JVC HM-HDS1 VCR Information Centre

Welcome to the Technical Information Centre for JVC's revolutionary hard disk and SVHS video recorder. Launched late in 2001, it was one of the first of its type on the market. Combining a 40GB drive with a Super VHS tape system, it enabled near-perfect recordings onto the HD with archiving to SVHS tapes for convenience.

When it first appeared I just had to have one. So I did. The biggest thing for me was not having to scrabble around for a tape just before your favourite programme came on TV. No more rewinding, no more searching for the next blank space, no more guessing at what you'd recorded on the tapes. It handled it all beautifully.

Of course the biggest lifestyle change came with its 'Pause Live TV' feature. Strictly speaking, it didn't actually pause live TV (that would be impossible), rather it buffered the incoming TV signal on the hard drive and let you watch it at a later time (up to 3 hours). The classic example being: Your wife is watching Eastenders (UK soap) and the phone rings. "No problem" (as the JVC demo intones), you simply press Pause and take the call. 3 hours later your wife finishes the call and presses Play. She's back on track!

Below you will find a collection of information that may be useful to you when trying to fault-find, or repair your unit. Feel free to use the Forums to exchange ideas and tips. Every little bit helps to make the big picture on this unit. Without people like you, I wouldn't have got this far.

  Documentation 

• How to clone or backup your JVC HM-HDS1 hard disk drive: HTML

• Service manual, by indirect courtesy of JVC. PDF

• Schematics, by indirect courtesy of JVC. PDF

• Datasheets for the LSI chips used in the unit. Includes the Fujitsu MB86391 MPEG2 Audio/Video Encoder, the Mediamatics NDV8501 'DVD on a Chip' Processor, Silicon Storage Technology SST39VF800A Multi-Purpose Flash EEPROM. More here (FTP)

• HM-HDS1 marketing literature. Check out the MRP price - I hope you didn't pay that much!

• Have you got the same fault as I did?

• Known variations of HD make and model.

• Take a look at what Geert Jan Laanstra is doing with it. Does this guy know his stuff, or what? FTP site

• Here's a story from Onno Philips from the Netherlands - thanks Onno and good work!

  Files 

• An image of a Maxtor 40GB drive (Maxtor D540X-4K, p/no. MX4K040H2). This is as used in the PAL version but feel free to try it in a NTSC/SECAM unit and tell us how you get on. Image courtesy of Geert Jan Laanstra, University of Twente, Netherlands.

  Things I want 

• A larger drive (yes, everyone wants one of these)

• A way to put the unit back to factory default. How do you get the unit back to the state where you enter your country, language and other initial settings? I suspect only a copy of a virgin drive will do this.

• Can someone please re-write the OS to allow the trimming of recordings? I doubt it, but I can still dream...

Thanks to Andrew Wilkinson and Geert Jan Laanstra for their help with this beast