My T3 is playing up - it's about 4 years old. I'm thinking of buying a V2 but we have so many recordings I'd love to be able to keep them and play them on the V2 - is that feasible either by getting a barebones V2 and installing the disk from the T3 or by attaching the disk in a USB-connected mounting? to a new V2 with its own disk?
No internal SATA connection in the V2.
See "Unofficial Beyonwiz comparison guide" - https://www.beyonwiz.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=13269
You can take the HDD out of your T3 and stick it in a powered USB 3.5" HDD enclosure and connect it to the V2 for use as the main drive (thus instant access to your existing recordings).
So the 2TB offering from IceTV is just a 2TB microSD card in the V2? I assume I could transfer files from the external USB drive that take out of the T3. Are there any other PVRs that will read the media files from the T3 or is this V2 my only viable 'path'?
Quote from: pargy on October 26, 2020, 09:24:55 PM
So the 2TB offering from IceTV is just a 2TB microSD card in the V2?
You'd need to ask IceTV, but I highly doubt it is a microSD card for that price. Likely a 2.5" portable USB HDD.
Quote from: pargy
I assume I could transfer files from the external USB drive that take out of the T3.
Sure. Or just use it as the main drive. It's in the same ext4 format as the V2 would format any drive in. The V2 won't behave any different.
If you wanted to use a new drive, you could connect both and record to the new drive, and just watch your "T3" recordings from the drive in the enclosure.
There are drive mount order "issues" to be aware of though.
Depending on the health of the T3, and you having a home network, you can leave the T3's HDD in it and play/stream recordings from the T3 to the V2.
Quote from: pargy
Are there any other PVRs that will read the media files from the T3 or is this V2 my only viable 'path'?
edit - I forgot to answer this bit. The recordings are regular Transport Stream files. Anything should be able to play them. You won't get access to the meta data though (only with another Wiz unit).
I didn't realise the V2 had no onboard storage - no SSD? The idea of USB-attached 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch external drives is quite awful from an aesthetic point of view! Your idea of just using the T3 as a mount for the 4TB hard drive in there makes a lot of sense, although the rack in my basement where I store all this gear is getting a bit crowded - it won't hold a V2 unless I remove the T3
The only internal (more or less) storage for the V2 is a microSD card. It's a quite small enclosure, and has no facilities for internal storage.
If you do use the HDD from the T3, don't restore T3 settings from it in the V2. Set up the V2 from scratch. Using another device's IceTV settings can mess up your IceTV account access, especially if you later try to use the T3 on IceTV.
Quote from: pargy on October 26, 2020, 10:08:40 PM
I didn't realise the V2 had no onboard storage - no SSD?
As I said, no onboard SATA connection.
Quote from: pargy
The idea of USB-attached 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch external drives is quite awful from an aesthetic point of view!
If you have a NAS or network storage then you can record from the V2 to a share on that device. Copy your existing T3 recordings to the share. Insert a microSD card into the V2 for time shifting, backups, scripts, et. al.
Job done.
If you are worried about the size of USB storage, you can get some very small drives (with HDD), or you could go with a USB enclosure for an M.2 SATA or M.2 NVMe drive. More expensive but unobtrusive.
If there is space you can place a 2.5" USB HDD behind the V2 where it will be next to invisible. On the other hand, a 3.5" USB HDD is harder to hide, although the Seagate ones are slimmer than most WD ones. You could also place the V2 on Top of the USB HDD - making sure you do not block the vents on the drive.
Pargy
You might like to check out these two resources for Beyonwiz advice (although most of the players and thus the advice are the same...)
https://www.beyonwiz.com.au/forum/
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/thread/3ww67nl3?p=-1#bottom
I run a V2 with no dedicated HDD or USB drive - a 16gb SD card for Time Shift and connected to my NAS via a Gigabit Wired LAN and it goes well - it made migrating from my T2 really easy as the data files are just in a share on the NAS
Quote from: IanL-S on October 27, 2020, 07:46:22 AM
If there is space you can place a 2.5" USB HDD behind the V2 where it will be next to invisible.
That's what I'd go for if it's possible.
Ended up successfully following both of the last two suggestions - thanks prl and bodogbodog.
Now I'm getting what seem to be buffering issues on the V2 with things recorded on the 2.5" hard drive attached to the USB 2 slot at the rear of the V2. Has anyone else encountered this? Is it a drive issue or a V2 issue? By buffering issues I mean the playback freezes and the spinning 'busy' disk appears for two or three minutes and then the show resumes. This can happen between 5 and 50 times in a one hour show!
The only way to check whether it's a HDD problem is to look at the system log files on the PVR. That can be done through the normal user interface, and I can run you through how to do it, if you want.
This sort of question is probably better posed on the Beyonwiz forum (https://beyonwiz.com.au/forum/), since it really has nothing to do with IceTV.
Thanks PRL - have posted in V2 thread in Beyonwiz forum where user Judy seems to be having same problems. She is playing from her NAS but mine is an Hitachi 1TB hard drive purchased only a couple of years ago and which has been in use for crying case files to court to use with my laptop. All I did was format it plugged into V2 and it has been running with enigma-formated disk for a few weeks until this problem has begun to increase in frequency. Could there be a defrag type issue? The media display is reporting the disk status as 87% free so it's hardly got a space problem!
It is possible that there could be a file system problem. I know very little about the file system integrity checks done by Beyondwiz firmware, but I have a recollection that some rudimentary checks are made when the OS starts up. Reformatting the drive can fix such issues.
I assume that the dive is USB powered, as you prevously carried to court. There could be a problem with the USB cable. Is the drive attached to USB 2 or USB 3 port?
Ian
PS I suppose I should have posted this on the Beyonwiz forum - will cross post so no need to respond here.
Quote from: pargy on December 12, 2020, 06:17:42 PM
Could there be a defrag type issue? The media display is reporting the disk status as 87% free so it's hardly got a space problem!
That seems unlikely given that the disk only 13% full. I'll post any forther comments on the topic you created on the Beyonwiz forum.