[jbstix]

I've been patient these past several weeks with my 2 HR20's. Reading all the rants, and all the "this machine is great" and the "what a POS posts".
I may be joining the "what a POS" club very soon.
Thursday nights I've got both my HR20 recording most of Primetime TV.
Tonights results: (these are all my local MPEG 4 feeds)

My Name is Earl = Recorded and Unwatchable
The Office = Recorded and Unwatchable
Survivor = Recorded and Unwatchable
CSI = Recorded and Unwatchable
Grey's Anatomy = Recorded and Unwatchable

Tonight's attempt to funtion as a simply reliable DVR, was a complete Disaster!!! The word FUBAR comes to mind.
I was actually frustrated enough to call Customer Retention, I was very polite and curtious thru the entire conversation. I simply asked if he had any info on when the next software update was coming, b/c my patience was wearing thin.
He was nice, but our conversation was short after he asked me "does your remote have a thumbs up / thumbs down button on it ?" Some of these CSR's are so mis/uninformed it just adds to the frustration. I remained calm and nice and just said thanks for your time, and we were done. BTW, all he could tell me was there should be an update in the next 2 months... LOL. He also had me unplug the unit, plug it back in, then put me on hold for a few minutes, while waiting I went into VOD and tried to play back last weeks CSI -lol-
and wouldn't you know it, completed LOCKED the box up! had to red button reset.
Thank God we have Earl here to give us real info, or we'd all be in trouble.

I know these are all well documented issues, that's why I didn't post in the issues thread. Sometimes you just need to tell your story to your fellow "early adopter/beta testers" or however you look at it.

Anyway, I guess I will wait until the *next* update and see how things go, if there isn't some real progress in stability and reliability, then I may be "ditching the dish" and going a different route.
One last thing, I def. see more unstable and unreliability when the hard drive is fuller - tonight mine was around the 30% free mark... who knows?

Good luck to everyone... may the software gods be good to us very, very soon!

 

[mocciat]

I have 2 hr20's my "main" one recorded survivor fine, the "backup" hr20 in the den only had partial in the history. what a joke. the sad thing is I also have a hughes DTV tivo unit in the spare room and record everything on that also just in case. Not to mention a extra hr20 in a box in case of armegeddeon!!!

 

[mjwagner]

What exactly do you mean by unwatchable? Is the picture extrememly pixelated with sound dropping out? If so this may not be a problem with the HR20 but with the MPEG4 HD locals. Were you around to watch any of them live to see if they were unwtachable live as well?
I am in the Philadelphia area and have been having real problems with the HD locals particularly in prime time. The HD local feed for CSI tonight was completely unwatchable as were all of the HD local channels during that time slot (9 - 10 ET). ER on the other hand was fine as were all the other HD locals during that time slot (10 - 11 ET).

 

[jbstix]

I have 2 hr20's my "main" one recorded survivor fine, the "backup" hr20 in the den only had partial in the history. what a joke. the sad thing is I also have a hughes DTV tivo unit in the spare room and record everything on that also just in case. Not to mention a extra hr20 in a box in case of armegeddeon!!!

I hear ya.. my 6 year old S2 Philips Tivo in my bedroom continues to run and operate like a champ! I use it as a back up to my back up HR20!!! Hilarious and sad at the same time...
The Tivo actually recorded Survivor successfully and guess what, I can actually view the program and play it back... what a concept!

 

[mocciat]

It records and plays back? unbelievable!!!!

 

[jbstix]

What exactly do you mean by unwatchable? Is the picture extrememly pixelated with sound dropping out? If so this may not be a problem with the HR20 but with the MPEG4 HD locals. Were you around to watch any of them live to see if they were unwtachable live as well?
I am in the Philadelphia area and have been having real problems with the HD locals particularly in prime time. The HD local feed for CSI tonight was completely unwatchable as were all of the HD local channels during that time slot (9 - 10 ET). ER on the other hand was fine as were all the other HD locals during that time slot (10 - 11 ET).

Unwatchable for me = black screen, no playback, no FF/RW nothing. Which usually leads to that show disappearing after red button reset.
As I mentioned, I actually watched The Office while it was supposedly "recording" it was fine. Also noticed tonight ( on a couple of shows) that when the record light was on and the buffer for that show was orange it did not have the R record letter on the showing. These show wound up not recording at all and showing up in History as partial.
CSI def. has problems for me as well as you I see... Thursday nights seem like a real problem for some reason, although alot of folks have problems with this machine any day of the week. So between it being an MPEG 4 encoding or HR20 software issue and/or both, we're screwed for a while I guess...

 

[mjwagner]

Sounds like a completely different issue then I am experiencing, and probably HR20 related unfortunately. Thanks.

 

[tstarn]

I hear ya.. my 6 year old S2 Philips Tivo in my bedroom continues to run and operate like a champ! I use it as a back up to my back up HR20!!! Hilarious and sad at the same time...
The Tivo actually recorded Survivor successfully and guess what, I can actually view the program and play it back... what a concept!

Funny, but I sold our Philips standalone (also 6 years old) on ebay for $320, with a lifetime contract. What did I do with the money? Bought 3 R10s. What else? The R10s working fine, unlike the HR20.

 

[ktabel01]

Not only is the software bunk, it's devolving. I'm now getting channel not purchased errors, card no activated errors. I mean really, it's now not only a piss poor DVR, it's a piss poor receiver.

 

[Twosted]

Unwatchable for me = black screen, no playback, no FF/RW nothing. Which usually leads to that show disappearing after red button reset.
As I mentioned, I actually watched The Office while it was supposedly "recording" it was fine. Also noticed tonight ( on a couple of shows) that when the record light was on and the buffer for that show was orange it did not have the R record letter on the showing. These show wound up not recording at all and showing up in History as partial.
CSI def. has problems for me as well as you I see... Thursday nights seem like a real problem for some reason, although alot of folks have problems with this machine any day of the week. So between it being an MPEG 4 encoding or HR20 software issue and/or both, we're screwed for a while I guess...

I read somewhere that if that happens try accessing the program from, menu, my VOD, instead of, list. Probally won't work but it's worth a shot.:shrug:

 

[tstarn]

Not only is the software bunk, it's devolving. I'm now getting channel not purchased errors, card no activated errors. I mean really, it's now not only a piss poor DVR, it's a piss poor receiver.

Yeah, judging by the latest posts, things are not getting better, but worse. I guess I'm lucky to only have small video and sound dropouts at this point. Of course, the new download may change all that.

 

[jbstix]

I read somewhere that if that happens try accessing the program from, menu, my VOD, instead of, list. Probally won't work but it's worth a shot.:shrug:

I would have liked to have tried that, but after a red button reset, the show(s) disappear completly.
thanks for the tip tho...

Forgot to metion that the CSR initially wanted me to format the hard drive! It's sad that they want you to trash all the recorded material that acutally worked and recorded successfully. Not a solution for me at all, ecspecially when the CSR himself says, "this is only a temporary fix"
priceless

Oh Tivo, how I miss you sometimes, even with some little quirks here and there, at least it was pretty darn reliable DVR.

 

[matto]

Oh Tivo, how I miss you sometimes, even with some little quirks here and there, at least it was pretty darn reliable DVR.

see, you're just a tivo hugger trying to start problems. if you had your dvr cabled correctly you wouldnt be complaining so much. did you know that less than 0.0000000001% of HR20 owners experience any problems whatsoever?

 

[jsg2020]

see, you're just a tivo hugger trying to start problems. if you had your dvr cabled correctly you wouldnt be complaining so much. did you know that less than 0.0000000001% of HR20 owners experience any problems whatsoever?

Please tell me you are joking. I have had a mountain of troubles as well, and it seems so have many others. I am sure that there are quite a few that just don't even pipe up and say anything. Tivo was reliable!

 

[tstarn]

Please tell me you are joking. I have had a mountain of troubles as well, and it seems so have many others. I am sure that there are quite a few that just don't even pipe up and say anything. Tivo was reliable!

He's joking.

 

[Xaa]

Matto is joking.

I've experienced those problems before, it's pretty well documented and obviously needs to be corrected for any of us to rest assured in our DVR. Thankfully for me, it has only been 2 or 3 shows over the last 2 months. I feel for those that are experiencing it like you are. I think if I were, I would have moved the HR10 back down to the main area.

Sorry man, even though the updates are quite regular, it seems to me like it will be several months before every "playback/record" problem is fixed. After that I guess we can hope for new features and enhancements.

For me, I'm glad they are working on it and updating it. If updates were coming every other month instead of close to every week, I'd be a lot more nervous.

Xaa

 

[Marcia_Brady]

For me, I'm glad they are working on it and updating it. If updates were coming every other month instead of close to every week, I'd be a lot more nervous.

Xaa

As long as those updates continue to come every week until this thing is working properly. For some reason I have my doubts, and think that they are going to become more infrequent.

I truly hope that I'm wrong.

 

[paulman182]

see, you're just a tivo hugger trying to start problems. if you had your dvr cabled correctly you wouldnt be complaining so much. did you know that less than 0.0000000001% of HR20 owners experience any problems whatsoever?

Please let us know, are you planning to ever post anything useful again or will it always be this type of thing?

 

[Starrbuck]

My Name is Earl
The Office
CSI
Shark

All recorded last night on my HR20 and each one plays back fine.

 

[Starrbuck]

Please let us know, are you planning to ever post anything useful again or will it always be this type of thing?

Almost all of his posts are intended to get a reaction from the readers. He is best ignored. People like that eventually go away when they realize nobody is listening and reacting to them.