OTA Recording and watch something else.

[DishBacker]

I was having adventures with recording one show and watching another one last night with my new 921. If I was recording a Satellite HD event, I used the steps listed in another thread to be able to go watch a different show (select DVR / select an SD recording / go to guide / select the channel I want to watch). However, If I was recording an OTA HD event, I can't even watch a pre-recorded HD or SD event while the OTA HD event was recording. Any ideas on that? Does it have to do with the 'manual stop' mode that the recording is in?

However, if I had a timer set (Sat HD or Sat SD) and I'm watching OTA HD, those timers fired and worked like a champ. I'm confused....

 

[John W]

I have had the same thing happen. If I remeber correctly when I had an OTA timer set up I could watch something else while that recorded but if I was on a show and hit the record button that was all I could watch - kinda defeats the purpose of Dual Tuners because the OTA digital quality is much better than Sat. Especially for things like CSI. I have the timer set to fire tonight so I will double check what I had said.

 

[cleblanc]

I am having the same problem. If I hit record of an OTA show, I cannot do anything else. I tried the same thing of doing a manual record of a satellite show and it works fine. I reported this to Dish Network and they said they had not heard of this and took down all my information. I am skeptical that this problem is not known to them. This is a major problem to me. What is the point of having dual tuners if only one could be active? I can't even watch a prerecorded show if an OTA is recording.

 

[oldbob]

I have a question with a variation of this problem.

I just got my 921 and have yet to do a recording. I want to record the 4400 tonight (SD on USA). But, I also want to be watching an HD show on HDNMV. How do I set up the system to do this. The manual is useless, as it fails to describe how to watch one show while recording another. I don't see anyway to select which tuner is used to record, or how to switch tuners. You can't switch between tuners using PIP if one of the tuners is on HD.

Thanks for any clues.

 

[SimpleSimon]

oldbob: Because both of the shows you want to record are on satellite, just create the timers from the guide, and all SHOULD be fine.

All: I don't use OTA, so treat this with some salt. It APPEARS that the OTA tuner uses some resources that prevents you from both satellite tuners at the same time. You SHOULD be able to use one of them. Don't worry about which one, although I HAVE seen posts that indicate some issues there - guess you guys need to do some homework here and at DBSTalk.

One trick I seem to remember is using PIP & SWAP to regain control of your tuners.

YMMV, and good luck.

 

[MikeD-C05]

That might work in sd mode but never in ota or in hd mode. It won't let you swap anything . I also notice if I hit cancel out of the dvr screen and I have a recording going on a ota channel , boom the ota recording stops dead in it's tracks. Bugs ,bugs ,bugs. You have to learn all kinds of work arounds to do what you can already do on a 721. I 'll say it again . Why should the 921 ,which is based on the 721 have so many more problems ? Shouldn't it just be a base 721 with ota and hd recording ability? Maybe the 721 team should get with the 921 team and work out the software updates.

 

[DishBacker]

All: I don't use OTA, so treat this with some salt. It APPEARS that the OTA tuner uses some resources that prevents you from both satellite tuners at the same time. You SHOULD be able to use one of them. Don't worry about which one, although I HAVE seen posts that indicate some issues there - guess you guys need to do some homework here and at DBSTalk.

One trick I seem to remember is using PIP & SWAP to regain control of your tuners.

YMMV, and good luck.

The OTA swap problem seems to be related to manual recording. If you setup a timer to fire, you can switch to a different program using the same trick for switching from a SAT HD program (go to DVR, select an SD event, play it, select guide, and pick out what you want to watch). I saw a post this morning on dbstalk about someone having the same issue with a manual stop recording on SAT content. The box seems to not let you switch away from a manual stop recording, regardless of the input.

Last week I setup a timer to record Oprah for my wife on both the OTA HD and the SAT SD Local channels, and both timers worked perfectly. Since the TV wasn't in use, I don't know if it was possible to watch something else.