Power Outages...

[groover km]

I'm surprised you guys have such flakey power in the US.

Don't blame me - I didn't vote for 'em.

[gEd]

I'm surprised you guys have such flakey power in the US. We probably get one power outage a year here.

demand outstripping supply............

I tink we have had about 1 powercut in my part of london in the last 10 yeears.

[capone]

I have one or two a year, and surges in the summer w/ all the a/c units running continously. It's the stormier south of the US that blinks like an xmas tree w/ the weather.

[Pilot]

I'm surprised you guys have such flakey power in the US. We probably get one power outage a year here.

I live in Northeast Florida, and It's pretty bad. We're better in our new neighborhood than we were in our previous rental neighborhood where we lived while waiting for our current house to be built. Every time it rained more than sprinkle, the whole neighborhood would lose power there. Not kidding. It was bad.

I think my current power issues are more due to new construction than what I can expect once everything is completed out here. It's funny -- the phone, TV cable, and internet provider here all warn us ahead of time when there is going to be a planned outage to add new customers, a new street, etc. Does the power company do that? Nope. Customers have alternatives for phone, cable, and internet, but you're stuck with whatever power company has jurisdiction in your area. They don't have to practice customer support. The funny part is that the power company actually thinks they're doing people a favor by turning off power to expand the system and such in the evening or at night. Who thinks of these solutions/plans? Why not do it during the day when most people aren't home and don't have such high requirements for electricity like at night? Morons.

[Pilot]

Don't blame me - I didn't vote for 'em.

THAT is very funny. :p

[Pilot]

I'm surprised you guys have such flakey power in the US. We probably get one power outage a year here.

I guess that answers my question on implementing an "if...then...else" type of strategy in the next GBPVR release so existing files (partial recordings) won't be overwritten, eh?

Okay, so who do I need to send money to? Should I send it to Sub as a bribe to put something to account for this in the app or should I send a little "something-something" to his local power company so they'll flick the big switch from time to time? :eek:

[capone]

I don't know about other counties here, but in the US, they need to bury the lines. I couldn't even guess the number of outages that would prevent alone. A big job, but since we all use electricity and need it pretty much to live at this point, it's not a big arguement to make it more of a priority.

[Pilot]

Try it out when you get it. I started w/ 800VA or so. It will probably handle the dimms/surges, but if an outage (lights off, even just for 1-3 sec) will be an issue, it may not be enough.

I wanted something that could handle at least "lights off.1...2...3..lights on again" (eg, more than brownout dimming/power loss). I started watching live TV (in TS mode), pulled the plug, system rebooted. It wasn't that it didn't have enough juice, it just couldn't handle the sudden demand.

I got a Belkin 1200VA. Less than $80 I think w/ shipping. Now I can pull the plug, and it not only keeps the PVR going, but the TV, too. It puts the system into hibernate if out for more than 10-15sec (by that point, it's usually out for a while).

Don't let this dissuade you, though. My needs may have been more than yours, and yours may handle the power switch-over better (I think this was before I got a good PSU, too)

I admit I was (and still am) worried about this. Most of these little bitty UPS devices don't seem to offer much. I'm worried that during some more problematic times, the frequency of the blips may not allow for the UPS to charge up enough between outages. Bummer.

Time to go buy a deep cycle marine battery, a smart trickle charger, and then I'll just keep my PC plugged into my inverter (that I already have) all the time. That way if the power goes out, who cares? I'll be able to run my PC for like 20 hours.

Get a steroid enhanced hamster and nice little geared running wheel...

I have a four-year-old and three-year-old child -- there's got to be some way to harness their energy for my GBPVR system.

[dragonfiregum]

I get power surges like once a week... but never EVER at night....
Im a little confused on the subject but ...
Is there ones that offer surge protection for all the computer parts ( can plug in moniter speakers router and all that?)
And offer 5-10 minute battery backup with no reset? AKA i can unplug or go to fuse box and it will still run?
Id definately dish out 100bucks for something like that...
My laptops nice because it auto switches to battery...
Worse comes to worse id only want to make sure the computer (not moniter or anything) was powered for continued recordings.. and saving the battery...to last a longer outage.(The stupid drivers that hit a power pole every month)
Im upstate NewYork (US) btw.

As for hamsters there lazy.
Children cannot be harnessed.



"APC 350VA BE350U 6 Outlet UPS
Protects your data and hardware from surges, spikes, and power failures

Up to 8 minutes backup run time
200W/350VA "
Can that even run a computer.. for a minute?
I might need one of the 150dollar UPS's...

[sub]

In the spirit of the original post, I've modified it so it wont overwrite the original part of the file. The target file will be renamed if the old name already exists.

First: Unsolved Mysteries_20060201_07000800.mpg
Then: Unsolved Mysteries_20060201_07000800-2.mpg
Then: Unsolved Mysteries_20060201_07000800-3.mpg
etc...

Obviously though, this is only part of your probem. You'll end up with a recording that points to part the last of a show. Comskip or any post processing will only run on that last part of the show etc. I wont be doing anything about these potential issues, but at least you'll still have all the video.