JVC SR-DVM600 DVM700 DVM70 SSD upgrade failed?

[aramkolt]

This is what I came up with for an externally mounted drive. Basically some extra holes in the hard drive caddy, one hole in the side of the top cover, zip ties, adhesive velcro, and a SATA extension cable. Still haven't seen what the actual capture quality is like yet though haha.

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[aramkolt]

Unfortunate update - up until this point, I hadn't actually connected any inputs to this unit and was just recording a blank input for testing and was just looking at the different menus and looking for it to boot up and format the drive without errors.

Turns out that none of the inputs on this machine pass through the machine (and therefore can't be recorded) despite the video outputs working fine to show the system menus etc - the machine was bought for parts/as is, so I guess I won't ever really know if it had that problem to begin with or if it happened during the refurb somehow. I highly doubt that messing with the hard drive caused it.

I do have an XS34 on the way to attempt the same mod, but that one is supposed to already work. On that one, I'll be sure to test that everything does work first, and just recap the SMTs (since several on this machine were "open" or very high ESR which you can't exactly tell while in circuit). If anyone has an XS54 or 55 that they are willing to sell, PM me. I need some closure for this machine not working out

[lordsmurf]

Toshiba QC suckers back then, on their DVD recorders, so it may have been bad when new. You may be surprised at how many people/orgs bought DVD recorders to use as mere DVD players.

[jbd5010]

Nice work, @aramkolt, sorry to hear the inputs didn't work after all that ��. I don't have a 54 or 55, just a 32 and 34.

I suspect you're correct about the Master/Slave/CS jumper; my JVC DVM70 (predecessor the 600/700) did not like the SD card adapter with no jumper. I need to get another SATA adapter to try in that unit, my StarTech is now installed in the MX1 with an SSD and I don't feel like disassembling t again... But it was interesting that the MX1 was fine with the SD card and the DVM70 is not.

[jbd5010]

Somewhat related - Lordsmurf or Aramkolt, do either of you have a spare remote for the SR-DVM70/600/700 units? One I could buy? I was banging my head against the wall trying to find the option to delete existing HDD recordings and I figured out why I can't -- I don't have a remote with an "edit" button on it. The only way to get into the right menu is to hit "edit." I have a remote for DVD/VHS units that gets me into the library navigation and can do a lot of the other stuff, but no "edit" key As far as I can tell, it needs to be, specifically, model #RM-SSR001E or RM-SDR049U. There are a TON of aftermarket versions of the SDR049U on Amazon/eBay, but when you look at them closely they are VHS/DVD and do not have "edit" or "HDD" buttons. I found one SSR001E in Australia, but the eBay seller doesn't ship to the US.

I bought a JP1-compatible remote (XSight) that you can plug in to your computer and custom program, and I even have the JVC IR codes including the "edit" command (attached), but I have not been successful in getting it to work.

[aramkolt]

Odd they won't allow you into the menus enough to delete existing recordings without a remote? I don't actually have a DVM unit, was more contemplating whether to get one or not and compare the quality against say Panasonic and Toshiba for MPEG2 recordings. I have a European Panasonic unit that supposedly has an ES10-like line TBC, but also has live HDMI output which likely can be captured via a variety of HDMI capture cards. The HDD it happens to have I wasn't really planning on doing anything with, but if the same IDE to SATA swap happens to work on it, I'd put it in the comparison for sure.

On the topic of that Panasonic machine and IR codes, there's a known "world DVD region unlock" series of remote IR codes that can be entered, but it required kind of an odd universal remote that would allow hex codes to be put into it. There were other old tutorials about palm pilot or other now relatively extinct devices with IR blasters. This was a few years ago, but I had to follow some really old tutorials and get a very old remote that was also from Europe and I got lucky in getting one of these 20 year old tutorials to work, not that I really planned to play DVDs with it, was more for the challenge and I wanted to put a modern free way for others to do themselves. What I then did was "learn" each of the 10 or so button presses from that universal remote with a flipper zero and then shared those IR files to a flipper remote code depository so that others wouldn't have to go through all of that fuss for a region unlock. There's lots of "region unlock" remotes being sold for like $20 each on ebay and they probably all end up as E-Waste rather quickly since you only need to perform that sequence one time per machine.


But anyhow, Flipper Zeros are pretty readily available and it is very easy to share "learned" IR codes as very small files. Even if someone doesn't want to sell their remote, my guess is someone might let you borrow one for that purpose, or if someone wants to send me theirs, I'll learn the code for "edit" on the remote and share for others needing it and mail it back. Knowing I'll need an original remote makes me a little hesitant to acquire a machine for testing though since I'll need an original remote myself apparently.

I don't really see DVMs come up for sale with the remotes included often, so it is kind of surprising to me that this hasn't come up before as there being a problem being able to delete existing recordings without the original remote, so perhaps there's some other workaround?

As a slight update to before, I was able to do the same mod on a XS34 and the inputs do work on that one, so I'll add that to my pile of VHS conversion methods to test. As a side note, throwing a pre-formatted 250GB formatted drive (formatted by the XS55) into the XS34 does not work, it makes you reformat it to 160GB. That XS34 still had a bunch of old TV recordings circa 2006, so I'm working on pulling those off of the original IDE drive via ISObuster, but it is pretty slow at 25MB/s. Those sort of transfer times if you still had to use IDE would make this MPEG2 method a lot less appealing, but I'm thinking with directly interfacing the SATA drive, it should be quiiiiiiite a bit faster. I'm also pretty curious how it stacks up to USB MPEG2 encoders like the Dell Angel which saves the MPEG2 files directly on the capture computer - presuming you have the right (usually not free) software to capture it with. Then again, ISObuster isn't free either, but it seems the developer cares and it is known to work pretty well. Even if the Dell Angel works just as well, I still like standalone capture boxes since you can just press record without having to get out a bunch of stuff and tie up a computer. The limited testing I've done leads me to believe that MPEG2 encoders should do quite a bit better than modern standalone MP4 capture boxes like the cloner alliance or even the Blackmagic lines that can capture SD SDI as MP4.

[jbd5010]

Quote:

As a slight update to before, I was able to do the same mod on a XS34 and the inputs do work on that one, so I'll add that to my pile of VHS conversion methods to test. As a side note, throwing a pre-formatted 250GB formatted drive (formatted by the XS55) into the XS34 does not work, it makes you reformat it to 160GB

So just to confirm - it will not recognize the additional capacity beyond 160GB? It still shows recording capacity as though a 160GB drive is installed?

Quote:

I don't really see DVMs come up for sale with the remotes included often, so it is kind of surprising to me that this hasn't come up before as there being a problem being able to delete existing recordings without the original remote, so perhaps there's some other workaround?

I agree with all of that. But, on the other hand, the JVC DR-M10 has no way of switching inputs without the remote, either, so they've been guilty of such things before. I've bought a couple more DVM units < $100 "for parts or not working" and both have worked just fine. Even the DV decks didn't eat tapes. I suspect the lack of remote might be one reason sellers list it that way - they know you need a remote for full functionality.

Either way, I'll mess around more with this XSight remote to see if I'm just making a programming error. Also, the DVM70 and DVM700 versions have a serial port on the back, that merits some additional research. The DVM600 has no such port, though.

Ironically, I had a Flipper Zero but found myself not using it after a bit of initial experimenting, so I sold it, ha.

[aramkolt]

Correct, a 250GB drive just formatted by the XS55 says there's a problem on the XS34 and makes you reformat it on the machine to 160GB.