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April 17, 2006

Bell 9200 PVR Sucks

I have been a PVR fan for quite some time. My first exposure was a TiVO series 1 on DirecTV, and then when Bell ExpressVu came out with their 5100, I immediately grabbed one. The difference between the 5100 and a TiVO series 1 is quite stunning - no name based recording or season's passes. In spite of the shortcomings, I happily used the 5100 for a couple of years, until the hard drive started getting more and more flakey.


What a perfect opportunity to check out ExpressVu's latest offering - the 9200. This beast offers HD, dual tuners, 180 hours of recording time, and name based recording! At least, that's what all the advertising said. In reality, there's no name based recording. After much hype advertising the feature as coming soon for the last six months or so, they have quietly dropped all mention of it on their website.


The second problem is that my unit 'stutters' when playing back recorded shows. Not just some of the time - it stutters about every two mintues or so continuously! It makes watching recorded shows unbearable. I thought I must have got a defective unit. I did some searching on the web to see if this was a known issue. Boy was I surprised. I found some good threads over at digitalhomecanada.com with people experiencing the exact same issue. In fact, these people had researched the problem enough to pinpoint the problem to a particular brand of hard drive.


This morning, I called Bell ExpressVu to ask them about the problems I was experiencing. After initially denying any knowledge, they conceded that there was a known problem with the software, and that a fix was going to come out to address the problem. They were unable to provide me with an estimated date for the fix, and they seemed to think that the stuttering was okay and wouldn't affect my enjoyment of Bell ExpressVu. They were also unable to provide a delivery date for the promised name-based recording feature. I'm not happy with their explanation, and I'm not happy that I'm not able to watch recorded shows with this unit. I've escalated the problem to a manager (yeah, right) who will call me back within 48 hours. I'll let you know what they say.

Update: 2006-04-17 20:37

Discussions on the boards seem to suggest that the 9200s that exibit problems have Maxtor hard drives in them. My son suggested that perhaps Maxtor's 'Acoustic Management' feature might be enabled on the drive, which would definitely affect performance, and might be the cause of the stuttering. I might just have to break down and void the warranty to pull the drive out to verify if this is actually the case. I'll post an update if I pull it apart.

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Posted by Ian at April 17, 2006 11:08 AM

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» Disassembling the 9200 PVR from broadbandpig.com
Never one to shy away from voiding a warranty, I decided to take the plunge and pull apart my malfunctioning 9200 PVR to see if I could figure out if the hard drive had any sort of AAM (Advanced Acoustic... [Read More]

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I had my HDTV satellite receiver installed a week ago, and things like the Discovery channel in HD make your jaw drop. I got a 2 tuner PVR, Dolby Digital output unit and everything is very very nice. ... [Read More]

Tracked on April 19, 2006 05:54 AM

Comments

Yeah, the stuttering thing was supposed to be fixed "in 2 weeks" 4 weeks ago. Now, they say end of April. I sent an email and the guy who replied said, and I kid you not;

Thank you for your email regarding your 9200. My name is ----, and I am pleased to assist you.

I understand that you are patiently waiting for our software upgrade for your 9200 receiver.

I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing ongoing issues with your receiver. The technology group is aware of the problems and has made it a top priority to fix them. You will be pleased to know that our software developers are currently working towards a resolution to these problems. Rest assured that a new software will be deployed as soon as it is available.

I appreciate your patience during this time.


So he told me the same thing 3 times. I'm fighting for a rental credit for the PVR I can't use.

Posted by: Joel at April 17, 2006 12:14 PM

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