Letterman recording problem

[bobl]

This is a very strange one! I have Letterman set to record all episodes with three minutes tacked on to the one hour time shown in the guide. For the last few months I've had numerous problems with the recording but only on Wednesday nights. What happens is the recording stops prematurely with the schedule showing that the event was stopped by the user. It does this most weeks but not all. The recording usually stops at 12:03 AM, however, sometimes it runs a few minutes longer than this.

I assumed this was a bug in the software for my two 622's. I recently swapped out one of my 622's for a 722K. The problem didn't occur on the 722K at first but it seems to have started once the hard drive filled up and the DVR began automatically deleting older recordings to make room for newer ones. After it happened on my 722K I added the timer back to my 622 so I would get recordings on two different machines. Last night both recordings stopped at 12:03AM.

I should mention that the recordings are coming from the CBS affiliate (KPIX) here in San Francisco provided by Dish. I'm wondering if there might be something wrong with the guide although it looks fine. I'm also wondering if it might have something to do with the change from Wednesday PM to Thursday AM with it possibly stopping at 12:03AM due to the extension of three minutes I have setup in the timer.

It's incredibly strange that this only happens on Wednesday night even though there is only one timer for the five nights a week recordings. I think I will try deleting the timer and moving it to the OTA channel to see what happens. Any other ideas?

 

[Awohar]

Maybe Letterman got rated as Adult Only now and your receiver's parental controls kicked in.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[jporum]

I'm seeing the same thing and I'm also getting Letterman off of the Dish provided KPIX (as opposed to OTA). I think this has happened twice, this last Wednesday and last week (also might have been the Wednesday night show). I extend the end time by 10 minutes (so I can also catch the first few minutes of the Late Late Show). I've got a 722.

 

[bobl]

jporum-can you check your recording from last Wednesday to see how long it was? Mine was 28 minutes which is what usually happens (11:35-12:00 plus three minutes possibly due to the time I've extended it?). I'm wondering if your's was also 28 minutes or whether it might have been a bit longer since you extend your recording 10 minutes while I extend mine 3 minutes.

 

[jporum]

Mine was 27 minutes long - I start it at 11:35 pm (and have it set so it does not start 1 minute early) and it ended at 12:02 am.

 

[bobl]

I'm going to set this Wednesday's recording of Letterman a little differently on my 722K and 622 to see if I can get some clue as to what's happening with this ending early problem. I am going to have one extended three minutes, as usual, to 12:38 AM and the other one extended ten minutes to 12:45 AM to see if this setting makes any difference as to when the recording ends assuming it does end prematurely this week.

 

[uptownvideo]

I have a very similar problem with my 722K dvr receiver. My wife records 'As the World Turns' everyday. Almost every Tuesday or Wednesday the recording stops early and it says it was stopped by user2. Last week I did a test and set it to record using ota antenna channel and that recorded the whole show continuous. The dish local channel recording stopped after just few minutes. Dish tech support can't help much. I am glad I am not the only person with this problem.

 

[bobl]

It happened again last night TWICE! Letterman stopped 58 minutes into the recording on both my 622 and my 722K. Just prior to Letterman I was recording the KPIX 35 minute local newscast. It stopped just 2 minutes into the recording. All of this was being recorded on the Dish delivered version of KPIX HD. Two other recordings from KPIX HD (but OTA) recorded fine earlier in the evening. I'm going to have to experiment a little more by comparing Dish's feed and the OTA feed. It seems like there may be a problem of some type with the Dish feed.

 

[uptownvideo]

It sounds like this may be a problem with Dish. I have contacted them many times and they always tell me that I must be stopping the recording or a neighbor is using a remote control that is on the same code. I have changed remote codes many times and no one is home to stop the recordings. OTA channel works fine therefor something is wrong with the signal they are providing which causes the dvr to stop. I have no idea what tor why. I noticed this when I upgraded to HD 722K. The standard def feed must be fine which is broadcast on a different satellite.

 

[jporum]

It happened again last night TWICE! Letterman stopped 58 minutes into the recording on both my 622 and my 722K. Just prior to Letterman I was recording the KPIX 35 minute local newscast. It stopped just 2 minutes into the recording. All of this was being recorded on the Dish delivered version of KPIX HD.

I can report the same thing happened on my recording of Letterman last night. It stopped at 12:32 AM, or 57 minutes into the recording (remember I start at 11:35, rather than starting 1 minute early). While I don't record the news at 11, I have a friend that does, and he reported his recording of KNTV (Ch. 11) stopped at 11:02 PM just like your recording of the KPIX newscast.

 

[bobl]

My recordings were fine last night-tonight's Wednesday so I wonder if it will happen again.

uptown-where are you located? Are you also recording CBS programming from KPIX in San Francisco?

Neither my 722K nor my 622 have an RF antenna attached to them so I know they're not being affected by a neighbor's remote.

 

[uptownvideo]

I am in Northern Virginia. I pick up the Washington, DC stations. It's good to know that they are not affected by another remote. I figured they weren't but Dish tech support said that must be causing it. It must something bigger. My HD channels are on the 61.5 satellite.

 

[uptownvideo]

Days of Our Lives on NBC4 at 1pm stopped recording after 52 minutes into the 1 hour show yesterday. This was recorded using the Dish provided HD local channel.

 

[jporum]

Last night's (Wednesday) recording of Letterman on channel 5-00 (the Dish provided HD channel 5) stopped early again. However, instead of stopping at 12:02 AM it stopped at 12:17 AM. The OTA (channel 5-01) recording I set up got the whole show.

My friend also set up his DVR to record Letterman and his recording stopped at exactly the same time as mine. He also noted his recording of the channel 11 news off of the DISH provided HD channel stopped at 11:08 PM.

 

[uptownvideo]

My recordings are all on TV2 of my 722K and the error is stopped by user2. Are the rest of you using TV2 as the default recorder as well?

 

[bobl]

uptown-my 722K and 622 are both set to single mode so the messages say "stopped by user1" although they are recorded on TV2.

jporum-my Letterman recordings stopped again last night at the same time as yours but what's really interesting is that my KPIX late news also stopped at the same time as your friend's (i.e. 11:08). What's going on here? Recordings from two different channels stopping at the same time. It appears to be a problem with the Dish provided HD channels as you're not seeing this issue with the OTA version of KPIX. Do I have this correct?

 

[jporum]

It appears to be a problem with the Dish provided HD channels as you're not seeing this issue with the OTA version of KPIX. Do I have this correct?

Yes, you have this correct.

Just for the record, I have a 722 (not the K version) and I generally have it in single mode.

OK, so we know that the Letterman recording stopped at the same time last night on 4 machines - my 722, your 622 and 722K, and my friend's 722. Certainly the 622 and 722 run the same software, the 722K does not, but I'm guessing whatever software bug this is may be in common code that both the 622/722 and 722K share.

I'm running version 6.22 of the software, and I don't think I had this problem on the prior version of the software.

My initial thought is that there might be some digital sequence that the box sees from the channel it is recording that causes a software error which makes the recording stop. The OTA digital bitstream is not the same as the one you get from the Dish provided HD channels as OTA is MPEG-2 and Dish HD is MPEG-4 so this may be why the OTA is able to be recorded.

However, it seems like it may not be related to the particular channel you are recording as twice now bobl and my friend's recording of the local news has stopped at the exact same time, but they were recording different channels. Very strange. Could Dish be sending out somthing else at the time the recording stops that cause a software error?

It would be interesting to see if a recording of the Tonight Show from channel 11-0 would stop at the same time that the Late Show recording stops.

 

[bobl]

My recordings of the late local news and Letterrman last night were fine. I now have my 622 set up to record both shows from the Dish provided KPIX HD while my 722K will do the recordings from the OTA provided KPIX HD. I will add the Tonight Show recording to see if it stops at the same time Letterman does. Will monitor this for a few days to see what happens. Should be pretty interesting.

 

[jporum]

I did set up a timer for the Tonight Show of off channel 11-0.

Last night (Monday 10/19) my Letterman recording off of the Dish supplied CBS5 stopped at 12:29 AM last night as did my recording of the Tonight Show from the Dish supplied NBC11. I did not have an OTA recording set up, but I will in the future, for that time.

What I've now done is to set up the second satellite recording for a non broadcast channel (I chose ESPN) for the same time as Letterman. Next time the problem happens, I'd like to see if it affects the non broadcast recordings as well.

My friend that records the news again had his recordings stop last night. Both CBS5 and NBC11 stopped at 11:02 PM.

 

[bobl]

My recording last night of the KPIX 11:00 news on the Dish supplied HD feed was only four minutes long but the entire thirty-five minutes were recorded on the OTA feed. The same happened on my Letterman recording as it stopped after fifty-three minutes on the Dish supplied feed but completed successfully on the OTA feed. I also setup a recording of the Tonight Show from the Dish supplied HD feed (KNTV). It stopped recording, just like Letterman, after fifty-three minutes.

Clearly, something is wrong with the Dish supplied HD feeds for San Francisco (at least KPIX and KNTV). It used to only happen on Wednesday nights but the last two weeks it's happened on both Monday and Wednesday. I'm going to give Dish a call today. I will report back on what they have to say.