(Sidenote: A DVR is a Digital Video Recorder. Sometimes referred to as TiVo. TiVo is the Kleenex of DVRs. A DVR is like a magical VCR recorder that doesn’t need tapes--it’s all elecronical. If you are reading my blog, you are a person who should know what a DVR is, but then again sometimes gypsies and my mom read my blog. Okay now everyone is on the same page.)
I have Comcast’s Motorola DVR for HDTVs. It only costs $5 or $10 a month, sweet. It records HD channels for me, sweet. I can fastforward through commercials, sweet. I can rewind and watch funny parts again, sweet. It was a pretty sweet deal actually, until today, not sweet. I sat down to watch a recorded show while eating breakfast, and I see that I have no recorded shows and 100% memory available. What?!? Something is not right!
I do a little research on the world wide internets and find that this has happened to other people, too. Same service, same Motorola DVR. Some of those people got mad. And blogged in SCREAMING ALLCAPS. I don't blog in allcaps. I am somewhat relieved when I find that some internet geek found that the majority of these random erases can be fixed by calling Comcast. The Comcast person will send a reboot signal to my DVR, it will restart, and everything will be fine.
I called in, the lady tried it, and it did not work. The lady said to unplug it and replug it. Then, if that didn’t work, I was shit out of luck.
I was shit out of luck.
During my lunch break I called Comcast back to try and figure this thing out. I wanted to know why it erased all my stuff. The Comcast dude says that they at Comcast don't know what causes it to self erase. And that's what it really is, a self-erase. Had it just been a menu glitch or something else, their over-the-wire reboot would have fixed it. He didn't give a definite answer and passed the blame along to Motorola, saying that sometimes the machine has a perfect storm of computer code that tells it to self-erase. And Motorola is working on it. They will send out a firmware patch if it ever gets fixed. The good news is that this problem shouldn't happen again. It's not a hardware problem, just a random software glitch.
The good news is that the guy gave me a free month off of my Comcast bill for the trouble.
The bad news is that all my stuff is gone. Hours of comedy specials. A documentary or two that I wanted to backup on tape. Some episodes of Modern Marvels, Myth Busters, and Dirty Jobs that I hadn't watched yet. Hours of cooking shows that had recipes I was trying. Luckily I'm all caught up on Lost, 24, and American Idol.
4 comments:
If that ever happens to me, I'll cry. I still have the Oklahoma game on there. When I feel bad about myself, I watch the last two minutes and laugh at all the Sooners fans. Sure, karma was a bitch in the long run (even the basketball team is paying for it), but it's still lovely.
By the way, just saw your Super Bowl headline. Awesome! I guffawed out loud.
it happened to me once. I was out a few episodes of lost and greys, but up to date on everything else. I did cry still and i got no free month of service just a new box
Y2K7 HAS STRUCK!!!!
Mine flat out didn't record 24 last night. I got home from the Blazers/Sonics at exactly 9:45 and shed a tear. I almost threw the damned machine against the wall.
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