Olin Pvr's Any Good ?

[johnmiceter]

I was at K-Mart today and saw this Olin PVR High def set top box with a USB connection for an external Hard drive for $89. Now I didn't really know the first thing about a PVR before I read it on the box today and it sounded really good. It says it records in 1080p and can pause live TV as well as record from an External Hard drive.

This sounded really good to me and was about to buy it but I just wanted to check with you guys first to see if all this is legit and it will let me record any Free to air TV channel in High definition in 1080p on any USB external Hard drive.

If so, I don't see any negatives why I shouldn't get this unless I am missing something here. I tried reading one of the pinned topics but that was 2008, and thought these are alot different then those older models and alot cheaper now ?

Also can someone tell me how much space these would use if I recorded a 1 hr show in 1080p. And could I then take my hard drive and copy these files to my computer and burn them to disc ?

[diesel]

Is it this model - Olin Hd Setop Box Hvbt-3600s?

There's also a similar Akai model. There are a few HD PVR Ready STBs on the market, but you get what you pay for. HD FTA is only broadcast at a max resolution of 1920x1080i. They usually need the external HDD they record to, to be formatted in FAT32.

A 1 hour SD show varies between ~2-3.5GB/hr

A 1 hour HD show varies between ~5-7GB/hr

I'd recommend a small capacity 2.5" HDD so as not to draw too much current through the USB connection, or get an external 3.5" HDD with it's own external power supply.

[skcilroh]

Is it this model - Olin Hd Setop Box Hvbt-3600s?

No its the Olin HVBTR-1200 thats in the catalogue.

[miata]

No its the Olin HVBTR-1200 thats in the catalogue.

Yes, $69 from Thursday at K-Mart

[johnmiceter]

Yes, $69 from Thursday at K-Mart

So you think this is a good buy ?

What would be the benefit of spending 5 or $600 on a better brand with it's own Hard drive when you can get a cheap one and put any size hard drive onto it (I was thinking about the 1 Terabyte as they are cheap now) ?

I'm just wondering is there any downside of doing it this way ? And will I be able to record these onto disc after wards ?

I guess a downside would be can a external Hard drive be able to be turned on for long periods without overheating. Because I know the one I have gets really hot if turned on for 1/2 hr.

Also just wondering has anyone tried one of these cheap PVR's with add on for USB hard drive ?

[hodge06]

So you think this is a good buy ?

What would be the benefit of spending 5 or $600 on a better brand with it's own Hard drive when you can get a cheap one and put any size hard drive onto it (I was thinking about the 1 Terabyte as they are cheap now) ?

I'm just wondering is there any downside of doing it this way ? And will I be able to record these onto disc after wards ?

I guess a downside would be can a external Hard drive be able to be turned on for long periods without overheating. Because I know the one I have gets really hot if turned on for 1/2 hr.

Also just wondering has anyone tried one of these cheap PVR's with add on for USB hard drive ?

You cant go too far wrong at that price if you already have an external drive to try with it (the 2.5 inch portables should run cooler). The useability will be where something like this may get you. ie - whats the epg like? Can you easily record from the epg? can you chase play (watch while still recording - I couldn't live without this one)? are the recordings logically/consistently named etc etc.

Many of these cant be answered except by bringing the unit home and having a play.

You may not be able to easily transfer recordings to disk (dvd?). Presumably you would need to plug external drive into pc to achieve this but the unit may format the drive so as it cant be recognised by windows. Again, have to suck it and see. Good luck.

[johnmiceter]

You cant go too far wrong at that price if you already have an external drive to try with it (the 2.5 inch portables should run cooler). The useability will be where something like this may get you. ie - whats the epg like? Can you easily record from the epg? can you chase play (watch while still recording - I couldn't live without this one)? are the recordings logically/consistently named etc etc.

Many of these cant be answered except by bringing the unit home and having a play.

You may not be able to easily transfer recordings to disk (dvd?). Presumably you would need to plug external drive into pc to achieve this but the unit may format the drive so as it cant be recognised by windows. Again, have to suck it and see. Good luck.

Yeah I may as well give it a try for that price hey

The only other thing I was thinking is I wonder if I will be able to watch my programs again once recorded since it's an external hard drive it might not Le t you play your recordings. Maybe you got to do it from the PC, not sure.

Guess best way to do it is try it and find out. Anyway will let you guys know how it goes anyway.

[diesel]

The only other thing I was thinking is I wonder if I will be able to watch my programs again once recorded since it's an external hard drive it might not Le t you play your recordings. Maybe you got to do it from the PC, not sure.

Of course you should be able to watch your recordings again. There are no "watch once" flags being sent by the broadcasters yet.

[Notace]

I was at K-Mart today and saw this Olin PVR High def set top box with a USB connection for an external Hard drive for $89. Now I didn't really know the first thing about a PVR before I read it on the box today and it sounded really good. It says it records in 1080p and can pause live TV as well as record from an External Hard drive.

This sounded really good to me and was about to buy it but I just wanted to check with you guys first to see if all this is legit and it will let me record any Free to air TV channel in High definition in 1080p on any USB external Hard drive.

If so, I don't see any negatives why I shouldn't get this unless I am missing something here. I tried reading one of the pinned topics but that was 2008, and thought these are alot different then those older models and alot cheaper now ?

Also can someone tell me how much space these would use if I recorded a 1 hr show in 1080p. And could I then take my hard drive and copy these files to my computer and burn them to disc ?

Picked one of these up today for $69. At that price I'm not expecting much, but it's just for upstairs, and mainly as a STB, not a PVR.

You can plug in either a Flash Drive, or a Hard drive to the USB. Unfortunately, the USB port is on the front, behind a flap that you open, so not real pretty when you have it plugged in. Manual says the flash drive should be 4Gb or more with a read/write speed of 3.125mb/sec minimum. For the Hard drive, they say it needs to be formatted as FAT32 or NTFS, so switching between the Olin and your PC will be easy.

It's not mentioned in the manual whether they recommend an externally powered HDD or one that draws power from the USB port. If you go for the latter, then the HDD should power up whenever the Olin does, say for timer recordings.\, and power down at the end of recording when the STB goes back to standby. As I said, i haven't played with it yet so can't be sure.

I have an old analogue PVR, and may just plug the STB into it's auxiliary port and record on that. that's if you can set the Olin to turn on off without the HDD/flash plugged in. But that would mean setting up two timers to record a show.

As I said, for $69 I'm not too fussed. If it works in a half decent manner, it will be a great value.

[johnmiceter]

Yeah I picked up mine a couple of hours ago

Looked at WOW and they had the same one for $149, so glad I picked mine up at K-Mart.

I don't know much about these, but it took me about 10 mins to setup and got everything working now. Even tried recording onto the hard drive and works no problems at all. I think this is a really good alternative to a DVD recorder with hard drive. As it's cheap and also gives you a FULL HD set top box.

I bought a 1 TB Hard drive from a shop called MSY for $107. So all up cost me $176, I think that's alright for a DVD recorder with set top box.

And If I have no troubles working one of these, I think anyone can set one up.

[kom123]

Quick question for anyone who has bought one of these units, I can't seem to find out any information as to whether or not you can record ahead off the EPG? I had a look in the manual in a shop but it wasn't clear if you could program the unit (sorry that's my old VCR experience talking here!) to record a show for example, tomorrow or in a few days etc or is it that you can only record what you are watching live? Hope that makes sense!

[hypertrev]

I can't seem to find out any information as to whether or not you can record ahead off the EPG?

EASY! While in the EPG screen, scroll around 'til you get the show you want, then press the GREEN button. The TIMER Dialogue box should come up. The second row down, labelled "Timer Service" is the one you want -- it defaults to Channel. Scroll down 'til it's highlighted then scroll left/right to change it to Record (no need to press OK). Now scroll to Save and press OK and it's all set for you!

I've tested live record (someone was asking for that earlier (Chase recording?) and that works beautifully so I expect timer record will work but not tested that yet. It's the next thing I want to do while testing that it powers down the USB drive while in standby AND has no issues with the drive's spin-up time when it wakes up. If it passes that (using my Verbatim 2.5" 320gig USB drive) I'll be delighted with this little bargain.

It looks to me like its Operating System is Linux (the way it displays USB drive paths) -- Anyone else agree with that? If so should we start a Yahoo or Google group so we can host photos of its innards, alternate and custom functions etc.?

Anyone know what button(s) to hold down to get it to boot from USB?

Trev

[aronde]

I picked up one of these also from Kmart. Have tried a 2.5inch drive and it seems the STB does not have enough power to run it and I dont have external power for that one. I tried my 3.5inch drive with power supply (newly formatted) and though I can see the drive through the media player menu, I am unable to record anything (nothing happens when pushing the record button). On the record menu screen the only option is HDD format and doing this brings up an error message. So I either have a dud drive (that works fine on other computers) or a dud STB? Anyone else come across this?

[hypertrev]

A quick update.

Don't waste your time putting stuff in the Timer - all the program timer settings get wiped as soon as you switch to Standby mode. So my post above about timer recording does not work although the method is probably correct.

I've spoken to a guy at Westwell Customer Support and he was aware of the problem and is emailing a FIRMWARE UPGRADE to me. I'll post more about this as soon as I flash the new firmware into my machine.

A firmware upgrade may help with that USB problem recently posted. I suspect I've been OK because most of my USB partitions are FAT32 and I suspect my HVBTR-1200 is not able to use NTFS, though the owner's manual suggests it does.

Also the website(s) http://www.westwell.com.au, http://www.olinstyle.com/ don't seem to know anything about this machine yet, even a search on HVBTR brings only similar units, not the 1200.

more soon

Trev

[aronde]

I fixed the hard drive issue with another format via the PC. So recording is working but I can't seem to get the 'REC' symbol off the screen when recording a channel? I am trying this out for my mum who wants to hit record whilst watching TV at night in case she falls asleep! Thanks for info on timer losing settings. Will ask for upgrade also.

[hypertrev]

OK, got the upgrade and have now only PARTIAL success with:-

Set the program timer via EPG

Put the unit into standby (hard disk spins down and LED goes off)

Unit wakes at correct time

records the programmed channel and duration (I had altered the EPG settings down to just 5 mins for a quick full test)

unit goes to standby again when recording finished

saved video does NOT play back on my PC

It USED to give me the choice of .mpg or .ts but now only ts

So a further upgrade is needed, I reckon and I might go back to the earlier version, if I can get it because mpg recording is so important to me.

After the upgrade my Information menu showed:-

HVBTR-1200-v1.10 2010-3-10

Trev

[tonymy01]

A TS is essentially an MPEG video stream, it is very quick to convert between ts and mpeg. Really the TS is the MPEG2 video stream and MPEG-1layer2 or AC3/DD audio stream (and associated subtitle and epg streams depending on the box). ProjectX does the conversion in a jiffy, as do many other free progs, if you are hell bent on having MPEG2 rather than TS. PCs play TS fine with the right filters installed anyway, or simply play it in "The KMPlayer" or VLC or many other non-PC filter based solutions (i.e. using its own codecs/filters rather than locked to what the PC is set to).

[johnmiceter]

OK, got the upgrade and have now only PARTIAL success with:-

Set the program timer via EPG

Put the unit into standby (hard disk spins down and LED goes off)

Unit wakes at correct time

records the programmed channel and duration (I had altered the EPG settings down to just 5 mins for a quick full test)

unit goes to standby again when recording finished

saved video does NOT play back on my PC

It USED to give me the choice of .mpg or .ts but now only ts

So a further upgrade is needed, I reckon and I might go back to the earlier version, if I can get it because mpg recording is so important to me.

After the upgrade my Information menu showed:-

HVBTR-1200-v1.10 2010-3-10

Trev

Geez I haven't tried to record a show yet when the recorder is on standby mode, but I don't see it being a hassle just leaving it on and pushing record. I tried a show last night the Footy show, and it seems to have recorded really well. I used to have a DVD recorder but this comes up heaps clearer then that. Not sure how much space it took up as I just got home. But I recorded for 2 1/2 hrs, so I'm guessing that will be a lot. But I got a fairly big hard drive so hopefully it will last a while .

Trev, so you know if you can record your show then edit out the ads in this ? I remember in my DVD recorder you could do this. Then save the show with no ads.

Also when pausing Live TV with this, I can't seem to work out how to stop it. I push stop heaps of times but it still seems to record

Maybe I will call them up too. I don't know much about these still, but for $69 I think this is a real bargain hey. I'm happy with what I know of it so far .

Still got heaps more to learn about it I think .

Edited April 30, 2010 by johnmiceter

[Stef741]

I bought my STB yesterday, tried it out and really like it; except...

The timer does not have a weekly repeat function, only daily. This means if I want to record the same show every week I have to recod every show separately. I called OLIN help line they confirmed the timer has no weekly function. Looks like I have to find another PVR-ready box.

[hypertrev]

simply play it in "The KMPlayer" or VLC.

Yeah, I've played .ts in vlc before but in won't play this one. ... strange ... but it plays back fine on the HVBTR-1200.

I have a dvico hdtv pci card that writes .ts files (as well as mpeg2, selectable), I'll see if ITS player will do it. It also comes with a converter program but I recall that it messes up audio sync quite often.

[kom123]

Thanks for all the info to date, veryy helpful!

So just to clarify, with the upgrade, programming ahead works ok (but not weekly) and will be fine if just playing back through the TV (I'm not trying to pay back through a pc)?

Cheers..Scott

P.S. Trev, is the upgrade something that you could email me if I give you my address?

[aronde]

Spoke to support and they said the only work around for removing the 'REC' symbol on the screen is to change to another channel that is showing the same program! Seems to work but a bit annoying. He also suggested best to stick with powered hard drives. Unpowered 2.5 inch drives even if they work initially may not have enough juice to record/playback properly.

[Stef741]

Spoke to support and they said the only work around for removing the 'REC' symbol on the screen is to change to another channel that is showing the same program! Seems to work but a bit annoying. He also suggested best to stick with powered hard drives. Unpowered 2.5 inch drives even if they work initially may not have enough juice to record/playback properly.

To get rid of the 'REC' symbol, simply rewind 1 or 2 seconds during the recording. This means that you won't watch live TV anymore, but time-shifted 1 or 2 secs delayed; this eliminates the "REC' symbol.

Anybody knows if recorded material can be modified by the STB? I.e. recording split in two, or front or end truncated?

[windeath]

Guys just picked one up tonight. Lovin' it. One thing though. Under 6.4 in the craptastic manual what is Record type PS and TS? I'm not sure what to put it as.

Cheers

[diesel]

TS is Transport Stream - the mpeg2 format of FTA broadcasts

PS is Program Stream

Edited April 30, 2010 by diesel