Cisco DVRs - What Happened to the Buffers?

PickyPants

Hi Folks:

I've had FiOS Triple-play for about 8 months now. During that time, I've had my fair share of problems, mostly with misbehaving DVRs. My experiences with Verizon's tech support were mostly negative (they were able to solve my problem only about 15% of the time). So I have registered on this forum in hopes that those reading it might be better equipped to offer solutions.

I have had lots of experience with lots of different DVRs, but this Cisco CHS-435HD sets a new record for behaving badly. The following is the most recent example of many. On most of my previous DVRs, if you tune to a specific channel and leave it there, 2 hours later you can rewind that channel as far back as 90 minutes and watch from there. I believe that the Ciscos used to do that when I first got mine (June 26, 2012). This feature is handy when, say, you want to rewind the local news to the beginning, and be able to flip through the dozen or so commercials.

NOW al of a sudden, both of my DVRs are only buffering between 20 and 30 minutes. So if I come in at 5:35PM, I'm unable to rewind to 5:00PM. I have done the usual hard resets on both machines. Hence, my question: WHO CHANGED the maximum buffer time? And WHY? .

lacticacidtrip1

Wow, this is a new one for me. I haven't heard of it before. I don't own the Cisco. My really old Motorola SD-DVR only allowed 30 minutes. But as long as I've had my old Motorola MRDVR, I've always had the ability to rewind the last 60 minutes.

The reasons I can think of off the top of my head that you can't rewind the last hour:

• A recording ended on that channel, leaving you tuned to the same channel, but unable to rewind past the end of the recording.
• Someone else changed the channel, then changed it back. You came in after and assumed it was always on the same channel the whole time.
• The box was reset within the last hour. Was there a red screen when you turned it on?
• An EAS alert interrupted the buffer within the last hour.
• Can I buy a vowel?

The standard solution for all things DVR related is:

Menu > Customer Support > Fix FiOS TV Issues > Set Top Box Auto Correction

From here follow the prompts using your arrows and OK button to select and reboot your DVR.

Does this do anything different than just unplugging the box (which was the old stand-by solution)? I don't know. Sometimes it actually works.

Best of luck.