This HD-DVR is pissing me off

revelated · #1 (**permalink**) 11-27-2009, 11:11 AM

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I think it's the VIP722. It's the black one.

Every now and then I will notice that a show has not gotten recorded. I don't notice it until after the next day or two or if I get a news article talking about the show, or a board posting.

I go into the DVR setting and it says "Deleted by priority". This "Priority" deal is really getting on my nerves, because the HD-DVR is not abiding by the priority I've set. The show that most commonly gets deleted is #5 on the list, the 4 shows before it are single run shows all on different channels and none of them are happening at the same time.

Near as I can figure, whenever there is a Mythbusters or Law & Order marathon and it's recording multiple episodes of those, it overrides other shows due to both tuners being used at the time. The problem is that if I told the HD-DVR that another show has priority, it should not be recording the MythBusters/Law & Order episodes that are occurring at the same time, yet it seems to not want to follow my rules. I never had this issue with the DirecTV HD-DVR, the Time Warner one or the Cox one.

Any ideas?

JohnL · #2 (**permalink**) 11-27-2009, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by revelated

I think it's the VIP722. It's the black one.

Every now and then I will notice that a show has not gotten recorded. I don't notice it until after the next day or two or if I get a news article talking about the show, or a board posting.

I go into the DVR setting and it says "Deleted by priority". This "Priority" deal is really getting on my nerves, because the HD-DVR is not abiding by the priority I've set. The show that most commonly gets deleted is #5 on the list, the 4 shows before it are single run shows all on different channels and none of them are happening at the same time.

Near as I can figure, whenever there is a Mythbusters or Law & Order marathon and it's recording multiple episodes of those, it overrides other shows due to both tuners being used at the time. The problem is that if I told the HD-DVR that another show has priority, it should not be recording the MythBusters/Law & Order episodes that are occurring at the same time, yet it seems to not want to follow my rules. I never had this issue with the DirecTV HD-DVR, the Time Warner one or the Cox one.

Any ideas?

Related,

Dish Network has a feature called Dish Pass. I don't use it. If all your are interested in is new episodes then set a timer for each show for new episodes only.

If you wish to record all episodes of a particular show then you are always going to have issues when a particular show has a marathon, unless you go through all your timers in advance to manually skip episodes that interfere with another timer, again the default priority is that Timers at the top of your timer list fire instead of events lower on the list if their are conflicting timers.

If you have not changed the receivers default settings then your Timers are firing a couple minutes before a show is scheduled to start and finish recording a couple of minutes after the scheduled ending time. Having not changed these default settings will cause alot of timer conflicts if you are recording shows in back to back time slots. Pull up any timer and press the Options dialog button and you will be given an opportunity to change these settings and you are given an option to make those changes the Default setting.

John

revelated · #3 (**permalink**) 11-27-2009, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnL

Related,

Dish Network has a feature called Dish Pass. I don't use it. If all your are interested in is new episodes then set a timer for each show for new episodes only.

If you wish to record all episodes of a particular show then you are always going to have issues when a particular show has a marathon, unless you go through all your timers in advance to manually skip episodes that interfere with another timer, again the default priority is that Timers at the top of your timer list fire instead of events lower on the list if their are conflicting timers. Secondly if you have not changed the default settings for recording events, then your DVR is padding a timer in front of the event and on the back end and can cause even more conflicts. If you have alot of back to back events and or record alot of shows the best default setting is to only start and end recorded events at their scheduled times.

When you press the DVR button multiple times you will be scrolled through several screens one of these screens is the DVR Events list and you can use the Page buttons to page forward and Page backward, so you have manual control over your times. You can manually skip one episode here or there.

John

Ok but here's the problem.

Law & Order's new episodes suck. I only want some of the older episodes, and to get those I have to do "all".

MythBusters has new episodes but I do all in case there are one or two I've never seen before (which happens on occasion).

I shouldn't have to manually manipulate the listing. I should be able to just set it and forget it. If there is a show at priority 1, at 5pm, and a Law & Order at the same time, and a Mythbusters at the same time, three separate channels with two tuners, the show at priority 1 should trump either Law & Order or Mythbusters automatically OR the DVR needs to tell me at the moment I'm setting the schedules that there will be conflicts so that I can tell the DVR which show to skip before I commit the schedule. That's what the Time Warner DVR did. The DirecTV DVR just trumped any show that wasn't prioritized. I'm fine with either option. What I don't want is my DVR just accepting my inputs and then arbitrarily skipping programs on a higher priority. It needs to be more intuitive than that, otherwise what's the point of scheduling/prioritizing things in advance?

KKlare · #4 (**permalink**) 11-27-2009, 05:19 PM

First, you should go through the timers list (DVR*3) daily or when you add to the schedule to check which shows are to be skipped--you can also do this on the Sling interface. This is the only way you can be sure. The highest ranked timer WILL be given preference in every case I have seen.

The suggestion to change the default extension from 1 before and 3 after to say 1 before and 1 after is needed because with 3 or more minutes after, the show will be forced to override ANY following show--bumping it--although that should be a conflict subject to priority. You can use 0 min before on networks like HDNetMovies and HBO as they keep to the schedules. Broadcast networks and those with commercials are often early-to-start and late-to-finish on the moneymakers.

Occasionally, I have to delete a show and add it back to get the right tuner to be used despite being in single mode because it did not resolve the conflict on its own.
-Ken

whatchel1 · #5 (**permalink**) 11-27-2009, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by revelated

Ok but here's the problem.

Law & Order's new episodes suck. I only want some of the older episodes, and to get those I have to do "all".

MythBusters has new episodes but I do all in case there are one or two I've never seen before (which happens on occasion).

I shouldn't have to manually manipulate the listing. I should be able to just set it and forget it. If there is a show at priority 1, at 5pm, and a Law & Order at the same time, and a Mythbusters at the same time, three separate channels with two tuners, the show at priority 1 should trump either Law & Order or Mythbusters automatically OR the DVR needs to tell me at the moment I'm setting the schedules that there will be conflicts so that I can tell the DVR which show to skip before I commit the schedule. That's what the Time Warner DVR did. The DirecTV DVR just trumped any show that wasn't prioritized. I'm fine with either option. What I don't want is my DVR just accepting my inputs and then arbitrarily skipping programs on a higher priority. It needs to be more intuitive than that, otherwise what's the point of scheduling/prioritizing things in advance?

You can move the priority of the timer. press DVR button 3 times then move to the timers button select it, then the set priority button and move the timer so the one you want as most important is before the less important one. You can change the length of timer to start 1 before & 1 after for each individual timer. Hope this helps. Also when you set a timer if there is a conflict it will warn you about the conflict and give you a choice of auto resolve or manual resolve. Some of this just sounds like a learn curve because it is different that the DVR's you are used to.