Update on the DVR

I went to Best Buy and got the external harddrive I needed.  Turns out it was considerably more expensive than I thought it would be so that was a bit of a drag.  So what did I do?  I procrastinated backing up the DVR.  Yeah, you probably guessed it.  It died for good on Wednesday (the day before the Hopper was coming) and I hadn't backed it up yet.  What the fuck was I thinking?  My reasoning was to clear out as much as possible (as in watching it) before I backed it up.  Murphy's Law.  Now it's all gone.  Dammit.

I was able to get the box working so I could watch tv.  Damn, how spoiled am I?  I found tv kinda boring without the ability to record it or even pause it.  I missed my late night shows that I don't stay up for.  I handled it pretty well I think.  I was resigned instead of stomping around swearing about it.  I didn't dwell on it, and watched DVDs instead.  Have quite a few I haven't watched yet so that was ok.  When I did watch tv, it was the old-fashioned way...short attention span channel surfing.

The Hopper came yesterday.  Turns out Dish Network isn't completely upfront in advertising what it can do.  Yes, it can record 6 things at once, but there's a catch.  The old unit had 2 tuners.  That's how you record 2 things at once, or record one while watching another.  The Hopper has 3, but the 3rd tuner is dedicated to just the 4 primetime networks.  ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC.  You can't pick the shows on these networks.  Your only options are the days of week and the networks, and it will only record the primetime slots.  That's 8pm to 11pm.  It records all the primetime shows on the days and channels you choose.

Now that I understand it, I can live with that.  Thursday and Sunday are the only days (at this time) that I have set up for it.  Thursday, there are things I like on all 4 networks and that worked out well last night.  I gave up some things on Thursdays with the old box.  I just deleted the ones I didn't want to watch.  Sunday, there's just the 2 networks I'm interested in.  Otherwise, I have to do as I always have...juggle time slots by setting timers individually.  That's ok, I'm pretty good at that.

There's also the Auto Hop that Dish is touting to skip commercials.  Don't know how long that will last if they lose the suit challenging it.  I tried it this morning, and it's pretty cool.  It begins the skip with the beginning of 1st ad in the commercial slot and ends at the end of the last one.  So you see snippets of the 2 ads, but the rest is invisible.  This only works on the primetime recordings set up with the 3rd tuner, and you can't use it until the next day.  It doesn't work the same day the recording was made.  It's not a deal breaker for me.  I'm used to the skip button to fast forward past ads.  Believe it or not, I do occasionally back up to see an ad that caught my attention for whatever reason.

I have to rave about the technician!  He was AWESOME!  I wish he could see this so he'd know how much I appreciate all he did for me.  I did answer the phone when Dish called for my feedback survey, and gave him all the highest marks.

He definitely went beyond the call of duty.  I mentioned that I'd like to talk about moving the dish.  It was mounted on the porch roof which is going to need rebuilding in the near future.  He said he couldn't do it today, but would be glad to come back out when he could.  He said it could be put on the pole behind the house that holds my electric service.  There was a dish there (still there as I never took it down) when I moved here, but the guy who installed my dish back then said it couldn't go there even though he tacked the Dish connector box on the pole.  Turns out it was a safety thing being so close to the electric service, not a technical issue.  And probably a lazy grumpy tech.  Quentin said he wasn't bothered by it.  Then he just went ahead and did it!  He was having trouble getting the new box to respond to the dish, and was using the process of elimination to solve the problem.  The first thing he tried was the cable coming into the house.  He replaced it all!  I helped with that by feeding it through the floor while he pulled the end outside.  Then he moved the dish (and removed the one that was there) which I didn't know he had done until he told me.  He was that fast!  Then he replaced something on the dish.  He was getting frustrated by then, and as a last resort, he forced the box to reboot again.  Voila, fixed.  But I got all that other stuff upgraded in the process.  He also gave me his personal number.  Told me to call him directly if I had any problems.  He doesn't live far from me.  He was just great!

In other tech news, I think there's a solution to my internet problem.  Verizon has been pushing this new mobile hotspot gadget.  I thought it was for wi-fi which I don't have available so I didn't look into it any further.  When I was at Best Buy getting the harddrive, I also talked with the Geek about the Microsoft Surface.  Remember, I said a while back that this was the tablet for me.  Yeah, still is.  Maybe when the back-to-school tax holiday comes around, but it's pretty pricey for what would mostly be a toy for me so I can wait to see if prices come down.  So anyways, the conversation digressed to the hotspot and apparently it is something I might need.  It's not about wi-fi, it's about sharing the internet connection between devices.  It works like the mobile broadband modem I have without the buggy software to run it, and should connect to 4G just fine.  I think it's cheaper than my current plan, or I can get more bandwidth for what I pay now.  Either way, I'd come out ahead.  I'll be dropping in the Verizon store to talk to a guy.  Not sure when my 2 yr contract is up on the modem.  It should be up.  The Best Buy guy could have set it up for me but I needed to make sure I was clear for a new plan first.  There's a closer Verizon store right here in town so I'll just go that way.

Good morning.

Electronics behaving badly.

Had an annoying couple days ago.  First, the Dish DVR had a tantrum.  This has been happening for a while.  The following could be signs your DVR harddrive is aging.

It freezes up while in just about any mode.  If I'm watching a recording, I can usually fix it by forcing a reboot (unplug it), waiting for it to go through its boot cycle which can take up to 10 minutes (grrr), and then fast forwarding past the hang up in the recording.  It occasionally freezes while watching live tv.

It pixelates.  The picture looks scrambled for a few moments...little squares like a jigsaw puzzle.  This usually happened in recordings, but sometimes while switching channels.  I noticed it happened at certain times in recordings.  When 2 events begin recording at the same time, or a 2nd one begins while another is in progress, or while I'm watching a recording when another begins.  The pixelations appeared at those points.  I don't know, this might be somewhat normal when asking the DVR to multi-task,  but it seems to happen more often lately.

It began to be noisy.  It would roar like an overworked computer.  Not all the time, just here and there.  About a week ago it froze and put up an alert that the unit was overheating.  Whoa.  Never saw that before. I went to the box and it was very hot.  My bad, the vents were clogged with dust.  Word to the wise, vacuum the vents regularly.  I did that and unplugged it until it cooled off.  Since then, the fan is roaring more often.  The unit isn't overheating, in fact, it's stayed pretty cool, but the fan is still coming on loudly.

Since I've been wanting the new Hopper (records 6 things at once!), I decided maybe I better do it before the thing fails completely.  And this day, it did.  It froze in the program guide.  The grid blinked out, leaving the little picture in the corner, and then that went away and the screen was black.  Zip nada.  That was new.  It has froze in the guide before, but not like that.  I spent the next hour or more rebooting with no results and finally called tech support, and ordering the Hopper was to be my other reason for calling.  It's only a few bucks more and I'm sure I will like it.  The technician was very nice and spent a good hour with me on the phone while we tried to get my box working again.  Finally did.  It wasn't anything new we did, I had already done all that.  It just...I don't know...got over its tantrum this time.

So the Hopper is coming Thursday, and I have a dilemma.  I have a lot of things saved on the DVR.  2 series that I haven't watched yet.  Supernatural and The Vampire Diaries.  I save the entire season to watch at once.  They're not in HD so don't take up much room on the drive, and I just enjoy these shows as a marathon.  Quite a bit of The Daily Show I haven't watched yet.  BTW...bummer!  Jon Stewart is going on hiatus to pursue another project and turning the show over to someone else for 3 months or more.  Don't know if it will be as good for me without him.  He is The Daily Show, you know.  I've saved some series finales, music videos, and random things I haven't watched yet.

I asked the tech if the installer could transfer what's on my DVR to the new unit and apparently not.  Really?  Why don't these things have that simple feature?  How hard could it be?  My only option is a high capacity external harddrive (it can do that, but not a simple transfer???), and a quick search online says it will cost over $70.  Well shit.  I don't want to lose my stuff, and I can't watch it all by Thursday.  I'll look at Walmart (cheaper, if they have it) but I think I'll be better off going to Best Buy so I can talk to a Geek and make sure I get the right one, and he should be able to explain the process.

So there was that.  Then my internet went wonky the next day.  This happens sometimes but hasn't happened in a long time.  I blame the crappy software for the wireless modem.  It's always acting up, and apparently the Powers That Be don't think it's worth fixing.  I guess because of the internet phones and tablets that more people use these days.  That's where the wireless companies put their efforts, to hell with the rest of us.  I wasn't able to get online at all, and even after going through all the protocols (open/close app, unplug/replug modem and sim card, uninstall/reinstall software) several times, it wouldn't connect.  I had to walk away from the computer after fucking with it for way too long, and then it got over its tantrum.  The next time I tried, it worked.  Hmmpf.

There was an update since I bought the modem with its original software CD, but now it won't let me download the update.  Fuckin fine.  As long as it will connect, I'll live with the old software.  I am going to drop in the local Verizon store and see if anyone there has any insight on how to make it better.  Tech support by phone has been no help.  They just run me through the protocols I already know.  Maybe my modem is aging, or maybe a different brand is better.  Oh yeah, and it's supposed to be 4G.  Haven't been able to connect to that in a long long time.  I'm chugging along with 3G.  There's a 4G signal available, the stupid software refuses to connect to it.

Then there was my personal glitch.  One of the last things I saw on the internet Friday was the reminders about Daylight Savings Time.  So I changed all the clocks before I went to bed.  I didn't do the atomic clock on the weather station.  It should update itself.  I checked it the next morning to make sure it did, and it hadn't.  Oh duh...it's Saturday, dipstick. That happens on Sunday, you know.  Wasn't changing them back, so I had to remember what time it really was when I looked at a clock.  That reinforced how dumb DST is.  It doesn't change the length of daylight, just how you relate to it.  Supposed to save energy, but I don't see how that works.  The way I see it, it's the same hour of use at a different time of day.  Anyways, I guess that was a senior moment for me.  Hey, when you're retired without a real daily schedule, everyday is Saturday.

Enjoy the hour.  Good morning.