Rewind Question

[Suzanne7777]

This is going to sound weird, as I don't understand what is going on with the stb, and hopefully somebody else does.  Sometimes I can switch to a channel and rewind up to 50 minutes before I switched to that channel (and sometimes did not even have the stb/tv on).  I have been able to go back into the program on before it.  Other times, I switch to a channel and it will not rewind at all (which makes sense).  If I had not been able to go back to the beginning of interviews, etc., when I just turned on the tv, I would never believe you could do that.  I still don't understand why it works. 

The question is, why can I do this sometimes, but not others?  Is this just a "glitch"?  I also noticed that sometimes I hit the On Demand button and can look at the On Demand menu while listening to the channel I have one.  Other times, it goes into the On Demand dialogue about the films that are featured.

Is FIOs that much of a mess that you cannot predict what it will do?  I would LOVE to have someone explain to me the rewind issue, if you can.  Thanks.

[Justin46]

Well, at least part of it is easy to answer.

When you turn off your TV, whether you leave the DVR turned on or turn it off also (it really never gets turned off despite how it appears) it was set to receive a certain channel. And the DVR keeps receiving that signal, so when you turn the TV (and maybe the DVR) back on, the last "n" amount of minutes is still in the buffer and you can rewind it. I hope this makes sense; if you think about it, whatever the last channel you were watching is still the one the DVR is tuned to, and is available to the DVR until you change the channel. By the way, the reason the DVR never really turns off is that you may have a recording scheduled for later, or multiple recordings, and it needs to stay on internally to actually record them, all that really happens when you turn it off is the outputs are disabled (you can verify this by using a power monitor if you have one to measure the power consumed by the DVR turned on and turned off, it will be virtually identical, plus if your hearing is really, really good you may be able to hear the hard drive in the DVR running).

Why sometimes, sometimes not. Well, one reason is that you do in fact have a scheduled recording, so the DVR changes to that channel, and you lose what was in the original channel. Another reason is that yes, there is a glitch that occasionally shows up where you cannot rewind ANY channel. When that happens, the quick fix is to briefly (2 seconds is enough) record one channel, switch to another and briefly record that, and stop both recordings (any channels are ok to record). All should be well then until the glitch shows up again. And you can delete the recordings, no need to keep them. This problem shows up for me maybe once a year or so.

I cannot address the VOD issue you mentioned, I have never experienced that,w hen I hit the VOD button it always goes to the menu for me.

__________________________________
Justin
Verizon FiOS TV, Internet, and phone
QIP6416-P1, IMG 1.7.1, Build 09.97
Keller, TX 76248

[nXt1 · Accepted solution]

Also a simpler way to understand it is, that the last 2 channels you're on (your current one, and the last) are automatically "buffered".

If you were on channel 2 and go to channel 5, 30 minutes later, DIRECTLY go to channel 2, you can rewindo 30 minutes, then you can go back to channel 5 and do the same thing.

But if you were on channel 2, then go to channel 5, 30 minutes later go back to channel 2, THEN go to channel 4, you'll only be able to "rewind" channel 2 when u go back to it, channel 5's "rewind" is "lost"

[Suzanne7777]

Thanks--I think I get it.  I'm playing around with it to make sure.  I don't know if I hit the right solution button--but thank you everyone.