What to do when timer recording fails?

[Dog's dinner]

On five different occasions recently a timed recording has failed. This despite the greatest care in entering the correct parameters either by way of EPG timing or manually. Every time a recording has been scheduled, I've checked and double checked the timerto make sure whether the machine has stored the recording details.

The failure sometimes consists of nothing happening at all. Sometimes the name of the recorded programme can be found in the PVR menu, but the recording has no duration. Very often, when trying to record a radio programme, the channel in question simply emits no sound. The recorder is recording silence - despite the fact that the channel worked perfectly before and after the recording event.

I just did an experiment. I timed a radio programme via the EPG menu - pressed green to enter timer, and green again to OK the parameters, then exit to exit. Then back to timer to check whether the recording shows up as scheduled.

I sit in front of the dreambox, see the message 'recording started' (or words to that effect) flash across the TV screen. The square blue light in the lower right hand corner of dreambox fascia fades on and off for the duration of the recording. When the blue light disappears, I press the remote's PVR button to find the recording. It's listed, but it has no duration. There's absolutely nothing there. Clicking the OK button produces the message 'no data on transponder. Timeout reading PAT'. I check back with the timer - the recording details are completely accurate and recording is confirmed to have taken place with a 'done!'

The log looks like this (I'm not including date, but is was today)

17:20: Recording time changed, start prepare is now:
17:24: Activating state 1
17:24: Filename calculated as "\hdd\movie\201012"
17:24: Prepare OK. Waiting for begin
17:24: Record event 3 (this item is repeated a couple of hundred times until)
17:45: Activate state 3
17:45: Stop recording
17:45: record event 5
17:45: record event 1

This is extremely disturbing, needless to say. It doesn't fail every time (I've seen several episodes of Dalziel and Pascoe and Silent Witness for example, all of which were recorded via the timer function). I've also successfully recorded a radio progamme which was broadcast during the night, with Dreambox emerging from deep sleep to record it.

But the number of failed attempts is very worrying.

The hard drive isn't full - in fact it's nearly empty. Last night I set Dreambox to record three separate concerts. In the morning the two television concerts were listed in the PVR menu this morning, but were empty. The third, a radio transmission, wasn't even listed.

Just a quick checklist:

Timer entered while viewing/listening to channel I want to record
Check whether name of channel is correctly displayed in timer
type of recording - recording (not ZAP)
start time - OK
finish time - OK (i.e. minutes or hours after start time)
record to - Hard disk drive
what to do after recording stops - nothing.

The key to all this lies with the Dreambox's inability to read or pick up transponder data when in recording mode. Since this is clearly not a problem when not in recording mode, there's obviously something seriously amiss somewhere.

Hope of course somebody has the time to read this and respond. 'O'-red

 

[Dog's dinner]

Just in case anybody's reading, I've sent the entire message to the Dreambox people themselves. Be interesting to hear what - if anything - they have to say for themselves. Keep you posted.

Dog's dinner