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Using external SATA / eSATA hard drive with Scientific Atlanta EXPLORER 8300 and 8300HD DVRs from COX

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

The hard drive that worked was the Toshiba PH3100U-1EXB 1 terabyte external hard drive (available right now at Fry’s Electronics for $99!) The one that did not work was a two terabyte dual drive raid external hard drive of a different brand.

A friend has a Scientific Atlanta EXPLORER 8300 DVR rented from COX Communications in Arizona. It has a fairly small amount of storage (about 74 GB, according to the info – see below), and has an external connector labeled “SATA”. I Googled it, and it looks like some people have had success adding an external hard drive. However, details as to which drives worked and didn’t work are hard to come by. I couldn’t find anything on Scientific Atlanta’s website (apparently now part of Cisco), and when I called COX, the tech said to call Scientific Atlanta myself, since COX doesn’t support adding an external hard drive and didn’t know how to do it (an uncharacteristically poor customer support experience for COX, which has usually had excellent customer support in my experience).

I went to Fry’s electronics, and they said I needed some sort of “media extender”, which they didn’t have. They said that using an eSATA drive was hit and miss. So I missed and then I hit. I wanted to report my experience to save others the trouble.

I am not customer support for either COX or Scientific Atlanta/CISCO. I don’t know if this will work for others, and I don’t know what other combinations might work. I take absolutely no responsibility for any damage you may do by repeating my experience. There is at least some chance that you will lose any recordings you have, so if that is a concern, be sure to watch and/or copy them elsewhere (although I lost no recordings). However, if you find other combinations that work, with this or other DVR’s, please post your findings in the comments below.

First, and most important, check to see whether you have an eSATA or a SATA connector. In my case, it was an eSATA connector labeled “SATA”. Look online for pictures of the difference. The SATA connectors have an “elbow” inside that the eSATA does not have. You can use a digital camera to take a detailed close-up if needed.

Second, you will need an external hard drive with an eSATA connector (most only have USB or perhaps Firewire connectors). You also need to purchase the cable to connect the eSATA connector on your drive to the eSATA connector on the 8300. Different eSATA cables have different connectors, so be sure to get the right one.

To connect the drive, first turn the 8300 off, then unplug it for at least 15 seconds. Be sure both the drive and the 8300 are unplugged, and connect the eSATA cable between them. Leave the drive unplugged, but plug the 8300 back in. It will go through its boot sequence, then the panel on the front of the 8300 will go black. You then have to wait for it to get a signal from the cable company, and the time will then come on the screen. That may take five or ten minutes.

Once the 8300 has the time showing, turn on the 8300 and the TV so you are watching TV through the 8300. Now, plug in the drive, and if needed, turn on the switch so the light on the drive comes on. Now comes the moment of truth.

The first time I did this, I got a message on the TV that the drive or cable were working improperly. I had to press a button on the remote to dismiss the message, and was informed that the external storage will not be working. You should check the cable, but in my case, after several tries, I always got the same message. Unplug everything and disconnect your drive. Fortunately, Fry’s Electronics has a great return policy!

The second time I did this, success! When I turned on the drive, I got a message that the drive would have to be formatted, and I would lose all information on the drive, including any saved recordings. I pressed the button to proceed. There was no indication that anything was happening, and the 8300 continued to work as normal. I left it running for about 40 minutes, to give plenty of time for formatting, although I don’t really know how long formatting takes. After 40 minutes, still no indication of progress, and the 8300 indicated that its storage was as full as it has ever been.

So after 40 minutes, I unplugged the 8300 again for 15 seconds, and plugged it back in to reboot the 8300. After it came back up, I turned it on with the remote. I left for a while, and when I came back the 8300 would only play PBS, and attempts to change the channel or bring up the list of saved programs did not work. I wasn’t sure what was going on, so after a little while I unplugged the 8300 again, disconnected the external drive, and plugged the 8300 back in again. I then saw a message about advanced functions temporarily not working even with the external drive disconnected, and again I could only watch PBS. Therefore, I unplugged the 8300 again, again connected the eSATA cable to the external drive, plugged in the external drive, and plugged in the 8300, and just left it alone for a while. About an hour later, I went back, turned on the 8300 with the remote, and the 8300 was working normally, except that the available space had increased dramatically (95% full went to 6% full)! All of the saved programs were still there, but there was a lot more empty space.

Next time, once the external drive was formatted, I would unplug the 8300 for 15 seconds, leave the external drive plugged in, and then plug the 8300 back in, and leave it alone for an hour.

Update for the 8300HD: I tried the same thing for a 8300HD unit. I unplugged the 8300HD for 15 seconds, connected the external drive (a different specimen of the same model), plugged in only the 8300HD (not the drive) until the time showed on the 8300HD, used the remote to turn on the 8300HD so I was viewing the 8300HD’s signal through the TV, then plugged in the drive and pushed the on button on the drive. The light on the drive came on, and I got the dialog asking me whether to “Format this external storage device to work with this DVR?”. I pressed the “A” key for “Yes, Format”. The dialog disappeared, and there was little or no indication that anything was happening. After about five minutes of nothing, including no flashing of the light on the drive, I again unplugged the 8300HD for 15 seconds, and plugged it back in. After the time showed on the 8300HD, I turned on the 8300HD with the remote, and got a message box that said: “The external storage device connected works with this DVR. NOTE: To safely unplug this device, first unplug power from the DVR, then wait 10 seconds before disconnecting.” After about 10 seconds, that message box disappeared, and the DVR worked normally, but had a lot more empty space! So, on the 8300HD, the whole process only took about 15 minutes.

Update for the Explorer 8240HD The original 8300 was replaced with an 8240HD, for high definition. The hard drive that was used with the 8300 originally was disconnected after unplugging the 8300 for 15 seconds. It was moved to the new 8240HD, and hooked up with the same result as with the 8300HD above. Note that, since the hard drive does not come on until its button is pushed, if there is a power failure, someone will have to push the on button for the hard drive for it to work again. I tested to see what happens if the button is not pushed until after the 8240HD turned on, and the only notable effect was that there was less space available on the 8240HD. When the drive was turned on, I again got the message the the external storage works with this DVR. The 8240HD has a 148 GB disk installed, and I added 931 GB (according to the info page) with the new disk.

The old 8300 appears to be confused about how much space is available now, showing a screen indicating that there is still as much space as there was before. Many of the recorded shows are still in the list, but as expected, trying to play them does not work, but rather the DVR goes right to the “Press the list button to see your recordings” screen.

Reviewing postings on the Internet, I would be careful to be sure that the 8300 is unplugged prior to allowing the external drive to lose power or be disconnected, for fear of data corruption and/or loss of all your recordings. Also, the recordings on the drive are reportedly encrypted with a key that is specific to the serial number of your 8300, so if the drive is moved to another box, you will not be able to view the recordings there.

To see info about your 8300, including info about the attached internal and external drives and what interfaces have been enabled by COX, use the keys on the front of the 8300. Press and hold the “SELECT” button until the little flashing mail icon comes on, then release the “SELECT” button and press the “INFO” button. Page forward and back with the Volume + and Volume – buttons. Press the “EXIT” button when you are done.

If you have success with other DVR’s and/or drives or have other experiences, please let me know in the comments!

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Embarcadero C++ Builder – Sending UnicodeString via COM truncates string to half

Sunday, October 4th, 2009

CB2009 defines a BSTR as a wchar_t*, which is the type returned by c_str() when UNICODE is set. Therefore, if you call a COM function which expects a BSTR with UnicodeString.c_str(), the compiler returns the wchar_t* which the function expects. Sounds good! Except it doesn’t work!!

Actually, both BSTR and the character array in UnicodeString prefix the array of wide chars with a four-byte integer that gives the length. However, BSTR expects this to be the length IN BYTES, whereas UnicodeString makes this the length IN CHARACTERS. Thus, the server gets the wchar_t*, looks right before the pointer for an int, and only uses that many bytes. So, if your UnicodeString is seven chars long, and thus 14 bytes long, CB2009 sets the length to seven, and COM only accepts the first seven bytes (and thus the first four chars). So, all your strings are cut in half!

To make things worse, UnicodeString.Length() does not count out the length to the null terminating char, but rather just returns the integer. So, if you fix the integer to be 14 as COM expects, UnicodeString.Length now returns 14 for your seven character string! We dare not mess with UnicodeString’s data.

The solution is to use WideString instead. Instead of:

UnicodeString myString = L”My Data”;
ptr->ComFunctionExpectingBSTR(myString.c_str()); // this compiles, but COM only uses the first half of the string

use

UnicodeString myString = L”My Data”;
ptr->ComFunctionExpectingBSTR(WideString(myString).c_bstr()); // this has the correct length

References:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms221069.aspx – Microsoft’s reference for the BSTR type in MSDN/Win32 and COM Development/Component Development/COM/Automation Programming Reference/Data Types, Structures and Enumerations/IDispatch Data Types and Structures

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/en/Unicode_in_RAD_Studio#New_String_Type:_UnicodeString – Unicode in RAD Studio

NOTE: In my testing, this is a problem sending data to Microsoft Outlook 2007. It did not appear to cause a problem when sending to Crystal Reports, so the issue might well be with the server code rather than the COM subsystem, depending on how the server determines the length of the passed string. I have seen example code that just passes a WideString to COM, but for me, the compiler gives a Type mismatch error unless I pass the pointer returned by c_bstr()

To see how the length of the string is set:

wchar_t* lit = L"My Sttring";
int* litIPtr = (int*) lit;
litIPtr--;
int litLen = *litIPtr;

WideString ws = lit;
wchar_t* wsPtr = ws.c_bstr();
int* wsIPtr = (int*) wsPtr;
wsIPtr--;
int wsLen = *wsIPtr;

UnicodeString us = lit;
wchar_t* usPtr = us.c_str();
int* usIPtr = (int*) usPtr;
usIPtr--;
int usLen = *usIPtr;

// int actualLen = StrLen(lit); // if UNICODE is set
int actualLen = wcslen(lit);

ShowMessage("For a " + String(actualLen) + " character string, Literal gives " +
String(litLen) + ", WideString gives " +
String(wsLen) + ", UnicodeString gives " + String(usLen));

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Windows Communication Foundation 3.5 Unleashed Errors

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

I am reading this book; it is very well written, and the people who wrote it are obviously very smart. Unfortunately, it is chock full of technical errors. I have wasted hours trying to get the examples to work. In the hope of saving others some time, I am listing a few of the problems I found.

In addition to these, there are lots of other errors I found in my first, casual, reading, especially in the code.

In the Fundamentals chapter (2)

Page 45, step 1: add the app.config file to the Host project, NOT the DerivativesCalculatorService project (see page 53)
error: Service ‘DerivativesCalculator.DerivativesCalculatorServiceType’ has zero application (non-infrastructure) endpoints. This might be because no configuration file was found for your application, or because no service element matching the service name could be found in the configuration file, or because no endpoints were defined in the service element.

Page 56, step 4: there should not be a colon before “svcutil” (and there is not in the screenshot below)

Page 58: The class should be DerivativesCalculatorClient rather than DerivativesCalculatorProxy (since that is the class created by the tool — see listing 2.6)

Page 67 – 72: Getting the service to run under IIS 7.0 required quite a number of additional steps, at least in my configuration.

1) — Page 69, Step 3 – Must use Add Application rather than Add Virtual Directory, at least in IIS 7.0 . I wasted quite a bit of time on this one, until I found http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/wcf/thread/49d9279f-2bc1-482b-8bb0-da1261736acb/ , where this exact problem with this exact same example was noted in April 2006.
error: The type ‘DerivativesCalculatorService.Calculator’, provided as the Service attribute value in the ServiceHost directive could not be found.

2) — Need to give the IIS_IUSRS permission to the DerivitivesCalculatorService directory, so IIS can use the config file

3) — Need to give the Anonamous Login user permission to the DeriviativesCalculatorService directory, so IIS will serve it to the user

4) — I had to fix the bindings to the .svc extension using
c:\windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.0\Windows Communication Foundation\ServiceModelReg -r
It is possible that I had that problem because I enabled IIS after I had already installed VisualStudio. Or not.

5) — I had to turn on the WCF Activation with Control Panel/Programs/Turn Windows Features On/Microsoft .NET 3.0/WCF Activation for http and non-http – see http://michael-arnett.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!5AA848FF3F707F99!1093.entry?
- error: HTTP 500 – Handler svc-Integrated has a bad module “ManagedPipelineHandler” in its module list

Page 75 – in my testing, the MSFT string was NOT encrypted when I used the netTcpBinding

Page 79 – to use the WcfTestClient with this demo, run:
WcfTestClient http://localhost:8000/Derivatives/
or
WcfTestClient http://localhost:8000/Derivatives/?wsdl

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Neopost IJ25 Postage Meter Pricing Scam

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

I just got off the phone with Neopost, whose postage meter I have been using for a number of years. I guess I never put together the true cost of using it. The reason for my call was that my postage meter suddenly stopped working, saying “Warning, Ink Expired”.

It turns out that the Neopost IJ25 postage meter is programmed to stop working if the same ink cartridge has been installed for more than one year (as in 365 days). When I called, I was told that we should have received a single warning about a month ago that the ink would expire soon. However, if we had pushed “Ok” that one time, the warning would disappear, and the next warning would be when the postage meter stopped working altogether. I don’t know if we got the warning or not, although nobody remembers seeing it.

Nonetheless, my Neopost IJ25 postage meter is dead in the water. The cost for a replacement ink cartridge is $124: $86 for the cartridge (!!), $29 for overnight shipping “& handling” (!!), and $9.32 for tax. 2-3 day shipping would have been $23, 10 day shipping $12. Clearly, Neopost has a strong incentive to set up their IJ25 postage meter so we would not see the warning, and is not shy about overcharging for shipping.

In addition, Neopost gouges us to update the meter for postal rate changes (so it prints 43 cents instead of 42 cents) – this was $91.89 on 12/22/08, plus a special deal $67.02 for one year of subsequent updates. In the notice, Neopost gleefully noted that the postal service has agreed to start increasing the postage more often – probably twice a year. The thing is, to get the special deal, I have agreed to automatic, non-cancelable upgrades; to cancel, I must give at least 30 days, but no more than 60 days, notice. Again, clearly designed to make it more difficult to cancel.

The only thing that is reasonably priced is the actual rental of the Neopost IJ25 postage meter and scale, at $219.57 for 12 months.

However, the actual cost of using the Neopost IJ25 meter for 12 months is: $219 rental, about $90 reprogramming, and $124 for the timed ink cartridge, or $433, or about twice the quoted rental cost. Not to mention the inconvenience of having a postage meter that dies unexpectedly and with no (practical) notice.

So why is that a scam? For the same reason that it is a scam when an airline quotes an airfare that doesn’t include baggage. Neopost should be honest about the actual cost of renting their equipment, and not gouge their customers for the rate reprogramming and ink cartridges. There is no excuse for charging $29 for overnight shipment of a 4 ounce cartridge. And, worst of all, they should not design the Neopost IJ25 postage meter to fail unexpectedly and without (practical) warning, significantly inconveniencing their customer.

You can bet that between now and next December, I will be looking into other options that don’t include a meter programmed to fail.

If anyone from Neopost cares to dispute or comment on this post, I will be happy to talk with them. If anything is incorrect, I will certainly correct it.

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