Mtv Mdr250 Dvd Recorder - Coles Cat. 19-25/3/07

[mddawson]

I picked up a Sansui clone from K-Mart today (Coles had sold out) but I will return it tomorrow.

Mddawson, Is the sansui exactly the same because the mdr250 will segment, sort of. It has “erase A-B†I was able to edit a recording and eliminate unwanted segments with that. I topped and tailed with “Divideâ€. Different to LSI but I ended up with a good result a and about as quick.

The Sansui appears to have identical internal components Seagate HDD, Mediatek processor. The DVD is a Smartpro BDR-L08. It appears to be the same as used by Parkard Bell in their media center overseas.

I had a longer play tonight that just confirmed my resolve to return it. It has a band scrolling from right to left across the screen through all video outputs. It is not on DVDs burnt with it when played back on other players but is a constant when watching this recorder. My old MTV has 200% better picture quality.

[techo]

Have you confirmed if it will record dual layer discs yet? This might convince me to hang onto the Sansui.

My experiments say that it is DL capable, however I am not prepared to say that definitively since I have burnt to only one brand of DL DVD+R (TDK) and on one mdr250. I was hoping others might like to confirm before claiming absolute functionality.

The Sansui appears to have identical internal components Seagate HDD, Mediatek processor. The DVD is a Smartpro BDR-L08

Yes that is the HW inside my mdr250.

I had a longer play tonight that just confirmed my resolve to return it.

I may have stumbled across a unit well matched to my setup and devices.

[techo]

I want to confirm that there is some substantiated logic behind this perceived phenomenon.

I can not logically substantiate the phenomenon, I can only speculate. However, quality cables should fit snugly in their sockets especially svideo which seems to vary in quality more than others. If you are able to take the unit to a friend or relatives house, you may be able to check it in a different environment. This may help you decide if you have a cable, compatibility or faulty unit problem.

[mddawson]

I want to confirm that there is some substantiated logic behind this perceived phenomenon.

I can not logically substantiate the phenomenon, I can only speculate. However, quality cables should fit snugly in their sockets especially svideo which seems to vary in quality more than others. If you are able to take the unit to a friend or relatives house, you may be able to check it in a different environment. This may help you decide if you have a cable, compatibility or faulty unit problem.

Do you think this screen noise would be reduced if the recorder had a decent earth?

[taylordiving]

I can not logically substantiate the phenomenon, I can only speculate. However, quality cables should fit snugly in their sockets especially svideo which seems to vary in quality more than others. If you are able to take the unit to a friend or relatives house, you may be able to check it in a different environment. This may help you decide if you have a cable, compatibility or faulty unit problem.

Do you think this screen noise would be reduced if the recorder had a decent earth?

Thanks for you input, Mark. I wouldn't have the first idea about how to better "earth" the unit. One thing I did discover, however; I brought the unit home and hooked it up to my own tv (crt) and the picture was flawless using the composite video (yellow) connection. Thus, as Techo suggested, it appears to be a compatibility issue, probably the fault of the tv rather than the MDR250. IS this a correct deduction? Is there anything (setting?) I can do about this?

[mddawson]

Thanks for you input, Mark. I wouldn't have the first idea about how to better "earth" the unit. One thing I did discover, however; I brought the unit home and hooked it up to my own tv (crt) and the picture was flawless using the composite video (yellow) connection. Thus, as Techo suggested, it appears to be a compatibility issue, probably the fault of the tv rather than the MDR250. IS this a correct deduction? Is there anything (setting?) I can do about this?

I hooked it up via composite, s-video and component video and all had the same picture quality issues viewing 2 different composite sources and commercial DVDs. These same TV inputs have been used for many other devices and all have been flawless so I am assuming that there is poor isolation of the output circuits of this DVD recorder.

As for the better earth, this is something I should have tried prior to returning the recorder. DO NOT TRY THIS IF YOU ARE UNSURE OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING! - I don't want you electrocuting yourself:

Get a 240v plug from a hardware store and connect a thick cable (speaker cable or one section of 240 cable) to the earth pin only - DO NOT CONNECT ANY WIRES TO THE OTHER PINS!. You can then plug this into a power point but leave it switched off, the earthing will work without the power on. With the power switched off the recorder, the other end of the cable can be attached to the case by one of its screws. Turn on the recorder and see if the picture has improved and also listen to the audio through your HT system in case you have created an earth loop (a loud hum will be heard).

This set up is for test purposes only and should not be considered a permanent solution. If it works then you should get a trained electrical repairer to replace the recorders mains lead with a 3 core type. Also you should never try this on a TV as it could short out.

[Guest diamond jim]

When I put a dvd into the unit and went into dvd mode and hit either "edit" or "menu" (can't remember which), "dubbing" at a selected speed came up as an option. I didn't verify the process but seeing this was good enough for me.

Hope this helps and, if it does, maybe you can give me some advice on my screen quality (resolution?) issue.

Cheers,

Jack

I am new to this so don't know if this is where to put message.

I think it was you that said you had different picture results with different S-Vido cable lengths, and asked whether it was a normal phenonoman.

Don't know if it applies here technically, but working for the Government electricicity supply compnay in Esperance WA we found that our support wires for electricity power poles was creating havac for television reception in the area.

The lenght (nine feet from recollection) were an amplitude (or whatever your call it) of the tv wave signal.

We cut the support wires in half and joined them back with an insulator between the two parts. Problem solved.

You might notice too that in the days of CB radio (mstly UHF nowadays) that the guy ropes for CB roof antenas was split and joined at different interals in ths same way.

Diamond Jim .....

[argus357]

Any Sydney metro stores still holding stock of these. Been to my local but lucked out.

[taylordiving]

I am new to this so don't know if this is where to put message.

I think it was you that said you had different picture results with different S-Vido cable lengths, and asked whether it was a normal phenonoman.

Don't know if it applies here technically, but working for the Government electricicity supply compnay in Esperance WA we found that our support wires for electricity power poles was creating havac for television reception in the area.

The lenght (nine feet from recollection) were an amplitude (or whatever your call it) of the tv wave signal.

We cut the support wires in half and joined them back with an insulator between the two parts. Problem solved.

You might notice too that in the days of CB radio (mstly UHF nowadays) that the guy ropes for CB roof antenas was split and joined at different interals in ths same way.

Diamond Jim .....

Thanks Diamond Jim. Perhaps the explanation has to do with additioal insulation as a result of the added length, something not provided by the shorter cables. Also, given that it is an interference/compatibility issue then I'm assuming that additional insulation may reduce the intereference caused by the incompatibility? This is all totally unsubstantiated guessing here.........

The end to the saga: I went to Dick Smith's and told them of the problem (that's where I got the svideo cables originally) and they suggested I purchase their high quality svideo leads with the gold connectors. I did this and found the screen noise to still be present. However, again reconnecting my "stretched out" longer svideo cable (turns out it is 10M in length and my shorter one is 1.5M, same as the high performance cable I purchased) yielded a near perfect picture, I threw in the towel and went back to DS and exchanged their hp cable for a second 10M one; problem solved (at least for now!).

Thanks for everyone's input and I hope this helps someone else down the road.

[plynroo]

This has not arrived on the West Coast as yet.

As my 160gb is starting to become unreliable I might take advantage and swap when/if this arrives in Perth.

Does any body know if this unit can put chapters on the HDD??

My current unit doesn't and that - along with the rubbish remote - is my only real cmplaint about it.

Cheers,

PC

[techo]

Does any body know if this unit can put chapters on the HDD??

I have not found that yet. I do not think it is possible with this recorder.

[argus357]

It seems like things could be even better with this unit than I initially thought. I decided to try a blank recordable TDK double layer DVD+R in the MDR250. Well I was shocked, it read the DVD and promptly formatted it, when I checked its state in disk info I had 8118 MB with 242 minutes (4 hours) in SP available. I thought something must be wrong so I removed the DL DVD+R and placed it in a MTV MDR5501 (Coles previous HDD DVDR), knowing that it will read an unfinalized disk from the MDR250, sure enough it read and displayed the MDR250's formatted background, proving the MDR250 actually wrote to it. I know all my other DVDRs will not format a DL DVD, including the MDR5501, but of course they can read them.

I would like to hear if others have burnt DL DVD+Rs with this unit and confirm that in fact this is a DL DVDR.

Well, I finally found a MDR250 and promptly returned my Tevion 250Gb unit. I popped in a Verbatim DVD+R DL disc in this evening and mine also promptly formatted it to 8118 MB so it's looking good Techo.

Will do some recording to it over the weekend to confirm and let you know how it goes.

To anyone considering this unit the menu system and remote are so much more responsive than the Tevion unit, the MDR250 is just much more pleasent to use. I'm very pleased I went to the effort of tracking one down. Unit still scanned at $299. I was almost going to buy the Sansui from K-Mart but even with their current 15% off it's $349 for the different branding.

Anyone know of reigon/macrovision hacks for this unit?

Techo, I thought I read you were looking to interface to the DV input with a pc but can't find the post atm, any news on that?

[techo]

Well, I finally found a MDR250 and promptly returned my Tevion 250Gb unit. I popped in a Verbatim DVD+R DL disc in this evening and mine also promptly formatted it to 8118 MB so it's looking good Techo.

Will do some recording to it over the weekend to confirm and let you know how it goes.

To anyone considering this unit the menu system and remote are so much more responsive than the Tevion unit, the MDR250 is just much more pleasent to use. I'm very pleased I went to the effort of tracking one down. Unit still scanned at $299. I was almost going to buy the Sansui from K-Mart but even with their current 15% off it's $349 for the different branding.

Anyone know of reigon/macrovision hacks for this unit?

Techo, I thought I read you were looking to interface to the DV input with a pc but can't find the post atm, any news on that?

Nice to see someone else trying DL discs in the mdr250, since I first wrote, I have written video to the DL disc with no problems yet.

I consider other significant advantages this unit has over the Tevion are lithium backup battery and much cooler.

I never did perfect the DV link, due to time restraints and difficulties in reverse engineering LSIs code, I got as far as finding the node in debian but needed to modify LSIs firmware to write or inspect the DVDRs HDD. The MT logic used in the mdr250 might be easier, I'm thinking of trying that when I get the time. I find hacking code (without oem tools) like this very tiresome these days, or am I just getting old.

[purpleskies]

This has not arrived on the West Coast as yet.

As my 160gb is starting to become unreliable I might take advantage and swap when/if this arrives in Perth.

Does any body know if this unit can put chapters on the HDD??

My current unit doesn't and that - along with the rubbish remote - is my only real cmplaint about it.

Cheers,

PC

I'm in Perth and managed to track one down in Coles Southlands (Willetton). They had one left and still had around 5 of the 160GB models.

Couldn't find any in Coles Garden City.

Just tried a recording to the HDD and I was able to use chapters. 10 minutes is the lowest time.

I've got my SD set top box through it at the moment and quality definitely isn't as good as when it was plugged straight into the TV. Only using cheap cables at the moment, so will experiment with some better cables and see if there's any improvement.

Also noticed some vibration when it's sitting in my entertainment unit.

Cheers for all the info in the thread guys!

[argus357]

...... The MT logic used in the mdr250 might be easier, I'm thinking of trying that when I get the time. I find hacking code (without oem tools) like this very tiresome these days, or am I just getting old.

Thanks for the update Techo,

There seems to be alot of info and tools for the older MT chipsets here, here, and here.

Wish I had the skill to hack firmware, I quite enjoy toying with this stuff.

I popped the lid on my unit today. Looks like the OEM is a company called Vtrek here oem model is DR218B

The other main thing I noticed was space on the board for USB (J1) looks like all that is missing is 4 resistors R1,2,3,4 and possibly a 3 leg IC (U102) but I'll need to look more closely. Of course without support in firmware adding the hardware would be pointless. The oem page lists usb as a feature so the oem firmware would have it enabled I assume.

EEPROM is an EON EN29LV320B-70CTP (32Mbit 4Mx8 3V flash)

Memory is Infineon HYB25D256163CE-5 (256Mbit DDR SDRAM)

Battery is a vertically mounted CR2032

DVD Drive is a Smartpro International BDR-L08 ver.F

Main chipset is MT8158ADE / MT8162AE

HDD Segate ST3250820ACE

Well, if nothing else it will be fun to play with.

[zappa]

has anyone seen these in brisbane recently?

cheers,

ps, thinking this could be a good partner to my twin tuner pvr to save more recordings ( albeit at a lower resolution ).

been looking at dvd recorders on ebay but when you do a search on the model numbers the word LEMON seems to pop up quite a lot.

[Joey76]

Given what has been written in this thread about dual layer compatibility, I headed out and bought an Imation DVD+R DL disk today to try it out. My MTV MDR250 read the disk and did whatever it does for about a minute, which I guess is formatting the disk. When I checked the disk info, it registered 8+ gig worth of space. I then dubbbed about 7 gig worth of home video that I still had on the HDD, and the finalised the disk. The finalisation process took about 3-4 minutes. The machine did make a couple of weird and loud clunking noises (which had me worried for a second or two), and it was finalised.

Tried it out on my JVC dvd player, and it all worked perfectly. Really happy that this sub $300 machine also burns to DL disks. Anyone tried it with -R DL disks?

[--ThisIsAllToMuchFun--]

QUOTE (taylordiving @ Apr 2 2007, 12:43 PM)

One more bonus I've found/clarified. This unit does dub from DVD to the HDD which none of the other MTV units do, and will do so at a variety of speeds. More and more this unit looks like an incredible bargain, all except for the slight lack of image quality which I am trying to work out.

QUOTE 'techo' date='Apr 2 2007, 10:29 PM'

I have this unit but can't work out how to do this. Can you give a pointer please?

......Well I purchased one today & quite like this unit as well ...

....... but I'm also Bamboozelled with dubbing from dvd to hdd

....I can't find any thing in the manual about it....

...maybe I'm just having a blond moment

... can any one give me more info on how to do this

......thanx in advance

....................................... --ThisIsAllToMuchFun-- .....................

.

[Joey76]

ThisIsAllToMuchFun,

I've figured out that you can dub a home movie dvd (recorded from a camcorder) onto the HDD by pressing the menu button with the dvd in the drive. Though, I've tried doing the same with an original dvd movie and a Thailand dvd movie, and the function dosen't seem to work (unless someone else has made it work). I hope that clarifies things.

Cheers

[--ThisIsAllToMuchFun--]

ThisIsAllToMuchFun,

I've figured out that you can dub a home movie dvd (recorded from a camcorder) onto the HDD by pressing the menu button with the dvd in the drive. Though, I've tried doing the same with an original dvd movie and a Thailand dvd movie, and the function dosen't seem to work (unless someone else has made it work). I hope that clarifies things.

Cheers

.....Now I've had time to play with this box the only way to up load from dvd is with non finalised dvd video recordings

.....a shame really as I was hoping to upload jpeg photo's & mp3's to the 250Gig HD...

.....I've also noticed that if the dvd drive is active it can cause a slight luminance fluctuation in dark scenes only on the anologue rf tuner & it is recordable

.....so my fix for this is the dvd drive can't be active & all recordings from the internal tuner must go to the hd first & then dubbed back to the dvd media giving a very clean image....

..... has any body else noticed this

.....thanx for the all the info 'Joey 76' &' techo'

........................................ --ThisIsAllToMuchFun-- ............................

.

.

[techo]

.....so my fix for this is the dvd drive can't be active & all recordings from the internal tuner must go to the hd first & then dubbed back to the dvd media giving a very clean image....

..... has any body else noticed this

No, but I learnt along time ago to never use the built in analog tuners in HDD DVDRs, I just DI a cheap PVR into them, via component usually.

[Joey76]

No, but I learnt along time ago to never use the built in analog tuners in HDD DVDRs, I just DI a cheap PVR into them, via component usually.

Yeah, I run a SD box through my MDR250 - didn't even bother with the analogue tuner. Also the home movies that I recorded back onto the HDD from DVD were finalised and playable on other DVD players in the house.

[techo]

Yeah, I run a SD box through my MDR250 - didn't even bother with the analogue tuner. Also the home movies that I recorded back onto the HDD from DVD were finalised and playable on other DVD players in the house.

Do you have the issue whilst DVD recording from the stb?

[--ThisIsAllToMuchFun--]

'Joey76' date='Apr 16 2007, 10:18 PM'

Yeah, I run a SD box through my MDR250 - didn't even bother with the analogue tuner. Also the home movies that I recorded back onto the HDD from DVD were finalised and playable on other DVD players in the house

.......How are the video recordings from the sd stb direct to the dvd drive from the aux inputs Joey76

.........does any one have any info on current sd boxes for sale that have timers that activate from standby with either component or s-video that can connect to the MDR250

.....thanx again for the new info 'Joey 76' &' techo'

................. --ThisIsAllToMuchFun-- ..........

.

.

Edited April 17, 2007 by --ThisIsAllToMuchFun--

[argus357]

.......does any one have any new info on newer boxes that have timers.....

You lost me there, what are the "newer boxes" and what timers are you refering to?