_Very_ occasional messed up recordings

[=CM=]

Once in a blue moon (6 months or so?) a programme will be recorded with jerky video. Blocks moving around the screen, ragged edges, varying from maybe ok to really bad. It was Desperate Housewives time, C4 analogue recording. Previously it was months ago - a TOTP2 from BBC2 analogue.

From checking other postings, is this a HD prob or the AD chip having a sulk? Other recordings this week are fine. Tivo is almost empty - maybe 2-3 hours of programmes on (not much on tv these days, lots more on the net...)

[b166er]

Originally Posted by =CM=

Once in a blue moon (6 months or so?) a programme will be recorded with jerky video. Blocks moving around the screen, ragged edges, varying from maybe ok to really bad. It was Desperate Housewives time, C4 analogue recording. Previously it was months ago - a TOTP2 from BBC2 analogue.

If it's as rare as you say, it can be caused by satellite uplink or downlink problems. Even though you're talking about an analogue recording, it will have been received by your local transmitter by satellite probably. A heavy storm can cause that. Just one potential reason among many.

Originally Posted by =CM=

(not much on tv these days, lots more on the net...)

Totally know where you're coming from there. I'm currently watching season 5 of 24, season 5 of The Shield, season 5 of Scrubs, The Office (US) season 2, American Dad, Arrested Development season 2, and best of all the best - Curb Your Enthusiasm season 5. Don't even know which channels show these in the UK anymore. Sick of either waiting 6 months to see them, or never seeing them at all.

[terryeden]

It happened to me too, occaisionally. I put it down to a bad block on the disk.

[=CM=]

It's not likely to be a transmitter problem unless problems last Wednesday at Crystal Palace have been kept quiet. I should have said the blocking is totally repeatable so it's not an odd playback issue: either the disk partition (.ty?) is jammy or the recording was messed up on "the way in" by the conversion to mpeg.

If it is a bad block it's a block that is not visited often. Does Tivo detect and quarantine dodgy blocks? The HD is its usual quiet self, not clicking like my old PC's one.

[Ian_m]

If its a bad block on the disk, you will get error entries on the kernel event log along the lines of..

Jan 23 09:37:59 (none) kernel: hda: drive_cmd: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error }
Jan 23 09:37:59 (none) kernel: hda: drive_cmd: error=0x04 { DriveStatusError }, secCnt=2, LBAsect=12734415

(I just induced this by performing a SMART test on a working TiVo drive).

Anyway IMHO start thinking of a new drive/drives before it becomes terminal.

If you have access to BASH then /var/hack/bin/smartctl -A /dev/hda (for instance) will reveal the drives SMART parameters. If Reallocated_Sector_Ct is anything other than zero, then get ordering now.......

[b166er]

Originally Posted by Ian_m

If its a bad block on the disk, you will get error entries on the kernel event log ~ I just induced this by performing a SMART test on a working TiVo drive).

Hey Ian, these SMART errors, I presume they would show up in the Jazzed Daily Mail report, right? I see at the beginning of the email report each day it says "No SMART errors detected" for me. I guess when this (new) drive starts getting dodgy then that'll be the first place I notice it.