HDTivo Performance - night and day

abloch · 01-12-2006, 03:54 PM

My HR10-250, which was one of the first ones produced, was performing miserably, for instance taking up to 10 minutes just to set up a recording and sometimes saying "Please Wait" for 15 or more minutes. From other threads on this forum I had come to attribute this to lousy programming upgrades.

When my unit finally died, freezing up whenever I played a high-def program, D* replaced it for me for free, even though it was way out of warranty. (Don't ask me why. I'd bought it retail in March, 2004)

The new one is infinitely better. It takes only a couple of seconds to program a recording -- regardless of whether I'm tuned to HD stations -- and only a minute or so to set up a season pass. I still get an occasional video and/or audio glitch when playing an HD program, but the wait times have disappeared.

I think that the wait times creep up so gradually that we forget how well the unit functions out of the box.

I wonder whether an occasional Clear and Delete Everything -- hassle that it is -- would return a slow unit to its pristine state.

bidger · 01-12-2006, 05:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abloch

I wonder whether an occasional Clear and Delete Everything -- hassle that it is -- would return a slow unit to its pristine state.

IMO. that shouldn't be necessary. I have 6.2 of my SD-DVR80 and it does everything at a reasonable speed. Shouldn't the high end device have the same speed that the lower end device has?

zalusky · 01-12-2006, 05:41 PM

I have noticed that cleaning out wish lists and old season passes makes a big difference.
Keeping my season pass list down to say 7 or less and of course it depends on how many instances is it a daily show vs a weekly show.

6.2 probably just did a better job

BrianCT · 01-12-2006, 05:50 PM

I bought my unit back in July of 2004, and added another hard drive a few months after. I did a Clear and Delete the other night, and when it all came back up, I thought I had a new unit! I was amazed that it took about 5 seconds to simply record something. This took 3-5 minutes before, and a season pass 10-12 minutes! I hesitated doing the C&D, but I am glad I did!

patg25 · 01-12-2006, 08:11 PM

I have had my Tivo for about a year now. Same as everyone else, setting up a recording or season bass took a few minutes. What was worse, however, was the constant stuttering. Almost every show I recorded was affected. I did not have many shows on the unit, only about 15 hours of HD worth.

I figured my Hard Drive was shot. I did a Clear and Delete, figuring it will take a long time to complete. Didn't really have much hope for it, but thought I give it a shot before replacing the Hard drive. After about 2 hours the Clear and Delete was done, I set up the unit again, and now it runs great. No more stuttering and fast operation.

The Clear and Delete wasn't really that bad. I might just do it every 6 months to keep the unit in better shape.

jb007 · 01-12-2006, 09:32 PM

Do you lose your station logos when you do a clear and delete eveything?

abloch · 01-12-2006, 09:50 PM

I've also noticed that the new maching starts all the recordings on time. The old one was starting every recording one to three minutes late.

BrianCT · 01-13-2006, 12:53 AM

Yes, you will lose your channel logo's....part of the reason I waited so long was I knew I would lose them. The gains are far better having a faster unit, than a slow one with logos IMHO.

skofarrell · 01-13-2006, 08:59 AM

Be careful. If you're on the verge of losing a hard drive the C&D will basically run fovever, redering the unit inoperable (until you replace the disk). The C&D does not handle bad sectors on the disk at all.

If the disk is on its way out you'll have to replace it, but you can live with a few bad spots for quite a while.

abloch · 01-13-2006, 08:27 PM

Before trying a C & D I thought I'd try the lesser reset that just clears the To Do list and erases the season passes. After 14 hours it hadn't resolved, at which point D* agreed that the hard drive was defective and sent me a new unit.

The next day, to my surprise, the thing started working again. Worked fine for a couple of days and then the stuttering and failure to respond to the remote kicked in again, so I was glad for the replacement when it arrived.

PJO1966 · 01-13-2006, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abloch

Before trying a C & D I thought I'd try the lesser reset that just clears the To Do list and erases the season passes. After 14 hours it hadn't resolved, at which point D* agreed that the hard drive was defective and sent me a new unit.

The next day, to my surprise, the thing started working again. Worked fine for a couple of days and then the stuttering and failure to respond to the remote kicked in again, so I was glad for the replacement when it arrived.

Mine's been crashing lately and not responding to the remote. I'm hesitant to do a Clear and Delete because it would take me forever to redo my season passes. I have 50 or so, and that's after going through and cancelling all those that were for shows that are not coming back.

newsposter · 01-13-2006, 10:19 PM

To the people who did the CD...did you have the same 'night and day' performance even after restoring all SP and WL to the same parameters as before the C/D?

plehrack · 01-13-2006, 10:31 PM

I had an HR10-250 from the first production run and experienced the long record setup times too. C&D worked wonders even after I replaced the 15 or so SP's I had. The unit never stuttered but was eventually replaced by DTV when one of the RCA audio jacks fell off.

nazz · 01-13-2006, 11:01 PM

Why is it that you lose the station logos?

whsbuss · 01-14-2006, 06:58 AM

Mine is also very sluggish and does stutter from time to time. I've done a CD before on an older, replaced unit and i took forever to complete.

Would you suggest getting a replacement HD? Is Weakness a good supplier?

newsposter · 01-14-2006, 09:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by plehrack

I had an HR10-250 from the first production run and experienced the long record setup times too. C&D worked wonders even after I replaced the 15 or so SP's I had. The unit never stuttered but was eventually replaced by DTV when one of the RCA audio jacks fell off.

If it bogged down after 15 sp that is bad. I can understand it being slow with my 60 or so SP. But something in me just says that a C/D wouldn't help after restoring all that .

Plus if you have to delete your entire NP list, no way could i ever do that. Too full

it would take a coordinated effort to lose that much HD recording time while the unit is down anyway. If it takes a few days that is.

steel6 · 01-14-2006, 08:07 PM

Been reading this thread and have a couple of questions for those that have done this before.

- I have an HR10-250, was in the first 200 from Value Electronics
- Drive failed just after warranty
- Replaced with two 300gig drives from weaknees
- New drives worked fine, no noticeable speed difference upon start up
- Now experiencing the stutter a little more often each month
- less than 20 SPs
- on Travel a lot have about 40 shows recorded at any given time

So my questions are:

- will the C&D clear/help the stutter or is that just a symptom of a failing drive
- I do not remember seeing the C&D as an option in the menu; am I just missing it? (am on travel right now and can't go search)
- If it is not a menu option how do I do it?
- What are the risks?

Thanks

PJO1966 · 01-14-2006, 08:19 PM

I called DirecTV tech support. I'm dubious of their suggestions, but what the heck.

Suggestion #1. Unplug the unit and leave it unplugged for 15 minutes.
Suggestion #2. Clear & Delete.

I took suggestion 1. I also cleared all the Thumbs Up/Down. I'm hesitant to Clear & Delete anything. We'll see if these two precautions help.