[DavidA]

So I’m watching the Tennessee-UCLA football game last night. I’m not recording the game but I’m about 30 minutes behind real time. A message pops up and tells me that the DVR needs to change channels at 9 pm to record Weeds or do I want to cancel the recording. I realized at that point that I had obviously had two programs set to record at 9 pm. I selected the choice to go ahead and change channels and then pulled up the “Manage Recordings” menu. I had Weeds set to record as well as some cooking show that the wife had set to record that she never watches. So I deleted the recording of the cooking show and hoped that the clever programmers at DirecTV had the right coding in place to recognize that I had eliminated the conflict but NOOOO!

At 9 pm, the DVR changes channels, I lose the buffer and once I change channels back to the game, UCLA is ahead and I have no clue how they did it or have any way to recover the buffer. Yes, I’m well aware that Weeds is only on about 50 times a week and I could have easily told the DVR to cancel the recording and set up a later recoding but that’s not always possible.

Wouldn’t a better solution have been for the programmers allow you to select which scheduled recording to delete? <-- Please someone at DirecTV see this.

I think I should have told the DVR to cancel the Weeds recording, paused the game, deleted the cooking show, reset up the Weeds recording at 9 pm and if I could have done this all in the two minutes or so that the DVR warns you about the upcoming change, I would have been OK. I think I could have done this if I had remained calm and executed my game plan, but I panicked.

Is there a better solution that I overlooked?

 

[davring]

You should have immediately hit record on the football game. It would have saved your buffer and given you time to deal with your other choices later.

 

[z28lt1]

You should have immediately hit record on the football game. It would have saved your buffer and given you time to deal with your other choices later.

That would have been a good step. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think proper use of the prioritizer in the first place would have helped as well. Haven't tested it, but I would imagine that it would have asked about the lower priority show and automatically used the free tuner for the higher priority show. that's what it's for after all

 

[spartanstew]

I would have canceled Weeds.

That episode of Weeds will be shown 100 times over the next week.

 

[DavidA]

Will the software accept a record command while the window is popped up with the choice being to cancel the recording or change the channel?

 

[DavidA]

That would have been a good step. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think proper use of the prioritizer in the first place would have helped as well. Haven't tested it, but I would imagine that it would have asked about the lower priority show and automatically used the free tuner for the higher priority show. that's what it's for after all

Nope, Weeds is a much higher priority in my list. I would have hoped that it would have worked this way but does not.

 

[z28lt1]

So much for the prioritizer priortizing...

 

[TomCat]

Will the software accept a record command while the window is popped up with the choice being to cancel the recording or change the channel?

I think this then becomes the central question. Having not been in the exact situation I might have panicked too, not knowing exactly what to do. Let's hope someone here has had the experience and can tell us (or is willing to set an experiment).

I would have:

1) paused the game. You are already so distracted by the alert that nothing happening in the game could be enjoyed while dealing with it.

2) immediately recorded the game. This SHOULD bring up a conflict screen where you can dump one or the other. Does it? I don't really know.

3) made a mental note what time you paused the game (if you record the buffer it begins either from when you first tuned in or 90 minutes back, whichever comes first. The HD DVR might not be so elegant in its interface to place you at the point of pause when you try to play back the recording.

But that's me, with a limited understanding of how the conflict rez works. If you assume that the HD DVR is NOT smart enough to bring up the conflict screen in that situation, the worst case scenario of it not doing so gives you another choice: go ahead and cancel the recording, record the game, immediately switch to the channel with the cancelled recording and pull up the grid. Perform a one-button recording from the grid for that program (assuming it has not quite yet begun) which WILL pull up the conflict resolution screen, and then make the choice.

One suggestion which I can't stress enough: don't let the wife see this thread. Dumping her show, regardless of the rationalization that she doesn't even watch it, might say something about who puts who first. Maybe not, and I'm not implying. I just know from experience how "they" might interpret that particular sort of action.

On the other hand, one party setting a SP for a program she (or he) rarely watches might also say something about passive-aggressive behavior and control issues. Good luck.

 

[Starchy77]

This is an excellent thread! I have not had this happen to me yet on the HR21's, but had similar situations without a good resolution (that I knew of) on the HR10-250's. Would love to see how this should be properly handled so I can deal with it when the time does come (as I know it will.... rarely, but it will happen!)

 

[davring]

If the OP would have hit record, the conflict pop-up would have given him a choice of what he wants to do without loosing the show he is currently watching.

 

[veryoldschool]

I would have canceled Weeds.

That episode of Weeds will be shown 100 times over the next week.

It was a RERUN anyway.

 

[Doug Brott]

This would have been a great case to record the game .. at a minimum .. and then done whatever bookkeeping was necessary to handle the subsequent shows.

 

[inkahauts]

Its things like this and people accidently change channels several times that make me record anything that I value at all... Man you missed a sweet game... If you have the sports pack, check on channels 692 and 694... they will reshow the game a couple times this week....

 

[rapjrhb]

Similarly, how would you react to be able to record/keep what's in the buffer up until 9:00 when the conflict begins but still record the 2 scheduled programs from that point forward?

 

[rustynails]

I was watching the Alabama-Clemson game and decided to record the second half while I went to my computer and did some things. I was thinking while at my computer that it may go over the time allowed and I had not added to the time. I went to the dvr and couldn't remember how to add an extra hour to the recording and due to the slow functioning of the dvr, I accidentally deleted what I had already recorded. I should have recorded what came after the game and I would have been alright. I don't know why the HR21-200 is so low in responding to changing channels and other functions. I had the option to stop and keep or stop and delete and somehow hit the delete option. It worked quickly enough then though.