oldjack
join:2002-12-26
Springfield, IL
| DVR missing programs
Now & then, about once a week, the DVR will fail to record a program. It's not power outages, nor is it my wife canceling recordings, nor is it because the hard drive is full (whenever it gets to 60% full, I delete something).
Does anyone know why this is happening? I haven't called Insight about this. Since DVRs are so new, I thought it was more likely that someone in this forum would know the answer (if there is one).
It doesn't bother me that much. After all, they are just TV programs. But I must admit I was a little unhappy about missing Trailer Park Boys last Thursday.
If anyone knows anything about this, I would be grateful. |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
| By girlfriend swears this has happened to her. But I've never seen it personally yet. I do see were we delete a program and it doesn't give back drive space. Sometimes even after deleting 2 or 3 shows. Had a lock up the other day were the box needed reset. Unplugged the box to do a reset - because box was froze - lost 1 or 2 shows when plugged back in. But tons of drive space was recovered. Maybe the drive needs a defrag protocol or something.
The above doesn't happen often. Just once in a blue moon.
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Test Your Security Team Z Member Cable Modem Diagnostics |
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concerned bystander
@insightBB.com
| I've had this happen to me. I've also had the DVR box record the right time frame but not change to the proper channel(it recorded the channel that it was left on). The really unfortunate part of this is I work for Insight and have asked the warehouse, training, and technical staff and all they can do is say "It shouldn't do that and we've never seen it happen" Sorry I don't have any helpful information but I have seen it happen before... |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL | The logical thought is of course it's an odd bug in the firmware. I'm not sure how one would go about testing this to reproduce the result though. |
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oldjack
join:2002-12-26
Springfield, IL
| reply to oldjack
It happened to me again today. It was a program that I record Mon-Fri, so I know it wasn't caused by my failure to set it correctly.
Since it's happening to others as well, the lesson I will take from this thread is: If it's something I REALLY don't want to miss, I should use the VCR rather than the DVR.
BTW, in case you haven't heard:
--Comcast Fires TechTV Staff
»slashdot.org/articles/04/05/07/0···8&tid=99
--On Demand recently added "The Free Spot": a limited selection of TV programs and theatrical trailers. |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
| "On Demand recently added "The Free Spot": a limited selection of TV programs and theatrical trailers."
That might be worth a separate posting. I don't watch ON Demand as much now since getting DVR. But I do find it a nice feature. Something that I've not seen satellite providers having.
I don't see this problem with missed programs. Maybe because I set my stuff to record daily. I don't set it record every week at such time or every time the show airs. I just set my choice of recordings daily. Then watch them while other stuff records the next day. That said I think the firmware is still a little buggy.
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Test Your Security Team Z Member Cable Modem Diagnostics |
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psycord3
join:2004-06-04
Bowling Green, KY
|  reply to oldjack
It is a little glitch in the software code. As this is what I have to deal with all day being an Insight employee, there is a simple band aid fix for this problem. Power cycle the 6208. Unplug it for about 30-45 sec. and then plug it in. should be fine. |
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concerned bystander
@insightBB.com
| I too am an Insight employee. Yes powercycling the DVR will fix the problem, but that doesn't get the program sthat you wanted to record back for you. Some might respond to that by saying "You shouldn't count on your DVR as your primary recorder." Then why on earth would I want one... This is what I have to deal with as an Insight Employee, everything being rushed before it can be tested properly. |
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oldjack
join:2002-12-26
Springfield, IL
| said by concerned bystander:
Some might respond to that by saying "You shouldn't count on your DVR as your primary recorder." Then why on earth would I want one... This is what I have to deal with as an Insight Employee, everything being rushed before it can be tested properly.
If my choices are:
having to wait for the DVR to become available because it's still got some bugs
or
having the DVR available now and tolerating the bugs
I would rather have it available now and tolerate the bugs.
Maybe one of you Insight employees can help with this: On the regular digital box, in On Demand, in Subscriptions, if I choose "Sports & Info" I get a screen that says it's $4.99 per month.
On the DVR, in On Demand, in Subscriptions, if I choose "Sports & Info" I get a list of programs. When I click on any of the programs, I get a screen that says it's Complimentary. I never signed up for "Sports & Info".
If I watch any "Sports & Info" programs on the DVR, are they really free or will I get billed for them?
Also, I ran across the closed-caption feature of the DVR by accident. (It's handy because we have the DVR connected to an older TV that doesn't have captions.) Are there any other useful features that aren't in the manual?
Also, a couple of weekends ago, we had the power go out twice within a half hour (we live outside of CWLP's service area and our power is not as stable as CWLP's). The DVR was set to record a program during the outages. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the DVR resumed recording after each of the outages, and the pieces of the program were saved. |
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Concerned Bystander
@insightBB.com
| I'm glad you feel this and appreciate your patience. If Insight explained the it was a new technology and still had bugs that would be fine with me, but they don't. They are releasing it like it is completely bug free. Software companies release beta software to be tested and the release the true version. Essentially this is a beta version released as a finished product(no jokes about Microsoft here)
In regards to your "Sports & Info" that is not available in our region so I wouldn't be able to give any accurate information on it. |
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whyerhead
join:2001-12-01
Covington, KY | reply to oldjack
I don't have "The freespot" here in northern kentucky.. Must be giving us the speed, and you guys free OND programs..
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Hi, I'm whyer, and that's my Insight! |
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ericisback
join:2004-01-26
Louisville, KY
| reply to oldjack
I considered insight dvr for a long time, but decided to go with TIVO. I've never looked back. It works flawlessly and has some patented software "season passes", "wishlist", etc. that are what make the dvr worth having. If yo haven't opted for the insight dvr, at least consider TIVO.
IMHO
ET |
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Meeble
join:2002-09-19
Champaign, IL
| reply to oldjack
if you have an old computer around that has a decent sized harddrive - consider using one of the free DVR-like [actually PVR] software based alternatives like mythTV. There are two that are in varying stages of beta but the mythTV I had used 3 months ago recorded like a champ albeit some of the highdef sound was having synching probs but there was a backfilled solution
anyhow it's a fun thing to setup yourself if you're a techie and a linux fan. I would rank it as a intermediate activity if you wanted to learn some linux stuff.
www.mythtv.org |
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
| reply to IGGY
I can honestly say I'm pretty happy with the current DVR from Insight. Yes it can be tweaked and improved. But let us all keep in mind. Firmware issues aren't an Insight problem. There a Motorola problem. A good example of broken functionality with these new boxes after the last firmware upgrade is this = I used to be able to watch an ON Demand show without any problem while recording a show. Now if I try to watch an ON Demand show or even try to access that area to look at something. A warning comes up asking me if I'd like to stop recording the program I'm currently recording.
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IGGY
No Guru Just Here To Help
Premium,MVM
join:2001-03-30
Chatham, IL
| reply to oldjack
"Also, a couple of weekends ago, we had the power go out twice within a half hour (we live outside of CWLP's service area and our power is not as stable as CWLP's). The DVR was set to record a program during the outages. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the DVR resumed recording after each of the outages, and the pieces of the program were saved."
CWLP isn't always as stable as you would think. At least on my side of town. I can say the next day the crews were out fixing what need fixed. So we wouldn't have issues again - hopefully. The other night we had 3 to 4 minor few second "outages". Bad weather was not occurring at the time this happened. I can confirm what you stated above. The DVR does resume when the power comes back. As long as it is within the time scheduled for recording. But from what we saw - it splits the recordings into segments - so to speak. It doesn't resume the originally started recording.
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Test Your Security Team Z Member Cable Modem Diagnostics |
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oldjack
join:2002-12-26
Springfield, IL
| reply to oldjack
D'oh! I finally found the answer to my original post:
In Recording Options, "Quantity" defaults to "Save 1". With Save 1, if I'm recording something every day or every week and I haven't deleted all of the earlier recordings I made at the same time of day or week, it doesn't record. If I change "Save 1" to "Save All", it does record.
I should have RTFM (although Insight didn't give me the FM; I had to get the FM online). |
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tirebiter
join:2002-02-16
Champaign, IL
 ·Comcast
| In Recording Options, "Quantity" defaults to "Save 1". With Save 1, if I'm recording something every day or every week and I haven't deleted all of the earlier recordings I made at the same time of day or week, it doesn't record. Now that's a handy tip.
Here's another: put your DVR on a UPS. When the power goes out, even for a few seconds, this sucker loses its mind for hours until it can download all its data again. Heck even the menu isn't available for minutes after a short interruption. |
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zean
join:2001-03-10
Lexington, KY
| reply to oldjack
I have had the DVR from Insight for a couple months and it seems to work fairly well. I have had one thing happen that is pretty weird.. Was doing some work on the house and I tripped a breaker, well I checked my tv to see if everything was good to go....well I went into my DVR recordings and it had changed a recording time from 3-4 to 4-5?! very odd don't you guys think? |
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whoisthatposter
@insightbb.com
|  reply to oldjack
I saw this happen a few morning back. Had several programs set to tape. None of them taped. When looking into the future recordings. There were entries. But no program names. And things that should have taped that AM were listed as being set to tape. Even though the time for them to be recorded had pasted. Haven't had this happen since. Most likely work was being done that morning or something just glitched. |
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