'Pace Twin' sudden failure, with cure.

[OldSkoolRS]

A useful tip for any owners of these ancient, but useful, PVRs:

If yours has locked up and won't turn on, try the following:

Unplug from the mains for 10 seconds or so.
Disconnect the aerial lead MOST IMPORTANT.
Plug it back into the mains, LEAVE THE AERIAL DISCONNECTED.
Hopefully it will now power up, but with no signal.
Change the channel to BBC 1, PLUG THE AERIAL BACK IN.
Hopefully Pace is now working again and can be used as normal.

It seems there is some issue with ITV transmissions causing the Pace Twin to lock up on startup. This may cure the issue, but it may need to be repeated unless ITV sort out whatever they have done to their broadcast as Pace no longer support this model. A work around would be to ensure that the Pace is turned off after selecting a BBC Channel.

I given mine to our daughter more as a Freeview box, but she likes the easy recording process. I found this out on AVForums (was about to pull it apart and replace the hard disc with a spare one, before I read the AVF post).

Hope it helps someone.....lousy time of year to lose your TV otherwise.

[headcase]

The Humax 9300 has a similar problem, there is a s/ware upgrade for the 9150 and 9200, the 9300 should have one in Jan. I get the feeling ITV arnt going to do anything, its maybe a problem with the box not being able to support some channels on 2k mode and others on 8k.

[mp3manager]

headcase said:

The Humax 9300 has a similar problem, there is a s/ware upgrade for the 9150 and 9200, the 9300 should have one in Jan. I get the feeling ITV arnt going to do anything, its maybe a problem with the box not being able to support some channels on 2k mode and others on 8k.

Thanks for the tip. Just bought a 9300 for my parents for Christmas.

It'll do for them.....although it still can't beat my TiVo though. \0/

[OldSkoolRS]

I bought the 9150 for my Dad last Christmas and spent the next few months fielding phone calls regarding it's odd behaviour and their lack of understanding the manual. I knew it was partly due to having old firmware in it so when I saw notice of a firmware broadcast I told my Dad what to do....he failed and of course the issues continued. I ended up disconnecting it when I went down this summer as they just couldn't cope with it. This year they got the usual biscuits, chocolates and tolietries as I figure they know what to do with them. Though I did take a chance on buying them a BluRay set of BBC's 'Life' as I figure they already understand the principle of putting a DVD in the player, so I hope their recently purchase HD TV with free BluRay has been connected up properly (though I won't be surprised if they used a composite video cable ) and putting a BluRay in the player isn't beyond them.....

I hope your parents are more tech savvy than my Dad.

[headcase]

You can download available s/w upgrades from Humax's website when available and upgrade them with a serial lead from your laptop. So you dont actually have to wait for an OTA upgrade.

[OldSkoolRS]

Yes I know this, but by the time I went down there they had already lost confidence using it so I just unplugged it....I know it's a waste, but I couldn't handle the Tech support issues, so I can't say I'm too bothered and their new TV has Freeview built in so that's easier for them: Heaven knows what they'll do when the VCR packs up or the analogue signal goes off (whichever comes first). At least the MIL doesn't use a VCR, she uses her laptop to watch things she's missed on iPlayer instead.

[headcase]

Tell me about it, i went to an old guy the other day who had a Humax forced upon him because of the switchover, the Humaxes are one of the easiest to operate for us younger generation but he go so flustered he forgot to put the teabag in my brew :P
I wouldnt be suprised if there were Digital switchover related fatalities in the older generation due to stress.

[OldSkoolRS]

Yes, I don't know how the older generation (and some of the less older generation too) will cope with PVRs instead of VCRs. The odd thing is that when I first got the Pace it was the ease of use to record things that delighted me: No more faffing about in timer menus, etc. My Dad still uses his VCR with the codes from the Radio Times, yet he finds a PVR baffling (I have to say the Humax seemed slightly less logical to use than the Pace, but thats by the by).

[indi pearl]

I bought a Pace Twin DV3 when they first came out some 4/5? years ago and it is still the main recipient for Freeview into my AV set up. Every so often it copies my wife and throws "The Mental", locking up and refusing to turn off (again a bit like my wife). I found simply unpluging it then reconection to mains power does the trick every time.

Maybe if I reverse the process this will deal with my wifes "breakdowns"!!

[Graham E]

I have 3 pace twins, and I've nt managed to find a "modern" one that works as nicely, interface wise. The signal quality out into a tv is also top notch.
Unfortunately, only 1 of them has the latest firmware, and rarely gets The Mental out. The one on mid era firmware won't watch and record off the same Mux, and currently is having a flap over wether I can have all channels, and no EPG, or an EPG and 80 channels out of 120.
The Third does the glitchy movement thing the original firmware had on an alarmingly regular basis.

Please can someone tell me box there is out there that:
Is easy to use like the Pace
Doesn't have some god awful fan whirring away at all hours
Isn't minging to look at
Outputs "proper" quality.

Seems not muc to ask, but I'm yet to see topfield and Humax address 1 and 2...

[OldSkoolRS]

I'm 'making do' with a Sony DVD/HDD recorder. However it only has one tuner so that means I can only record one thing at a time (but so does the Pace), but my TV is Freeview anyway, so I can still watch something else. It seems quite straight forward to use in the same way as the Pace, plus it has a HDMI socket, so I can send it's output (at 576i) into my Lumagen video processor for some quite reasonable upscaling that I couldn't do with the Pace. However, the upscaling isn't half bad anyway, especially on a smaller screen like my 40" TV.

The limitations are that you aren't recording the transport stream with a DVD/HDD recorder so there is some quality loss occuring I suppose, though I leave mine on the top setting for most things as I haven't got anywhere near filling the hard drive. It does mean that you can 'record' subtitles if you're hard of hearing like a friend of ours does. I replaced the hard drive in the Pace with a 100Gb one to increase the recording space, but found that I rarely exceeded the original's maximum.

I'm going to hang fire for a while until a twin tuner Freeview HD recorder with BluRay drive is available for less than the price of a limb. I'm of the opinion that different BluRay players seem to look the same (when calibrated and playing BluRays rather than DVDs) even on my projector, so a one box solution would be nice one day. I don't watch too many DVDs these days (apart from the kids using the TV) so maybe I'd cope with the DVD playback quality too without having to have another player for that (the present Sony looks good enough if I use the Lumagen to upscsale anyway).

Edited by OldSkoolRS on Tuesday 22 December 12:30

[mp3manager]

Graham E said:

Please can someone tell me box there is out there that:
Is easy to use like the Pace

TiVo is the most user-friendly PVR I've ever used.

Graham E said:

Doesn't have some god awful fan whirring away at all hours

TiVo's fan is not audible.

Graham E said:

Isn't minging to look at

It's a beast!

Graham E said:

Outputs "proper" quality.

TiVo can be modded to output 720 x 576 ie. Mode 0


I've been using my parent's 9300T and it really is crap in comparison to my TiVo.
I can't believe nobody has built a PVR that surpasses TiVo's reliability and ease of use in the last 8 years!

[Graham E]

MP3,

I thought TiVO was subscription only though - is that still the case? Like a true pikey, I'd be against that since 99% of the stuff on telly is naff anyway. If not though, your reccomendation sounds good. Time for ebay =)

[mp3manager]

TiVo can be used without a subscription but you lose all the functionality and have to manually program it...just like an old VCR. How quaint!

Or

Buy one from ebay or one of the TiVo specialists and pay a £10 monthly sub or £199 for a lifetime sub.

Or

Buy a machine already with a lifetime sub from ebay/TiVo specialist, which usually sell for, (depending on spec - hard-drive size/cachecard etc.) for around £60 - £150.

[headcase]

Panasonic DMRE768?? only 1 tuner though.

[wiggly's mum]

OldSkoolRS said:

A useful tip for any owners of these ancient, but useful, PVRs:

If yours has locked up and won't turn on, try the following:

Unplug from the mains for 10 seconds or so.
Disconnect the aerial lead MOST IMPORTANT.
Plug it back into the mains, LEAVE THE AERIAL DISCONNECTED.
Hopefully it will now power up, but with no signal.
Change the channel to BBC 1, PLUG THE AERIAL BACK IN.
Hopefully Pace is now working again and can be used as normal.

It seems there is some issue with ITV transmissions causing the Pace Twin to lock up on startup. This may cure the issue, but it may need to be repeated unless ITV sort out whatever they have done to their broadcast as Pace no longer support this model. A work around would be to ensure that the Pace is turned off after selecting a BBC Channel.

I given mine to our daughter more as a Freeview box, but she likes the easy recording process. I found this out on AVForums (was about to pull it apart and replace the hard disc with a spare one, before I read the AVF post).

Hope it helps someone.....lousy time of year to lose your TV otherwise.

Not sure if this is the right place to put this as I've never been on a Forum before, but just wanted to say a HUGE thank you - I had two Pace freeview boxes that had suddenly frozen and I thought both tuners had gone on each box as I was getting no signal info on any of them (a bit of a coincidence as they both went wrong within 2 days of each other - the 1st one froze up whilst doing a late night recording - found it the next morning and the 2nd one whilst scanning for channels). Was about to replace them when I found your posting - worked 1st time on one of them but took a couple of goes on the second. Both now working again. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

[OldSkoolRS]

No worries, glad it helped. It wasn't me that discovered this BTW I searched on the AVforums website I normally frequent and stumbled across it, so I'm just spreading the word.

[wiggly's mum]

Well, this was the one that came up in my search engine and solved the problem, so I'll still thank you!