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Author Topic: Anyone here with a Sony DVD or HDD recorder or TV which stopped working?  (Read 2188 times)

broadstairs

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My Sony HDD/DVD recorder apparently packed up yesterday and I was unable to see any output form the Freeview tuner. Thinking it was a hardware fault and was not worth getting repaired I went out and bought a new one. Now I find apparently 100's of Sony customers have been complaining to them about this issue and it seems like there may have been a bad update over the air which caused it.

So if you have any Sony TV kit go check to make sure it's working. I'd be interested to know if anyone else here does have a problem?

Stuart
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tickmike

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I have a set of 6 fixed IP's From  Eclipse  isp.BT ADSL2(G992.3) line>HG612 as a Modem, Bridge, WAN Not Bound to LAN1 or 2 + Also have FTTP (G.984) No One isp Fixed IP >Dual WAN pfSense (Hardware Firewall and routing).> Two WAN's, Ethernet LAN, DMZ LAN, Zyxel GS1100-24 Switch.

sevenlayermuddle

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Interesting.

I experienced a similar failing with one of these models some years ago.

On that occasion, I got to the very bottom of it, all 'i's dotted and 't's crossed, by using protocol analyser tools to inspect the recordings.  The problem was interesting; the DVB broadcasting standard basically defines various bit settings for various functions, and in some cases unused  bit combinations are specified as being 'reserved for future use'.  One of the UK broadcasters had begun, apparently in error, using hardware that set these bits which caused these Sony boxes to malfunction.  Basically, the aspect ratio tended to be wrong, with some 'widescreen' broadcasts  shown in 4:3 format with pillarbox bars.

In my view Sony were entirely at fault as the DVB spec, like any decent protocol spec had forwards compatibility build in and basically said that, at the receiving end, any reserved bits should be ignored, ie treated as if they were zero.  Freeview boxes that did so continued to function, whereas Sony's buggy boxes didn't.  Sony's firmware clearly wasn't observing the 'ignore reserved bits' rule.  They also refused to release a fix, and instead resolutely blamed the broadcaster, who had to stop setting the 'reserved' bits, it all took months to resolve.

With all that in mind, I'm not at all surprised to hear new problems have crawled out the woodwork, even if its a completely different problem,.

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broadstairs

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Well its sorted, I believe the problem was bad data in the EPG which was fixed by whoever did the botch job on Sunday. The problem with the SONY equipment is that they did not make it, it is rebadged Pioneer or Panasonic. Sure they should handle bad better as it only seems to have affected these 3 makes and mainly SONY.

Oh well I now have two DVD/PVR boxes!

Stuart
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