Incorrect disk calculation, and deleting of programs

Release 1.7

Release 1.6 and 1.6.2

More than once, our FiOs DVR has deleted programs when there was plenty of room for new programs to be recorded.  We discovered that the DVR sometimes incorrectly calculates the available disk space, and we think that's when this happens.

Here it says it's 62% full -- unreasonable, considering the small amount of video recorded.

After a restart, it gave a much better assessment of space used, 11%.

This has happened more than once.

Release 1.7

 Release 1.6.2

Well, sort of.  This problem was partially fixed in 1.6.2, where it would record a channel we don't get when set to record from the guide.  We found this program with  the Search function, and set it to record it, and it agreed, marking it to be recorded, though we don't have this channel. 

After it had recorded it, it appeared here in the playlist. But attempting to play it resulted in a blank screen for a half minute or so.   Our machine was 72% full at this time, and after we deleted this program, it was 64% full, making us  think it actually recorded 1 hr 49 mins of nothing. 

Release 1.7

Here you see we don't get channel 690

But it's recorded Married With Children (in the Series Manager) on Channel 690.  And when we try to play it, the unit gets hung up for quite a while.

(Release 1.7)

Pressing a transport button (Play, Pause, Fast-Forward, etc.) sometimes doesn't work correctly while a program is being recorded.  In this case, the pointer appears at the beginning of the program, though we're slightly past the middle (look at the current time, 8:35 PM).  It won't pause, rewind, or anything.

In this picture, it does fast-forward, fast-rewind, etc., at a very low speed and becomes blocky.  It eventually grinds to a halt.  The banner indicates the wrong program. This happens frequently.

We're watching Dan Rather Reports now, it's 11:03, but the banner is still stuck in the last program, InFocus, Which was on from 10:00 to 11:00.  It was being recorded. Also, as often happens while recording, we couldn't fast-forward or backward during that program.  See the next screen

You see it's 11:03, and the guide knows the Dan Rather Reports program is on now. 

Release 1.7

Here you see that there are no programs being recorded.  The tuners should both be free.

It lets us switch to 899, but won't let us record it.  These "conflicting" programs were recorded earlier, but are no longer being recorded, as you saw in in the playlist two pictures up.  And they've been deleted prior to this. 

Release 1.7

The new Full Information Screen shows more than the old one.  It was added in Release 1.7. 

If you're in the Guide in a future program, or one on another channel, you must use the Left Arrow key to dismiss it, or you'll wind up back on the current program, and you'll have lost your place in the guide.  The Left Arrow key isn't shown as an option, but that's what you gotta do.

Release 1.7

We don't know whether this is a mess-up with the Guide, or this DVR. Here's the old Info Screen for this program.

...

Pressing Info takes us to the Full Info screen, in which the cast information disagrees with the Old Info Screen.  It's this screen that's wrong.  And both often list the director as a cast member, and often have the billing way out of order. 

No Episode Name

(Release 1.6.2)

In Recorded Programs:

Programs in a folder will be listed by episode name (unless the Guide doesn't' have it).  But a single program such as this one does not.  You must go to the Info screen...

Where "Ten Trillion and Counting" is listed as the episode name

And in View Schedule, you get no episode names, and no Program Information screens (where you might have gotten the episode name). 

Records duplicate shows  

Release 1.7

Release 1.6.2

Here it has recorded two of the same episode of the same show on the same channel.

Here are five episodes of "Real Time with Bill Mahler," all the same episode, though we can't prove that to you here, as the guide has only a program description, not episode descriptions.

Here are the Series Manager settings for this series.  You see that it's set for Duplicates - No. . 

For what it's worth, the Default Series Options for "Record Duplicate Shows" is also set to "No."

Here the schedule was set to record "Deconstructed," as well as...

...the same "Deconstructed" on the hi-def version of the same channel. One got scrubbed because of a third program.  We couldn't find a similar situation where one duplicate didn't get scrubbed, but it has happened. 

Can't scroll the Information screen

Release 1.7 added a Full Info Screen, which makes this not much of a problem any more.

All releases prior

Here we're set to record this program.  We can press the Channel-down button to scroll the right side of the screen...

...which works as it should.  The right side bottom has scrolled down.

But...

Here's the same program in the playlist, and still says to press Channel +/- to scroll the description at the lower right, but...

Pressing Channel - scrolls the list at the left.  There seems to be no way to scroll the description.  The Right-Arrow key doesn't enable scrolling, as it does in some other similar screens.  We just can't read the rest of the description. 

Most programs descriptions fit in the Info Screen during playback, but we still occasionally get one that doesn't, so we need to be able to scroll.

Release 1.6, 1.7

Here the program was apparently lost.  We tried to "play again later" as if that would really work.  It didn't.  After a week, we deleted the program.  We regained no space.

Release 1.7

Here is a two-hour program, recorded earlier today.  It refuses to play it.  We get the channel (1644) and watched a little of it as it was recording.

it goes back to live TV.  This has happened more than once lately.  We tried a power-off restart -- no joy.  When we delete the program, the disk usage drops from 84% to 80%. 

(Release 1.6.2)

Here the program has ended, but we have the last three-quarters of it.  But it won't record it.  This is unfortunate.  If it's for a technical reason, it should be overcome.  If it's someone's decision to just not allow it, it is a bad one.

Can't dismiss Banner (1.6.2)

Here the banner stays on the screen indefinitely.  Pressing OK will dismiss it for about 5 seconds, after which it reappears.  This happens only occasionally.

With Release 1.7, the banner no longer appears when using frame-forward or backward buttons (finally!), but it sometimes still does appear. 

Inconsistent menu operation

Release 1.7

Release 1.6.2

In some menus, like this one, you simply change to the option you want, press OK, then press Exit.  You're done...

But in some, like this one, you'd better press the Right key to get to "Save," then save your settings.  If you press Exit, it simply leaves without having saved your changed settings.  You get no prompt to save them.  Nothing.  It forgets your changes. 

(Release 1.6.2)

Sometimes pressing Play (instead of OK) starts play directly, skipping the next menu -- nice feature.

Sometimes it doesn't -- it just does nothing. If it doesn't want to work, there's no need to try again -- it isn't going to work right now. 

Stop Button during playback. 

(Release 1.6.2)

Often it just doesn't work.  When it gets in that mood, it doesn't matter how many times you press it, it isn't going to stop.  The light flashes on the DVR, but no one seems to be home.  You must press "DVR" to go back into the menus, then into Recorded Programs.  You will have lost your place as to which program you were watching.  .

Inconsistent and varying audio volume

(Release 1.6.2)

There are three compression settings ("Dynamic Range") for the audio, but be careful. It seems to work by boosting the level of the lower-volume channels, though it does it inconsistently.  When set to "None" one channel would be louder than another, but set to "Heavy," instead of the two being more the same, they were actually reversed.

In the "Heavy" setting, the volume seems generally more consistent across the channels.  But the volume sometimes drops for no apparent reason. It makes the music suddenly seem weak This doesn't happen if it's set to "None" and we play the same passage. 

In the "None" setting, many channels had very low volume, others were louder, though not as loud as with the "Heavy" setting.  We didn't get the sudden volume drop phenomenon with this setting, which we like.

Be careful -- if you use the "None" setting, on many channels the output of the STB, even with the internal level set to its maximum ("Set-Top Box Volume"), is very low compared to other devices, like our DVD player, and it can suddenly get VERY loud when you switch devices. 

We don't have any idea why they designed it this way.

(Release 1.6.2)

The unit hangs up less frequently than it used to, but here it's suddenly become totally nonresponsive, including the MENU button.

The composite output shows this...

But  the hi-def outputs (component and HDMI) give a totally black screen.

A restart (pull the plug) was necessary to get it going again. 

On another occasion, it did it again, but we find this on the composite video output, and it's stuck there -- no audio.  The hi-def outputs still have nothing.  And this time it will respond to remote commands, but an attempt to play the program again (Married with Children) gives us the same result (composite output only). 

And if we select another program, In Focus, we get similarly stuck. 

Here the banner says we're watching and recording "It Runs in the Family," on channel 744 at 9:33, but it's obviously "Married with Children."

"Married with Children" is actually on channel 54, and IS being recorded 

The banner was just wrong.

Here it appears that we have this entire program buffered, from the beginning.

But when we try to rewind, we find that we only have the few minutes since we switched to this channel.  It seems to have changed its mind again.

Wrong again.

(Release 1.6.2)

Here we weren't recording (where goof-ups happen much more frequently).  We're on channel 51 watching Bones

When we tried to switch to channel 49, Weatherscan, by keying "49" it did this.  The banner says 49 - Weatherscan, but it's obviously still Bones.  It let us go forward and backwards, pause, etc, through the program, though the indicator didn't ever move. 

Note also that the extents are further to the right, compared to channel 51. Wrong extents happen again and again, sometimes from one view of the banner to the next. 

We went back to channel 51, then 49 again, and this time, got there...

Here we have a manual recording of one hour, in which the first half-hour is "The Vicar of Dibley" Pressing the Info button during the first half-hour of playback correctly identifies.  When we're in the second half, shown here, it correctly identifies "Yes, Prime Minister" as playing.

But...

Pressing Info the second time incorrectly gives the info for The Vicar of Dibley

(Release 1.6.2)

Here's a program that seems to have an hour's worth in the buffer, but the beginning is missing, about 15 minutes worth. 

We start it recording.  Interesting -- now the colors on the banner seem to indicate it's gotten the beginning of the movie -- more than the usual hour it buffers. 

After the entire movie is over, we look in Recorded Programs.  Lo and behold, it indeed has the entire two hours, even though we started recording when the first 15 minutes or so wasn't in the buffer.

Sure enough, there's 30 minutes played, and an hour and a half to go.  It has the whole movie.

So if it really has that the first 15 minutes, why doesn't it let us rewind to it during live TV? 

Other times, when we've started recording, it starts recording where it was when the recording started, even though the banner indicated the earlier part was in the buffer.  It's just unreliable

Here we see that an hour's worth of this movie has been buffered. 

And sure enough, when the recording is over, there's only 9 minutes recorded.  This time we got way less  than what was captured in the buffer.  Don't count on anything with this box.

Here's a program for which there's no guide info

And if we want to record it, is gives us this, which makes sense. It asks how long we want to record, since it has no guide info to tell it that.

But it doesn't record it, no matter how we try.  We really wanted to record this program.  Oh well. 

Here, when we press OK, it says NOVA is playing (true), and the red dot tells us it's being recorded

But the Recorded Programs list says it's currently recording two other programs.  Since it can record only two programs, how can NOVA be recording also? 

We went back through this to see if the programs had changed, but got exactly the same results on all three screens. 

So we have to wonder what program would have stopped recording.

Sometimes there are no recorded programs shown, even when there are.  Try again, and they appear.

This is rare

Here the banner has the program description, but doesn't seem to know the program name...

Yet the Guide has the name of the program ("Thin"), but doesn't seem to be able to get the program description.  It might be fair to say this DVR can't get it together.

Wrong episodes

Here the Guide says this episode is about the Internet, the origin of cranes, and creating pencils.

It's really about concrete, cell phones and traffic control.

 This program has pretty much always had the wrong episode shown.

Here the DVR is set to record all episodes of Austin City Limits (see the banner).  For weeks, it has instead been recording The Vicar of Dibley and another program.

If we search for The Vicar of Dibley, we find it at the time this program was recorded.  If we search for Austin City Limits, we also find it at the same time!  

This is unforgiveable, and no way for Verizon to treat customers.  Channel 553 here is one we don't get in our level of service.  It looks just like channel 551, which we DO get.  We don't get that!

Dish Network allows you to exclude channels you don't have.  FiOS does not.

You're browsing the guide, read a program you'd like to see, so you select it...

Does Verizon realize how frustrating is is to have read a program description, or set it to record it, only to find afterwards that you don't get that channel?  It's like Lucy pulling the football from Charlie Brown.  Again and again.

Does Verizon think you'll order the tier when this happens?

Does Verizon think this is a good way to treat its customers?

You could use Favorites to set up the guide for only the channels you get.  You'd have to maintain it as the channel offerings change.  You couldn't have a life.

You'll find in other parts of this page that the DVR still records programs we don't get in our tier, from Search, and from the Series Manager, as of Release 1.7. 

(Release 1.6.2)

There was a time when the year and genre wasn't given, but that's much better now.  But lately, often the actors are not given.

Here we know how Peg's bowling game will turn out.

It speaks of "The Boston-based trio," but refuses to say what trio it is.

It still isn't going to tell us to what trio it refers.

The Episode information has an ellipsis (...).  There appears to be no button to get it to show the rest of that information. We suspect it was intended that the Episode information would show the name of the group.  But who knows for sure?

Here the episode information ends in an ellipsis, but there's no way to get the rest of it.  Same with the cast information.

The lower part is scrollable, but the top part isn't.  You'll never see the missing stuff.

This has been partially fixed in release 1.7 with the addition of an additional Program Information Screen.  This is available only for some programs, and results in a four-screen round robin with the Info button, none of which clears the screen.

Release 1.6.2

Here the episode description ends in an ellipsis, but we can find no button to view the rest of it.  Selecting the program gives the next screen.

This program was found via the Search function.

Pegy?

We're not sure what someone was thinking when he/she typed this.