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Interesting Video Fact
Aug. 27th, 2017 09:07 amIn the sense of the curse...
My cable box was acting up and needed replacing. That wasn't the problem. The problem was one of the guys doing the work. He told me the way I had my DVR connected couldn't work. I noted, mildly, that I had been watching stuff recorded earlier in the week just the night before. He said the recorder would need its own tuner. "That's why I chose that model; it has a tuner." (Why do they even *make* recorders without tuners?!) I don't think he ever believed me. Instead of reconnecting the recorder the way I had it he used RCA cables to take a feed from the cable box. Which meant it could only record the channel the cable box was tuned to. He also told me to never turn the cable box off. ("Then why does it have a power button?" He responded by repeatedly telling me about how little power it used.)
I tried using the recorder his way and indeed it only showed the channel the cable box was tuned to. I reconnected it the way I had it before... and noticed a problem. It wasn't getting most of the channels it used to get. The channels which were missed appeared random. Also, one I regularly record on Saturday nights (MeTV, to get Svengoolie) was now encrypted. (Note that this whole time the new cable box is working fine.)
I ran the channel scan. Things got worse. I ran it again. Things got a little better.
The next day I tried a couple more times with the same results. I had a suspicion the cable guy had changed something in the cable box or when he called the office.
Then I realized something. Something confirmed by a quick look with a light. I had connected the incoming cable to the output connection on the recorder, and vice versa.
How that recorder found *any* channels that way I don't know. I switched the cables, ran the channel find function (for some reason it took two tries) and now it's fine. I think. Will check what I recorded last night later this day.
My cable box was acting up and needed replacing. That wasn't the problem. The problem was one of the guys doing the work. He told me the way I had my DVR connected couldn't work. I noted, mildly, that I had been watching stuff recorded earlier in the week just the night before. He said the recorder would need its own tuner. "That's why I chose that model; it has a tuner." (Why do they even *make* recorders without tuners?!) I don't think he ever believed me. Instead of reconnecting the recorder the way I had it he used RCA cables to take a feed from the cable box. Which meant it could only record the channel the cable box was tuned to. He also told me to never turn the cable box off. ("Then why does it have a power button?" He responded by repeatedly telling me about how little power it used.)
I tried using the recorder his way and indeed it only showed the channel the cable box was tuned to. I reconnected it the way I had it before... and noticed a problem. It wasn't getting most of the channels it used to get. The channels which were missed appeared random. Also, one I regularly record on Saturday nights (MeTV, to get Svengoolie) was now encrypted. (Note that this whole time the new cable box is working fine.)
I ran the channel scan. Things got worse. I ran it again. Things got a little better.
The next day I tried a couple more times with the same results. I had a suspicion the cable guy had changed something in the cable box or when he called the office.
Then I realized something. Something confirmed by a quick look with a light. I had connected the incoming cable to the output connection on the recorder, and vice versa.
How that recorder found *any* channels that way I don't know. I switched the cables, ran the channel find function (for some reason it took two tries) and now it's fine. I think. Will check what I recorded last night later this day.
