Samsung Smart TV - USB HDD PVR function

LucianH

Has anybody got the PVR function working on Samsung Smart TVs. I have a 46" 7000 series and have connected a Western Digital HDD which works a fair bit of the time but often fails to be recognised by the TV and I have to recylce the power to the HDD to get it recognised.

The drive passes all the requirements laid down by Samsung and their technical support lays the blame on a faulty disk drive. Before I try another one, I'd like to hear from anybody that's got the PVR function working reliably.

LucianH

To answer my own question, and hopepfully help others, I swapped out the old 500gbyte Elements drive for a WD Passport Essential 320gbyte SE Portable and it has been working fine for the last 5 days (both time shift and recording (with and without TV on)).

I have also managed to transfer the recordings from the old drive to the new one. I used Ubuntu Linux to do this and since I had not used it before I had a few hurdles to jump. The full story can be found here.

LucianH

Well, after a couple of weeks of the PVR function working, I switched on the TV the other day and the drive was not recognised. Plugged it into a Linux PC and it said it could not be mounted.

Have lost weeks of programs including a series I was watching. Am still trying to see if I can recover any of the files - if anybody can help, please contribute here

nicksas2001

I have a samsung 6 series tv and I'm using a samsung m3 usb hdd. Been working for a few months now. Recording and playback no problems. Just wish there was a way to extend the skip forward and back feature to more than 10 seconds. It's a pain skipping through the adverts. My tv also has freesat built in, so I was wondering if I plugged a satellite into it, could I record on freeview and watch something else on freesat? And viser verser

steveOooo

I use this 2tb WD USB powered drive http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CSH19PI/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B00CSH19PI&linkCode=as2&!!!!!scm01c-21&linkId=TA5WH5DTEMRRYTPH

Have been using it for 6 months or sp - avoid the samsung m3 2tb which I've found problematic both on the f7000 tv and using it on my mac.

asdv

I had a Samsung UE32F5500 for a year and recorded via USB to a bare 5400rpm 80GB Hitachi 2.5" HDD (from a laptop I upgraded) using a USB-SATA cable. It worked well most of the time - very convenient not having additional PVR box and power supply. It allows you to pause live TV or just record what you are watching.
The TV has a schedule recording function so you could scroll ahead in the EP and just two-clicks on a programme to set it for recording.

It cannot record one channel while you watch another.

Only one of the USB ports had enough power to run the drive - took me a while to figure that out.

It was also not 100% reliable at detecting the drive but unplugging and plugging back in always fixed it. I didn't end up using it very much but I don't remember having to reformat it and loosing the contents.

almillar

I've never liked the idea of using a TV as a PVR as you're generally stuck with one tuner, and the software is often crummy - if you're at all serious about recording and keeping programmes, a proper PVR must be the way to go...