DVR problems - new one?

[woodstock]

Hi all

my almost two year old Dish network DVR (when will Tivo be a generic term like kleenex?) is acting up in a big way. it only fast forward/rewinds sporadically (actually it teases, you can watch it happening but when you stop at a point it throws you back to where you started) and now I cannot hit the up/down channel selector, I have to actually pick a channel.

is there any way to recycle this thing, maybe that will sort it out? it is FULL of movies. I don't want to get rid of it... I could put it on another TV set but for my main TV it is a pain in the butt. (then again, if it's on my smaller TV watching my DVR movies on my humungo theater system won't happen... so what is the point. maybe I should watch em all and delete them.)

other question - I have a hunch dishnetwork is going to tell me to buy another one from them (as opposed to throwing it into the package like they did when it was new). if I gotta buy my own, are there any ones out there you recommend?

maybe they can fix it themselves, too. dunno. I wish I could get those movies off of there though, I've got a ton of cool ones - old ones too... (Casablanca, Breakfast at Tiffany's, all quiet on the western front, etc.)

 

[MSmith]

Try asking at http://www.dbsforums.com/ - lots of experts there

 

[woodstock]

thanks Mark. I posted. I wonder if this is as simple as a new battery for my remote, but the DVR is acting funky itself - remote or not.

 

[wsuffa]

If you haven't, pull the power plug and plug it back it. It takes an hour or two before it has the guide back fully.

If that doesn't do it. Call Comcast. You be forced to do the usual home detention after a few of which the tech will bring you a new one which will eventually have the same problem but none of your saved movies.

Mike,

She's on Dish.

Beth,

If you have to replace it, see if you can get an almost identical one. Assuming your hard drive hasn't crashed or otherwise been corrupted, you could try swapping the hard drive into the new one.

(OK, I haven't actually tried that, but why wouldn't it work?)

 

[silver-eagle]

there are a number of DVRs not related to tivo or replay. Mine is a toshiba. Of course, if I want something, I have to program it like a vcr. It has a 160G harddrive (or about 200 hours of programming). I also looked at Philips and JVC. The advantage in mine is you can burn to DVDs if you want to save the programs.