# ...And Another 921



## scgms1 (Oct 3, 2005)

I really should have come here first before my purchase of this receiver back on 4/05. I upgraded to a HD TV and wanted HD programming. After my experiences with the 501, I should have done more research. How's the saying go...Fool once shame on you, fool me twice...

Anyways, yesterday started with a plugged toilet that has resisted any efforts to unclog it with a plumbers helper. That pretty blue dye/cleaner that comes out of the bottle that you place in the bowl is all over my walls along with...Something to look forward to after the day is done here. 

This morning I woke up to the 921 with the power LED on along with SD LED on. The receiver would not turn on, so I powered down the system, and on start up I was greeted with the HDTV logo on the TV screen. I placed a call to 800-333-DISH and was told to try a few things which didn't work. The best I could see looked like a boot screen with "Hard Drive failed"...message on it. I was given an RA # and was told the new receiver should be here in a few days. 

If only they had put a removable power cord at the receiver side on the 921, like on a PC or my DVD player, etc...Now I'll be looking forward to cutting all the wire ties, sliding out the TV and entertainment system, and removing the harness from all my neatly done wiring for my system.

The point of this post/rant I guess would be my wife loves this entertainment system. I hate it, it is absolutely a nightmare to get everything put in. There is no room to get at any thing without starting to take things apart. This set up is on a tile floor which is not perfectly level, so the center has to be leveled after everything is in place. I'm looking for something that is going to be reliable, which looks like it isn't going to be the 921. How's the 942?...DirectTV, cable?? Or should I nix the HD, surround sound, and go back to rabbit ears?

Looking for something reliable,


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## Allen Noland (Apr 23, 2002)

The 921 has its share of issues, but a hard drive failure can occur with any DVR. I wouldn't give up just yet. The 921 will get the job done, but the 942 is a nicer product. A review of the 942 is located here.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

Allen Noland said:


> The 921 has its share of issues, but a hard drive failure can occur with any DVR. I wouldn't give up just yet. The 921 will get the job done, but the 942 is a nicer product. A review of the 942 is located here.


One thing I find rather disturbing is the failure rate of hard drives in these DVRs.
Mine just failed (only 9 months old) and I will never get back certain programs that were part of my language study as thoses programs are no longer being aired. What's even worst is I purchased DVD writer planning to make backups when this occurred. 
Most drives have a 3-5 year warranty and often exceed that. I've been a hardware technician in the past and know how few drives I had to change compared the the 100,000's of drives that exist in the company.
Yet lots of people seem to be getting drive failures all under the first year.

Is there something special on how DVR utilize drives versus computers. I would imagine allot more sequential reads/writes versus the more random access that computers put their drive through. Are these drives really sufferring from software of file system corruption meaning the hardware is still perfectly in tact and possibly most of the data as well. My particular drive is making a crunching noise which I would guess to be an actuator problem. Just wondering if I should invest in a warranty or not. I doubt if there's any insurance for lost data. With my computer it's my responsibily to back up important data but the 921 does allow that option and HD can't be saved as full HD any other way.


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## scgms1 (Oct 3, 2005)

Hi Allen,

Thanks for the reply and the link. Looks like I should have held off for a little while as Dish Network is no longer offering the 921, at least on their website. It also looks like I should have held off on the HDTV too, which is where part of my frustration also lies with this. I've been disappointed with what is available on Dish in HD and live in an area where OTA HD is not possible. 

It was my understanding that Dish was going to be rolling out quite a few more channels in HD toward the end of this year/beginning of next. I wasn't aware, or told of the fact that my 8 month old 921, would be obsolete at that time. As your link to the 942 points out, the same is true for that also, as both receivers are MPEG2. 

Darn, I had everything set up in the entertainment center, including reinforcing the topshelf for the B&W center channel. I was kind of hoping for some reliability with this system. Oh, well...I had 5 months of virtually trouble free TV. I just hate to lose about 60 hours of recorded programs that I could have archived, but didn't. 

It could be worse as the people in the south probably don't have these concerns,


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## scgms1 (Oct 3, 2005)

snip...


> I've been a hardware technician in the past and know how few drives I had to change compared the the 100,000's of drives that exist in the company.
> Yet lots of people seem to be getting drive failures all under the first year.
> 
> Is there something special on how DVR utilize drives versus computers. I would imagine allot more sequential reads/writes versus the more random access that computers put their drive through. Are these drives really sufferring from software of file system corruption meaning the hardware is still perfectly in tact and possibly most of the data as well. My particular drive is making a crunching noise which I would guess to be an actuator problem. Just wondering if I should invest in a warranty or not. I doubt if there's any insurance for lost data. With my computer it's my responsibily to back up important data but the 921 does allow that option and HD can't be saved as full HD any other way.


Kind of my thoughts on this also. I'm not a computer tech, but have been using them for about 9 years now. I've owned 7 computers: 2 laptops, 3 store bought PC's, 1 built, and 1 MAC, and have 2 external hard drives, and have yet to have a hard drive that failed. I could be very fortunate, or just very lucky, but if PC's were as reliable as the 501 and the 921 have been, *computers would not * be mainstream today.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

scgms1 said:


> snip...
> 
> I've owned 7 computers: 2 laptops, 3 store bought PC's, 1 built, and 1 MAC, and have 2 external hard drives, and have yet to have a hard drive that failed.


Same here all the hard drives I've ever changed in my personal computers was because I needed more space and not due to failures.


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## Rodney (Aug 22, 2003)

scgms1 said:


> I was given an RA # and was told the new receiver should be here in a few days.


Based on that statement it would appear that Dish may have given advanced tech support the authority to issue a RA on the 921. Typically you are advised that someone will call you in 24 hours to set up a RA.


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## JosephF (Apr 23, 2002)

Hard drives are stressed signficantly more in a DVR than in a PC application. For one, virtually all DVRs have a buffer, meaning that they are pretty much constantly recording. While the HDD in a PC will spin down on a regular basis.

Another issue is how people handle their receivers. You almost never see anyone placing a PC on top of a huge heat generator like a TV. Yet receivers get placed on TVs, inside of entertainment centers, etc. all of the time. With heat being the single biggest factor in derating the life of a HDD, this can be huge.

Yet another issue is handling. People are used to being able to move their VCR, DVD player, stereo, etc. while it is turned on. However doing this just once to your DVR can cause a catastrophic failure. Of course the same holds true for your PC, but people rarely do this. 

Maybe the HDD vendors need to come out with regular sized drives that are ruggedized like laptop drives.


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## scgms1 (Oct 3, 2005)

JosephF said:


> Hard drives are stressed signficantly more in a DVR than in a PC application. For one, virtually all DVRs have a buffer, meaning that they are pretty much constantly recording. While the HDD in a PC will spin down on a regular basis.
> 
> Another issue is how people handle their receivers. You almost never see anyone placing a PC on top of a huge heat generator like a TV. Yet receivers get placed on TVs, inside of entertainment centers, etc. all of the time. With heat being the single biggest factor in derating the life of a HDD, this can be huge.
> 
> ...


Hi Joseph,

All those are valid points and possibly explain the inordinate amount of failures of these HD units, but do they? I started with Dish back in 11/01 with the PVR501 and I'm on my sixth 501 receiver. The last 1 was exchanged about 2 years ago and has been problem free since. I wouldn't have bought the 921 if I was experiencing current failures with the 501, I just *ASS U MED* they had put the hard drive failures behind them. As I said in my first post this was my fault for not researching this better.

If I'm a manufacturer of these receivers, I'd want to know, or they should want to know what is happening to these units to cause the problem(s) and get engineering involved to rectify the solution(s). If a reliable product can not be made with existing technologies, then it's time to engineer something different, or scrap the idea and cut my losses...Not build a new product, with new features, with the same flaws as something that doesn't work. This reminds me of Benjamin Franklin's definition of insanity.

Consumers have gotten used to the idea of disposable electronics. You've got a 3 year old $200 DVD player is broken, you don't try to get it fixed, you replace it with another $200 one that has progressive scan, etc. The old one gave you 3 years of reliable service. At $550 I wouldn't put the 921 in that category and 5 months isn't reliable enough for me.

I work on GM cars and trucks and as a result I'm aware of the consumer be used as unpaid quality control consultants. The consumers have spoken that they're tired of this, and that is why you've seen the shift toward vehicles with higher quality control/better reliability. GM's has really made some solid improvements in this area, but it could be too little, too late, as it might be impossible to undo 2 decades of complacency.


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## Allen Noland (Apr 23, 2002)

Hard drive failure rates vary greatly by model. I've been in the PC business for over 15 years and I've had batches of 10-20 drivers where half failed in the first year, and batches where none failed after 7 years. (the Seagate 2GB HDD come to mind, had a terrible failure rate). When trying to compare the 921 to a 501 with HDD failure presents problems also because single platter drives run cooler. 

I really don't want to get into a debate on this. I agree with the cooling issues. I just read an report at tomshardware.com about all the current HDD models. One thing they recommend is to actively cool large and high speed Hard Drives. My 921 will be 2 years old in February and is working fine. It sits on top of my entertainment center instead of in it.

I am glad that Dish is replacing the defective unit.


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## scgms1 (Oct 3, 2005)

I'm not trying to alienate anyone on these forums as I'm sure my ignorance on the technical aspects of DVR's and PVR's are obvious. What I'm trying to get across is my frustrations as possibly the 'average guy on the street' point of view. In my eye I've plunked down some serious coin on a home theater set up; this receiver, a new HDTV, B&W speakers, etc...

What I was looking for was I turn on the TV, that comes on, and I've got a great picture. I turn on the SAT receiver, that comes on. I'm able to record shows and watch them later, without fear that whatever I record if it is not burned to a disc it could be lost forever. I turn on my receiver, and the speakers come on, and I've got great sound. Well 1 of 3 is not so good. The B&W speakers are awesome! In my eye these are simple requests. I haven't been shopping at WalMart for my home theater, so my expectations might be a little higher. If this is unrealistic...*then tell me so* Don't take my money for a product to have me go through this every 5 months, 1 month, whatever. I don't live and breathe this stuff. I want quality entertainment and am willing to pay for it. I'm not thrilled to find out that my DVR will be obsolete when Dish switches over to HD. If the 921 needs to be outside of an entertainment system, tell me. If it needs more cooling, fix it!

This isn't directed at you Allen, but more a disappointment in the amount of money that has been spent for what I have got. Like I said previously, this is my fault. Caveat emptor, which I wasn't.

I appreciate your response,


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## zmark (Apr 18, 2005)

JosephF said:


> Hard drives are stressed signficantly more in a DVR than in a PC application. For one, virtually all DVRs have a buffer, meaning that they are pretty much constantly recording. While the HDD in a PC will spin down on a regular basis.


You'd be surprised how *not* stressed the hard drive is. I've rewired my 501 to work off of an outside ide rack/tray(*), so I have a little red light that blinks everytime the hard drive is used (just like with a PC). It blinks very briefly for about 3 or 4 times a second, and the only time I see it really churn is when I first turn it on and after deleting a recording. It's a very light load for a hard drive.

And it's even money on whether it's worse to have a hard drive running continuously vs. frequent power cycles. You'll find people arguing either side of that debate.

(*) this is so I can easly move the hard drive to my PC to rip shows off of. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dishrip/ for details.


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## rbyers (Jan 15, 2004)

Allen Noland said:


> Hard drive failure rates vary greatly by model. I've been in the PC business for over 15 years and I've had batches of 10-20 drivers where half failed in the first year, and batches where none failed after 7 years. (the Seagate 2GB HDD come to mind, had a terrible failure rate). When trying to compare the 921 to a 501 with HDD failure presents problems also because single platter drives run cooler.


Me too, and I've had the same experience. We've gone round robin with selecting drive mfgs for years. For a while WD was good, then it wasn't, but Maxtor was good, then it wasn't, but IBM was good, then it wasn't. You get the idea. The three big failure points in our PCs are Power Supplies, Hard Drives, and CPU/case fans. These probably account for 99% of our hardware failures. If you think about it, if drives were all that reliable we wouldn't bother with mirroring on servers. And, for those of you who think that because the 921 cost a bundle, I've had drive failures in $10K HP servers. That's why servers usually have redundant, hot plug, drives, power supplies, and fans.

Another problem with the 921 drives is that they chose a 250G drive when there wasn't a selection. That was probably a bad idea. But without a 250, HD recording isn't really feasible.

BTW - my 501 is still working after well over 4 years, and my 921 is ok at well over 1 year. But, neither is kept in a closed cabinet. Both are well ventilated.


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## scgms1 (Oct 3, 2005)

scgms1 said:


> This morning I woke up to the 921 with the power LED on along with SD LED on. The receiver would not turn on, so I powered down the system, and on start up I was greeted with the HDTV logo on the TV screen. I placed a call to 800-333-DISH and was told to try a few things which didn't work. The best I could see looked like a boot screen with "Hard Drive failed"...message on it. I was given an RA # and was told the new receiver should be here in a few days.


FOLLOW UP

The 921 arrived yesterday. UPS did not heed the "Handle with Care!..." message as the side of the box was crushed. The receiver did not appear to be damaged when I opened the box. I finished installing the 921 this AM and called to activate it. I had to leave for work so I didn't have a chance too wait for the downloads to finish, but all appears well. Fingers crossed.

The toilet on the other hand did not fare as well...I received a call from my wife at about 2:00 PM Monday afternoon. "Babe, you're probably going to be mad at me, but Mom(my mother-in-law) and I tried to fix the toilet." I'm at the other end just waiting for the 'good' news. Phone calls that start with " babe you're probably..." get my attention and a sinking feeling like what did you do?

You have to understand that one time when I was working on the sink and I needed a pair of channel locks I had to tell her it's the one with the green handles. I've come home in the past and she's tried to put a framing nail in the the wall with a shoe to hang a 6" picture. There were holes all in the wall. She was hitting the studs. After explaining about nail sizes and hammers I've come home to her using a framing hammer for finishing nails and I've got bigger holes. You get the picture.

My mother-in-law on the other hand, I fixed HER toilet 3 weeks ago. NUFF said.

I'm not sure what came over these 2 beautiful ladies to get involved with this, but I'm thinking of "I Love Lucy." I know Lucy and Ethel didn't have an episode like this...but they should have. My wife explained they were just trying to help.

Now, I've ventured out of my own knowledge base before and tried to tackle things that were out of my expertise, things that probably would be better left to die. The time I tried to fix the washing machine is one that comes to mind, which I won't go into details here, but...there are certain things I'm not even going to attempt,...You're not going to see me perform surgery on anyone...never...no how...and if you do, you know I've got some form of dementia or that some alien has taken over my body.

It started with trying to get a snake in the toilet, which my M-I-L(mother-in-law) brought from her house. That supposedly went in fairly easily. It was the coming out part that was hard. They placed a call to a local plumber who said to try and pull it out, which it wouldn't do. He then said to remove the toilet, which they did??? It was still stuck. They called him again and he said it probably would be cheaper to replace the toilet then to have him come out.

Which brings us to the phone call at 2:00. I got home that evening and the bowl is all scratched up from the snake so it looks like I'll be replacing the toilet this Saturday. :lol:


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## scgms1 (Oct 3, 2005)

scgms1 said:


> FOLLOW UP
> 
> The 921 arrived yesterday. UPS did not heed the "Handle with Care!..." message as the side of the box was crushed. The receiver did not appear to be damaged when I opened the box. I finished installing the 921 this AM and called to activate it. I had to leave for work so I didn't have a chance too wait for the downloads to finish, but all appears well. Fingers crossed.


*FOLLOW UP II*

Evidently I spoke too soon. The replacement receiver would not turn on this AM. The power and HD LED's were lit, but there was no video or audio output. I placed a call to DISH and went through a reboot. The power LED was flashing and the HD LED was on steady. CSR said it was going through boot recovery which could take 30-45 minutes. After close to an hour and a half, I called again and was told to try another reboot which did not work. CSR said she would e-mail the 921 team and someone from there would contact me in 24-48 hours. I guess I just got lucky on the first 921. Well, at least I had one evening of TV. 

Enough fun and games,


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## ebaltz (Nov 23, 2004)

I think something else is going on, like power surges or other user type issues.


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## scgms1 (Oct 3, 2005)

ebaltz said:


> I think something else is going on, like power surges or other user type issues.


You could be right, but the receiver and all the other electronics are hooked up to a Monster Power supply and nothing else is having a problem in the house, including 4 computers. It could be operator error, although the other receiver's in the house, 2 301's and 1 501 have been working reliably for 2 years now. Maybe it's sunspots in the area... Possibly the receiver was damaged in the transit from DISH to my house, which the box was damaged, or the receiver left DISH with a fault. I don't know.


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## scgms1 (Oct 3, 2005)

scgms1 said:


> I don't know.


I do know that after the rash of initial faults with the 501, DISH sent out technicians to the house on 2 separate occasions to check the original install and for conflicts with wiring and other issues that could have caused the premature deaths. They didn't come up with anything at that time. When I purchased the 921 from DISH back in April of this year they sent out a company to add another dish and wire it for HD.

Something else I do know...Prior to moving to this house 4 years ago I had Direct TV at the previous house and had 5 years of no problems with purchased equipment. To be fair they were basic receivers without PVR or DVR functions.


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## madbrain (Dec 10, 2004)

zmark said:


> You'd be surprised how *not* stressed the hard drive is. I've rewired my 501 to work off of an outside ide rack/tray(*), so I have a little red light that blinks everytime the hard drive is used (just like with a PC). It blinks very briefly for about 3 or 4 times a second, and the only time I see it really churn is when I first turn it on and after deleting a recording. It's a very light load for a hard drive.


I don't think your 501 data has relevance here. The 501 is a single-tuner SD receiver, while the 921 is a dual-tuner HD receiver. HDTV has a significantly higher bit rate than SD - about 3.5x as much. That would cause the hard drive to run much more often. If you leave the 921 on an HD channel, then the receiver has to buffer to the hard drive at that high bit rate. Until recently, there was no inactivity timer on the 921, so the hard drive would buffer 24/7, unless you turned off the receiver manually.

Also, the 921 is a dual-tuner receiver. When you record 2 HD events, the bitrate is doubled, which would make it 7x the bitrate used by a 501 recording a single SD event.

If you try to playback an HD event on the 921 while 2 HD events are recording, the bitrate will be 5.5x the bitrate used by a 501 recording a single SD event and playing back another (ie. worst case).


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## madbrain (Dec 10, 2004)

scgms1 said:


> snip...
> 
> Kind of my thoughts on this also. I'm not a computer tech, but have been using them for about 9 years now. I've owned 7 computers: 2 laptops, 3 store bought PC's, 1 built, and 1 MAC, and have 2 external hard drives, and have yet to have a hard drive that failed. I could be very fortunate, or just very lucky, but if PC's were as reliable as the 501 and the 921 have been, *computers would not * be mainstream today.


I have owned many more than 7 computers - probably about 2 to 3x as many, in the last 18 years, starting with a 20MB hard drive (that entire drive holds only about 3 frames of uncompressed 1920x1080 HD !). Right now I have 5 machines in the house. I do work in the computer industry, I admit. For a while I ran servers from home (BBS) that ran 24/7 and did a lot of file serving. Some had as many as a dozen hard drives, many of them external.

Nearly every hard drive I kept in long-term use died - usually after a period of 4 to 5 years. I had a few other drives that died early (1 - 2 years). The drives that didn't fail were resold to buy bigger ones.

Certainly my hard drive usage pattern wasn't typical, but to me hard drive failure is not a matter of if, but a matter of when.

However, most computers become obsolete long before the MTBF (mean time between failure) of the hard drives, and the old hard drives don't get recycled even if they still work, because they are probably obsolete too, so most consumers don't commonly see hard drive failures.

DVRs however have a very different usage pattern than a typical desktop computers. Hard drive manufacturers in fact commonly sell different lines of hard drives that are optimized for audio/video streaming and have higher MTBF, but also carry higher price tags.


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## zmark (Apr 18, 2005)

madbrain said:


> I don't think your 501 data has relevance here. The 501 is a single-tuner SD receiver, while the 921 is a dual-tuner HD receiver. HDTV has a significantly higher bit rate than SD - about 3.5x as much. That would cause the hard drive to run much more often. If you leave the 921 on an HD channel, then the receiver has to buffer to the hard drive at that high bit rate. Until recently, there was no inactivity timer on the 921, so the hard drive would buffer 24/7, unless you turned off the receiver manually.
> 
> Also, the 921 is a dual-tuner receiver. When you record 2 HD events, the bitrate is doubled, which would make it 7x the bitrate used by a 501 recording a single SD event.
> 
> If you try to playback an HD event on the 921 while 2 HD events are recording, the bitrate will be 5.5x the bitrate used by a 501 recording a single SD event and playing back another (ie. worst case).


Absolutely true. However, let's look at the absolute numbers rather than saying 5x or 7x. An OTA mpeg2 HDTV signal is 19.2Mb/s (bits per second, small b), or roughly 2MB/s. A modern 250GB hard drive will benchmark at at least 30MB/s (bytes per second) in the outermost zones. That's the slowest the drive will be. If the worst the drive will do is 30MB/s, then 2MB/s is still lightly loaded (though more so than the drive in my 501).

I'm going to ignore the issues of multiple streams since that wil happen only a minorty of the time, and beause seeking back and forth between the two streams will stress the drive about the same for both the 501 and 921.

Look, the reason I bring this up is to point out that having the hard drive die is not normal or expected because the DVR is recording all the time. It's not being stressed enough for that to be a factor. Drives normally last between 3-5 years for 24/7 use from my experience. If they're dieing sooner than that, there's something wrong.


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## madbrain (Dec 10, 2004)

zmark said:


> Absolutely true. However, let's look at the absolute numbers rather than saying 5x or 7x. An OTA mpeg2 HDTV signal is 19.2Mb/s (bits per second, small b), or roughly 2MB/s. A modern 250GB hard drive will benchmark at at least 30MB/s (bytes per second) in the outermost zones. That's the slowest the drive will be. If the worst the drive will do is 30MB/s, then 2MB/s is still lightly loaded (though more so than the drive in my 501).
> 
> I'm going to ignore the issues of multiple streams since that wil happen only a minorty of the time, and beause seeking back and forth between the two streams will stress the drive about the same for both the 501 and 921.


30MB/s is the worst you would see if all your reads were sequential, but that's almost never the case at the application level, because file systems cause files to be fragmented onto different parts of the disk. Streaming the files requires seeking to other parts of the disk, and that slows the reads down considerably. I wrote a multithreaded disk benchmark program for OS/2 11 years ago - and it just happens I still use the same OS . I only modified the program once last year to read files greater than 2 GB. I used it today on my 7200 rpm WD Caviar 200GB drive with 8MB cache on a highly fragmented 700MB file on an HPFS file system. I got only 16,803 KB/s. I copied that same file to an empty JFS partition on the same physical disk, ensuring an unfragmented file, and the benchmark reported 36,515 KB/s. Then, I ran the program with 2 threads, one reading each file simultaneously. During the first phase, the unfragmented file read at only 9,437 B/s, and the fragmented file at 8,845 KB/s - for an aggregate of 18,283 KB/s - much less than the throughput for reading the unfragmented file by itself !

During the second phase, the unfragmented file read at 0 KB/s, because it had been fully read during the first phase, and the second file at 16,712 KB/s. The average throughput for each file was 9,437 KB/s and 9,114 KB/s respectively.

I also tested with three streams - two of them unfragmented -, and it gets a little worse. During the first phase, two of the files read at only 4.5MB/s, and one at 8.5MB/s, for an aggregate of 17.5MB/s . The 4.5MB/s amounts to 36 Mb/s - that's more than enough for HDTV which is 19.2 Mb/s, but not that far from what could cause breakouts.

There might be worse conditions if all the streams are fragmented that could conceivably cause the throughput on one of the streams to be lower than the required HDTV throughput. One way to work around the lowest throughput is to add more RAM for disk cache, so the stream can be written when the disk finally becomes available.

My benchmark program was just doing reads, but writes tend to be slower than reads. And in the 921 in the worst case there will be 2 writes + 1 read concurrently.

Also, I ran my test on a fairly nice machine, a dual-processor Athlon MP 2800+, with 768MB of RAM, about 10% of which is allocated to disk cache. It's also possible that the CPU in the 921 is too slow to process the data. My benchmark program was just reading it into a buffer and throwing it away - but obviously the 921 has to do more than that - it at least decompresses one of the streams. And for the write streams, it has to read them from the satellite before recording them to disk. I know the 921 gets quite slow when I do two HD recordings + 1 HD playback, and breakouts happen. In my tests, the computer's CPU meter barely moved from zero.

In conclusion, if the 250GB disk in the 921 is anywhere near as fast as the 200GB drive I have (which is 2 years old), then it's unlikely that the speed of the disk is what's causing the breakouts in the 921.



zmark said:


> Look, the reason I bring this up is to point out that having the hard drive die is not normal or expected because the DVR is recording all the time. It's not being stressed enough for that to be a factor. Drives normally last between 3-5 years for 24/7 use from my experience. If they're dieing sooner than that, there's something wrong.


I would agree that death before 3 years isn't normal, but at the 5 year mark I think it's common for 24/7 use such as a DVR. I certainly hope I won't be using a 921 4 years from now  The hard drive simply isn't meant for long-term archival. We have tapes and optical discs for that purpose. Unfortunately the 921 doesn't let you export any of its content to them digitally due to its absence of Firewire.

There are things that can make hard drives more reliable - such as RAID 1 mirroring (which would mean a fully redundant disk in the 921) or RAID 5. But these systems require identical drives. In the long run, identical drives are no longer available because they are obsolete. Also, RAID doesn't protect you against the 921's buggy system software that tends to erase all the hard drive's data. Only backing to external media could do that.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

> UPS did not heed the "Handle with Care!..." message as the side of the box was crushed.


I'm a veteran with the 921 replacement process. I just installed my *5th* 921 :hair:
My 3rd unit came in a damaged box and lasted only 3 agonizing weeks. I would not acept a 921 with a crushed box, however UPS does not even wait around when they deliver the box, they just drop it on the front porch (on it's side, no less).


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

Rodney said:


> Based on that statement it would appear that Dish may have given advanced tech support the authority to issue a RA on the 921. Typically you are advised that someone will call you in 24 hours to set up a RA.


I was advised by advanced tech support to wait up to 72 hours for the 921 support team to call me. They would not issue an RMA until then even though they knew I had a bad hard drive and without any channels including digital OTA. This was arround the last week of September. All in all it took 5 days before I got a replacement.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

If you get Mark involved they will call you back sooner. I've had the secret phone number since my 1st 921 lost all it's recordings. I'm not allowed to share that phone number here. ATS returns calls up to 9:30 PM EDT. So even if you are on the West Coast there should be someone who can help you.

One time I called after 9 PM and got a call back shortly after I left a voice mail message.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

Actually I did also contact Mark by email. He told me that the 921 support team doesn't work on Sundays and Mondays so I had to wait until Tuesday night. My box died Sunday afternoon.

Advanced technical support never mentioned that it all times I pestered them for a call back.


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## napabill (Oct 26, 2004)

Had my 921 freeze up and start acting very strangely. But there is a happy ending that may be useful to others. I was watching a HD channel last night when I noticed that the picture was no longer in the full screen aspect ratio. Changing the format and had no effect. I then tried changing the output mode, which was on 480i, to others, then things got wierd. I noticed that only the SD light was on but not the HD light, but it didn't register. I then did a reboot (as I must from time to time) and then things got very strange. It would do what it normally does ("Acquiring signal" et al) then the screen started going nuts, turning various colors, then finally to the blue screen of death. The audio continued to work. The remote was completely dead. I turned everything off and went to bed. This morning when everything was still screwed up. I then pulled out the card to reboot, and it continued to get audio! How can that happen? In any event, as I was contemplating a DISH call, I hit the SD/HD button on the remote, and voila, it works. Apparently I had inadvertantly hit that button while on a HD channel and that presented a problem.

A question: What is the correct output mode for the 921 and a Mits 52" DLP? 480p, 740p, 1080i?

Thanks.

Bill


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

Changing the view preferrences menu to 480 forces it into SD mode so your DVI/component inputs are no longer being used. Make sure to check that your view setting is back to 16:9 (1080i or 720p) in order to assure full capability of your DVI/component output.

If you get "stretch bug or stuck aspect ratio condition" the SD/HD button won't work and don't bother changing output or ratio settings in view pref. Simply reboot if you're not recording anything.

This happened to me, I thought I could force the aspect ratio back through view pref but lost my screen and had the repeat the menu sequence again but blindly as I couldn't watch the screen and didn't have anything hooked up to my s-video/composite/RF outputs (which would be another solution to restoring it back).


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## napabill (Oct 26, 2004)

But what output mode should I use, 720p, or 1080i and why? I have the video feeds using the component jacks (red,yellow,blue).

Bill


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

napabill said:


> But what output mode should I use, 720p, or 1080i and why? I have the video feeds using the component jacks (red,yellow,blue).
> 
> Bill


Do you only have your component cables connected? What is your DLP model number? That might help. Is it 16x9 ratio or 4x3?

From what you described below it sounds like you had the output of the 921 set to something the TV did not like. Also in the end it sounds like you had it set for SD output but your TV was set to receive the signal for HD output. Reason I say this is because flipping the SD/HD input button restored the picture.

As to Audio, Audio is a seperate output (Optical or RCA) so if you have your video configuration messed up you will still get audio.

Example:

I have my 921 svideo and component hooked up to my TV with the RCA audio hooked up also. When I forget to flip my SD/HD output and I change the TV to the svideo I will get audio but no video until I also switch the SD/HD. the 921, except in safe mode, does not ouput SD and HD like the 942 at the same time.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

napabill said:


> But what output mode should I use, 720p, or 1080i and why? I have the video feeds using the component jacks (red,yellow,blue).
> 
> Bill


As far as 720p or 1080i use the one that best fits your display. Example if you have a DLP, Plasma or LCD many are limited the 1280x720 so in that case use 720p and let the 921 interpolate the higher resolution. Remember with fixed pixel display they can't really display anything higher than their native resolution anyway. If you have a CRT based display usually 1080i would be best. This also applies if you have an LCD that's does 1080p. It's the vertical lines that determine best fit.

PS: Your component (Y,Pr,Pb) jacks are red, green, blue. Green=Y, Red=Pr, Blue=Pb. Use DVI if possible (it has less overscan than the coponent outputs).


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