Comments on: Dear Comcast, Why Is My DVR So Dumb?

By: jesus

jesus — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:57:42 +0000

I agree, that’s why I made the change to DISH Network after I got hired with them. I have a DVR receiver and it is amazing! I can even set up timers online and not even have to be at home!

By: William (88renders - Architectural Renders)

William (88renders - Architectural Renders) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:03:54 +0000

Down in Australia we have Foxtel cable service and their DVR box. It's probably a copy of a DVR you have in the US. It does a pretty good job of recording shows but has hte same issue of not knowing whether something is a new episode or now.

Favorite feature is the live pausing, a great feature when you wanna visit the bathroom.

By: Kray

Kray — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 07:57:58 +0000

After the new software upgrade that added folders in the dvr list of recorded shows, my dvr have been acting funny. whenever i fast forward a program and then press play, it does not play the show at the specific point i pressed play. It jumps back 30/60 seconds (varies) and plays the show from there. Comcast rep who came to my house has no idea how to fix it.

Another guy said its a feature. A feature for people with slow hand-eye co-ordination. Are you !@#$ kidding me? If its a feature give us people who has nothing wrong with hand-eye co-ordination a feature to skip this feature.

Reading through the forums I find that I can reprogram my remote to do a 30 sec skip. But since this 'feature' also affects the rewind function and the time it skips varies, its really annoying. If this is comcast's idea of copying similar functionality from TiVO DVRs they should double check how TiVO does it (at best, it skips by 8 or so seconds not 30 and 60 at the highest FF speed)

Wish Comcast would roll back this annoying software 'upgrade'.

By: The Mango

The Mango — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 03:09:21 +0000

I used to have Dish but switched to comcast because of price and let me tell you, you get what you pay for, comcasts hardware is like a 5 year old used a dish network dvr and went home and made one out of playdoh.

By: justajobtodo

justajobtodo — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:09:36 +0000

Not sure whether this is covered in one of the comments above, but there is a way to program a TiVo to avoid these repeats. If you look carefully at the way the repeats are listed you can see that there is some generic text associated with them, whereas the first run shows have the name of the featured guest. You can therefore set up a wishlist to record new Daily episodes, but to not include ones with that generic text in the listing.

By: patvideoguy

patvideoguy — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 22:10:15 +0000

All other cable companies let you simply select "this time slot only" It is a very simple solution to a very simple problem. Time Warner (Comcast) can't figure this out.

By: ArJuna

ArJuna — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:07:31 +0000

HERE IS A GOOD ONE This has happened to me many times before, but I just watched it happen. I had House and Heroes set as series recordings (new only) and tonight they both start a new season at 8pm EDT. 30 minutes ago I looked at the scheduled recordings and they both were automatically listed as set to record. 8pm comes and I look to see only House started recording. Heroes no longer shows up in my scheduled recordings and does not record. I look at the series recording setting and is set correctly. I had to manually press record to get it started.

I have missed so many programs that mysteriously did not record even though I had plenty of space. BTW, i had plenty of space left on my DVR tonight.

Just one more reason I am switching to FIOS as soon as possible.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:28:44 +0000

I have had this problem every day since I made the mistake of getting Comcast services.

Their flaw, is a simply fix, must have "new" to record, and not to look for "repeat".

50 episodes of Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers, and they are still surprised to hear of my problems.

I have even had their techs out, and they told me to edit the settings. I asked to be shown how, and then they just "umm"ed and "uhhhh"ed their way out my door, promising a resolution.

Cox cable never looked better. If Tivo was not more $, I wpuld have given Comcast back their dumb DVR.

By: Kymberly

Kymberly — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:06:58 +0000

There are ample explanations for this problem at Comcast’s online forums. http://forums.comcast.net/comcastsupport/board/message?board.id=CTV_OnScreen&message.id=850#M850

Essentially, Comcast tries to blame the Guide provider as if they have no control over the content they themselves are re-selling. This, of course, is not acceptable.

It’s been a problem for nearly a year now but really went haywire a few weeks ago.

Woe is to anyone who had unwittingly asked the DVR to record new episodes of, say, Law and Order, CSI, or any and everything on the Disney Channel (which, apparently, runs Hannah Montana in a continuous loop).

We had 44 programs scheduled to record last Wednesday alone. On Friday it was set to pick up 60+ programs. In the meantime our TV was rendered useless because attempting to watch it led to “the DVR is currently recording two programs in process.”

All you can do is keep calling 1-800-Comcast and report the issue (they’ll generally claim they know nothing about it). You then ask firmly but politely for a credit on the DVR portion of your bill. You’ll get it and in doing so send a clear message to Comcast that the problem needs repaired or it will begin to impact their bottom line.

Until then, off to watch 400 hours of Hannah Montana!

By: jh

jh — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:52:26 +0000

Yeah, we had no problems with this issue until about two weeks ago as well. Now we are seeing this issue all of the time. Very very annoying.