Installation guide

ManualsBrandsReplayTV ManualsComputer equipmentRTV5504

Print version of the contents from www.replaytvupgrade.com 1/25/2007

• Introduction

This site was originally started as a source of information on 2 drive ReplayTV upgrades, but now serves as a single source of

information for upgrading or repairing a ReplayTV as well as other ReplayTV related information.

The most common point of failure in a ReplayTV or ShowStopper is the hard drive and/or software corruption on the hard

drive. When that happens the ReplayTV will be stuck in a reboot loop, displaying the first "Please wait ..." screen repeatedly

(which is only visible on the composite and s-video outputs) and will be inoperative otherwise. If you only have the coaxial

output hooked up to your television, and the ReplayTV is unable to boot, you'll see nothing but static on the TV. See:

ReplayTV appears dead (won't boot), nothing on the television. If you're here to replace the hard drive, here's a good place to

start: Replacing the hard drive / RTVPatch drive replacement documentation. When the hard drive fails or the software gets

corrupted, the ReplayTV will become stuck in a reboot loop, only displaying the "Please Wait ..." screen. (See: ReplayTV stuck

at "Please wait..."). Replacing the drive is relatively easy and can be completed in a short time. Other common problems

included poor connections between the power supply and motherboard and/or loose grounding screws on the motherboard and

power supply. (See: ReplayTV seems unstable, works for while, then reboots or other strange and/or erratic behavior).

If you're having another problem with a ReplayTV or ShowStopper, there's a lengthy troubleshooting thread with lots of

information here: Building a Troubleshooting Checklist. The chances are good that someone else has already experienced

whatever problem you're seeing - read that thread thoroughly - it could save you some time in solving your problem. DNNA also

has a troubleshooting knowledgebase covering all ReplayTV models here: ReplayTV Troubleshooting. An excellent source of

technical support help is available at Planet Replay from other ReplayTV users.

Before you attempt any upgrade or repair, read through all the available documentation presented here, through links

here, and elsewhere. When you think you comprehend all of it, read through it again to make sure. If you encounter a

problem, read through everything again to see if it's been encountered before. All of the information you need for a

successful upgrade or repair is likely here or through the links provided here.

Whether you're interested in upgrading the drive in your ReplayTV, or replacing an ailing hard drive in your ReplayTV, much

how-to and do-it-yourself information is presented here. I have owned and upgraded ShowStoppers, ReplayTV 3000s, ReplayTV

4000/4500s and ReplayTV 5000/5500s, starting with my first ShowStopper/ReplayTV in July of 2000. The information

presented here has been gathered from personal experience, information from other ReplayTV users, and help provided to

ReplayTV users in various on line forums.

If you start at the top of the "Alphabetical Index" at the left (or click on "Next" below), then use "Next" at the bottom of each

page, you'll cycle through all of the information available on this site. "Home" from any page will take you back to the main

(start) page. And the "Search this site" button at the top of the index works well to find specific information on this site.

Regarding Windows Vista - nearly all of the software related to working with ReplayTVs was written long before Windows Vista

was even being beta tested - consequently you may find that some, if not all of the available software, including RTVPatch will

not work under Windows Vista. On the other hand, you may find that much of the ReplayTV related software works fine under

Vista. If you're running Windows Vista, you're generally on your own with respect to a program working or not working, and you

may need to resort to a Linux boot method to use something like RTVPatch, if it does not work correctly under Windows Vista.

I do not use Windows Vista and have no plans to.

If you'd like to print this site's content, click here for a single .pdf document with all the site's info.

Good luck!

-Gary

Summary of content (22 pages)

PAGE 1
Print version of the contents from www.replaytvupgrade.com 1/25/2007 • Introduction This site was originally started as a source of information on 2 drive ReplayTV upgrades, but now serves as a single source of information for upgrading or repairing a ReplayTV as well as other ReplayTV related information. The most common point of failure in a ReplayTV or ShowStopper is the hard drive and/or software corruption on the hard drive.
PAGE 2
• Adding new IR Blaster codes to a ReplayTV (to add control for certain DirecTV receivers and others) (Including DirecTV D10, D11, H10 and H20 receivers) From: FlipFlop in the Adding new IR Blaster codes to the Replay unit thread at AVS Forum. (This method doesn't rely on or need any other program (like DVArchive or WiRNS) to transfer new IR codes to your ReplayTV.
PAGE 3
The following procedure will force a net connect once a week at a set time. If the ReplayTV is past the 7 day maintenance reboot, the forced net connect will force the maintenance reboot. 1) Install perl on your PC running WiRNS. (Here's one source for perl: http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/.) 2) Download and unzip netconnect.pl from netconnect.zip and place it in your /perl/bin directory. 3) Modify netconnect.pl for your ReplayTV's IP address and the directory for WiRNS.
PAGE 4
• Contact info for this site: The information here is presented as-is. Technical support beyond the information presented is not available here. Technical support from other ReplayTV users is available at Planet Replay. If you believe something is missing from this site, or that something needs changing, then you can contact me here. I will not provide technical support on an individual basis.
PAGE 5
Other currently produced brands or models of hard drive should work. Seagate drives have been popular replacement drives because of their 5 year warranty. So is there a drive or line of drives that's a sure thing to work in a ReplayTV? There's no easy answer. Maxtor makes a line of drives specifically designed for use in PVRs - the QuickView line. Seagate also makes a PVR specific line of drives - the DB35 series.
PAGE 6
• ShowGuard/SportsGuard Shows that are now running a minute or more past the half hour or hour are perfect reasons to activate ShowGuard. ShowGuard is a feature that was written into the software but never implemented, that automatically extends all recordings by a set amount (like 5 minutes) if there is not a show to be recorded immediately following. SportsGuard does the same thing with shows flagged as sports.
PAGE 7
The fan in 55XX series ReplayTVs and newer 50XX series ReplayTVs does not start immediately as the unit powered up. The fan doesn't start running until the software has finished loading. While the fan in these ReplayTVs does run at a lower speed to reduce noise, the fans generally run at a constant speed at all times, 24/7. In early model 50XX ReplayTVs and 4XXX ReplayTVs, the fan runs as soon as the unit is powered up, but also runs 24/7.
PAGE 8
• IVS Network/Router/ReplayTV Setup Howto j.m. has offered an excellent set of instructions and troubleshooting tips to get IVS working with your LAN. Here's the thread at www.poopli.com on network/router/ReplayTV IVS setup: http://www.poopli.com/forum/showthread.
PAGE 9
• Other upgrade info: An excellent source of information about ReplayTV is: The ReplayTV FAQ . There is an upgrade FAQ at the RTVPatch site on sourceforge: ReplayTV Hard Drive Upgrade FAQ and find everything you need to hack to a 2 drive unit here. • Other sites of ReplayTV interest -WiRNS - Guide data for ReplayTVs and much more -IVSmagic - take control of your IVS transfers -Gerry Duprey's DVArchive DVArchive "Virtual ReplayTV for your PC" -Poopli.
PAGE 10
• Out of memory during net connect On early ReplayTV models (prior to the 40XX series) and ShowStoppers, you may get an "out of memory" during the net connect process, particularly if you have upgraded to a larger hard drive, did not use the large cluster option in RTVPatch and have lots of recorded shows or lots of recordings set up in the ReplayGuide. This is more likely to happen if the Channel Guide you use has a very large number of channels available.
PAGE 11
With today's large drives, there might be a slight drive performance gain by forcing 1 MB clusters in RTVPatch rather than using the default 256 KB cluster size. The gain, if any, would be observed when a drive contains many recorded shows. To force RTVPatch to use 1 MB clusters, start RTVPatch with the command line: "RTVPatch 0 1048576" (without the quotes).
PAGE 12
One method is to route the cable over the drive: Another way is to route the cable over the motherboard: *Hard drive replacement documentation using RTVPatch is here: RTVPatch single drive upgrade documentation (Win2k/XP) RTVPatch dual drive upgrade documentation (Win2k/XP) • ReplayTV company history: ReplayTV was founded in 1997 and got its first DVR on the market in 1999. Many sources credit ReplayTV with being the first DVR to market, if only by a matter of weeks before TiVo.
PAGE 13
Although the 50XX series line included a USB 1.1 port and the 55XX series line included a USB 2.0 port, the port was never activated in the software. While the firewire port in the early 20XX line was likely for storage expansion, the USB port was probably added to allow for USB to Ethernet connectivity, or possibly storage expansion. (The above dates were obtained from researching the ReplayTV web site via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
PAGE 14
For more on using a ReplayTV image file, see: How do you use a downloaded image? Hard Drive Manufacturer Utilities: Western Digital Data Lifeguard Diagnostics www.maxtor.com - go to Support, Software Downloads, Desktop Storage, DiamondMax Family or Maxtor Other, Diagnostics, Powermax. Powermax (to make a bootable diskette) is also available here, or a bootable ISO image is available here.
PAGE 15
ReplayTV and/or ShowStopper, however the extract_rtv documentation makes reference to models earlier than the 5XXX series. It does work with 50XX and 55XX series ReplayTVs). Using extract_rtv5 is a manual recovery process and retrieves the raw files without show information. Recovered shows can then be imported into DVArchive and streamed back to a ReplayTV or they may be burned to a DVD.
PAGE 16
• ReplayTV stuck at swirl screen (past "Please wait...") Network problems can also cause the boot process to hang on a ReplayTV. If your ReplayTV boots past the "Please wait ..." and "One moment please ..." screens, and then hangs at the next screen (referred to as the swirl screen), you may have a network problem. In this case, the system may continue to reboot if left alone after 15-20 minutes or more.
PAGE 17
If the problem returns after re-imaging, you should try a different drive. Heat can be an originating cause of hard drive problems. Make sure your ReplayTV has adequate ventilation and that the fan is running (40XX and later models all have fans). Once a drive suffers damage caused by overheating, it will need to be replaced.
PAGE 18
> dd if=RTV_5K_FactoryReset_140.rtv of=/dev/diskN bs=1024 count=517121 which produces an output like: 517121+0 records in 517121+0 records out 529531904 bytes transferred in 286.508004 secs (1848227 bytes/sec) Notes: 1. the "N" in /dev/diskN is from step 1. 2. This took almost 5 minutes to complete. You can watch the activity light on the drive to see that things are happening. 3. If you are in the correct directory, you can "see" the .
PAGE 19
>t >p >x Notes: 1. For s pick N (for device /dev/diskN) 2. For t pick N (for device /dev/diskN) 3.
PAGE 20
• What is channel mapping and how does it handle 4 digit channel numbers? Channel mapping allows the ReplayTV to "map" channel numbers from what they actually are, to a numbering system the ReplayTV can handle, particularly with more than one source as an input. Here's an example using a single input - Dish Network via composite input 1. Dish Network has channel numbers that go from single numbers (for local stations) to 4 digit channel numbers.
PAGE 21
50XX includes 5040, 5060*, 5080, 5160 and 5320 55XX includes 5504, 5508, 5516 and 5532 (*The 5060 was sold by Costco and actually contained an 80 GB drive, which could be patched to 80 hours with RTVPatch) Software build naming: The following are all software version 5.
PAGE 22
If you see the initial "Please wait ..." screen, that will be followed by a slight flicker and the second screen that's generated by the software if the hard drive and software are both functional: or you'll see the flicker and the first "Please wait ..." repeatedly in a reboot loop. ****Note: the initial "Please wait ..." screen is only visible when using s-video or composite out from the ReplayTV to the TV. If you're using the ReplayTV RF output to the television, the initial "Please wait ...