Saorview box not recognising USB to record/play

Nobodybutme

Hi there,
I recently bought the EireTV THD-M5 Digital Terrestrial Receiver online (It wont let me post a link to the box). It works except for recording - it just wont recognise that a USB drive is inserted.

When I put in a USB (I've tried 3 or 4 different ones) it says 'Storage device detected'. But when I try to record, or go to view anything already stored on the USB on the box, it just says NO STORAGE DEVICE DETECTED.

I have several different makes of boxes connected to other TVs in the house and they all work fine recording/playing so it doesn't seem to be any of the USB's 'fault'.

I'm wondering if anyone has had any similar problem?
Do I need to download/install some firmware?
The manual mentions a PVR config option of 'preferred storage' - but on mine this doesn't show up.


Thanks for any help or comments.

Sam Russell

Generally you have to format the drive on the box.

Nobodybutme

Hi Sam and thanks for replying, any idea how I'd go about doing that with this box?
There doesn't seem to be any format option available that I can see and the instruction manual is pretty vague...

Atlantic Dawn

Put the USB stick in your PC right click on the drive in my computer and select format, this will then give you an option how you want to format it, try FAT 32, then try in the box. If that fails try FAT 16.

Nobodybutme

Thanks, Atlantic Dawn. Tried that with a couple of drives and it still wouldn't work.

But went back and eventually found the format option on the Eire TV box:
(Writing down steps here for future reference in case I forget!)
Insert in USB in box -->
--> press 'source' on remote --> go to 'record manager' --> choose partition type to format.

All seems to be working properly now. Never had to format USb with any of my other boxes.
I'll try again this evening and see if its still ok.

Thanks all for suggestions/help.

Nobodybutme

Nope, ignore that last post - Its not working again!
It says "No device detected" once again. Very annoying.

Nobodybutme

It randomly started to work again just now, but after between 10 seconds to 5 minutes I get the error: "storage device write error" and it stops recording or recognizing the USB!

MrVestek

Does the USB stick work ok in a PC? What file system is it formatted to?

Mr E

My saorview box needs an EXT3 file system for recording. Check your manual and see what file system you need.

Nobodybutme

MrVestek wrote: »

Does the USB stick work ok in a PC? What file system is it formatted to?

I've tried 4 different branded USB's and they all work on both PC and other pvr boxes.
I've tried both FAT32 and NTFS and still the same problem with both.

Nobodybutme

Mr E wrote: »

My saorview box needs an EXT3 file system for recording. Check your manual and see what file system you need.

Mr E, I've never heard of EXT3 and theres no mention in the manual of file systems used by this box.
On the machine (under 'Source --> Recorder) the options are FAT32 or NTFS.

Gerry Wicklow

EXT3 is a Linux file system

Nobodybutme

Tried again and now I've noticed that when I do get it to record (rarely and only ever for less than 4 of 5 minutes before it gives the "storage device write error"), the picture + audio starts breaking up badly making everything unwatchable.
As soon as I stop recording the picture returns to normal.

Johnboy1951

Are you using a USB HDD or a USB flash stick?

Nobodybutme

A flash stick (tried several 16gb ones, 1gb and even a 256 mb one).

Johnboy1951

Nobodybutme wrote: »

A flash disk (tried 16gb, 1gb and even a 256 mb one).

The smaller ones would be too small for storing recorded video of any reasonable size.

Does the 16GB stick work sometimes or is it only one of the other two that has worked?

EDIT:

Meant to ask if after it works for a few minutes can you see the recorded file on the flash stick?

Nobodybutme

All of them have managed to record at least once before the error message.
When it stops recording it fails to recognize the drive. When I pop the drive in my PC I can play back the small snippet of recording (shows recorded file as .TSV)



PS: Was only testing the smaller ones to see if it was the brand of drive I was using was the problem. I mainly use Sandisk makes, but smae problem with Verbatim, etc.

Johnboy1951

I wonder if you would get different results from a powered HDD connected to the USB port.

It might be worth trying if you have a drive you could use.

EDIT:

Is this the device in question?

http://www.satworld.ie/eiretv-mheg5.html

Nobodybutme

Yeah, thats the one. Got it on eBay and still waiting to hear back from the seller. Only difference between this one and previous working ones I've had is that it has the new aertel teletext capability and looks better build quality.

If I had a powered USB I'd definitely give it a try to check it works out of curiosity. But its just the handful of USB flash drives and a few bigger ones (160/320+) I have.

obezyana

I think alot of PVRs only work well with proper hard drives and not USB sticks.

greasepalm

ok you did a format on hard drive,usually you have to continue on after that so drive is seen and on my toshiba hdd externally powered it might ask what to use for pvr setup.

insert usb for hdd and power it on then power up box wait for screen messages or go to pvr setup it should say detected drive when it finds it.

Nobodybutme

Update: I've got it working with a USB memory stick SD adaptor and it seems to record/play/etc without any issues at the moment.

The only difference between this on and the others is that it is a cheap (€uro Store purchased) USB adaptor that you can put an SD card into.
Its a class 10 SD card that I keep in it and its worked straight away - no formatting, etc.

The only thing is that when I take it out of the saorview box once I've finished recording the message 'Device Write Error' comes up on screen, but the recorded files are all perfectly good when I review them.

The previous USB memory sticks I've been trying (Sandisk Cruzer Blade 16gb) simply wouldn't work but this cheap SD card to USB adaptor does at the moment anyways (touch wood)!