Turn your R15 OFF, when not in use.

[Earl Bonovich]

In a recent discussion with "my source"....
He explained to me a few things.... one of which is that we should break our habit of leaving the unit "ON" all the time. "On" in the sense that it is not in standby mode.

Here is why...

Where TiVo uses their IR activity 4 hour type logic, to figure out if someone is there are not using the system, the R15 goes one step further.

If you "turn off" the unit, aka go to standby mode. In about 30 seconds, it figures it wasn't a mistake and that you are actually done using the unit at that time.

It then has segments of code (which will be built upon in the future), that it then will use more of the horsepower of the unit to do other things.

I guess when I think about it, makes sense.... If the unit knows I am not there, why shouldn't it go off and do something else.. (Such as re-indexing, VOD downloads when available, software updates, ect.... ) At least this is a definitive way of doing it, then almost "guessing" like the TiVo does.

Only downside I can think of from typical "TiVo" usage is: You will lose the continous buffer but then again... it won't be reading/writing to that hard drive for at least 12 hours per day (on average).... and there was no guarantee (with recordings and suggestions) that it would be on the same channel you left it on.

[ISWIZ]

Thanks for the update Earl. Makes sense and again, if you want a backlog in the morning of CNN, record it.

[jgottlieb]

Interesting....

I've got the R15 in the box. DTV arrives Thursday.

If you've gone into standby mode ("off-ish"), and you have dimmed the blue light all the way off (it's going in the master bedroom), how do you tell that the unit is not in standby?

I guess this is also good in that if the hard drive isn't being written to 24/7 that should increase the life of the unit.

I don't see the loss of the buffer as a big deal in that if I've just turned on the TV, I've not been looking at anything to go back to. The only exception to this that I can think of is I've turned the TV on, and it happens to be on the channel I want to watch, and I've missed something within the last 90 minutes... But I probably would have set it up to record....

[Earl Bonovich]

The power button still glows "blue" even if you dim the center "eye"

[Clint Lamor]

You could always set a manual record to start like 60 or 90 mins before you normally wake up then just delete that. I turn mine off every night before I go to sleep with the TV, there is usually nothing I really want to see on the last channel I was watching anyway. I have some shows that record late at night so usually when I turn it on in the morning the first thing I do is change the channel to something I want to watch.

[dbronstein]

When I had a Dish Network DVR, one of their techs said to always turn it off to save wear on the hard drive. And it makes good sense to use the down time for other stuff as Earl mentioned. I also don't get wanting to rewind right after you turn the TV on.

[GunnySpook]

Any similar benefit with the H20? (since there's no harddrive involved)

[Earl Bonovich]

Probably not... but it "wouldn't hurt"... I haven't use a non-DVR on a regular basis in such a long time.

[Wolffpack]

OK, I'll bite. How does "turning off" the R15 have anything to do with hard drive usage? As stated, the power is still on so the drive is still spinning. When off the R15 will then start it's housekeeping tasks, which will require read/writes to the hard drive. There are probably valid reasons for turning it off, but not to save wear and tear on the electronics.

My guess would be this. On a Tivo the OS is Linux. A mature OS. An OS that is very capable at process scheduling and prioritization. The Tivo software can set important processes higher in the processing queue than less important background processes. On the R15 we have no idea what OS it is running. I would guess that OS is not as mature as Linux and may or may not even have process scheduling or prioritization. Heck, it's implementation of multiprocessing may even be limited. So for the R15 to do it's housekeeping without effecting a user watching programs, that housekeeping may have to be completed when the unit is "off".

Just a theory.

[Clint Lamor]

OK, I'll bite. How does "turning off" the R15 have anything to do with hard drive usage? As stated, the power is still on so the drive is still spinning. When off the R15 will then start it's housekeeping tasks, which will require read/writes to the hard drive. There are probably valid reasons for turning it off, but not to save wear and tear on the electronics.

My guess would be this. On a Tivo the OS is Linux. A mature OS. An OS that is very capable at process scheduling and prioritization. The Tivo software can set important processes higher in the processing queue than less important background processes. On the R15 we have no idea what OS it is running. I would guess that OS is not as mature as Linux and may or may not even have process scheduling or prioritization. Heck, it's implementation of multiprocessing may even be limited. So for the R15 to do it's housekeeping without effecting a user watching programs, that housekeeping may have to be completed when the unit is "off".

Just a theory.

Tivo doesn't do these things very well either when multiple things are going on. Let it start redoing all of the indexing and such and start moving around and things get very slow. Tivo's major problem though isn't it's code but the lack of decent hardware.

As for the drives, if a drive isn't in use you can spin the platters down. Basic power saving built into all drives, PC's and the software that use them. No activity spin down the platters and let it rest, need it back, spin them back up and take off from there (though there is some lag).

[Earl Bonovich]

But if you go into "Off" you stop the "buffers"... and thus possible cut down on the hard drive head from flying around all over the place.... Write buffer here, go here do some work, go back to buffer, go here finish work... ect....

I am not thinking "earthshattering" savings...

But what is one of the #1 complaints of the TiVo.. the noise (and usually specifically the "clicking" of the hard drive... which we know is the head flying around)..

And what is the #1 reason why the DVRs die... their hard drive goes out.

So anything that can save a little bit on the wear and tear, even marginal.. can't be all that bad.


It not even just "housekeeping" things that can be done... How about the announced VOD items, or preperation for Interactive Content... Unless these units get full blown NET access, how else are they going to get VOD items... Aka, via the SAT stream...

Thus if the unit is "off" then it will know if it can use one (or both) of the tuners to connect somewhere else and get the VOD content. And then go back to a channel when you tell it to turn "on"

TiVo does a similar thing.. but it uses a "guessing" logic, based on IR activity.

Note: Could you imagin the fallout if they DID use the "net" connection to download VOD... Aka, creaming your ISP for the content download..... yikes... So yah, VOD will have to come via the SAT connections

[Bobman]

I do it with mine and it seems to help with a lot of the issues, update the to do list, etc... When I didnt turn mine off, the lists never populated correctly or took forever to finish.


Bobman

[ChrisWyso]

I have always gotten into the habit of setting my units to standby when we'd be done with them for the night. I had always thought MAYBE just those things that Earl pointed out might happen, but I was never sure. From a programmers point of view, I'd jump at using the most I could get out of the hardware if I knew the user was finished with the unit for a while.

-Chris

[Wolffpack]

It not even just "housekeeping" things that can be done... How about the announced VOD items, or preperation for Interactive Content... Unless these units get full blown NET access, how else are they going to get VOD items... Aka, via the SAT stream...

Thus if the unit is "off" then it will know if it can use one (or both) of the tuners to connect somewhere else and get the VOD content. And then go back to a channel when you tell it to turn "on"

TiVo does a similar thing.. but it uses a "guessing" logic, based on IR activity.
I was including all those in the general "housekeeping" tasks.

I'm not sure how much guessing the Tivos do. If I look in my todo list most nights is has Tivo and Showcase downloads as scheduled recordings multiple times during the night. Times when I've been up late watching live TV (not that there's much available at that time) it comes up with the "OK to switch channels" message and I say No if I'm watching. The only PITA is when I get up to watch and it's in the middle of a download. Then I pick the other tuner and proceed.

Right now my Tivos have ToDos scheduled every night for the next 3 nights. 4 per night for Tivo Service Data. All 1 hour apart starting at 2:00 am or 2:30 am.