Got My Pioneer 530

hawthorn

Hi All.
Well after months of deliberation I finally took the plunge and ordered the Pioneer 530 !! How's this from Richer Sounds - ordered last Thurs at appx 12 noon, and it arrived at 2pm next day! Technically coming from Belfast to the republic is coming from a different country (though that in itself could start a debate, but we wont go there.. ) so 1 day delivery is just unbelieveable!! Very impressive!

Anyway Ive just barely set it up, and will have several cries for help from you 530 owners Im sure, but for now just one;

Im seeing a bit of flicker/ghosting on the screen, even when I play a DVD. Wonder what might cause that? At the moment I have it sitting on top of the TV (wont be permanent) I wonder if that means anything?

I will play around tomorrow and Monday, and list my questions for you good folk then!

Thanks

kc

Idleater

hawthorn wrote:

Im seeing a bit of flicker/ghosting on the screen, even when I play a DVD.

Is it a sort of "faded" band that moves up the screen - sort of makes people look jaundiced?

Are you using the component ouptput?

Have you got the Cable/Aerial plugged into the back of the recorder?


If yes to these, just check if it disappears when you remove the TV cable from the back of the recorder.

Mine did that at the start, but it is fine now. I had NTL in and they replaced the cabling so it seems to have been a crappy cable that was leaking.

L.

sweetie

hawthorn wrote:

Hi All.
Well after months of deliberation I finally took the plunge and ordered the Pioneer 530 !! How's this from Richer Sounds - ordered last Thurs at appx 12 noon, and it arrived at 2pm next day! Technically coming from Belfast to the republic is coming from a different country (though that in itself could start a debate, but we wont go there.. ) so 1 day delivery is just unbelieveable!! Very impressive!

Indeed, so did I. No probs so far and I managed to get the guideplus system working with my ntl digital (except for mgm, ch6,tv3,tg4 and a couple of the plus channels) This is a brilliant feature and negates the need to purchase a phantom plus. I literally select the program I want from the guideplus schedule and it will change the set top box to the relevant channel and records. It is possible to adjust the times if need be but I will do some testing and see if I need to first.

hawthorn

Nereid

Im going to ignore my ghosting problem for now...I think it might be the video sender. Instead of taking the scart from my DVD to TV, I put it to the VS and then to the TV. In effect the VS is a scart adapter, maybe thats the problem. I had used it with my vcr and on either E1 or E2 I did have the same thing. Wonder is there a way around that?

Although, I read early in the DVD manual that youre NOT to connect the DVD through anything, but direct to the TV. I wonder how necessary is that, or could I use the VS? Well for now Im not going to.

One more problem, I have no sound! Now, Ive tuned in the channels on the DVD; I go to E1 on TV, and I have the 4 aeriel channels RTE 1,2, TV 3, TG4. Then L1, which is the SKY. I have picture, and can change the SKY channels, but no sound.

Now, I also have a scart going direct from SKY to TV, and this is E2 on TV and perfect sound and vision. I tried swapping the scart sockets as they go IN to the TV. Its not the TV scart sockets. It appears to be a problem only in the scart socket coming from the DVD to the TV.

OK, I didnt actually swap the entire scart leads, if you understand me, as I was at it so long, and its a bit difficult to get at them......! But I will do it tomorrow. Lets hope its just the lead and not a faulty scart socket/output in DVD. Will report back.

Sweetie, Guideplus sounds good. How do you manage for TV3 though (Corrie!)? Can you have a muxture of Guideplus and manual recordings?
Can you pad the time at beginning and end?

regards

k

Idleater

hawthorn wrote:

Instead of taking the scart from my DVD to TV, I put it to the VS and then to the TV....

...Although, I read early in the DVD manual that youre NOT to connect the DVD through anything, but direct to the TV. I wonder how necessary is that

Hmm, I don't see why it would be a problem but maybe if you could try the dvd direct to the TV without the sender that would establish if it is the DVD that has the problem or the video sender.

hawthorn wrote:

One more problem, I have no sound!

Do you have no sound at all coming from the DVD player (even when playing DVD's) or is it only for the TV channels?

I wonder is your setup using "digital out" (optical or CoAx) all the time (instead of the RCA red/white sockets). There may be an option to change this to DVD only or something.

The next thing to check if you are already using the RCA red/white sockets is which one you are using. On the 433, there are two sets, one input with the composite (AV3) and one on composite output. There is no specific RCA for the component output, it just uses the ones from the rca output I think.

The final thing to check is whether the SCART lead you are using is a fully or partly wired one. If it is part wired, it may be connected "backwards" where the audio direction is into the DVD recorder rather than into the TV - I did this once!


L.

sweetie

hawthorn wrote:

Sweetie, Guideplus sounds good. How do you manage for TV3 though (Corrie!)? Can you have a muxture of Guideplus and manual recordings?
Can you pad the time at beginning and end?

regards

k

I can't describe how good guideplus is. It's basically sky plus with 160 gbs and a dvd rw drive. You can adjust any of the settings like the time, recording quality or leave them as the default (I presume I can change the default somewhere else so that it records in SP for me rather than having to change from XP) and you can even specify whether is daily weekly, mon-fri, tues-sat etc. and it then takes the name of the recording from the guideplus and names it for you. I have the 'V' marathon, 11-9, setup to record today.
As for TV3 and TG4 there wouldn't be much i would watch on them but I can just setup a timer whenever something comes up (like the new series of Huff!)

hawthorn

Sweetie

Good to hear about Guideplus. I'll try setting it up with Sky after I get everything running correctly, which, as you'll read below, i havent!

Nereid

I have a few problems! DVDs play perfectly, sound and vision. I did have the ghosting when I had the V Sender, but Ive abandoned that for now.

Im not using any red/white leads...should I be?

Im just using scart leads, and the usual aeriel lead for the old RTE1 etc. ALSO, I notice a drop in picture quality. And when I view SKY through E2 (direct from Sky box) it's perfect. So theres something wrong somewhere. All the Scart leads have 21 pins, so does that mean they are fully wired?

Heres the setup:

TV/SKY/DVD

SKY:
RF going to DVD
lead into SKY from TV aeriel (RTE etc)
lead into SKY from sky dish
SCART going to DVD
SCART going to TV

DVD:

the RF coming from SKY
RF going to TV
the SCART coming from SKY
SCART going to TV (except I had it going to VideoSender, but not anymore)


TV:
the RF coming from VCR
the 2 SCARTs coming from SKY and VCR
another SCART from VHS, into the 3rd Scart socket on TV (yes I have 3!)

That's it. That was the setup before the DVD arrived, except VCR became DVD, and it was perfect.

OK just had a another look (God Im sick of kneeling down...) The scart lead from SKY to DVD has not got all the pins..! But would this affect the picture quality. It appears to be the same on both ends...actually I didnt check that fully, I just know neither end had all pins. Maybe I'll try reversing the lead later.

the only thing is, this is the exact same lead I used for my SKY to VCR before, and it was perfect.

A final thing, I auto-tuned the channels and this is whats on the DVD now:

RTE1
RTE1
Net2
TV3
TG4
L1
L2

On the 1st RTE1, i can view the SKY box channels...with the slight lack of quality. What is this channel....????

On L1 I have the same(SKY), but no sound!

The normal RTE1,2, TV3, and TG4 are also down in quality compared to just viewing direct on the TV. But would the scart socket have anythig to do with this? Are they not just coming through the RF aeriel leads?

Sorry guys for all the confusion...(its a far cry when we got our first b/w TV years ago...on a Saturday, and the whole family was glued to the RTE clock from 5 to 5.30, and then the first ever programme in our house...Wanderly Wagon. Aaah, simple times:o )

many thanks

kevin

Idleater

hawthorn wrote:

Im not using any red/white leads...should I be?

not necessarily. I use them with the component signal, but my scart leads carry the sound when I am watching via them.

hawthorn wrote:

ALSO, I notice a drop in picture quality. And when I view SKY through E2 (direct from Sky box) it's perfect. So theres something wrong somewhere.

Right, on my 433 anyway, the L1 input is RGB scart, where as L2 input is composite/svideo at best. My NTL has 1 RGB out and 1 composite out - I presume this is the same with the sky box.

What you want to do is put the RGB Sky out into L1 on the 530, and then put the RGB scart out from the 530 into your TV (unless you are using component, but use scart first off to make sure it works).

hawthorn wrote:

All the Scart leads have 21 pins, so does that mean they are fully wired?

Yes, if there are partial ones, plug them in the other way around (it probably has arrows on the wire indicating the direction too) just to test it out. But you say it is working with DVD's???

hawthorn wrote:

Heres the setup:

The only thing that I can think of from this is that the 530 can't decode the signal from SKY via your RF. Do you have Analog cable too or an aerial?

hawthorn wrote:

The scart lead from SKY to DVD has not got all the pins..! But would this affect the picture quality.

I don't know. it depends. Have a look here and see what is missing. if it is 7, 11, 13 (I think this is correct) then that lead probably wont carry RGB.
Likewise, if you are missing 2 and 6, then it is only audio INPUT, if you are missing 1 and 3, it is only audio output etc etc.

Get through that lot for the minute and post back where you are next stuck. I will have a look at home at mine and see if there is anything else...

L.

sweetie

Either of you guys notice a sound (not unlike popcorn popping in the next room) when the recorder is recording and you access another recording on the hd. It's only noticeable during quiet bits and if very close to it. Doesn't seem to affect the operation though. Otherwise this machine is the biz!

hawthorn

Sweetie

Havent got that far yet....just about did recording. Beofe i check everything Nereid asked me to, how does my setup compare to yours..?? Did you have any such problems?

hawthorn

nereid wrote:

Right, on my 433 anyway, the L1 input is RGB scart, where as L2 input is composite/svideo at best. My NTL has 1 RGB out and 1 composite out - I presume this is the same with the sky box.

L1 and L2...youre talking about the 2 scart sockets on the back of the DVD? Well, in the manual, theyre called AV2(Input 1/decoder)AV connector; says it accepts video, S-Video and RGB. I plug the scart from Sky in there. Its set to video.

The other one is AV1(RGB) TV AV connector; thats going to the TV, says its switchable between video, S-Video and RGB. It set to video. I changed them to the other settings and they were worse.


What you want to do is put the RGB Sky out into L1 on the 530, and then put the RGB scart out from the 530 into your TV (unless you are using component, but use scart first off to make sure it works).

Yeah thats the way I have it...

Yes, if there are partial ones, plug them in the other way around (it probably has arrows on the wire indicating the direction too) just to test it out. But you say it is working with DVD's???

Yes, DVDs perfect. The scarts are the same both ends; but in any event i tried a spare scart, fully wired, and it made no difference.

The only thing that I can think of from this is that the 530 can't decode the signal from SKY via your RF. Do you have Analog cable too or an aerial?

SKY and an Aerial. Why does it need the RF from Sky anyway, does the scart not carry everything?

L.

So to summarize the problem; DVD works perfectly. I have the 4 Aerial channels, and SKY (twice, its listed as RTE 1 and L1; no sound on L1) Picture quality is slightly grainy on all. If I look at SKY on E2 on the TV (ir direct from Sky box) its 100% clear, and looking at the 4 Aerial channels straight through the TV, they are better than through DVD.

When they were coming through the VCR, there was no difference whatsoever. And I was using the same leads.


Im beginning to worry:(

thnx
h

Just remembered, in the original setup (which I hope I didnt rush through:eek: ) there was some question about my TV and I choose the "dont know" answer. Wonder would I have done something wrong there?

sweetie

hawthorn wrote:

Sweetie

Havent got that far yet....just about did recording. Beofe i check everything Nereid asked me to, how does my setup compare to yours..?? Did you have any such problems?

Well, your setup is a bit hard for me to follow, but basically I have the arial from ntl box connected to arial point on recorder and scart from ntl connected to scart input 1 on recorder. I have the recorder connected with a cable (that came with the recorder) with three pins (red white and yellow) to a thingy that makes it into a scart and is connected into a multi scart thingy that lets me swap between recorder, digital and xbox. This was the exact same way I had my liteon recorder setup recently and I didn't change it at all and it seems to work fine.

Idleater

sweetie wrote:

Either of you guys notice a sound ....

No, I havent. Is it "loud" or quiet (I suppose this is all relative)? When it is on, I can hear the HD spinning all right, but no extra clicks or pops.

hawthorn wrote:

So to summarize the problem; DVD works perfectly. I have the 4 Aerial channels, and SKY (twice, its listed as RTE 1 and L1; no sound on L1)

Ok. I think I have an idea.

the feed from SKY (down the RF cable) goes into the Sky Box right? This is the decoder. You also take the coax cable out of the sky box and into the TV (now via the 530)?

Unfortunately I don't have Sky but I didn't know that sky had channels available on the normal cable (essentially like NTL). Does the sound come in from the Scart lead from the sky box?

What I propose that you do is the following. This will determine where the problem is:

1. Connect the SKY box to the TV via SCART
2. check picture and sound and keep this in mind as the reference poing
3. using the same Scart, remove it from the sky box and put it in the 530
4. play a dvd on the 530 -- this confirms the 530's outputs work
5. connect back the sky box and ensure it works as (2)
6. connect the 530 to AV2 on the tv, play a dvd and ensure it is the same as (4)
7. remove the Sky box scart from the TV and connect into the 530 input
8. ensure that the quality is the same as (2)

Now we should have determined the quality of the picture and sound from both the 530 and the sky box individually and through the 530.

Hopefully you can see and hear all the different Sky channels now on whatever AV socket on the 530 you have connected the scart to.

If all is working well at this point, the next problem to solve is the analog tuning of the aerial into the 530. I have had a brief look at the manual on the internet and it should have both VHF and UHF tuning. So as to why it gets picture but no sound I don't quite know yet.

hawthorn wrote:

...there was some question about my TV and I choose the "dont know" answer...

I suspect this was either the Widescreen or the PAL/NTSC question. Check in the preferences that you are on PAL (I don't think you want PAL-60 or NTSC).
You can always do the initialisation again - Settings-setup etc etc...
Did you do the "Download from TV" (using a fully wired scart lead) or "Auto scan" when tuning in the channels last time???

L.

hawthorn

sweetie wrote:

Well, your setup is a bit hard for me to follow, but basically I have the arial from ntl box connected to arial point on recorder and scart from ntl connected to scart input 1 on recorder. I have the recorder connected with a cable (that came with the recorder) with three pins (red white and yellow) to a thingy that makes it into a scart and is connected into a multi scart thingy that lets me swap between recorder, digital and xbox. This was the exact same way I had my liteon recorder setup recently and I didn't change it at all and it seems to work fine.

Sweetie
Yes I can see that the way I laid it out is a bit confusing. Here it is in a clearer way (I hope!)

Lead (RF?) from Aerial in to Sky box,
Lead from Sky in to Sky box,
Lead (RF) from Sky box to DVD, then lead (RF?) from DVD to TV

Scart From Sky box to DVD, then Scart from DVD to TV(E1 channel on TV)
Scart DIRECTLY from Sky box to TV (E2 channel on TV)

This is also exactly the way I had it connected with my VHS recorder before getting the DVD, and the pictures were perfect. In other words the problem is with the tuner I think. DVDs play perfectly, and SKY and arial channels look perfect on Channel E2 (the scart direct from Sky box) but on E1 ( rte1,2, tv3, tg4, abd L1) there is a grainy picture and no sound on L1.

I am 99% certain everything is connected properly. I will now do the tasks that Nereid set me and report back...

k

ciscokid

Did you see if the guideplus works with your sky ok ?

Just signed up for sky with intention of either getting a panasonic like yours or a hdddvdr with phantom. No idea what works best though (dont want sky +)

hawthorn

We all have Pioneers..! I didnt get to even thinking about Guideplus yet....still tring to get a clear picture! But I think Sweetie got it working and is singing its praises!

Now back to mt grainy picture..

h:(

because_I_can

im caught between buying a pioneer 433 or a 530.
apparently a lot of pioneer hdd's can be upgraded simply so thats swinging me to the 433 but in the same breath i fiddle with electronics enough in work. it would be great to just open a box and have something work really well first off...
i suppose i will go with the 530 as the price diff isnt that much

Idleater

because_I_can wrote:

im caught between buying a pioneer 433 or a 530.
apparently a lot of pioneer hdd's can be upgraded simply so thats swinging me to the 433 but in the same breath i fiddle with electronics enough in work. it would be great to just open a box and have something work really well first off...
i suppose i will go with the 530 as the price diff isnt that much

I have read some threads on avforums about upgrading the HD but as far as I can tell, you need a "service disc" because if you stick a eg 250gb HD in in place of the 80, then the BIOS still treats it as an 80 because that is what it originally was. The service disc presumably flashes the BIOS to force it to recognise the new disc instead of the old.

Seems like a lot of hassle to be honest as I don't think pioneer (or anyone for that matter) redily gives out these service discs.

I have no problem with the 80 gb on the 433. It does mean a clearout of watched programmes but it stores about 12 hours of XP (best) quality which does me fine.

L.

sweetie

ciscokid wrote:

Did you see if the guideplus works with your sky ok ?

Just signed up for sky with intention of either getting a panasonic like yours or a hdddvdr with phantom. No idea what works best though (dont want sky +)

Guideplus works like a dream for me. Only drawback is lack of irish channels apart from rte1&2 and a few digital ones. It's easy to edit settings once a program has been picked to record and it even names them for you and lets you record it daily, weekly, mon to fri etc. Can't believe I stuck with my liteon for so long.

Hawthorn, I'm not really sure what the difference is with our setups but think you should hive richer sounds a call as they are very helpful.

hawthorn

Sweetie

Yes I rang richer sounds, and tries a few more cble switches, and I sorted! Basically it seems the setup I had for VCR will not do for the DVD; that is, the WAY I ahd it set up. The 2 scart outs from SKY are marked VCR and TV. I used to have the scart from VCR going to the ....well, VCR. So I just put that to the DVD, but no, when took the scart from the TV socket in SKY box to the DVD, THEN I got a perfect pisture. Strange.

I emailed Pioneer and in fairness they replied twice. When I asked them whay its a different setup than for the VCR I got this odd, I thought, reply!:

"Good to hear the issue is now resolved.The products are designed,developed and manufactured in Japan,so whoever was given the task of creating these units decided this was the way they would operate."

As well as that I thought I read they were made in a factory in England??

Guideplus - I thought it was TV3 and TG4 you didnt have? Is there no RTE 1,2 either? They might eventually update it.

Anything unusual in the setup? I might try it. Are you getting a UK epg then, and is 101 not BBC etcetc or am i off-track?!

Thanks to you Nereid and all who helped me with my DVD problem!

regards

k

Idleater

hawthorn wrote:

when took the scart from the TV socket in SKY box to the DVD, THEN I got a perfect pisture. Strange.

Yeah,

That is because the Sky box (I presume) outputs RGB on 1 scart and only composite on the other.

That is why the pic was good on the tv and bad on the 530. You could try a scart splitter that would put a RGB feed into both the TV and 530 ( but you could only watch and record the one prog at a time anyway)

Have you got the terrestrial channels tuned in with sound as well?

Glad you are up and running in any case.

L.

sweetie

hawthorn wrote:

Guideplus - I thought it was TV3 and TG4 you didnt have? Is there no RTE 1,2 either? They might eventually update it.

Anything unusual in the setup? I might try it. Are you getting a UK epg then, and is 101 not BBC etcetc or am i off-track?!

Thanks to you Nereid and all who helped me with my DVD problem!

regards

k

It downloads the english epg but includes rte1 and 2 if you specify sat as L2 input even though there isn't a second one. Some of the digital channels will be mixed up but as long as it controls the box you can basically edit the channel numbers in the settings.

hawthorn

Ok. I'll probably set up Guideplus tomorrow. Did youput your normal address, and "none" for postcode?

Pioneer is a lovely machine....no more tapes, and just in time for the World Cup!

k

sweetie

hawthorn wrote:

Ok. I'll probably set up Guideplus tomorrow. Did youput your normal address, and "none" for postcode?

Pioneer is a lovely machine....no more tapes, and just in time for the World Cup!

k

I put in a norn iron postcode i got from the web and picked NTL Langley, I think.