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DVR Playback stops 1 minute in thinking the show is over

To start, I am a new FiOS customer, about 6 weeks now.

I set all of my series recordings to start a minute before and end a minute after. I have run in to a couple of shows where it tells me it has about 32 minutes left when I start the show. After the first minute, be it play, FF or FFx2 or FFx4 or 8, it ends early as if the show were over.

The prior show was one I had also recorded, so I could see how it might think that. However, I did watch the prior show and deleted it.

I don't know how I can fix these shows so I can actually watch them! Can anyone help?

I tried to search the forum but maybe I don't know the proper term for what is happening to find it.

Comments

lacticacidtrip1

Hi IONH,

I have hit this error two different ways. So I have a question that will help determine what to do: Are you trying to watch the recording from the DVR, or remotely from another STB?

From the DVR: You probably have a bad recording. It lists the proper duration, but refuses to play. It could be that the channel you were recording lost its feed. It could be a recording or playback glitch. It could be that the DVR is starting to go bad. You can try an STB Auto Correct. You can call Verizon and see if they can help. But if you are getting a lot of these unplayable recordings, you probably need to replace your DVR.

From an STB: This is a glitch that sometimes occurs. Have yet to determine the cause. To ascertain whether it is a bad recording or just a glitch, try playing the recording on the DVR that recorded it and see if it plays beyond the point that it stopped before. If it does, then you can either continue watching it on the DVR; or you can return to the STB and each time this happens, press STOP after it stops playing, restart the program, and FF to the place you left off. It may happen a few times and be very frustrating, but you'll eventually get through it.

Post back here if you need help following the suggestions above.

IONH

Thanks for your response.

This is a stand alone DVR. I have only had FiOS about 2 months and have run across this a handful of times and have also not determined a cause for it. Sometimes I'm not even home when the recording occurs so I know no one pressed anything on the remote.

I do think I've noticed at least a couple of times it is as I described, where the recording prior was also being recorded and I suspect the DVR thinks the prior one ended so it properly ended automatically for the prior show.

I already attached an external drive to my Cisco DVR. Would I lose the recordings on it if I ask FiOS to exchange the DVR?

lacticacidtrip1

The DVR is not aware of the content it is recording. It only runs by the schedule on the Guide along with any extra settings you specify (extra minute beginning or end). If there are no other recordings scheduled either side of a particular program, the DVR often records up to 30 seconds extra on each side of the schedule.

A few things can happen when one scheduled recording conflicts by a minute with two others, or one on the same channel. Sometimes the first program will bump the recording of the second. Sometimes the second program is a higher priority and will bump the first. Sometimes the extra setting will be ignored and the program will record on schedule. Sometimes when the recordings are on the same channel, the DVR will realize that it is free, and will record a previously bumped recording, only truncating its beginning. Predicting its behavior during conflicting recordings is not possible. Best to keep an eye out for the conflict symbol and manually shift your scheduling around.

But none of these should cause a recording to display its full record time in the menu, but stop playing before reaching the duration displayed. As mentioned before, it is possible that the channel lost its feed during the recording. If this happens, rather than playing back a blank screen, the DVR often skips the lost material and only plays the amounts of the show that actually taped. (I don't know how it knows the difference since they claim it can't sense content.) When this happens, it may skip past the beginning, end, or middle of a show. This could cause a recording to appear as though it ends early. And if there were not so many complaints on here about this issue, I would just chalk it up to temporary service outage issues.

But this is apparently also the sign of a hard drive starting to go bad. Whether or not that is one of the diagnostic tests built into the Auto Correct, I do not know. But I've never read anywhere on the forums of an error code for a failing hard drive. It just usually happens that recordings start to go missing or become unplayable, and if you keep it long enough the DVR stops working altogether.

So the questions are: Are you getting just a few service interruptions that happen to coincide with your recordings? Is it just a glitch that won't repeat that often? Is your hard drive about to fail and take your recordings with it? Is it possible that it is your external drive that is starting to go bad?

As for your final question, the answer is YES, when replacing a DVR you will lose all the recordings on your external hard drive. This is due to Verizon software mating a DVR and its external drive to protect against transferring recorded content from one Verizon customer to another I guess. When you connect your external drive to the new DVR, it will require a reformat to function. This will make the old recordings unwatchable and will mate the drive to the new DVR.

You are supposed to be given a grace period of 30 days in which to receive the new DVR, set it up, watch the old recordings from the old DVR, and then send it back. After 30 days they will begin charging you for 2 DVRs.

Anyways, that's a lot of words. And they may not all be 100% accurate. But this is my current understanding of how things work based on my own experiences and the info I've learned here on the forum. Let me know if you need more assistance. Hope this helps, and best of luck deciding what will work best for you.

Oh, and don't forget to check free alternative sources for lost recordings (On Demand, hulu, network sites, etc.).

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