Partial recording problem... - Page 4

BillRos · 10-16-2006, 12:06 AM

I posted here about my issue and did not see this one first. I will be calling tomorrow. This describes the issue I had exactly.

jchapman · 10-17-2006, 09:46 AM

I've senn the partial recording problem myself twice; once when recording the same program on both tuners (one of the tuners had a partial recording of 0:00 length) and again last night after a series of reboots. I had been watching an HD program while a SD program was recording, and something in the HD recording caused the Tivo to reboot (repeatably at the same moment). This of course stopped the recording of the SD program, so there were three versions of it in the "Now Playing" screen after two reboots. Ultimately I stopped trying to watch the HD program, and the SD program continued to record. Unfortunately, the recording of that program was stopped prematurely for no apparent reason; the Tivo grabbed an additional 30 minutes and not more (there was another hour to record). It may or may not be related to the reboot that had happened about 30 minutes earlier, but those are the only two times I've experienced the partial recording problem.

SCSIRAID · 10-17-2006, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SCSIRAID

Encountered my first partial today. The show was CSI: Miami on Monday night. This is unencrypted network TV so its probably unrelated to the cablecards. The show ran good for 2 minutes and then ended. The program showed a 2 minute duration and 'partial'. I still have my 8300 duplicating my recordings as a just in case. The 8300 recording was fine with no anomolies seen.

Found another partial last night.... Discovery HD - Atlas Brazil ended after 1:39 but scheduled for 2:00. Bummer......

MichaelK · 10-17-2006, 10:18 AM

I'm wondering if the cablecard loses auth temporarily for whatever reason does the tivo just give up at that moment?

Tivo needs to put in some addtional diagnostic screens so we can figure out what the cablecards were doing at the time these partial recordings and screwed up copyright flags are hitting.

gsusong · 10-17-2006, 02:52 PM

I have had this problem also. 3 or 4 times I've had partial recordings. Once I had a show not record at all. All were HD shows.

One thing I have noticed is on occasion I will switch to an HD channel and the screen will go blank. If I move up or down off that channel and then go back, the picture will be there.

dbogus1 · 10-18-2006, 04:44 PM

I have had 3 partial recordings in the last 10 days. (The wife is now looking at me with the what did you get us into gaze). I called tivo today and reported the issue. THe CSR maintained that she/they have never heard of this issue. I told her that there is a posting on their own support forum talking about it. She maintained they have nothing on this, and the only thing to do is to reset all season passes.

What I hate is when I get lied too. I'm sure there is no quick fix for this, but my desire was to let them know they have another customer with this issue, and to log it. When they say "you are the first one to report this" even after I tell her about their own forum, its a bit disappointing. A better response would have been "yes sir we know about this issue are are trying our best to fix it, would you be willing to participate in the fix process?" Luckily I keep my partial recordings numbered (and around) for just such an occasion.

I think that all partial recording victims need to post to a new thread on the tivo forum so that some visibility can be had. There is a thread that I started called Series 3 Partial recording over at tivo's forum. ( i can't post urls yet being a newbie to this forum). Please post there too!

Maybe we should also start collecting specifics about the partials...something like:
Cable Provider: Comcast Denver
October 7th Channel 652 Desperate Housewifes - 17 minutes
October 14th Channel 652 Desperate Housewives -- 43 minutes
October 17th Channel 652 Boston Legal -- 5 minutes

MichaelK · 10-18-2006, 05:00 PM

you should include your cable provider. And the channel you were tuned to (by name)

Cablecard brand and firmware version. (if you have them installed)

then maybe we can figure out a pattern.

dbogus1 · 10-18-2006, 05:14 PM

Cable Provider: Comcast Denver
Cable Cards: Motorola v4.21
Recordings:
October 7th Cable Channel 652 (kmgh abc) Desperate Housewifes - 17 minutes
October 14th Cable Channel 652 (kmgh abc) Desperate Housewifes -- 43 minutes
October 17th Cable Channel 652 (kmgh abc) Boston Legal -- 5 minutes

MichaelK · 10-18-2006, 06:49 PM

interesting that it's always the same channel.

moyekj · 10-18-2006, 07:00 PM

As long as you are listing all the details you should also include the channel RF frequency and signal strength (from diagnostics menu). There may be some particular tuner frequency range for which this problem occurs for example.

SCSIRAID · 10-18-2006, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelK

interesting that it's always the same channel.

My two instances were on different channels... one encrypted Discovery HD and the other unencrypted NBC.

MichaelK · 10-18-2006, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moyekj

As long as you are listing all the details you should also include the channel RF frequency and signal strength (from diagnostics menu). There may be some particular tuner frequency range for which this problem occurs for example.

good points- i think the RF might be a factor since some report it on certain analog stations.

MichaelK · 10-18-2006, 07:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SCSIRAID

My two instances were on different channels... one encrypted Discovery HD and the other unencrypted NBC.

how 'bout the card info and the rf info for those channels?

jfh3 · 10-18-2006, 08:16 PM

I've been tracking missed recording details for weeks with two Series 3 boxes. The ONLY time I've ever had the same partial recording on both boxes was when Comcast had a transmission problem with the channel involved.

Every other time I've had a partial recording, one box recorded the program fine and the other had the partial recording.

jfh3 · 10-18-2006, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbogus1

Cable Provider: Comcast Denver
Cable Cards: Motorola v4.21
Recordings:
October 7th Cable Channel 652 (kmgh abc) Desperate Housewifes - 17 minutes
October 14th Cable Channel 652 (kmgh abc) Desperate Housewifes -- 43 minutes
October 17th Cable Channel 652 (kmgh abc) Boston Legal -- 5 minutes

Same market as you - got all those recordings fine on two Series 3 boxes.

This particular issue has got to be a Tivo error recovery issue, not a cable source issue.

moyekj · 10-19-2006, 02:48 AM

The Motorola DCT64xx DVR has a diagnostic screen for each tuner with Signal/Noise ratio, Automatic Gain Control & 5-sec correctable and uncorrectable error counts for digital channels. The numbers refresh themselves every 5 seconds. All those are very useful for diagnosing signal problems. Would have been useful for Tivo S3 diagnostics to include such stats rather than just "signal strength" which really doesn't mean a whole lot.

bicker · 10-19-2006, 05:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dbogus1

What I hate is when I get lied too. I'm sure there is no quick fix for this, but my desire was to let them know they have another customer with this issue, and to log it. When they say "you are the first one to report this" even after I tell her about their own forum, its a bit disappointing.

You've really hit the nail on the head. I think I pretty much shrugged it off the first time, but when I call to report something happening to me for the second time, don't you dare tell me that no one ever reported a problem like that before. That's just plain insulting.

Quote:

A better response would have been "yes sir we know about this issue are are trying our best to fix it, would you be willing to participate in the fix process?"

While that would be nice, that might be asking a bit much. We're not even getting any feedback on these issues from the TiVo folks who typically participate here. There seems to be some sort of gag order in effect, for everything except TiVoCast.

I'm not sure what they hope to gain from not communicating honestly with their customers.

jleonar1 · 10-19-2006, 05:55 AM

I have had several partial records.**Some analog channel, some digital channel and some on HD channels.**I reported this twice to Tivo and they are giving me nothing.**Yesterday they call back and say "9 out of 10 times this is a problem with defective CableCards.**Call your cable company and request new cards."
A few of shows listed as "partial record" have been recorded for 0 minutes.**Tivo rep suggested I watch the show live so I could see what was happening when I was getting the partial record.**If I wanted to watch TV live why would I spend $1000 on a Tivo.**Told him this was not an option.**
I have been an early adopter many times and often there are problems but I think Tivo's lack of honest response to us has not been encouraging.**I bought from their site with $200 lifetime package and they tell me to watch the shows live.

PPC1 · 10-19-2006, 07:32 AM

I am no expert, but this seems to me to be a TiVo issue, not a cable card issue. At least it is not solely a cable card issue. I get these partial recordings occasionally. When watching live T.V. I will occasionally lose the tuner lock. But invariably, changing the channel and then changing back brings the station in. I think the prior poster is correct about an error recovery issue. Given that the TiVo obviously recognizes when the signal is lost, and a manual instruction to re-tune fixes the problem, why can't the TiVo automatically attempt to re-tune the station?

FWIW:

Brighthouse, Indy.
SA cards.

Partial Recordings:
NFL Football on CBS-HD (Colts v. Jets)
Heroes on NBC-HD
Project Runway Bravo (analog)

SCSIRAID · 10-19-2006, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PPC1

I am no expert, but this seems to me to be a TiVo issue, not a cable card issue. At least it is not solely a cable card issue. I get these partial recordings occasionally. When watching live T.V. I will occasionally lose the tuner lock. But invariably, changing the channel and then changing back brings the station in. I think the prior poster is correct about an error recovery issue. Given that the TiVo obviously recognizes when the signal is lost, and a manual instruction to re-tune fixes the problem, why can't the TiVo automatically attempt to re-tune the station?

FWIW:

Brighthouse, Indy.
SA cards.

Partial Recordings:
NFL Football on CBS-HD (Colts v. Jets)
Heroes on NBC-HD
Project Runway Bravo (analog)

Bingo... And I would hope that they had an internal error log where things such as the reason a recording was aborted would be logged. They should be able to pull that log remotely and find out what is going on.

jchapman · 10-19-2006, 08:49 AM

This happened to me last night during "Lost" (HD ABC with an Comcast SA CableCard in Northern Virginia): The red 'recording' LED and display name on the front panel of the Series 3 was lit for the entire hour indicating that Lost was recording, and the "Now Playing" list indicated that the program was being recorded for the entire hour. 45 minutes into the recording I selected the program in "Now Playing" to view its details and begin watching it, and the duration was shown as only 4 minutes! The Tivo still thought it was recording the program, but the duration remained 4 minutes until the 10pm when recording stopped. I tried playing the episode (both while it was still 'recording' and afterwards, and only the first four minutes were there. On screen during playback, the black and green progress indicator showed the program was an hour long, but only the first four minutes were green. When playing the final moment of the four minutes, the screen just went black and then back the the menu, no indication of signal breakup or problems.

Edit: There was another program being recorded at the same time, btw.

SCSIRAID · 10-19-2006, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jchapman

This happened to me last night during "Lost" (HD ABC with an Comcast SA CableCard in Northern Virginia): The red 'recording' LED and display name on the front panel of the Series 3 was lit for the entire hour indicating that Lost was recording, and the "Now Playing" list indicated that the program was being recorded for the entire hour. 45 minutes into the recording I selected the program in "Now Playing" to view its details and begin watching it, and the duration was shown as only 4 minutes! The Tivo still thought it was recording the program, but the duration remained 4 minutes until the 10pm when recording stopped. I tried playing the episode (both while it was still 'recording' and afterwards, and only the first four minutes were there. On screen during playback, the black and green progress indicator showed the program was an hour long, but only the first four minutes were green. When playing the final moment of the four minutes, the screen just went black and then back the the menu, no indication of signal breakup or problems.

Edit: There was another program being recorded at the same time, btw.

Interesting.... so the recording didnt 'terminate' early... it was just not getting a data stream so it wasnt recording anything so 'time' wasnt increasing in the buffer or recording... ie no data from ATSC/QAM tuner doesnt 'advance time'.

Are your HD Locals encrypted? probably not. If not... this seems to exclude cablecard issue since it isnt involved with nonencrypted channels. Could be that tivo tuner lost its mind or didnt know how to recover from a stream glitch.

This is a valuable clue IMHO.

jfh3 · 10-19-2006, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SCSIRAID

This is a valuable clue IMHO.

And not news to Tivo.

I was on the phone with Tivo when one of these was happening on one of my boxes and detailed it for them in my problem record.

SCSIRAID · 10-19-2006, 01:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfh3

And not news to Tivo.

I was on the phone with Tivo when one of these was happening on one of my boxes and detailed it for them in my problem record.

Glad to hear that. This was the first time that I understood that the recording wasnt actually terminating early... but was in fact still going but just not recording anything. That fact hadnt been mentioned or I just missed it.

jchapman · 10-19-2006, 04:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SCSIRAID

Are your HD Locals encrypted? probably not. If not... this seems to exclude cablecard issue since it isnt involved with nonencrypted channels. Could be that tivo tuner lost its mind or didnt know how to recover from a stream glitch.

Nope; no encryption on the HD locals. I have had issues in the past with digital recordings being copy protected incorrectly, but that has not happened since the "b" update (knock on wood).

jimmythemoose · 10-21-2006, 11:00 PM

This has been happening to me too. I've noticed at least 2 partial recordings, 1 HD and 1 non. Don't think anything else was recording at the time. SA cablecards.

robus · 10-22-2006, 06:11 PM

Got my first partial the other night - Grey's Anatomy - 49 mins. I'd gotten the 0 mins recording issue back when first getting cablecards working - but it's been fine since, until the Grey's Anatomy. I'll keep an eye out for any pattern. But definitely think the TiVo should provide an explanation as to why a show that is supposed to be 1 hour only recorded 49 mins. I don't think it even called it a "Partial"(!) but can't swear to that.

Robert.

OhioUmpire · 10-23-2006, 09:55 PM

I have never had partials until this last 2 weeks... Friday Night Lights only recorded for 39 minutes and then stopped. This was a non-HD channel. I use the DirecTV w/Tivo HD receiver, but again, this was not a HD channel.

This past Sunday I was recording the Steelers-Falcons HD Game and it too was a partial. Tivo is making a great case for me to dump and go to the DirecTV DVR as opposed to Tivo.

r11roadster · 10-23-2006, 11:25 PM

Well I am having a possibly related problem. I am on my 2nd tivo and 2nd set of cable cards. The first unit would not tune analog channels from 43-53 on tuner #2, though fringe channels would occasionally lock in. The new unit will not tune channels 59 through 70ish but only two at a time are affected, 59&60 or 60&61 on up. . Odd thing is if I tune #2 to digital for a while the channels effected go up the dial. I just displays the searching for signal message. I did get the haven't heard this exact issue from tech support and it may be true since I am seeing slightly different problems than I am reading here and he did forward the issue to engineering. My first unit got back to them today so hopefully they can poke around in it and see what is going on. I hope they get this frittered out because I really like this unit.

FWIW I am on Charter using Motorola cards

PPC1 · 10-24-2006, 06:58 AM

Another partial recording of Heroes last night. This seems to be my S3's favorite show to mess up.

Studio 60 immediately after was fine.