.

And the UI/Guide being slow is also a common problem. It got slower when 7.1 (or thereabouts) was installed on my machine.

I keep hoping for a update to the guide to fix that.

Not sure if the remote is hardware (remote or tivo) or software. All I know is, it was not a huge problem then it got horrible in the last 6 months or so.

[azitnay]

quick question - is the capacity of the DVD-RW that is in the box limited? It wanted three media to record a 2 hour movie - wow.

Sounds like the movie was slightly longer than two hours, and you recorded it at best quality. The recording qualities have the following max capacities on a DVD:

Best - 1 hour
High - 2 hours
Medium - 4 hours
Basic - 6 hours

So, you'd probably want to record that movie at medium or lower to fit it on one DVD.

Drew

[wi.tivo.fan]

(Sorry Folks. I saw this cool thread after posting this more generally.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have had a 40hr Series 2 TiVo for 15 months. Thinking about the Humax burner model to save me time.

I am getting the impression that the Humax is not a Series 2 device. Does that mean it won't function with TiVoToGo?

What would I lose if I give away my Series 2?

[DavidSTiVo]

I know of no solution to the remote problem. Its one many of us have. I've complained to tivo and humax but got nothing but a "sorry" type response.

Yes!!! I've had this problem for a while, and have been meaning to post about it. Any solutions?

THERE IS A FIX!!

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=277546

[netserf57]

THERE IS A FIX!!

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=277546


can you elaborate? The link went to the discussion about the problem - what is the fix?

[DavidSTiVo]

That thread pretty much sums it up, there's not much to read there. See the first 3 posts.

[trovan]

I just bought an open box Humax 80 hr Tivo and took the 7.1 upgrade. So far, I have not seen any double click issues and everything seems to be working ok...knock on wood.

What is the time frame I would expect to see issues if my box was like those who have had problems?

Trovan

[netserf57]

I just bought an open box Humax 80 hr Tivo and took the 7.1 upgrade. So far, I have not seen any double click issues and everything seems to be working ok...knock on wood.

What is the time frame I would expect to see issues if my box was like those who have had problems?

Trovan

immediately!!

[HTH]

I know of no solution to the remote problem. Its one many of us have. I've complained to tivo and humax but got nothing but a "sorry" type response.

Not sure if the remote is hardware (remote or tivo) or software. All I know is, it was not a huge problem then it got horrible in the last 6 months or so. I recently got an 80hr unit and have the remote problem too (as recently posted in the Help forum). I can say that it isn't a problem with the remote itself; I've tried using other remotes and the unit still has problems responding reliably. I haven't opened mine yet.

I had one other problem I hadn't mentioned. Once while trying to use the front panel controls, the unit decided it didn't want to respond properly to any signals, giving the usual *bongf* noise to every press on either the front panel or the remote. Not even the TiVo button! I had to unplug the unit and restart to get it to respond.

The Humax TiVo is the first bad experience I've had from stock hardware. Looks like I'll be giving Humax a call. (I just hope it doesn't mean exchanging the unit for one without Firewire.)

[MKREdit]

Well for xmas I chose to pick up 2 off the refurb 800's from http://www.tivo.com/2.0.southwest.asp one of the units functions properly the other had the remote problem. A call to humax and the replacement unit is on it's way they did'nt seem to fuss about it. only when it arrives will I be able to determine wether the problem will be resolved.

I wish I could understand the logic in why tivo's still ship with older versions of software. I could understand this happening when 7.1 was initially released but it has been out there long enough to be installed initially on a unit that ships. Just out of curiosity does anyone know why they would do this?

FYI: the difference between a 400 and an 800 is the DRT800 has a firewire INPUT (not ouput) to enable all digital recording from an external source the 400 does not

[richof]

I have had my DRT800 for about a month. The double click problem started as soon as I got the 7.2 upgrade. I got a replacement from Humax without much problem. It is a DRT800F with the made in China 12/05 date. It seems some folks have had good luck with that one. Not me. I talked to Humax several times with them stating that a fix is coming and that I should be patient. After waiting another 2 weeks, I just requested my second replacement. It is DEFINITELY a hardware issue as far as I can tell. It amazes me that Tivo has been silent throughout this ordeal. There must be 1000's of users having this issue and trying to live with it. I am real close to tossing it out the window. Without fluent remote performance, the machine is a paper weight.

[rkester]

I complained to Tivo about it when it first started. I had forgotten how bad it was until I fired up my Series 1 again (this was months ago) and saw how fast its guide worked and how it responded instantly.

I sure hope they fix it soon.

Id also like to see the compression problem fixed as well but I doubt they can do that with software.

[cdeckert219]

For what it's worth... I bought a DRT400 a little over a month ago. I've successfully burned about 75 DVDs (Memorex and Sony brands, DVD-R 16x). A full disc (one hour of program at best quality) takes just under 15 minutes. The only "coasters" that I've made were when I tried to use Fry's GQ DVD-R 4x discs. Discs work in all other players that I've tried (PC, set-top player, in the car). It will be nice when the software can support faster than 4x burning.

Upgrades: I plopped a 300gb Seagate drive in as a replacement for the original, and replaced the 40 wire cables with 80 wire (for both the HD and the DVD). Works great, but not any faster. Easy upgrade following the guides mentioned in posts above. While inside noticed that the burner is a Pioneer DVR-109.

I futzed with a couple different wireless and wired adapters, but gave up and ordered the TiVo branded 802.11g adapter. Simple setup, but verrryyyy slow transfers using TTG. I have a Belkin Pre-N router on the other end.

I haven't experienced the sluggish remote problem that others have reported. I'm running 7.2.1-elm-01-2-595. Ir Controller Version=TiVo!; Ir Database Version=214.

All in all, I'm VERY pleased with the unit. My family and I have become TiVo-addicted and get frustrated with non-TiVo television setups.

[JeffInDFW]

I've got 3 tivos...an SA1, an SA2, and 80hr Humax that is running the latest software. I bought the Humax when they first came out. Picture has always been VERY soft, and just WAYYYY to dark. If I turn progressive off, the picture looks sharper, but still too soft. I kept the Humax, figuring they would SURELY fix these problems, but after several years now, it still looks like poop, and to make matters worse, now it is INCREDIBLY slow. I came on here today hoping to find some good news, so I could fix all this, but it looks like everyone is still facing the same problems. I've had it. The Humax is getting pulled this weekend and thrown into a closet. I'm sick of watching dark fuzzy television on my 50" DLP TV. Having DVD burning capability is not worth it to me anymore.

As I said, I love Tivo....but DESPISE my Humax. :down: :mad:

[ThreeSoFar]

I've got 3 tivos...an SA1, an SA2, and 80hr Humax that is running the latest software. I bought the Humax when they first came out. Picture has always been VERY soft, and just WAYYYY to dark. If I turn progressive off, the picture looks sharper, but still too soft. I kept the Humax, figuring they would SURELY fix these problems, but after several years now, it still looks like poop, and to make matters worse, now it is INCREDIBLY slow. I came on here today hoping to find some good news, so I could fix all this, but it looks like everyone is still facing the same problems. I've had it. The Humax is getting pulled this weekend and thrown into a closet. I'm sick of watching dark fuzzy television on my 50" DLP TV. Having DVD burning capability is not worth it to me anymore.

As I said, I love Tivo....but DESPISE my Humax. :down: :mad:
If it's lifetime'd, you could easily get $400 for it, I'd imagine.

[crabtrapcatnap]

Hi, longtime lurker first-time poster.
I've a DRT800 that I purchased from the TiVo website October 2004 when they first became available. I had had no problems to date with it over the past 14 months.
Then, this past Saturday, I was watching a DVD on it when the whole thing died suddenly. It will not come back up. What exactly do I mean by 'died'? Well, when plugged in it does nothing, no fan, no hard drive whir, no led display, no dvd bay controls. If you put your ear close to the power cord entry point, you can hear a faint clicking.
My diagnosis would be that the power board/supply has died. Has anyone else experienced similar? (Also, at the time of 'death' it was plugged into a mid-to-high-end power strip surge protector that is supposed to guarentee nice little sine waves of AC. The TV, cable boxes, and other TiVo [series2 80hr] were all plugged into same power strip as well and experienced no ill effect. There was no storm outside at the time and the lights in the house didn't flicker.)
Since, I don't believe it is under warranty anymore (1yr right?), I wanted to put the diagnosis to the hive mind here on the board before venturing over to weaknees for a potential power supply replacement. I've not seen any complaints about this w/r/t/ the DRT800 to date so I think it must be quite rare.
Thoughts; advice?
Any help/similar experiences appreciated.
-Mike

[ThreeSoFar]

Give Humax a call. They've given replacements pretty readily for simple problems. You might get lucky.

[Jerry®]

Hey all - I just received my Humax DRT800! It was a refurb so I got a deal (I think). I have it all hooked up and am using a USB wired ethernet adapter to connect it via my DSL. I think I've read almost all of the posts for this thread and have learned a lot. I do notice that watching TV through the TiVo makes the picture a little darker and a bit grainy - but it' sok for my taste. I made sure I got the firmware upgrade so now I have 7.2. Anyway, the SAVE TO DVD feature is so cool! I love it.

I wanted to ask - any Mac users out there? I see there's no TiVo Desktop for Mac OS 10.4! What's the deal???

Anyway, thanks for starting this thread!

Jerry
TiVo newbie

[ThreeSoFar]

How is the TiVo connected to your TV?

If it is connected via RF (coaxial), you can do better if your TV has composite inputs.

S-Video + L/R audio BEST
L/R audio + composite (yellow) video BETTER
RF for both audio and video on channel 3 or 4 (WORST)

[Jerry®]

TiVo is connected S-Video +L/R audio - which is weird because I could have sworn that using composite video (yellow) looked better...? Hmm.

Anyway, I got TiVoDesktop to work with Mac OS 10.4.4 - even tho it says it' snot supported. My iTunes and iPhotos are available on my TV/TiVo as we speak. Sucks that TiVo doesn't support AAC.

[rkester]

Using a Mac here but not running Tiger. I love my drt8 except for the horribly poor quality when played thru an HDTV... but being able to put my videos on dvds easily is so nice.

What quality setting do you use? I would recommend sticking with High or Best when you can. Medium is horrible on the drt's.

[jonhunt]

I have a DRT 800 and I've had a couple of problems.

One may not be related the unit. I have it set up with a wireless adapater and I frequently lose the connection and it is very difficult to get it reestablished, even though the IP and DNS settings appear to be correct. I am going to try several new steps, including using Netstumbler to see if other networks are in the area, and disabling a cordless phone that's nearby.

The other issue is that I have so far been disappointed in the DVD. I successfully burned a DVD, but then I have found so far I can't play it on other DVDs. This may be because it is an RW disk. Supposedly their reflectivity is not as good as the single use disks, but I haven't tried one of those yet.

[netserf57]

I have a DRT 800 and I've had a couple of problems.

One may not be related the unit. I have it set up with a wireless adapater and I frequently lose the connection and it is very difficult to get it reestablished, even though the IP and DNS settings appear to be correct. I am going to try several new steps, including using Netstumbler to see if other networks are in the area, and disabling a cordless phone that's nearby.



similar problem - reposted from other forum
I have two TiVo units. The Cursed HUMAX which is soon being replaced and a Series two. I got my second NetGear adapter this week and intealled it on the Series 2. The Humax use to work wirelessly but also has quit on me with the Gateway not found. The series 2 is fine.

Now the funkiness. The Playing List on Humax shows the Series Two and Visa Versa. but I cannot connect from either to the other. I can "see" anc access the Series 2 but not the Humax from my computer.

While I intend to -replace- the Humax when I get the new one in the mail - I was hoping to xfer programs to the series two to not lose them --- How can I get room2room transfer working? How can I get the Humax to work. I have tried all the recommendations I have read here.

don

PS - no WEP if that matters
PPS - The Humax uses DHCP and I assinged it a fixed address at the wireless router. The Humax successfully gets the IP address I assigned to it so I know it is working wirelessly.

[Tivho]

Hi folks. It's looks like I might be purchasing the drt-800. I am concerned with some of the problems I have read about but I will not be using the unit to burn that many dvd's. It is mainly for tivo use and dvd playback. I need a dvd unit for this tv and digital audio is nice. Suggestions are welcome.

After reading the entire thread and posting one thread, I have a final question.

Overall, comparing the drt-8 and a series 2. Is the "best" setting on a series 2 superior picture quality to the "best" setting on the drt? I am not willing to sacrifice PQ for dvd playback, and I would put a 300gb drive in a 40 hour series 2 otherwise.

Or, are they the same quality on the best setting, but the drt just uses %25 more space?

Edit: I am not sure about this one. I plan to go from my cable box with digital audio to my 5.1 reciever for live DD simultaneously while composite RCA to the Humax. Will I experience latency issues unless I run the audio thru the Humax, then to the 5.1 reciever for live tv?

[crabtrapcatnap]

Hi, longtime lurker first-time poster.
I've a DRT800 that I purchased from the TiVo website October 2004 when they first became available. I had had no problems to date with it over the past 14 months.
Then, this past Saturday, I was watching a DVD on it when the whole thing died suddenly. It will not come back up. What exactly do I mean by 'died'? Well, when plugged in it does nothing, no fan, no hard drive whir, no led display, no dvd bay controls. If you put your ear close to the power cord entry point, you can hear a faint clicking.
My diagnosis would be that the power board/supply has died. Has anyone else experienced similar? (Also, at the time of 'death' it was plugged into a mid-to-high-end power strip surge protector that is supposed to guarentee nice little sine waves of AC. The TV, cable boxes, and other TiVo [series2 80hr] were all plugged into same power strip as well and experienced no ill effect. There was no storm outside at the time and the lights in the house didn't flicker.)
Since, I don't believe it is under warranty anymore (1yr right?), I wanted to put the diagnosis to the hive mind here on the board before venturing over to weaknees for a potential power supply replacement. I've not seen any complaints about this w/r/t/ the DRT800 to date so I think it must be quite rare.
Thoughts; advice?
Any help/similar experiences appreciated.
-Mike
Thanks for the advice. I called Humax (not TiVo) and they immediately offered to replace/exchange the unit. The only caveat is it will be a refurb. most likely since the DRT800 is out of production. If that refurb fails (I think unlikely) they will repeat exchanges ad infinitum.
All in all my experiences w/ the DRT800 have been overwhelmingly positive. Though I do agree w/ the two digs often cited here. Namely, that a) the codec used requires me to use the 'high' recording quality setting for watching and most burning to achieve the look that my regular series 2 does w/ the medium setting, and b) since OS 7.2 the menu response has become more sluggidh. Still, it's a nice box overall, it will be my goto box until the series 3 arrives.

[ThreeSoFar]

My PM response to TiVHo.

All the speeds on the DVD burning units are based on DVD size. Best fits exactly one hour on a 4.7G DVD.

My 200G Samsung in the DRT-800 is:

50 BEST 1hr on DVD
73 HIGH 2hr on DVD
149 Medium 4hr on DVD
224 Basic 6hr on DVD

The same size in my regular S2:

64 BEST
102.5 HIGH
135 Medium
224.5 Basic

So if I read that right, BEST on the DVD is a tad better quality than BEST on a regular S2. I don't notice any difference, but I'm not that picky on video, either.
Hi, I am considering buying a DRT-800 and have one question I can't seem to get answered.

Is the "best" quality setting on the series 2, a superior PQ to the "best" setting on the DRT-800?

I know they use diference codecs and the DRT uses more space for mpeg2, but which is a overall better quality picture/resolution. I am using an HDTV, will be upgrading the drive, and won't be burning many dvd's. It will mostly be used for tivo and dvd playback.

Thanks

-Dave

[KingCrutch]

Hi all, new DRT800 owner here, just got it setup yesterday and only now starting to get familiar with the unit. The forums here have been great.

One question...I would like to record the Super Bowl (go Steelers!) so that I can burn it to DVD for posterity.

I understand that if I record at Medium quality for 4 hours (about the length of the SB broadcast), I will be able to fit the game on 1 DVD. But I've also read here that people are unhappy with the quality of DVDs recorded at Medium.

Will I regret recording at Medium for the purpose of fitting on 1 DVD? Is it really worth the superior picture in High to stretch the game over 2 DVDs?

Thanks!

[TivoBrian]

Will I regret recording at Medium for the purpose of fitting on 1 DVD? Is it really worth the superior picture in High to stretch the game over 2 DVDs?


Why don't you experiment with a couple of recordings prior to the game to find out what your personal preferences are? After all, it's not like a couple of blank DVDs cost all that much! Then you'll be able to determine for yourself if the inconvenience of having more than one DVD is worth the extra picture quality.

That said, however, I'd say you might want to consider two DVDs. Fast-action sports at lower qualities tend to show more visible pixelization than at the higher qualities. It also depends on your TV -- if you're watching on a 40+" big-screen or a 27" CRT, the picture quality can make quite a difference depending on the size of your screen. (And whether or not your eyes are over the age of 40.) :D

Personally, I've got a 43-some inch big screen -- I'd go for the higher quality of two DVDs. But...it's a personal preference!

[Bob TeaTow]

For a program or movie "worth" saving for "posterity" - consider recording at high or best quality. Dump to -RW discs - then take it over to your PC and rip the content with dvd-shrink and/or dvd-decryptor - then you can edit out the commercials or other parts you don't like and/or just choose high-light clips -- then re-burn onto a fresh DVD blank at whatever bitrate/quality you choose...

I had similar concerns - so I search this board and found that some popular tools are
DVDShrink and DVDDecryptor - I've used them in the past and plan on using them with my DRT800.

Of course it would be much cooler to be able to transfer directly over my home LAN - but from my read of these boards - I couldn't find a software hack that allows that (yet!) with DRT800.

Experts - I'm a newbie to DRT800 - Do I have this correct?

[ThreeSoFar]

With TiVoToGo you should be able to transfer directly to the PC from the DRT800. Then use similar software (not sure what is best). I believe it needs to be re-encoded to allow this. Never done it though.

[Bob TeaTow]

Ah! I read some outdate info -- now I found on this board...

The DVD recorder models got TTG capability in the spring IIRC. Tivo just hasn't updated their support pages.
All standalone series 2 Tivo's support TivoToGo now.


so taking this post as true and cool - so for "keepers" that we want to edit/re-encode, we can use TivoToGo to transfer to PC

otherwise just use the built-in DVR recorder...

or watch and erase or let be overwritten in the old Tivo way

[KingCrutch]

Why don't you experiment with a couple of recordings prior to the game to find out what your personal preferences are? After all, it's not like a couple of blank DVDs cost all that much! Then you'll be able to determine for yourself if the inconvenience of having more than one DVD is worth the extra picture quality.

That said, however, I'd say you might want to consider two DVDs. Fast-action sports at lower qualities tend to show more visible pixelization than at the higher qualities. It also depends on your TV -- if you're watching on a 40+" big-screen or a 27" CRT, the picture quality can make quite a difference depending on the size of your screen. (And whether or not your eyes are over the age of 40.) :D

Personally, I've got a 43-some inch big screen -- I'd go for the higher quality of two DVDs. But...it's a personal preference!

Thanks for the suggestion, I TIVO'd two college basketball games on Saturday night and viewed them on a DVD-RW. It didn't take long to know that viewing in High Quality was a must for Super Bowl XL. It's burning to three discs now. I have no DVD burner on the home computer (yet!) so for now I am without edit capability. :(

But, on the plus side, I was able to save Super Bowl XL, a victory for my hometown Steelers, something I couldn't have done in my pre-Tivo existence! :D

[tekgeek]

I have a Humax DRT800. It is capable of high speed dubbing. I can fill an entire 4.7 gig is less than 25 mins. Make sure you have the latest firmware. That should solve the problem.

[Jerry®]

Why doesn't the HT800 NOT have a digital coaxial OUTPUT??? It has everything else.

[ashu]

Why doesn't the HT800 NOT have a digital coaxial OUTPUT??? It has everything else.

But it does, indeed, NOT have a coaxial output.

I wish it didn't not.

:D

[technojunkie]

Has the latest software upgrade, 7.2, included any re-encoding capability to allow S2 SA non Humax TiVo programs to be transfered to the DRT 800 and then be burned on to a DVD?

[Ipaqjoe]

Has the latest software upgrade, 7.2, included any re-encoding capability to allow S2 SA non Humax TiVo programs to be transfered to the DRT 800 and then be burned on to a DVD?

I don't think this will ever happen as I understand it. The units with a built in DVD recorder, record the content in a ready to burn format. I have 7.2.2 on my DRT800, I will give it a try tonight and report back but I am 99% sure it is still a no-go. I don't think the DRT800 has the horsepower to re-encode, then burn.

[Ipaqjoe]

technojunkie, my followup to your post today

I tried two different tests at recording a DVD with transferred material from my SA S2 540 Tivo. First test was material recorded with software 7.2.1. Second test was material I recorded tonight at software 7.2.2.

In both cases if I tried to save the network transferred shows to DVD I get a message on my Tivo:

"This program cannot be saved to DVD because it was transferred from a DVR with incompatible audio and video formats."

If you really wanted to record to DVD with your Humax you could always feed the Humax the output of your SA Tivo into the front camcorder ports and record it in the proper DVD ready format. Not as clean as a network transfer but if you don't have a DVD writer in your computer it is another option. I did it once with a VHS tape I wanted on DVD. ;)

[MKREdit]

It's not so much a format issue as it is a security function of tivo's I have a S2 540 and 2 DRT 800's and no matter what the source a transferred recording can not be burned. The only way around this is the method that Ipaqjoe stated or transferring it to a pc.

[technojunkie]

Thanks for all the research. I picked up an open box unit from BB for $150 and wondered if I should keep it or not. From what I read here, a lot of people have had issues with the unit so I'd say getting the lifetime (I believe today is tha last day) does not make sense. Too bad it didn't work that easy. I don't like going through all the trouble with TTG and Nero. I wanted something as simple as the DRT800 for all my videos. Transfering via analog does not seem to make sense because of the PQ losses. Perhaps Series 3.......

[Ipaqjoe]

Today is the last day for lifetime!

Even though it took me three tries at getting a Humax that worked (at least 95% of the time) I would still do it again if given the chance. Humax did come through for me. There customer service is not the best in the world, but it was still miles above the service when you call into Tivo. The Tivo phone support & ordering is pathetic at best. In Tivo's defense however they did transfer my lifetime for me three times on each failed humax over a 4 month period until I/Humax got it right.

The picture quality is not as good as the Pioneer models, I have not had any real issues with sound. My latest issue with 480p going away after my 7.2.2 upgrade is my only real gripe. Overall (as long as you don't have the intermittent remote issues (response time, long delay with each button pressed, etc...) I think you should have a solid product. The convenience alone (of being able to write a quick DVD) was worth the $500 I paid. (199 + 299 lifetime)

[mednic]

We have a Humax DRT-800 Series 2 DVR. We have had the unit for several months and it is connected (correctly) to our wireless network.

Recently, it started clipping the last 5 minutes off of the programs that TiVo records in our "to do" list. We definitely have not instructed TiVo to do this. At first, it seemed to happen very occasionally, but now it is frequent. It doesn't have to do with a conflict in scheduled programs, and happens even when there is no program scheduled to record after the one that gets clipped.

Has anyone heard of this happening? Is there a quick fix? My wife and I are getting frustrated having the end of some of our favorite programs mysteriously chopped off. We had a Pioneer 80-hour TiVO DVR (which broke after a year), prior to getting the Humax; this never happened with the Pioneer unit and we consider ourselves fairly experienced TiVo users at this point.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions on this.

David and Joya

[Ipaqjoe]

This is fixed in software version 7.2.2.

Until you get the update you can do a manual reboot/restart by:
-the menu to "restart the DVR"
-pull the power plug/plug it back in

You can read how here as well:
http://customersupport.tivo.com/knowbase/root/public/tv1197.htm?

It is basically caused by your tivo running for a long period of time without a restart.
All of my Tivo's are connected to a UPS so they may go years without a reboot/restart (software updates were my only restarts that I can think of)

For more info do a search on "clipping"

Hope this helps!

We have a Humax DRT-800 Series 2 DVR. We have had the unit for several months and it is connected (correctly) to our wireless network.

Recently, it started clipping the last 5 minutes off of the programs that TiVo records in our "to do" list. We definitely have not instructed TiVo to do this. At first, it seemed to happen very occasionally, but now it is frequent. It doesn't have to do with a conflict in scheduled programs, and happens even when there is no program scheduled to record after the one that gets clipped.

Has anyone heard of this happening? Is there a quick fix? My wife and I are getting frustrated having the end of some of our favorite programs mysteriously chopped off. We had a Pioneer 80-hour TiVO DVR (which broke after a year), prior to getting the Humax; this never happened with the Pioneer unit and we consider ourselves fairly experienced TiVo users at this point.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions on this.

David and Joya

[technojunkie]

I just finished burning as DVD of Hi8 Video from my camcorder. Wow! The process was simple and the quality was better than I achieved on my GoVideo machine. A 1 hr video took about 15 minutes to burn at "High" Quality. Then the big surprise. I transferred the video from the Humax to my SA Series 2 (TiVo) feeding my S-Video into my SONY 60" Projection HD TV and man what a picture! Most times the quality of the TiVo is grainy this was incredibly clear. Looks like I'll have to get all my home videos transferred to the TiVo. It works great.

[ammetereyes]

I have had the Humax DRT 800 since December 2004. After burning about 400 DVDs from TiVo-recorded shows, the DVD burner isn't working anymore. I get an "internal error" and "disk burning failed" about 80% into the burning process. Am I correct in assuming that I've gotten the most life I can get out of the DVD burner and will have to get a new Humax? I have no idea where I could go to get this fixed, and I suspect the cost would be prohibitive. Any help/tales of experience with this would be appreciated.

I posted this in the general forum as well. Sorry if anyone has had to read it twice.

If I have to buy a new Humax, any recommendations on from whom to buy it? TiVo's own website isn't offering it -- just the 400. Are the upgrades on places like WeaKnees reliable and worth the extra money or is it one more thing that could go wrong? The amount of space on the 800 by itself worked fine for me.

[Ipaqjoe]

I have had the Humax DRT 800 since December 2004. After burning about 400 DVDs from TiVo-recorded shows, the DVD burner isn't working anymore. I get an "internal error" and "disk burning failed" about 80% into the burning process. Am I correct in assuming that I've gotten the most life I can get out of the DVD burner and will have to get a new Humax? I have no idea where I could go to get this fixed, and I suspect the cost would be prohibitive. Any help/tales of experience with this would be appreciated.

I posted this in the general forum as well. Sorry if anyone has had to read it twice.

If I have to buy a new Humax, any recommendations on from whom to buy it? TiVo's own website isn't offering it -- just the 400. Are the upgrades on places like WeaKnees reliable and worth the extra money or is it one more thing that could go wrong? The amount of space on the 800 by itself worked fine for me.

It is hard to determine what the exact cause of these burn failures could be (based on your post alone) If it were my Tivo I would open it up and change out the DVD writer. I know my DRT800 is a Pioneer DVR-109. You can get these at Newegg for less than $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827129001
(No guarantee's the DVR-111 <newer model> will work) but I would be at least 90% sure it would.

Some other important factors:
-Is it a lifetime model?
-How handy are you?
-Is a task like this over your head (tech wise)?
-Have you ever done a hard drive upgrade?
-Tivo hard drive backup?

Worst case you would be looking at getting a fresh Humax DRT800 image from someone and replacing a DVD drive (possibly worn out)

Maybe you have someone near you willing to help out?
Beer, lunch or a little cash is much cheaper than a new Tivo, plus you might learn something and be able to do it yourself next time.

Good Luck!

[ammetereyes]

Thanks, Ipaqjoe for your thorough response! It is much appreciated. Unfortunately, the task you kindly suggested is indeed over my head tech-wise. At the prompting of another member of the forum, I called Humax and explained the problem and was given a no-hassle return offer with two options -- send the unit back and they would replace it, or keep the unit until a new one arrives (they put a $500 credit card hold to be released upon their receipt of the faulty unit within 30 days). I opted for the latter, with the new unit supposed to arrive within 7--10 days. I must say I'm impressed since my unit is out of warranty.

There are several shows I have saved on this unit that I would like to burn to DVD, but I believe there's a way to transfer them to the new unit when it comes and then burn them from there, yes?

Thanks again to all who offer/ed help. What a great bunch!

[HIHZia]

The only way to transfer and burn is to go analog (s-video and audio or composite vid & aud). You can't burn transfers over network. Hope it all works out.

[Ipaqjoe]

Thanks, Ipaqjoe for your thorough response! It is much appreciated. Unfortunately, the task you kindly suggested is indeed over my head tech-wise. At the prompting of another member of the forum, I called Humax and explained the problem and was given a no-hassle return offer with two options -- send the unit back and they would replace it, or keep the unit until a new one arrives (they put a $500 credit card hold to be released upon their receipt of the faulty unit within 30 days). I opted for the latter, with the new unit supposed to arrive within 7--10 days. I must say I'm impressed since my unit is out of warranty.

There are several shows I have saved on this unit that I would like to burn to DVD, but I believe there's a way to transfer them to the new unit when it comes and then burn them from there, yes?

Thanks again to all who offer/ed help. What a great bunch!

I too was impressed with Humax customer support, even more so that they took care of you so far out of warranty.

To burn your shows to DVD I would try (what HIHZia suggested) or:
-Transfer your shows you want to keep to either a computer using Tivo to go or to another Tivo, then transfer them back to your new replacement Tivo to burn to DVD.

This assumes you have your tivo setup on a network (wired or wireless)
Also I would try it with one show, shorter the better since network transfers can take quite a while to make sure you have the hang of it before you do them all.

This does work, I tried it with a 3 minute manual recording I made on my Humax DRT800. I sent it to my computer (Windows XP) and back to the Humax Tivo. When people say network transfers don't work they are talking about sending a recording from a non-dvd-r tivo to the humax. This is obviously a special case and very few people would ever need to try it.

[HIHZia]

There must be something about Humax to PC to Humax transfers to let them burn because everything I've seen says even Humax DVD-R to DVD-R transfers won't burn. I would like to be wrong on that so if anyone knows otherwise I'd love to hear about it.

[DavidSTiVo]

I know this post is probably a couple of years too late, but can someone tell me why it's necessary to cram every DRT800 subject into a single 600+ post thread? We have a forum dedicated to DVD TiVo units, of which there are only a handful of models that have been made. I've always avoided this post due to it's size, I'm sure many others have too. Why make it so difficult to find, share and organize information?

[HIHZia]

This thread predates the DVD Tivo Forum and so some people just like to check in now and again to see what's new.

[markjrenna]

I'm thinking about getting a Humax DRT800. Although it seems there are problems most seem happy. Am I wrong?

Also, the best price I see is from Ebay shipped for $320.00 less $150.00 rebate doesn't sound bad. Plus I can do the Lifetime for $299.00 on this unit.

Anyone know of a better price? Thanks in advance for all of your help.

[HIHZia]

I'm happy when it works. At least Humax has been good about replacing the units until I get one that works. After the first return they no longer even had me put a CC hold for return of unit. I'm on my sixth one and finally think I've got one that works. It can be really frustrating but at least they are trying to take care of it.

[nrnble]

I'm on my sixth one and finally think I've got one that works. It can be really frustrating but at least they are trying to take care of it.

if i had read that before buying mine, i wouldn't have bought it. i have not had a single problem with my humax. i do understand such devices are made in batches, and not always the same parts are used, so with any device, there can be some thare are very bullet proof, while others are lemons after just few hours of use.

[danieljanderson]

First one failed. The replacement has been perfect. I would do it again.

[HIHZia]

Just to clarify. We bought our first unit a couple of years ago. We loved it! It worked great and we neverhad any problems. After a while I saw a lot of people on the boards having problems and felt glad not to have had any problems. Then right before thanksgiving our house got robbed and they stole the TiVo. Having been so happy with the first one we bought another and that's where the problems started. I do have to say that Humax's customer support is very friendly and helpful, I know they have even replaced some peoples units that were out of warranty. They just have some serious quality control issues because every box we got in replacement after our purcchased one had a problem was refurbished, and still had problems.

Again, when we have a unit that works correctly we love it. We've had this last one for about a week and have had no issues so far (touch wood). Let's just hope we finally got one as good as our first.

[Brighton Line]

I purchased a DRT800 and it worked fine until I put in a pre-recorded DVD. Then the unit would just reboot and end up in an endless loop. When you got to the point where it plays the Tivo music and skit it would just reboot itself over and over.
I removed the prerecorded DVD via the paper-clip method of opening the DVD drive and the Humax rebooted fine.
Humax replaced it with the "advance exchanged" and I've been fine ever since. I did not buy the Humax for playing DVD's, I was just testing it out and found the problem but thought I should have it replaced while it was under warranty.
It was a refurbished unit to begin with so I had no problem getting another refurb.

[DavidSTiVo]

right before thanksgiving our house got robbed and they stole the TiVo.

Wow, did the police or TiVo do anything to track down the unit? I wonder who the service # is activated with now! Regardless of where it is, receipt of stolen goods is illegal!

[HIHZia]

We contacted tivo at the time and for months after it had not called in. I haven't checked in lately because we were told we had to transfer our service to the new unit before we reported it stolen to TiVo. With all the problems we've had getting a working unit I wanted to make sure my service was transferred to a working unit before getting back with Tivo. I would like for someone to get busted for having it however.

[cfand3boyz]

How long is the warranty? A year?

[Sherminator]

^^^ 1 year parts, 90 days labor

[markjrenna]

Anyone have a good recommendation on where to buy one and a good price to pay?

[ThreeSoFar]

Anyone have a good recommendation on where to buy one and a good price to pay?
Keep an eye on EBay. The new units coming out might prompt resale of some.

[Jerry®]

I purchased a DRT800 and it worked fine until I put in a pre-recorded DVD. Then the unit would just reboot and end up in an endless loop. When you got to the point where it plays the Tivo music and skit it would just reboot itself over and over.
I removed the prerecorded DVD via the paper-clip method of opening the DVD drive and the Humax rebooted fine.
Humax replaced it with the "advance exchanged" and I've been fine ever since. I did not buy the Humax for playing DVD's, I was just testing it out and found the problem but thought I should have it replaced while it was under warranty.
It was a refurbished unit to begin with so I had no problem getting another refurb.

This has happened to me - but only once. I put in the DVD "The Island" that I received from Netflix. When I went to play it - it rebooted and kept rebooting. However, it hasn't happened with any other DVD - pre-recorded/DVD-R/DVD-RW since. I wonder if there was something wrong with the DVD?

[Brighton Line]

This happened on any pre-recorded DVD, the one I discovered it on was netflix but then I treid others I had even purcahsed ones without an defect in them.
The whole advance return thing worked out very well since the UPS store is only about 6 blocks from me.

[rssmith07]

Hey guys, new to the Forum, but love the content discussions. I am wanting to install a larger hard drive in my DRT 800 80hour with DVD RW.

1. Any brand suggestions for compatibility?
2. Any impacts to the ability to burn DVDs after upgrading?

[Ipaqjoe]

Hey guys, new to the Forum, but love the content discussions. I am wanting to install a larger hard drive in my DRT 800 80hour with DVD RW.

1. Any brand suggestions for compatibility?
2. Any impacts to the ability to burn DVDs after upgrading?

Welcome to the forum!

1. I personally prefer seagate drives for their 5 year warranty. Any 3.5" IDE drive will work 5400 RPM (if they still make them) 7200 RPM, all fine. If you are not that familiar with computer parts just stay clear of SATA (Serial ATA) drives. Tivo's only use IDE

You can find out tons of info at the Tivo Upgrade Center portion of this forum
I use this guide for my upgrades
http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php

2. A hard drive upgrade will not have an impact what so ever on the ability to burn a DVD (as long as it is done correctly) It is pretty hard to think of something one can do wrong but at the same time please understand by opening up your Tivo you are assuming the risk of turning it into a paperweight or doorstop if something does go wrong. Don't call or blame Tivo or Humax if it doesn't turn out right.

Very basic computer skills are the only requirement. Take your time, read the guide and all should go smooth. Make sure you hold onto your original drive or a backup until you are sure you have the hang of doing an upgrade.

Good luck, I am sure you will find it real easy :up:

[proftv]

Hi folks,

I've been trying for a while now to figure out a way to use rip my Humax DVDs to my PC so that I can edit out commercials, etc. and reburn them as DVDs. I hopefully downloaded DVD Shrink this morning, but alas, it won't read my DVDs.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks a million in advance!

[whitmans77]

quick question for all ....recently Ive been putting out coasters with my humax so im getting ready to call them up and see if i can get it fixed..but anyway whenever i put in an 8x disc i can hear the drive spinning like crazy. I have not gotten this with other discs. I just finished 100 pack of compusa branded discs which were probably 1x but when i put in the new tdk 8x things got really loud..any suggestions or comments are appreciated

[lajohn27]

Hey guys, new to the Forum, but love the content discussions. I am wanting to install a larger hard drive in my DRT 800 80hour with DVD RW.

1. Any brand suggestions for compatibility?
2. Any impacts to the ability to burn DVDs after upgrading?

Just upgraded to a 250 GB Seagate drive in my DRT-400 unit. Upgrade went flawlessly and I'm loving the extra space. I record everything at 'high' quality and I'm getting about 120 hrs from the unit at that PQ setting.

J

[dumpav]

anyone here have experience upgrade their DRT800 to a Seagate 500GB drive?

[ThreeSoFar]

anyone here have experience upgrade their DRT800 to a Seagate 500GB drive?
I did mine to a 250G Samsung, but it should be no different.

You definitely want to increase swap space. Use the -s 250 (or bigger), then before booting it in the TiVo, run the tpip command.

[dmk1974]

I did mine to a 250G Samsung, but it should be no different.

You definitely want to increase swap space. Use the -s 250 (or bigger), then before booting it in the TiVo, run the tpip command.

I just upgraded my DRT400 with a 250 GB Samsung Drive. I didn't increase the swap size though and just left it at -s 127. Will I notice any differecne by not using -s 250?

[azitnay]

In your case, there's no reason to expand the swap beyond 127MB, since you have a 250GB drive and the general rule is 1MB of swap for every 2GB of drive space. TSF's reply was to someone who was using a 500GB drive, thus the need for 250MB of swap.

Drew

[dumpav]

so which iso you guy use to set up your HUMAX? and which one i should use the the DTR 800 and 500GB?
the weakeen L48 or the ptvupgrade free disc?

and which instrustion is better suit my situation? Hindale or the weakeen one?

also i don't see weakeen and Hindale mention those tpip procedure in their writing?

when and which comand i should enter? and does both weakeen iso and ptv free iso have those tool to run the tpip comand?

[azitnay]

The PTVupgrade CD includes tpip (though I believe it's the older tpip 1.1, rather than the newer tpip 1.2), and the WeaKnees CD does not. So, if you want to run tpip, go for the PTVupgrade CD.

Drew

[ThreeSoFar]

so which iso you guy use to set up your HUMAX? and which one i should use the the DTR 800 and 500GB?
the weakeen L48 or the ptvupgrade free disc?

and which instrustion is better suit my situation? Hindale or the weakeen one?

also i don't see weakeen and Hindale mention those tpip procedure in their writing?

when and which comand i should enter? and does both weakeen iso and ptv free iso have those tool to run the tpip comand?
The one linked to by Hinsdale has tpip on it, saves you booting two media to get both the restore and the tpip steps done.

Oh, looking again I see it comes from ptvupgrade. This is different than the last one I used. Hopefully, tpip is still there.

http://www.ptvupgrade.com/downloads/ptv-mfstools2-large-disk.iso

[ThreeSoFar]

so which iso you guy use to set up your HUMAX? and which one i should use the the DTR 800 and 500GB?
the weakeen L48 or the ptvupgrade free disc?

and which instrustion is better suit my situation? Hindale or the weakeen one?

also i don't see weakeen and Hindale mention those tpip procedure in their writing?

when and which comand i should enter? and does both weakeen iso and ptv free iso have those tool to run the tpip comand?
I say do your backup first, per Hinsdale. That won't save your recordings (though they will show up in the listing, they're not there), restore that to your new drive strictly to test the backup. It should boot and record and such. Then use the 10) UPGRADE CONFIGURATION #3 method, slightly modified, to overwrite the backup you just restored as a test:mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 250 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdY

Someone here may know what the -r 4 is for--I forget.

Getting the "X" and "Y" right is your problem, and the most commmon mistake. This command can be very helpful figuring out which is which:dmesg | grep hd

[azitnay]

Someone here may know what the -r 4 is for--I forget.

It increases the block size -- if you don't do this for large drives, you'll run out of blocks before the drive is fully utilized.

Drew

[dumpav]

thanks! "ThreeSoFar" and "azitnay" for all helpful info:

btw, this command:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 250 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdY

is for copy all the content in old tivo hd to new 500G hd?

and after this process done, do i need to run any more command? like tpip?

or i can just unplug and plug back to tivo?

also do i need to do those delete all and clear stuff on tivo box?

BTW, will that command keep my other setting like my network wifi setting i set b4?

thanks

[azitnay]

btw, this command:

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 250 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdY

is for copy all the content in old tivo hd to new 500G hd?

Yes, this command will copy /dev/hdX in its entirety to /dev/hdY, and expand to fill /dev/hdY.

and after this process done, do i need to run any more command? like tpip?

or i can just unplug and plug back to tivo?

If you use -s 250 (or any value above 127), you will indeed need to run tpip.

also do i need to do those delete all and clear stuff on tivo box?

No... That would defeat the purpose of the full-drive copy :).

BTW, will that command keep my other setting like my network wifi setting i set b4?

Yes, everything will be as it was, but you'll have more space.

Drew

[ThreeSoFar]

Clear & Delete Everything is for when you restore someone else's image on your TiVo. That image has their TSN in it, so it wouldn't match your hardware so it would refuse to work.

Restoring your own image, that isn't an issue.

[dumpav]

thanks again guys!

so for me to restore the original 80G drive in my HUMAX to the 500G, approx how long it will take?

and

what is the line i need to type to execute the tpip comand? after

mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 250 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdY

was finished process?

btw, from reading so many thread around here, it seems there are different version, of tpip, and seems each version have different command to enter?

so, how can i find out which one i having? and which line i should type?

BTW, i think i am going to using this iso to do my upgrade:

PTVupgrade LBA48 CD v4.04

will this have everything i need? to get my box upgrade?

thanks again!

PS, if i try to delete as much of show i don;t need will it cut down the backup and restore time? (but seems the new tivo OS will still keep recent delete file, so i guess those file still there and not making much differet?)

[ThreeSoFar]

It takes a couple/few hours.

I believe it is:tpip --swapped -s /dev/hdY


If that says that tpip was not found, you need to find another boot CD and try that, just for the tpip command (no need to redo the restore).

[dumpav]

i just find out the new PTV free iso have version 1.2 of tpip, so

tpip --swapped -s /dev/hdY

is still validate?

[ThreeSoFar]

i just find out the new PTV free iso have version 1.2 of tpip, so

tpip --swapped -s /dev/hdY

is still validate?
Should be. It will report the size of the swap partition it finds and initializes.

[azitnay]

I'm not the foremost authority on the subject, but I believe under 1.2 it changes to:

tpip -1 -s /dev/hdY

Drew

[dumpav]

Thanks Again for "ThreeSoFar" and "azitnay" for all your help!

After 20hr of the restore my 500GB humax is up and running!

[ThreeSoFar]

Nice.

20hours, wow. I should start saying "many hours" instead of "a few". Processor speed might affect it, too.

[dumpav]

Nice.

20hours, wow. I should start saying "many hours" instead of "a few". Processor speed might affect it, too.


umm, the pc i am using is a sempron 3400+(it is 2g cpu) and 1G of ram running in dual channel.

The problem is i cannot really delete all the progam. (unless i use the clear and delete all?)

it report i have 74hr of progam in my 80G tivo. seems the new tivo os don't really delete the progam only put the delete file in recycle bin, until run out of space, i wish there is way to detele some b4 i start the backup restore.

BTW, do u guys use those ftp and tivoweb stuff, now these DIY stuff get my interest going.

[LavonaRann]

I see it's been a long time since anyone posted in this forum.
I bought my Humax DVD 80 hr in April of 2005 and love it. I expecially love how fast it records to DVD WHILE I am watching or recording other things.

Lavona Rann
Plainfield, IL

[ThreeSoFar]

umm, the pc i am using is a sempron 3400+(it is 2g cpu) and 1G of ram running in dual channel.

The problem is i cannot really delete all the progam. (unless i use the clear and delete all?)

it report i have 74hr of progam in my 80G tivo. seems the new tivo os don't really delete the progam only put the delete file in recycle bin, until run out of space, i wish there is way to detele some b4 i start the backup restore.

BTW, do u guys use those ftp and tivoweb stuff, now these DIY stuff get my interest going.
If you go into recently deleted and delete it there, it's permanent. That might trim it some.

I don't bother with any of the ftp/web type hacking stuff. Just more space is all I ever want.

[slaponte]

Tpip explanation post :

single post in a long thread... (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=3046897&&#post3046897)

[KrackerKross]

I've tried to find reference to this on the forums, but haven't been able to.

I have two Humax DRT800's, set up in different rooms, both set right now to both cable and satellite.

I've tried a number of configurations, and with both boxes (purchased a year apart) I always get vertical lines, spaced about an inch apart, in all screen content but especially visible in red and orange backgrounds. Happens in all recording settings (basic, best, etc.).

I'm surprised not to see anyone mention this, as the fact that it always happens in both boxes would seem to indicate that it's a general problem.

Anyone have any experience with this?

[rkester]

Do these lines appear on all channels? Do they appear only in Live content or in Live and recorded? Do they appear on DVDs you make? Do you see them on the cable vs satellite or on both forms of content?

How are you running them into the tv? Have you tried an alternate input to see what happens? (Like using RCA instad of S-Video or something)

I've not seen this with mine. But Im only running it off my Directv box currently. I will look tonight when I get home to see if I see anything.

[KrackerKross]

Thanks for replying - sorry it took me a few days to check!

I'd thought I subscribed to the thread and asked it to send me an e-mail if someone replied, but...


The vertical lines seem to be there no matter what I do. I haven't checked if it's on DVD, but it's definitely there during Live TV (just checked) as well as on recorded shows.

It's on two different TVs, with two different Humax's, both of which have both cable (Rogers) and satellite (DirecTV). Each has a different hookup, one coax and the other s-video.

I assumed it must have been the Humax (it never happened with my original Sony Tivo in the same configuration), so I was surprised no one mentioned it here.

Vertical lines about an inch apart in all orange and red fields, not at all in green, and somewhat in blue. More pronounced for basic recording settings.

[rkester]

Definately sounds like its the Humax itself doing it. Did oyu recently get a software update on it?

I'd say make a DVD with the content and see if its still on the DVD. be sure to play it in a player that isnt the humax as well as the humax. so you can tell if its the video output thats the problem or the source is flawed.

[Shiamak]

Wired & Wireless Network:

Hi ,

I had have Tiv DRT800 for a while but few days ago I went down to best buy and bought a Tivo wireless adaptor. I have have able to set it up on my wireless network but the transfer of files from Tivo to my PC takes very long time, is it something normal? or perhaps there is another way (wired netwrok) to do faster transfer?
For wired network do I have to connect my TIVO to my ROUTER/hub directly?

If someone could explain advn/disadvantgs of wired VS wireless that would be really helpful.

TIA

[rkester]

OK. After using my Humax unit this weekend for a while (hardly use it for anything except making DVDs of content it has recorded) I decided its time to complain to whoever.

Can anyone who has complained/gotten a replacement tell me what the best course of action is?

I hit the tivo button and it takes 10+ seconds for it to do anything. everythng, and i mean everything takes several seconds to respond. It was NOT like this when I got it.

Not sure who to contact or what to do to get this resolved. I'm worried Im going to get broken unit after broken unit as a replacement or have to take more drastic actions to get it fixed.:/

[aizjanika]

I think your problems could possibly be related to the 7.3.1 update. Check out this thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=311257) and this thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=312483) . There are probably a few others.

[rkester]

My humax has gotten slower and slower with each update. since i dont use it as a regular tv watching guide flipping unit, I didnt really care too much. but since 731 its been the worst ever.

I've considered resetting it all up from scratch hoping maybe that will help. I dunno.

Too bad you cant offload SP's to your computer or online and then reload them easily. Ive got too many to reenter from scratch.

[steveru]

Mine does the same thing (maybe not quite 10 seconds, but much longer than it should). I don't think it is the unit, I think it is the software. It seem to get slower and slower after each software upgrade they push down.

[TivoBrian]

Mine does the same thing (maybe not quite 10 seconds, but much longer than it should). I don't think it is the unit, I think it is the software. It seem to get slower and slower after each software upgrade they push down.

I agree wholeheartedly. And I REALLY dislike seeing the menus slide into position before the Tivo "desktop" background picture appears. Ugh! Makes me think it's ready to crash!

In the past I've been on a few beta tests for new Tivo updates and the one I remember the most is how obsessed they were at having me go to many, many different menus and rate the responsiveness of the unit during the test period with the pre-release software. I'm confident that Tivo is very aware of the interface lags and here's hoping they'll return to brushing up the responsiveness. (They can't keep adding CPU-hogging features with no more CPU cycles than the Tivo boxes have!) My 80-hour DVD Humax Tivo is SO sluggish now when pressing the Tivo button (or other buttons) that I often press it twice thinking it didn't 'hear' the first press. By contrast, my old, aging Tivo Series 1 feels absolutely sprightly and young compared to my Humax S2 unit.

This latest KidPix thing has wrecked the unit's responsiveness all the more. Wish there was a way to "opt out" of having that software on my unit. There are no children in this house so I'm paying a penalty for the "common good" by having to host software features that I'll never use.

I'm ALSO paying a penalty in reduced functionality because I choose to be a Mac user. My Tivo Desktop software is permanently stuck at a level of capability 2-3 years old. But I've got workarounds. My S1 is hacked so I can pull shows off of it to burn to DVD and my S2 has a built-in DVD burner, so I'm golden regardless of which Tivo has something on it that I wish to archive. (And I also have three PCs in this house should I really need to step over to the dark side to do something.) :eek:

[jhm783]

My DRT-800 7.3.1 experience is exactly the same as the last 3 posters. However, today I replaced the hard drive with a 300GB from Weaknees. After going throught the setup, I noticed the responsiveness was greatly increased. I checked the software version and it had reverted to 7.2.1. Hopefully the update bot won't find my unit again.

[ThreeSoFar]

My DRT-800 7.3.1 experience is exactly the same as the last 3 posters. However, today I replaced the hard drive with a 300GB from Weaknees. After going throught the setup, I noticed the responsiveness was greatly increased. I checked the software version and it had reverted to 7.2.1. Hopefully the update bot won't find my unit again.
It will. With hacking, you might be able to avoid it, but not otherwise.

[rkester]

Yesterday night I hopped onto the slomax in the bedroom to drop some stuff to DVDs and it seemed to be responding much faster. the info in system info had not changed so im not sure wat happened. my plan was to restart it from scratch to see if that helped but i put it off until a day when i knew i had a fwe hours of nothing recording. still would lke to do that and see how it goes.

if it werent for the 2 or 3 shows i watch regularly on non-OTA id just make a pc hdtv dvr and be done with all this.

but for some reason i let myself be talked into sticking with it over and over.

[jhm783]

Well, it only took about 36 hours till I was updated again to 7.3.1. The responsiveness is back to being a bit slower, but it's not completely horrible, and I do like the new retrievable deleted folder. I wish the TV picture quality was as good as the little animation that accompanied the update though!

[ReefRaff]

well we are having some glitches of our own. slowness being one of them. now my mom uses the humax (drt800) and she has wrote some stuff down for me to pass along. I'll quote them.

Problems with TiVo

1) When I open the channel guide, and enter the desired channel, no matter how carefully I enter number of desired channel, it enters itself as 3 digits, instead of 1 or 2. The next time I enter it, it goes in right. It is only on initial entry after opening it.

2) On 2 occasions, when I programmed it to record 2 half hour shows, same program, 2 back to back episodes, when I went to view it, when I open it, it shows message that “Not able to record show due to there was no signal received. Then when I open the 2nd program, it is there and records properly.

3) When I select a program to be recorded from channel guide, then go into when it is showing, select Season Pass and other options, then select view other times showing, then I press info to see when a program initially showed. Then when I back out and select the episode to be recorded, when I finish backing out to main menu, it gives the message “error occurred while getting data for selected program- error #32. But, when I look in To do list, the program shows there to record. Then it does record accurately. These are not the programs where first one doesn’t record.

Any ideas?

For what it's worth, I get the same slowness when navigating menus on my toshiba sd-h400, but none of the above mentioned problems stated with the humax.

300 gig seagates in both units.

TIA

[ThreeSoFar]

1) Duplicate keys from remote: Some remotes had a problem, I think--or the new OS is overly sensitive to the problem they had. See if Humax and/or TiVo will give you a new remote.

[rodneys]

I've been having this problem as well. I have had a DRT800 with larger hard drive (all purchased from Weaknees) for over a year. It has always been a bit slower to respond than my series 1 unit was. It has gotten much slower recently.

I'm in the process of replacing this with a series 3 unit. I hooked up the Series 3 and the response time is amazing. It responds immediately to button presses. It doesn't have the recoverable delete feature and prompts me as to whether or not I do want to delete everything that I try to delete. However, I'm very willing to give up that feature to keep the more responsive UI. I want the older Humax unit to have this level of responsiveness as well. Note that Series 3 units have software version 8.0.1a. It looks like this is based on the older 7.2.1 software given the responsiveness of the UI.

[moscovitzd]

Has anyone done this successfully? If so what was your original DVD drive and what did you install as a replacement?

[ashu]

I think this is being discussed in the Toshiba RS-TX20 thread. People have had success with DVR-109 drives (from Pioneer?)

Bug Chester_Lampwick - he knows about this. :)

[wpatters1229]

For what it is worth I had a drt800 with a flakey remote...it got so bad that it was also using a set of batteries every month and I only used it when I went to bed and watch a show before ZZZZZZZ. I called their support and got someone to agree that I had a bad remote. We had a bit of a back and forth with some of the support people who said it was out of warrenty and sucks to be you....but one person agreed with me that the remotes where bad from day one. Maybe they where looking in these forums. Anyhow they DID send me a new remote and it works great. No problems like extra clicks or acting slow etc.. I told them that I had an old series two remote that I stuck batteries in and it worked great. This new humax remote works just as good as the series two. They did follow through with their promise (at least some of their support folks) and I'm very happy with the out come.

[Chester_Lampwick]

I haven't tried the a DVR-109 but I did try a slightly different DVR-108 from a PC with 1.20 firmware and it did work. Someone has replaced a DVR-108 with a DVR-109 and also I believe that the DVR-107 has been tested too. I have a DVR-110 at home that I haven't got around to testing. For $38 Cdn I thought it be worth the gamble. It's still a great PC drive.

[moscovitzd]

Thanks. I'm going to pickup a DVR-109 since they are fairly easy to locate and give it a try.

[ThreeSoFar]

So, what problems does this fix, exactly?

Only problem I have is burns sometimes fail. Not always, though.

[bwcs182]

i have the humax drt800...im just starting to transfer to my pc, edit out commercials, and want to burn to a dvd. would i be better off sending it back to my tivo box and burning on the box or burning using my computer? either way, would DVDshrink cut down the size and able me to put more recordings on one dvd? i record shows on high quality so i can get 2 hrs on a single dvd. but if commercials are out could i fit more? and could i fit even more with dvd shrink? thanks a lot........

i just tried sending to comp., editing out commercials, and sending back to tivo. it worked fine but when i tried to then burn it using my dvd burner in my tivo box, a message came up that said something about it had improper video and audio formats and could not be saved to DVD. any ideas what is wrong, how to fix??? i think i read somewhere that the tivos w/ a dvd burner in them record in a diff. format or something... is there any way to burn after editing?

[megazone]

i have the humax drt800...im just starting to transfer to my pc, edit out commercials, and want to burn to a dvd. would i be better off sending it back to my tivo box and burning on the box or burning using my computer?You can only burn content recorded on the box that has not been moved - you cannot burn content copied from another TiVo via MRV nor content that came from a PC via TTCB - even if it originated on a TiVo in the first place.

[lessd]

I think this is being discussed in the Toshiba RS-TX20 thread. People have had success with DVR-109 drives (from Pioneer?)

Bug Chester_Lampwick - he knows about this. :)

FYI

I just had success replacing my Humax DRT800 DVD burner with a Pioneer DRV-111D works great and SI recognize the model of the drive. Paid $40 at TigerDirect.com + shipping. This is a current unit so there should no problem getting them. (You still can not use +r or +rw disks to save)

[shmoolie]

Has anyone else had a problem with the channel not changing when a show is to be recorded after the new update from Tivo? My DRT800 has had this problem now for 2 weeks and last weeks - ever since the update. I've tried disconnecting and reconnecting the serial adapter and rebooting the cable box per the instructions and it worked for a couple of days but then the problems happened again. I've also tried resetting the Humax but that didn't fix anything.

edit: I re-posted this in the help center after learning some new information.

[tubsone]

!

[azitnay]

@

[ashu]

home


(?)

[Claus]

I upgraded the DRT-800 with the 500BG Segate DB35 drive (ST3500841ACE). I got it at newegg for $229.99 with free shipping deal if you pay with paypal. At first I forgot to initialize the swap header. So I ended up copying the drive twice. It did took a long time to copy them (many hours). Maybe it was a bit slower since one drive was on a 40 instead of the 80 wire IDE cable. *shrug* Anyway, the commands I used were:mfsbackup -Tao - /dev/hdX | mfsrestore -s 300 -r 4 -xzpi - /dev/hdYandtpip --swapped -s /dev/hdY(for tpip version 1.1)

I used the Boot CD ISO from hinsdale:
newreleasesvideo[dot]com/hinsdale-how-to/MFSLBA48.zip
Everything is looking great. :D

[gizmoz]

I just bought a used Humax DRT-800 w/dvd burner for $90. Thought it was a great deal. Any thoughts?

I am new to Tivo Community and would like some advise from experienced people here. I connected the Tivo to my phone line and started the setup process and went though the whole process.

I called Tivo to activate and they offered me the 3 monthly payment options based on commitment level. They also aoffered me the lifetime subscription.

Is the lifetime sub good value for a 1 1/2 year old tivo series 2 machine? Appreciate any help from the expert users here. Thanks in advance.

[azitnay]

Given that TiVo still sells refurbished DRT400's (40 hours as opposed to your 80) for $99.99, and the lowest price I see a DRT800 going for on eBay lately is $98.07, I'd say you made out pretty well, as long as everything's working properly.

I believe Humax units with DVD burners built in (i.e. DRT400 and DRT800) are the only ones that can even get lifetime any more... If I picked up such as unit, I'd lifetime it right away. Lifetime is well worth it after just a few years. Just make sure you strenuously test every aspect of the unit's functionality (especially DVD burning) within the first 30 days, since you should be able to back out of lifetime before that.

Given the unit's age, it's very possible the hard drive will die after just a few years. However, it's pretty easily replacable, so I don't see that as a barrier against getting lifetime.

Drew

[gizmoz]

...I'd say you made out pretty well, as long as everything's working properly.

...If I picked up such as unit, I'd lifetime it right away. Lifetime is well worth it after just a few years. Just make sure you strenuously test every aspect of the unit's functionality (especially DVD burning) within the first 30 days, since you should be able to back out of lifetime before that.

Thanks Drew. I was thinking in the same lines. I noticed that there are very few lifetime units left even on Ebay. Even if I decide to sell it later I may be able to get my investment back. I will surely test out all the functions in the first 30 days.

Moreover, the guy I bought the unit from threw in a pair of Sony floor standing speakers, Dlink wireless adapter, and a component video cable w/audio. I posted the Sony speakers for sale for $75 and there was a lot of interest for it. So I may have got the unit for almost nothing if I sell the speakers soon. Happy Holidays.

[ThreeSoFar]

Can you still get a lifetime sub for these Humax DRTx00 units?

What about if it's been lifetimed once and then that lifetime transferred to a S3?

[ashu]

Even if a CSR approved that, that would be against the spirit of the Lifetime-only-for-never-before-activated-Humax-units.

Whether you want to make that call and see if you can succesfully abuse the policy is your ... call :D

[Awalt]

I just bought 7 used humax units on ebay for xmas gifts for family. I was surprised when activating them because I was asked if I wanted lifetime service. I am new to tivocommunity so I am not sure how this would be an abuse of policy.

[ashu]

The policy allows LifeTime to be sold ONCE to Humax units that have never before been subscribed or activated or set up on ANY plan, so you wouldn't be abusing anything (refurb from TiVo or never-before-sold units from ebay are eligible, it seems). I was questioning, or rather wondering aloud, whether asking for a second Lifetime on a DRTx00 may be considered abuse.

Your friends and family are lucky - those are great XMas gifts. Hope you also gave them pre-activated units (which it sounds like you did) :)

[mark1965]

Just got back from a 10 day vacation. My Humax DVD 80 hour seems to be responding quicker. I checked my software version and see it's 8.1

Is this new? I only see posts reqarding 7.x on this thread.
Or is it that I have been without tivo so long it only seems to respond quicker?

[gizmoz]

Just got back from a 10 day vacation. My Humax DVD 80 hour seems to be responding quicker. I checked my software version and see it's 8.1
My DRT800 also shows 8.1 version. I am not sure why but there seems to be some recording happening on my Tivo which is not scheduled. Any input from anyone on this behavior is much appreciated. :confused:

[Awalt]

Sounds like Tivo Suggestions needs to be turned off. TivoCentral/Messages & Settings/Settings/Recording/Tivo Suggestions/No, don't record Tivo Suggestions

[Aimless]

The policy allows LifeTime to be sold ONCE to Humax units that have never before been subscribed or activated or set up on ANY plan, so you wouldn't be abusing anything (refurb from TiVo or never-before-sold units from ebay are eligible, it seems).

I purchased a refurbished Humax DRT800 last year for Christmas, with a good deal from Southwest Airlines that included a year of service. When the year of service ended, I called Tivo to see if I could switch to Lifetime. They said yes, but that I would have to cancel the existing account, and then I could immediately open a new one with Lifetime.

So I'm really questioning your statement that Tivo will only offer Lifetime on units that have NEVER before been subscribed or activated on ANY plan.... :confused:

[ashu]

Like I said, I'd be happy to be wrong ... but perhaps you just encountered a lenient interpreter of the letter of their own rule when you called in.

Maybe I should too, and offer up my 300GB DRT800 for sale if I can add Lifetime :)

[Awalt]

I spoke to three different reps and all of them offered the lifetime option on the used drt800's I bought on ebay.

[gizmoz]

I think Tivo will honor lifetime for humax machines with serial numbers starting with 595-###.

[Aimless]

Maybe I should too, and offer up my 300GB DRT800 for sale if I can add Lifetime :)

What would you want for it, if you can get the Lifetime on it?

Edited: Never mind, just bought one on eBay. :)

[Awalt]

Are we allowed to offer tivo's for sale or purchase on this forum? I do not remember reading otherwise but I know other forum's strictly prohibit this. I would rather buy from TCF members instead of random ebayers.

[Aimless]

Our daughter lives in an apartment that gets free (paid by the owner) cable service. She is considering buying a new TV, leaning toward Hi-Def. We just purchased an S2 DT for ourselves and are thinking of giving her our Humax DRT800.

However, considering that she's limited to standard cable service and that's what will be Tivo'd, what kind of playback will she get on an HD TV? We have absolutely NO experience dealing with HD equipment at all, so if someone could enlighten me on what she could expect (now as well as in the future, should she move to place where she CAN get HD cable) I would really appreciate it. Thanks!

[ashu]

The component outs on the Humax may NOT, quite counter-intuitively, always provide the best picture. Some have complained of 'black crush' (google the term or hunt it down here or on AVSforum).

Overall, though, any HDTV will amplify the flaws in SD programming, but it's still better than no programming, and quite tolerable when you consider she can watch HD using an antenna too :)

With SD cable only, you may be able to select the RF smoothing in the TiVo menu, and achieve somewhat more eye-pleasing (or less-displeasing) results.

[Aimless]

Thanks, ashu. (Gesundheit!) :)

I guess we'll go ahead and let her take it, and if she needs something better when she can get HD service, we'll take it back. Like you said, it's better than nothing!

[rkester]

This past weekend, I tried to record an old video tape to my drt800. The picture came thru fine, but the sound vanished somewhere between the playback on the tape and the recording process.

I know the sound is there, I hear it. And if I run the vcr into the inputs on the front and play it to 'set my start point' i head the sound.

It's an old VHS recorded off tv, and copied a billion zillion times, so the quality is not that great. (Plus the actual program is not that great either, lol - Star wars holiday special)

but it shoudl work. I can record other videos and the sound is fine. What gives?

Anyone have this issue with some tapes?

[Brighton Line]

I can not determine why this happens but sometimes I place a pre-recorded DVD and the Tivo hangs and then reboots.
On the reboot when it gets to the point you would normally see that little tivo ditty the Tivo reboots. I have to open the DVD drive and remove the DVD and the system boots normally.
The DVD's that do this play fine in two other DVD players without issue.
This only happens occasionally and not with every pre recorded DVD.
Anyone have any ideas?

[Chester_Lampwick]

Maybe it's a Sony DVD and the TiVo doesn't appreciate the rootkits...... Seriously I can't imagine what would cause an issue like that.

[ashu]

Brighton Line, just for kicks and giglges, try performing some house-cleaning on your unit - clean up Suggestions, then turn them off, delete (permanently) a bunch of extra shows etc, and repeat Guided Setup (if for nothing else, then to purge/refresh Guide Data).

Some folks have reported that leaving a bunch more free space on the disk results in greater burning reliability. Who knows - maybe it ISN'T a placebo, as I have speculated (my chock-full 300GB unit plays/burns DVDs flawlessly) and actually helps? :)

For even more K&G, try duplicating the DVD onto a DVD-R or +R disc on your computer (if they are duplicable, legally, of course, or at your own risk) and see if the copy also has/causes issues!

[Brighton Line]

I'll try that all when I get a chance and/or when I find another pre-recorded DVD that does that, the current DVD was returned to Netflix >G< and it hasn't happen with the past two pre-recorded DVD's.

Thanks

[Aimless]

I know we've previously discussed brands of DVD-R media that work best, but is there anyone here who has had any experience with different speeds, and what the maximum is for the DRT800?

Costco has a 50%-off coupon for TDK DVD-R's, but it's 16x. The highest I've ever used is 4x, so I'm wondering if the 16x will work -- ? I don't want to go and buy 100 of them and then find out they won't.

Thanks in advance for any input!

PS - Our daughter LOVES the DRT800 we gave her - I ended up buying another one for myself. :D

[ashu]

I've used Costco's TDK -Rs (100 packs) from their B1G1F sale last year - no issues with the 6-7 I've burnt on the DRT. Dunno if they're 16X, but I can check & also run the program that checks the manufacturer codes (I think they were cheap CMCs, not the nicer Taiyo Yudens) later and let you know.

Anyone remember that manufacturer identifier program for blanks? URL?

[Aimless]

Forgot to post that we did experience one glitch when we gave our old DRT800 to our daughter. Maybe others have had the same problem?

A couple of weeks before we gave her the box, I decided to experiment with online scheduling, and requested one match of the Australian Open tennis tournament. It recorded fine, even though I made my request less than 15 minutes before showtime. Watched it, deleted it, forgot about it. Did the same for a basketball game. Requested it, watched it, deleted it, forgot about it.

Then, after giving our daughter the box and later (via tlelephone) talking her through hookup and Guided Setup, she said "Why are there little computer icons next to things called "Tennis" and "Basketball" on my "To-Do" list?" I had to think about that for a minute before remembering that I had ONCE asked for ONE program for each of those events. But they never showed up here on my To-Do List afterwards - why would they show up there, at her place, so much later? I told her to just delete them.

Welllll - the DRT800 went into a never-ending effort to delete them, and never succeeded. She ended up having to unplug the unit and restart it. She called Customer Support and the agent said s/he ahd never heard of that problem and gave her a case number. They're still showing up on her "To-Do" list but nothing is being recorded, and she's afraid to try to delete them again.

So I was just curious - has anyone else had this problem?

Also - ashu, have you had a chance to check the speed of your DVD-R's? I missed the deadline on the coupon for the Costco DVD-R's, but Circuit City has a sale for hp's 16x DVD-R's this week. Is that a pretty reliable brand for DVD-R media, assuming the 16x speed works OK?

[ashu]

With blank DVDs, you should know that there are a scant 3-4 factories on this good planet that MANUFACTURE them. Everyone else (Fuji, TDK, Sony, Philips ...) buys from the cheapest bidder or the one most suitable for their 'vision' and repackages & sells them. Heck, these factories likely stamp the Sony/TDK/HP ... name on the discs, put them into authorized spindles, seal 'em and ship 'em off.

The ONLY real way to talk about and figure out good, compatible brands is to throw one into a PC with the right software that reads you details from the maufacturer code/ID and deciphers the info into human readable form.

As far as I can remember, in terms of reliability of sources (with SOME variation depending on specific batches, reseller requirements et al) manufacturers ...

Taiyo Yuden (Japan) > Ricoh (multiple factories) > TY (Taiwan) > CMC > a few minormedium players including factories in India, Taiwan etc

Last year'sTwo years ago, Costco's TDK -R batch was Made In Japan Taiyo Yuden's - Heaven! Since then, they've all been labelled Made in Taiwan (still OK). (Yes, I bought a 100-pack last year as well, I prefer to use those in the PC, but like I said, the few Humax or Toshiba RSTX burns I've used them for have been flawless too). They're labelled 16X

[Aimless]

Thanks for the input, ashu! Makes me unsure about giving CC's 50-pack of 16x's a try, though; if they're unacceptable, CC is much less willing to take back opened stuff than Costco is.

[Missmaxx]

Hi,
I also own a DRT800 for 2 Yrs. now. I have used virtually all Brands of Discs, Both -R and -RW and have had no problems. They were also marked 16X as well, but I feel due to the time it takes to Burn, it Runs at 2X. But I have no Documentation as to this.
**Now my problem! It's probably just a coincidence, but since the last Update, My Burner will no longer Burn on -RW Discs! It works just fine on -R, but not on -RW's! I have always used RW's mainly, for 2 Years now. I have called Humax about 5 times, Tivo a couple, and even tried the Tivo Help Forum. The only reasonable answer I have ever Rec'd was, "It should either Work on Both, or Not at all"
I won't even go into some of the rediculous tries at explaining this problem, (Like 1 "Tech" at Humax told me the Drives have several different Lenses in it, and the RW is probably out??) Maybe he is right, but I have never heard of this before, or by anyone else.
I Cleaned the Discs, Tried New ones, and even bought a new Maxell Lens Cleaner, that only threw the Unit into Tivo Reset Over and Over, until I hit the hidden Button, and Manually got the Disc out of the Drive! I agree more with the, "It should work on both, or not at all" explanation more than anything I have ever heard, but it works fine on -R Discs!
Could anyone here possibly have any explaination as to why this is happenning??
Thank You, Bill

[RolandNaples]

I can say, with a little communicative effort I have achieved Lifetime sub on my Humax 400 (40GB) on the Package Offer @ 99 dollars. It took me 4 hours
of repeated negotiation, many reps, most of which have some personal desire to be right. What a nightmare. They do not know what the F is going on within the company.

At one point, I finally said forget it, and asked to cancel my already shipped order. I also asked for a level 3 supervisor, and spoke with a very nice Kim in Alabama.

I explained (to Kim) the situation and (she) could plainly see that the Humax was the ONLY machine which qualifies for Lifetime.

Then, (she) obliged and said she was sorry. She gave me a case number and was making specific notes to the conversation we were having, assuring me that everything was taken care of. I then asked her to repeat these notes to me, she did, and we hung up. I was satisfied (with a case number).

Today, I had not even plugged the unit in, merely called and gave them the ESN and case number, to confirm the lifetime, and everything was ok. Took about 40 min on the last call. They reviewed the case number. They had to cancel out my monthly account and simply create another reflecting the Lifetime.

I am now plugged in, and up and running with a TIVO that clearly states my Lifetime subscription. YEAH!

NOTE: Get a case number, at a very minimum.

Roland

[Missmaxx]

Thank's!
I never thought of that!! I have the Humax DRT800, plus a new Tivo DT. The only thing I am leary about, is I am having Problems with the Humax. It will for some strainge reason, only Record on -R, but will no longer Record on -RW Discs! I have tried everything, and nobody has an answer. I even bought a new Maxell Lens Cleaner, and all that did was throw Tivo into Reset, Over and Over, until I hit the hidden Button, and Manually got the Cleaner out of the Drive!
I also have a problem with the silly Line Cord! It must be broken inside the Machine, as it fits well, but I need to wedge a Toothpick into the Plug in Slot, or it keeps shuitting off. I need to decide if it will last long enough to make it worthwhile to purchase a Lifetime. I feel it is a rip off to only include the "Lifetime of that Machine" in their plan! I want it to be MY Lifetime, no matter how many I Buy!
Thank's, Bill

The only thing I can do, is open it up and if possible, fix the broken part, **OR, Most probably do it the "Right way" and just Wire it directly in like every other TV, Appliance, Toaster etc. If I can easilly do it.

[azitnay]

Have you tried a different power cord? It's possible it's the cord, not the unit.

Drew

[ashu]

Have you tried a different power cord? It's possible it's the cord, not the unit.

Drew

Best (convenient) place to find various cords of the TiVo style (if you don't have a spare) is Radio Shack! Take the current one along, buy theirs, try and if it doesn't solve the issue - the return is hasslefree (don't rip labels/stickers off of course!).

I need a very weirdly shaped cord for my Sony Boombox once (lost the original in a move) and the RadioShack guy suggested I buy all their 5 and return the 4 that didn't fit!

[Missmaxx]

Have you tried a different power cord? It's possible it's the cord, not the unit.

Drew
Yes. When I rec'd my new S2DT, I swapped the Cords which are both the same. It is an internal Short, I can hear sparking inside as I jiggle the Cord to get it in the right place.
Thank's Bill

[Missmaxx]

I know we've previously discussed brands of DVD-R media that work best, but is there anyone here who has had any experience with different speeds, and what the maximum is for the DRT800?

Costco has a 50%-off coupon for TDK DVD-R's, but it's 16x. The highest I've ever used is 4x, so I'm wondering if the 16x will work -- ? I don't want to go and buy 100 of them and then find out they won't.

Thanks in advance for any input!

PS - Our daughter LOVES the DRT800 we gave her - I ended up buying another one for myself. :D
Hi,
I don't have actual facts, but it sounds like when Recording on a -R Disc, the Unit goes a lot faster than when I used to be able to Record, (Burn) on -RW's! With RW's, it sounded like it moved a lot slower, like 16X1 vs 2X1 on RW etc. Again, this is not Documented, just something I noticed. Now my Humax will not Burn on -RW Discs, only on -R??
All Disc's were Rated 16X Max.

[Missmaxx]

Hello,
I have gone thru about 1/2 of a 50 pack of TDK 16X -R Discs, and Although I admit I am not an "Expert" like most others here, I have personally used them without problem. They have all Worked very well if that helps, as I mentioned below in a past Post. Now -RW on my 800, that's another question!

[Missmaxx]

Forgot to post that we did experience one glitch when we gave our old DRT800 to our daughter. Maybe others have had the same problem?

A couple of weeks before we gave her the box, I decided to experiment with online scheduling, and requested one match of the Australian Open tennis tournament. It recorded fine, even though I made my request less than 15 minutes before showtime. Watched it, deleted it, forgot about it. Did the same for a basketball game. Requested it, watched it, deleted it, forgot about it.

Then, after giving our daughter the box and later (via tlelephone) talking her through hookup and Guided Setup, she said "Why are there little computer icons next to things called "Tennis" and "Basketball" on my "To-Do" list?" I had to think about that for a minute before remembering that I had ONCE asked for ONE program for each of those events. But they never showed up here on my To-Do List afterwards - why would they show up there, at her place, so much later? I told her to just delete them.

Welllll - the DRT800 went into a never-ending effort to delete them, and never succeeded. She ended up having to unplug the unit and restart it. She called Customer Support and the agent said s/he ahd never heard of that problem and gave her a case number. They're still showing up on her "To-Do" list but nothing is being recorded, and she's afraid to try to delete them again.

So I was just curious - has anyone else had this problem?

Also - ashu, have you had a chance to check the speed of your DVD-R's? I missed the deadline on the coupon for the Costco DVD-R's, but Circuit City has a sale for hp's 16x DVD-R's this week. Is that a pretty reliable brand for DVD-R media, assuming the 16x speed works OK?


Has she unchecked the option to "Automatically Record Tivo Suggestions" if there is room available? Since you only Recorded a few Shows, it will remember the type, and Record Like Shows if Room is available on the H/D. It comes out of the Box on Yes. You can change it to No.

[TivoBrian]

Hello,
I have gone thru about 1/2 of a 50 pack of TDK 16X -R Discs, and Although I admit I am not an "Expert" like most others here, I have personally used them without problem. They have all Worked very well if that helps, as I mentioned below in a past Post. Now -RW on my 800, that's another question!

For what it's worth, I read somewhere the CD burner in the Humax units is a Pioneer 111. I have the same (or very similar) Pioneer DVD burners in my Mac and my PC. The Verbatim DVD-R inkjet printable discs from Sam's Club have performed very well with these drives -- I've only made a coaster once on my 800 and I've burned around 50-75 discs.

I've never had any luck with -RW media, either CD or DVD.

[Missmaxx]

For what it's worth, I read somewhere the CD burner in the Humax units is a Pioneer 111. I have the same (or very similar) Pioneer DVD burners in my Mac and my PC. The Verbatim DVD-R inkjet printable discs from Sam's Club have performed very well with these drives -- I've only made a coaster once on my 800 and I've burned around 50-75 discs.

I've never had any luck with -RW media, either CD or DVD.


I had always used -RW Discs a lot to move Programs when running low on space. But for some reason, they just stopped working 2 Years later! Now I can only use -R to Burn, and can Play Back DVD's already made of any type, including -RW. Nobody knows why at either Company. They both just tell me to replace the Burner. But I am not going to replace something that works 80%. It only stopped working 1 way, and has gone on this way for Months.
To be Honest, I have never found any -R Disc that didn't work in my 800. But I also never Buy the cheapest DVD's I can find either. Maybe that is why?? All types of Brands/Speeds etc. have worked that I have used. (Most read 16X to the person who asked about that) *Just no more -RW's!

[Missmaxx]

This may sound really stupid, but you mentioned "Inkjet Printable DVD's".
I would never try it out of fear of it breaking, but can you really run a Disc through a Printer?? I would think it would break? Or the Printer would anyway! :confused: