Recording Problems at the begining of HD-movies

[puschi]

Hi.

I'm using 3.0.806 and have a little problem with recording a HD movie.

On every (!) HD movie i record, there is a gap (and fragmentation), exactly 6-7 seconds after the start of a new record.
The gap takes than 7-9 seconds. After this the record is perfect, without any problem.

This problem is there since 3.0.64x i think.

The problem (possible bug) is, that the vix image isn't waiting long enough, for spinning up the sleeping HDD.
Older versions of vix didn't had this problem (perhaps using a other way to check if the hdd is spinning up?)


Background:
- HDD is connected over USB.
- HDD is a WesternDigital
- The problem isn't occur, if i record with a running HDD (first play a movie and than record before the hdd goes to sleep)
- The problem isn't occur, if i record a SD movie.
- Sleep time is set to 2 Minutes.
- Using a swap file on a usb-stick didn't change this problem (vix swap 1MB of memory, but didn't access the usb stick/swap-file in the moment he is recording a movie)
- The problem occur on a direct recording (with sleeping HDD)
- The problem also occur on timer recording (with the vix spinner is there some seconds before starting a record, so the vix is waking up the hdd)

I think, vix starts the record in this moment, the hdd is accessible the first time. But the HDD takes a little time too, to be full accessible (writable), perhaps with calibration of the head's and so on (it sounds so)...

So the record is starting (eating the whole cache? ) and has a problem to write the stream, becouse the hdd isn't ready in this moment.
If the hdd is ready after some additional second, the recording is continuing with this gap.



Is it possible to change the detection of a successfully spinnig up hdd (dummy read or write of a sector, that isn't in cache)?

Perhaps it is a good idea to adding a new variable setting: max. wait time for spinning up the HDD??


Thanks and a happy new year.

[puschi]

Hi.

I checked all my old recordings and the used images.

All recordings up to 3.0.643 are ok.
All after that (next used image for me was 3.0.720) had the same problem.

Hope this helps.

[craig37]

That's really quite an old build your using, I'd be inclined to update to the latest image (808) using image manager to install it. Make sure you do a back up first.. :)

And if you have an alternative drive, I'd certainly look there too.

[puschi]

That's really quite an old build your using.

Ok. 806 is very very old :) (just a funny comment from me..)

The problem is there since the last 100 version's.... (~700 -> 806)

Yesterday i did a record from the deep standby. So that the hdd is running and has spinned up. I do not know whether vix is set the hdd to sleep and than start the timer record..
But on this record (with turning with hdd rotating), the movie is freezing after 6-7 seconds and the gap is only 1 second!

[Larry-G]

I'm not able to replicate your issues here but all of my boxes use a internal HDD not a externally mounted one, not really sure of any one else who uses a external HDD either who can test to conform your problem.

[craig37]

Although my system is a solo 2 I do have a 1TB Samsung drive connected by the rear usb port and I also have another drive networked via my router's usb and have no issues at all with recording. My Hdd is set to go into standby after 5 minutes. Really think it must be something to do with your HDD drive its self. Do a full re-flash and if your problem persists, I'd try another hard drive.

[puschi]

Do a full re-flash...,

Hello.

I did a full re-flash. No change.


An update to the problem.

It seems to occur only in newer WD plates of the Green series. Here, apparently, there are problems with the IDLE command.

I increased the IDLE timer Auto Park the heads in inactivity of 8s to 30 s. This has brought a partial success: the recording now only remains for 1 s hang (9 s after the start). This disable the IDLE timer brought no improvement.
The Green HDD’s from WD, apparently, have a slightly different command for the idle mode. Possibly is it because that? (I remember, that I have to use the hd-idle from sourceforge to put my wd-hdd to idle an a other image.)

Has no one else the problem with the WD green caviar HDD's / WDxxEADS ???