Comcast HD DVR blocking some shows?

[wirecreative]

OK, so I haven't made any steps toward integrating my Sage system with my Comcast HD service yet. I know, I'm asking for this kind of trouble because of it.

But has anyone who uses their Comcast DVR noticed something like this:

In the last two weeks I've had a handful of scheduled recordings on my Comcast DVR (Motorola, 6412 I think) fail to record. It will show up in my saved recordings, but when I go to play it, the screen is blank for a few seconds and then the "Delete/Don't Delete" prompt comes up. Choosing the "Start from beginning" option results in the same behavior. Most of my other recordings have been just fine (like daily Euro2008 soccer matches in HD).

Normally, I would think this is just Comcast being inept, but two of the failures were on the exact same show (new eps of Criminal Intent on USA HD), a week apart (it did let me record a rerun of that same ep later in the week, however), and another recording that did this was the new movie Transformers (off whichever premium channel has that right now in HD).

Made me wonder if they're experimenting with blocking the recording functionality of selected programs?

I have new recording for each set up this week, so we'll see if it recurs. I have lots of free hard drive space. Is my box faulty? Is Comcast cock-blocking me?

Please share.

[ke6guj]

have you checked that recording with any other players? have you checked the file size? If its normal size, it may just be a time line issue. You could try running a Quickstream Fix in VideoReDo.

[wirecreative]

Originally Posted by ke6guj

have you checked that recording with any other players? have you checked the file size? If its normal size, it may just be a time line issue. You could try running a Quickstream Fix in VideoReDo.

These are recordings on the Comcast DVR. AFAIK, I don't have access to the files and can't play them on other players.

My only other guess is that, maybe, while I was recording these shows I may have used OnDemand. I'm not sure about that, but it's possible. Maybe the DVR can't handle OD programming and recording an HD show at the same time, but I haven't tested that yet.

UPDATE: I set it to record both the 6PM and 9PM airings of Law and Order CI tonight and neither one of them will play. And I know for sure that I wasn't doing anything with the box between 9 and 10. I was watching archive shows on my Sage box. I smell an intentional block.

No one else here has experienced this? I'll see if I can find a Comcast board.

[mistergq]

I think its the box, not Comcast. When we had an HD Comcast Box, it would do this. I was not sure if it was because the box was getting near full. I pmed a comcast tech on another board, and he believed it was a defective box. Once i switched to Sage, my wife was fine with getting rid of the box because she liked Sage better.