@Justin wrote:I am pretty sure it is a Motorola issue, not Verizon. When the QIP6416 was first delivered by Verizon for FiOS, it had the Interactive Programming Guide (IPG), not the IMG of today. The IPG was supposedly written by Microsoft, definitely not by Verizon.
That doesn't really mean much. Pretty much everything is controlled by firmware so the only question would be whether the relevant parts of the firmware can be changed or not. Recording live TV when the box should otherwise be off was very possibly (likely?) an intentional choice, and the author of the software/firmware does not necesarily have much relevance here - it would be up to whomever drafted the requirements which may or may not have been the original author. Most likely it was a marketing department at one of the relevant companies involved (Verizon, Motorola, Microsoft, ???).
As an EE that works in a related field I don't assume that it would take a physical replacement of the boxes to address this, and that it likely could be addressed by firmware. There are many that still don't believe that firmware could be responsible for picture quality (in other forums and not related to these boxes, but other STBs and DVRs), but yet we have a perfect example of how that simply is not the case here with these boxes. Similarly, I wouldn't assume that a feature like this could not be addressed by firmware and based on that I've expressed my interest in hearing of options and perhaps other's thoughts. It is possible that the code required to address this would not fit within the available memory, or there could be additional constraints that would make this otherwise not feasible. However this is not something I could even guess about, and so wouldn't make any assumptions about either - I express my opinions on what I'd like to see without pre-judging whether it is possible or not since that is up to Verizon to determine. If we never provide feedback simply because we assume something isn't possible then we will forever be stuck with mediocre products that don't provide features we want, and do provide features we don't want. It never hurts to ask. 
This was in response to the original poster that similarly had a concern over an apparent household power consumption increase after switching to FiOS. These DVRs are clearly a considerable source of energy waste, especially in a time when so many are focused on replacing incandesent lamps with flourescent (and others) just to save a little energy while those devices are on for their fraction of a day.
I would agree that if it took a physical swapout of boxes that likely wouldn't happen, but perhaps the next DVR introduced by Verizon for new deployments could take this into account. If it is addressable via firmware update, then perhaps this would be a worthwhile (valuable) option for existing deployments. After all, how many of us really would use the ability to rewind back into a limited window (15 minutes for HD?) while the box was turned off? This would be assuming that the box was tuned to the right channel (of the hundreds available) while it was off in the first place. . .