It seemed so simple. Press record to save the program you are currently watching, in this case, Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. I returned to the TV to watch it an hour later, and got a blank screen. The time bar on the bottom went from 0:00 to 0:00. Not good. Even live TV was getting flaky, but it was the Cubs losing 15-4 to the Diamondbacks, so that may not have had anything to do with the cable box. But it probably did.
The last time something like this happened, the friendly customer service representative suggested unplugging the DVR and waiting at least 30 seconds before plugging it in again, so I tried it. I think it's a Microsoft-based system, so the hard reboot is going to have to happen sooner or later.
The live picture is fine, even if the Cubs aren't. When I try to get back into the DVR menu, it tells me it's busy, and will be back shortly. Whatever. I multitask for a bit, then return. Menus are up and running. Let's see what happened to Olbermann.
Okay, the recorded program is gone. Along with all the others I had saved and the glitchy phantom recording allegedly from some time in 1989. Plus, all my series recordings and manually scheduled recordings? Gone. That's right, I'm paying Comcast $10 a month for a device that occasionally erases everything I've stored on it. This TiVo software push can't come soon enough, but I don't know if that can even overcome these craptacular hard drives.
That's why I let others record TV programs for me. Then, I go download the archive they've made for me using a bittorrent client.
Works well that way; nothing's been erased yet. ;-)
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