Info and forum posts by 'drgeoff'

RE: HP LaserJet 1018 Printer. £39.99

I wondered why the printer is only £33 + VAT on HP`s UK website whereas they list the print cartridge at £42 + VAT.

I downloaded the manual and noticed: " ... Introductory 1,000-page print cartridge".

RE: Philips 610 Timer Cam1 S input

I see that Philips have released firmware BT1_35 dated 17 October 2005. Among the listed fixes is stated:

"Software upgrade now enables the possibility of timer recordings from Y/C input."

It has only taken 12 months! (Assuming the fix actually works.)

RE: Software Version. What`s in a number?

Version BT1_26 is now on the Philips site.

And, no doubt in repsonse to twig_insect`s request above (!), the associated pdf lists the bugs that 25 and 26 rectify.

RE: Mini Disc recording

You don`t say what model of recorder you have. Some have a Mic sensitivity switch. Or the Mic input may now be faulty.

Despite what blodwin said, a head cleaner isn`t going to help.

Good luck.

This item was edited on Thursday, 3rd February 2005, 13:30

RE: help philips 610

I confirm that 25 is on the Philips site. Have just downloaded it and expect to install it later tonight.

This item was edited on Thursday, 13th January 2005, 18:53

RE: help philips 610

The BT1_22 firmware is available via the www.philips.co.uk entry point. See my earlier email.

I installed this last night. Too soon to comment on the clock problem - I only observed it once in the 7 weeks or so I was on BT1_21.

I have retested the timed recording from the front panel S-video input failure I reported two months ago in another thread. The new firmware has made no change to that >:( .

I really want to encourage 610 (and 615) owners to do a trial recording from the front panel S-video input (CAM1) under timer control and report back here on success or failure. I have a "back door" route into Philips, bypassing their Customer Service, but I will not use that unless there is evidence that the failure I experience is widespread and not confined to a handful of machines. Their CS response to date is "we can`t tell if your recorder is faulty without examining it. Get in touch with your supplier". Until it is clear that the failure is not a firmware bug I am not going to surrender a recorder which is in use and meeting my requirements - the timer S-video thing is a minor inconvenience, not a showstopper for me.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 8th December 2004, 18:19

RE: help philips 610

The BT1_22 zip file I downloaded this morning contains a pdf of instructions. That pdf file has a time/date of 09:17 on 6 December. All the other files are 20:48 or 20:49 on 29 November.

RE: help philips 610

Capistrano

http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/dcbint/cpcontent.pl?hlt=Link_Software&scy=GB&slg=ENG&mid=Link_Software&cat=DVD_PLAYERS_RECORDERS_CA&sct=DVD_RECORDERS_SU&grp=HOME_AUDIO_VIDEO_GR&ctn=DVDR610/05&DCT=FUS&DID=ENG

But what is the difference between the BT1_22 you requested the link for and the BT1_22 you said you can see? Or did you mean that the Philips link only gave you an Acrobat document? If so, when the document opens, there is a "Download Firmware Upgrade - Software" link above the Acrobat toolbar.

This item was edited on Tuesday, 7th December 2004, 12:24

RE: help philips 610

New firmware BT1_22 now on Philips site. I have not been in a position to apply it yet.

RE: Philips 610 (Lower case to Upper Case)

The select button toggles between upper and lower case. This is mentioned around page 16 of the manual (may depend on the date of the manual) - the first of the two pages each with a figure of the remote and explanation of the buttons.

RE: help philips 610

twig-insect may be on to something here about Sky Teletext. My 610 is fed from a Free-to-Air non-Sky satellite receiver (normally as RGB into EXT2 but occasionally as NTSC S-video into EXT2) receiving the unencrypted channels from Astra 28E, Astra 19E and Hotbird 13E. It also has a UHF aerial feed. I have never experienced the clock problem despite being on the latest firmware since the week in mid October that it was made available on the Philips web site.

Update. 1 December. As of this morning I noticed the clock on my 610 was 30 minutes fast!! I have never yet had occasion to make a recording from terrestrial analogue so have disconnected the aerial feed and will see what happens.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 1st December 2004, 11:00

RE: help philips 610

I think I have bottomed out and solved the issue I reported with S-video and the EXT2 input.

The 610 has some mechanism for detecting whether the EXT2 input is composite, S-video or RGB. Probably looks for some voltage on a SCART pin to determine if RGB but that is not relevant here. Deciding between composite and S-video seems* to be done by looking for the presence of colour subcarrier on the composite input. But, at least on my 610, it only needs to find a small amount to conclude that the input is composite. The S-video lead I had been using apparently had enough crosstalk for a small amount of subcarrier to leak across to what should have been the luminance only wire. Since changing the 4 pin to 4 pin cable from one with a circular cross section to one with a figure of 8 cross section, I have not experienced the poor quality S-video result.

* With the machine powered up but not playing or recording, with TV connected RGB to EXT1 and S-video into EXT2, on pressing "Record" the picture momentarily goes to black and white before reverting to colour. I assume this is the detection mechanism operating and selecting first the composite option (which is the luminance only on S-video into a SCART socket) before moving on to take the colour from another pin.

I have not made any progress with the "super widescreen" anomaly.

RE: help philips 610

Especially to twig_insect from drgeoff but directed to all 610 owners.

You may recall I started the thread on the timed recording from the front panel S-input.

Philips have not acknowledged this to be a widespread fault and seem to have ceased replying to me. Yours was the only confirmation of the problem from the thread here on dvdreviewer. I started a thread on digitalspy.co.uk asking 610 owners to test theirs but got no replies at all, either positive or negative.

Meanwhile I have found two more intermittent issues though I have not encountered the clock problem. (I have been using the latest BT1_21 firmware since it appeared on the Philips site.)

1. Putting S-video into EXT2 does not always work correctly. Although it always seemed to, I did once notice that the colour saturation was reduced and the picture was generally noisy and the recording more blocky than usual. Closer testing revealed that if I was monitoring the S-video input to EXT2 through the recorder via RGB EXT1 to my TV, on pressing the front panel record button I could see the quality go down. I have surmised that the EXT2 input is then actually working in composite mode and picking up the colour though stray capacitance in the S-video to SCART adaptor dongle I`m using. The colour frequencies would be much attenauted but the atomatic gain control would try to bring that back up, bringing in more noise too. As I say this is not 100% repeatable though I have now witnessed it several times and don`t know what invokes it.

2. The other issue is "super widescreen". I only use a 4:3 TV which is quite old and it doesn`t know anything about widescreen and 16:9 switching using a different voltage on the SCART input, or line 23 signalling etc. I do use a satellite receiver, not a Sky Digibox but a German Free to Air one. It is set to letterbox mode and has for the 2 years I`ve had it properly decoded the BBC widescreen channels on Astra 28.2 to letterboxed video for display on the 4:3 TV. However feeding this video into the Philips, either as RGB into EXT2 or as S-video into EXT2 or CAM1, it sometimes comes out (even in passthrough - not recorded to DVD) as vertically squashed. As if the Philips is doing an additional letterboxing operation. Again this is not 100% repeatble and I haven`t found what provokes it. However once it happens it remains, even surviving a switch to standby mode. Only cure I`ve found is to pull out the mains plug for a few seconds.

Anyone else experienced these?

RE: Philips 610 Timer Cam1 S input

Before starting this thread I had already told Philips and had received a reply which did not inspire confidence. Basically they said that as the machine was within the 1 year warrany period, go back to the retailer. I doubt they had tried themselves to reproduce the scenario I reported.

Hence I`d like to have some more evidence suggesting that ALL 610`s do this, rather than one or two of us having faulty units. Then maybe Philips will look at the matter properly.

RE: Philips 610 Timer Cam1 S input

Thanks twig_insect. I had already resorted to the workaround of S-video via a SCART adaptor into EXT2. It is not exactly blindingly obvious from the manual that EXT2 can accept S-video! But it does and timed recordings of S-video by that route do work.

However, returning to the original issue, it is CAM2 (the Firewire input fitted to the 615 and 616 models but not on the 610) which the instruction manual says cannot be timer recorded.

As I wrote in my original posting, timer recording from CAM1 does work as expected when putting composite video into the phono socket. But when using the S-video socket in timer mode, the recorder says "No signal".

When manually going up or down the channels/inputs using remote or front panel buttons, the machine usually takes a moment or two to decide whether CAM1 has video at the composite or S-video socket. There is some detection mechanism to decide which is active. Indeed this dectection only occurs once at the time of selection. I mean if you have composite going in and switch to CAM1 then the recorder (eventually) selects that composite signal. If you then pull out the phono plug and insert S-video it is not recognised as being present. Only when CAM1 is selected again is the detection mechanism triggered and the S-input accepted.

I suspect that there is a firmware bug such that in timer mode the recorder looks only at the composite socket.

Would 610 owners please try the simple test of making a timer recording from the front panel S-video input and report here if successful or not.

This item was edited on Thursday, 28th October 2004, 13:06

Philips 610 Timer Cam1 S input

My Philips 610/05 DVD recorder fails to make timed recordings from the front panel S-video input (CAM 1). The recorder wakes up at the preset time but the fluorescent display declares "No signal". Manual recording from this input does work (showing the source, the cable and the 610`s input circuitry is working). Timer recording from the neighbouring composite video input socket does work. So far, the failure has been 100% repeatable.

Could others please report here if their recorders are similarly afflicted.

FWIW the recorder is a Sainsbury £100 one and has had 3 firmware upgrades; currently on the BT1_21.zip one.