DTR T2100 Recordings?

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sproutdreamer

New Member
Hi New Here from Toppylandia
I am quite pleased with the YouView Humax Freeview PVR -very compact/no fan noise and so far seems ok (apart from slow boot up until altered power mode)
Looking at recordings there is no information how much HDD space has been used apart from the percentage shown as free. However the percentage shown free compared to the recordings there does not seem to equate to a 500GB HDD. is there any way of altering setting to show actual space used on the disc or the volume of the recordings made?
Is there any other software available to get better functionality from the unit?
 
The "500GB" disk won't actually be 500GB, and there will be a chunk given up to time shift buffers etc not available for recordings.

From the Glossary (click), entry KiB, MiB, GiB:
Black Hole said:
The traditional units for counting bytes of storage can result in confusion. It has long been a convention that the prefix "k" (kilo) denotes "multiply by 1000", and "K" denotes a multiplier of 1024 (2 to the power 10). However, the same trick does not work with the scientific multipliers for 1,000,000 ("M", mega) or 1,000,000,000 ("G", giga). In computerese we would normally regard "1 MB" (for example) as meaning 1,048,576 bytes (2 to the power 20), but disk drive manufacturers (etc) have been known to take advantage of the ambiguity and advertise a 93GB drive as 100GB (using the decimal version of "G") - this is frequently the cause of consternation when users run a disk check and find there is unaccounted "missing" capacity.
Click to expand...

sproutdreamer said:
is there any way of altering setting to show actual space used on the disc or the volume of the recordings made?
Click to expand...
I very much doubt it.
sproutdreamer said:
Is there any other software available to get better functionality from the unit?
Click to expand...
No! The best chance you have of regaining Toppy customisability is to obtain a second-hand HDR-FOX T2 and installing the custom firmware:

Quick Guide to Custom Firmware (click)
 
Hi SproutDreamer
sproutdreamer said:
Looking at recordings there is no information how much HDD space has been used apart from the percentage shown as free. However the percentage shown free compared to the recordings there does not seem to equate to a 500GB HDD. is there any way of altering setting to show actual space used on the disc or the volume of the recordings made?
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No there isn't.
The space taken is very similar to a vanilla HDR-FOX T2 and so I'll try to dig out a few some examples at the weekend unless someone else answers first.
It is not as efficient as a Toppy as the Humax Youview and freeview HD recorders all include a lot of the epg data in each recording. This really bumps up the usage if you have a lot of what should be small radio recordings.

sproutdreamer said:
Is there any other software available to get better functionality from the unit?
Click to expand...
No.
There is a new version of the software of the DTR-T2100 which starts to be rolled out tonight! I think in the past it may have take 6 weeks to roll-out the DTR-T2100 updates to everybody.

The new version will remove the ability to hide channels (but any hidden will stay hidden unless you unhide them), remove the discover functionality, and also remove the action options which are currently displayed when the info button when the information button is used. These three functions will be re-added later by a further software update.

In this new release there will also be other changes, including turning the recording and schedule lists into picture form, and making it more button intensive to navigate the recordings, plus many other changes e.g. removing the mini TV screen from the epg and replacing it by making the epg optionally transparent.

sproutdreamer said:
(apart from slow boot up until altered power mode)
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With the new software the start up time should be improved and the catch-up start up time will also improve.
Added by edit 17/3/17: 10 hours later and I've now tried this new version on a DTR-T2100. For me the start up time from eco standby is not improved, but the catch-up is, but not by much!
 
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Some example TV recording sizes from a native HDR-FOX T2 where the recordings' size is similar to the DTR-T2100 are:
BBC 1 HD 28 minutes 1.27 GiB
ITV HD 135 minutes 4.73 GiB
CBBC HD 31 minutes 976.24 MiB

PSB SD recordings
BBC TWO 58 minutes 1.81 GiB
ITV 25 minutes 589.59 MiB
ITV 29 minutes 616.75 MiB

Lower bit rate channels SD recordings
5 USA SD 60 minutes 940 MiB
E4 SD 26 minutes 542.54 MiB
E4 SD 49 minutes 1.11 GiB
Pick SD 62 minutes 999.34 MiB

Radio: Radio programmes' channel are multiple times larger as the same recordings on a Toppy. Low bit rate radio channels being the most inflated.
BBC 6 Music 59 minutes 405.59 MiB
BBC Radio 4 Extra 32 minutes 226.97 MiB
LBC 179 minutes 1.05 GiB
BBC Radio 3 29 minutes 213.78 MiB

Edited: 17/03/17 to add wider range of examples.
Edit: Cmment: all sizes refer to the transport stream file and do not incude the smaller sidecar files which each recording has.
 
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Hi
Thanks for extremely detailed responses. Certainly a lot of knowledge here.
As I suspected the file sizes of recordings are a lot bigger than on a Toppy but I can live with what I have got.
I will browse around here and soak it all up but it is good to know there is such a body of expertise.
Many thanks for all the info/ideas/references and trouble gone to documenting the stuff!
 
sproutdreamer said:
As I suspected the file sizes of recordings are a lot bigger than on a Toppy but I can live with what I have got.
Click to expand...
If you do go for the HDR Fox T2 option, you can choose to remove EPG information from the recordings and achieve similar recording sizes to the Toppy.
 
I am getting the end of recordings clipped off by about 10 seconds. I cannot see any way of altering settings to fixi this apart from recording the following program as well. Is there a way to fix this?
 
The only solution to clipped recordings on a youview recorder is to record the next programme as well.

I only have youview as a curiosity and do not use it in earnest, although I have tried. Instead for channels that do not support AR ('accurate recording' via the broadcaster dynamically updating the EIT p/f) or other methods of aligning the broadcast with what the youview takes as the start and stop indicators I use an HDR-FOX-T2. With custom firmware on the HDR-FOX T2 you can easily pick and choose which channels use additional padding and which record similarly to a youview box.

Which channels have you had clipped so far?
 
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Thank Luke
I should probably have bought a different model of Humax with an ability to upgrade software but apart from this issue I am really pleased with the YouView box. I have only really noticed this on BBC Radio 2 and 5USA so far but recordings start with the end of the previous program and finish a bit early. I cannot see any way of altering clock setting that may help with this?
 
Unfortunately all radio programmes re at risk of clipping unless the broadcaster has a need to finish the programme so that the next programme is punctual..

Since July 2013 5USA has been accurate for me, although their series identifiers continue to go through some bad patches. Which programme was it and which broadcast slot?
 
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