Regular Visitor
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9 Messages
DVR playback on TV corrupted, but fine when streaming
There have been many posts about flaky DVR playback, but I haven't seen a post addressing my specific version. The issue below has been happening the last few months and occurs with 90% of the programs we record. I would call support, but it's really difficult to get a human being, much less someone who is technical enough to figure this out. So, I'm trying here.
Here's the problem - I record a program on the DVR:
- TV playback is corrupt: When I play it back on a TV, the recording will have moments when it's pixelated, scrambled, jerky, skips, rewinds a bit, and sometimes it just stops. Every time I play the recording on a TV the exact same errors occur in the exact same locations in the recording.
- Stream playback is fine: When I play the same recording through a streaming app (Roku, mobile app, smart TV app, etc.), the playback is flawless.
I've been told that the X1 DVR box has no internal storage, but the only explanation I can imagine is this:
- Maybe: The box pulls the recording from the cloud and stores it locally, corrupting the local copy in the process.
- Maybe: When I play the recording on a TV, the local corrupt copy is played.
- Maybe: When I play the recording via streaming, the clean original version is played.
Here's what I've tried, none of which has helped:
- I have replaced the main DVR box 3 times and our one satellite box once.
- An Xfinity technician came out and checked all cables and connections. He said all the signals were strong.
- I've rebooted the DVR box multiple times.
- I performed a Sync DVR.
- I performed a System Reset.
I wonder if the next steps are:
- Borrow an Xfinity cable modem for a week or so and see if that makes any difference (we use our own cable modem and wireless router).
- Have another tech come out and recheck the cables and connections, but maybe more thoroughly this time.
One other note: The errors seem to happen most often if the program we record is in primetime. (I haven't tested to see if there's any correlation with whether the program has Smart Resume)
Accepted Solution
XfinityMarcos
Official Employee
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2.2K Messages
2 months ago
Hello Goober55, I really appreciate the details and context you included in your post. You've done a lot of the initial steps we'd typically recommend, so I'd like to work with you more in depth on this. In order to get started can you please send a direct message to Xfinity Support with your full name and full address by clicking the chat icon in the top right? Here's the detailed steps to direct message us:
• Click "Sign In" if necessary
• Click the "Direct Message” icon (upper right corner of this page)
• Click the "New message" (pencil and paper) icon
• Type "Xfinity Support" in the to line and select "Xfinity Support" from the drop-down list
• Type your message in the text area near the bottom of the window
• Press Enter to send your message
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LeslieS
Frequent Visitor
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10 Messages
28 days ago
We have our X1 Box connected to a rather new Fire TV and I'd say it operates about as well as the old Samsung it replaced.
However, we have 4 Fire TVs and 2 Others operating on Xfinity Stream App. Fire TV version layout is very different from the rest. Ok, we've acclimated to that. But the DVR settings, and playback have always been somewhere between annoying and flat out problematic.
Constantly getting "Well that didn't go as planned" STOPS mid show, and occasionally audio drops and pixelation, on playback. A year ago, was told to try DVR Sync from the X1 box menu. We instantly get Okay sync happened reply before (I'd bet) a signal and reply could possibly have happened. Regardless, it doesn't change a thing.
Curiously, these breakdowns on playback always happen when a show resumes after commercial break. Could be 30% through a show or 70%.
What's new this week, are shows showing up on our recordings, that we positively never set. And, up to 16 episodes of shows we did choose to record, or shows we did set up showing up under a new title of a show we never heard of.
And generally (to include our X1 non-stream TV), suddenly episode limits aren't being respected, and recordings list between the X1 TV and our Fire TVs are in disagreement. Sometimes, some episodes on X1 do not appear on the Fire TV list, and sometimes it's worse - like entire series don't agree.
I spent hours researching and trying to correct this on my own. Moving on to find a live CS rep.
It's bad enough, but I have all these 4K TVs, but can't stream one thing through Xfinity Stream in 4K (Geez, even a couple of my frequent channels got dropped from HD to STANDARD.) Not sure how I feel about downgrading the X1 box for the one TV that might get some Xfinity content in 4K.
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