[Frodtab]

I tried a test this morning on the new software to see if there is any improvements in handling college football (ESPN GamePlan). Unfortunately, the answer is no.

I tried two approaches on different games - a recording set from the guide and a manual recording. Having been burned by this problem before, I checked the receiver a few minutes into each game. The recording that was set from the guide did not even start - a check of my History stated it was canceled. However, when I tuned to the ESPN GamePlan channel, there was the game and at that point I was able to restart a recording that worked.

I also tried scheduling a different game at the same time using manual recording. According to MyVOD, the game was recording but when you play the recording, there is nothing there. As with the first recording, I was able to reset a manual recording that worked.

This leads me to make a guess at a potential reason for the bug. The HR20 seems to have problems with the first minute or so of the GamePlan subscription, especially in the first games of the day or on a channel. Since these were the first games of the day and there may not be anything shown in the first 30 seconds or so, does the HR20 get "confused" and think that I do not subscribe or is there another reason? As I note, in both cases, I was able to directly tune to the channels myself and restart recordings that seem to be working fine.

I will test a game later today to see if the first game of the day seems to be the issue or not.

 

[bonscott87]

DirecTV - Please just allow a recording to happen even if there is no signal on the channel. If I record 3 hours of blank because of a blackout or something then it's my own dumb ass fault.

I think you'll get less calls to the CSR's for a 3 hour recording of a blacked out channel vs. the recording of a good channel not ever happening.

 

[farjo08]

That sucks... but it's what I expected. I did a forced download last night after I was down with my recordings and was planning to test this ith Center Ice but as I reported this problem 4 times to DTV last week and it was only on Wednesday that I appear to have gotten someone to take it seriously I certainly was not expecting it to be fixed in this update.

The problem is so simple to reproduce - just schedule a recording of a subscription sports game and you will reproduce it! You can also do a manual recording (hit record) when viewing any of these games and at the end, when they shut off the signal, you will see the recording get deleted as well.

As to why it is so difficult to get DTV to acknowledge, reproduce and fix this problem is beyond me.

 

[JJaret]

This it a must fix!

I like to watch the sports news out of NY, I live in LA, and if the game or game rebroadcast preceding the highlight show is blacked out, runs even a second long, or if someone at D* doesn't flip the switch on time, the program doesn't record. This is not a problem with the HR10-250.

 

[tiorio]

DirecTV - Please just allow a recording to happen even if there is no signal on the channel. If I record 3 hours of blank because of a blackout or something then it's my own dumb ass fault.

I think you'll get less calls to the CSR's for a 3 hour recording of a blacked out channel vs. the recording of a good channel not ever happening.

No kidding. They'll let the thing record 6 hours of the 'Sunday Ticket' splash screen when trying to set games to autorecord but then it won't other games.

Speaking of which, how come they can play that splash screen from 3am...

 

[LameLefty]

Speaking of which, how come they can play that splash screen from 3am...

As I understand it, the splash screens on NFLST are all "virtualized." That is to say, except for a moment or two before each network pre-game show comes on and after each game, that splash screen isn't actually being broadcast on the transponder that's carrying the broadcast. The Guide "channels" aren't set in stone as analog or even OTA digital channels are. In other words, Channel 7xx in the guide doesn't correspond to any particular transponder on any particular satellite except when D* says it does, which can and does change all the time. So there's not a dozen channels all broadcasting splash screens for hours before and after the games, those are all duplicates of one particular low-bandwidth transmission and our receivers are all using "virtual" channels to point to that same single splash page being sent by D*.

 

[mocciat]

This is getting old!!! $249 for Sunday Ticket, $99 for Espn Full Court (college basketball), and another $239 for MLB Extra Innings but I can't record any of them without them being deleted at the end of the broadcast. What the hell good is a DVR if it won't record the sports packages properly. I was burned the last 3 weeks of the baseball season, and now the 1st 8 weeks of the NFL season.

Earl tell me they are working on this issue please.