Problem with 501 recordings:

I have recently noticed that when watching programs in playback mode on my 501 (either watching a recorded program or rewinding a live program) I am having a lot of audio and video problems. These include audio cutting in and out, pixelization, or the picture freezing momentarily.

I called Dish this weekend to alert them to my problem. I was initially told that this was most likely the result of a corrupted recording on my hard drive. The solution they presented was to delete all recordings and reset my receiver (power off and unplug). I tried this during the weekend, however it did not fix my problem.

I called Dish again last night. After going through the whole routine of checking software versions, etc. the tech support person attributed the problem to my low signal strength on satellite 119 (low to mid 60s). This did not seem reasonable to me as the problem occurs on programs that originate from the 110 sat as much as from the 119, and the problem never occurs when watching in live mode.

Now I'm no rocket scientist, but to my simple mind it seems that there is a problem with my hard drive. A problem that may require a replacement receiver. I am worried that Dish is just attributing the problem to whatever they can to try to not have to incur the cost of replacing my receiver, which is currently under warranty. However, as I said, I'm not a techie, so I thought I'd throw this out to the group to see if their explanation seems plausible to those in the know. Please let me know.

Thanks!