Gonna call the T-W Cable folks tomorrow, but my chances of getting an answer before Monday are slim, I suspect.
Tried to set up my DVR to record Battlestar Galactica’s Season finale - just the same way as I did when recording the episode of Cheap Seats with the MST3K guys a while back - and the thing assured my there wasn’t enough room.
I’m supposed to have forty-hour capacity. Half an hour was filled.
Any other T-Wites out there who may have had this problem who can advise?
It could be a problem with the hard drive in the DVR. Or rebooting the DVR might straighten it out for you.
To reboot: with the power on, hold down the power button on the front of the DVR for 8 or 9 seconds. In the time display window, you should see the word “boot” appear; once it does, you can pull your finger off the power button. Wait a couple of minutes and the box should reboot. The power may turn off, if it does, wait a few seconds and turn it back on. Once it finishes rebooting and reloading all the data try recording something to see if that fixed the issue.
Well, I talked to them this morning, and they had me do a reboot, and now it’s working - but I’ve been getting some messy signal problems from them from time to time, and they’ve always told me to reboot to fix that, so far - so the next time I get told by them to reboot, I’m just going to ask for a new box. I shouldn’t have to reboot the thing constantly.
And how can I record a program that’s more than 24 hours away? The record button just makes the guide go away if I’m too far in advance of the program…
How often is “constantly”? A reboot once in a while is normal with these things… and easy enough to do on your own without having to call tech. support and stay on hold for 10 minutes. It’s the first thing to try anyway, before you call in.
As for recording more than 24 hours ahead of time: press the “guide” button and choose the channel you want. Then use the right arrow to browse through until you get to the program, then chose it and set it to record (note: it won’t have data more than a couple of days out… but right now it’s Saturday, and I just scheduled a recording for Tuesday, which was the farthest out I could go). Alternately, you can schedule the DVR to record the entire series. Hit “guide”, go to the channel, select an episode of the program, and then when you hit the record button chose “record entire series”. It will then record every episode of that program. OR you can browse by title: hit “guide”, then C for title, then you need to browse through an alphabetical list of titles (tedious!!) until you get to your show, then chose “record entire series”.
Hope that helps… 
There is also a “B” button on your remote. When you are in guide, push the B button to make the guide go to different dates. You can go up to 7 days ahead.
Huh. I just tried that on mine… the B takes me to “theme” and I can only go one day ahead there (unless I’m missing something). Maybe there are differences in how it works depending on region?
Hmm, I guess so. That’s too bad for you.
I know everyone loves to think that the help desk is full of doofuses, but I’ve occassionally had good experiences with Time Warner. Like being able to help to an actual tech guy at 2 in the morning.
Go on, give them a call.
So far, about twice a week.
Doesn’t work. Just closes the guide, as I mentioned before.
Call them and ask them for a new DVR. You shouldn’t have to re-boot it twice a week. My SIL just asked for her third machine because it wasn’t working correctly.
In order to program things more than 24 hours ahead of time, I simply pull up the guide and fast forward that channel using my arrow keys until it reaches the time slot I want to record. Then I press the red button with the white circle (“record”) button. (Note: The on-screen guide comes up as “No data found” after the first day, but after a few seconds, it fills in the programming, up to one week. You can’t record programs beyond a week.)
If your guide doesn’t do this, call and ask. You’re paying a premium for this service. Demand that it works properly.
Found the problem with the advance recording - I think.
It was specific to the show… I was trying to record the Venture Bros. at 12:30AM this morning. The guide showed it there, but when I would highlight it, I’d see 'No Information Available" - and if I scrolled past it (to a later time) and came back, there was an entire blank timeslot in the guide around then.
Some experimentation revealed that there were similar blank spots over the next few days on various channels. The programs would appear fine at first glance, but when highlighted, would yield no info, and would vanish if I went forward and came back.
I worked around the problem by scheduling a recording of Venture at the later 3:30AM repeat showing.
But it’s still a nuisance.
I agree a couple of times a week seems excessive… you shouldn’t have to reboot that often. You could try switching out the box to see if that solves it, but be aware it may be a different issue entirely; if you can get them to send a tech. out to your house, have him check the cabling as well. It could be something like a lot of line noise or a bad splitter or something non-box related.
Regarding the scheduling issue, apparently it works differently in different area (judging by the posts in his thread). There should be an AoD (answers on demand) channel that has various tutorials on how to operate things. Here in San Diego it’s channel 100; it’s probably a different channel where you are, but you should be able to find it in the guide.