TV Recordings freeze partway thru playback.

[gimbal]

Hi, I have Bell Fibe Internet and TV (fibre to the home) with a 4K VIP5662W PVR receiver. Every Sunday I record NFL football games which are about 3 hours in length. I have done this for MANY years with the same equipment with no issues.

Suddenly 2 weeks ago, recordings will freeze during playback, at about the 1 hour, or 1 hour 30 minute mark. I only have about 20% of disk space used (80% free) and I have deleted a whole bunch of recordings trying to solve the issue. Even if I reboot both the modem and TV receiver, and then go back to the saved recording, it will freeze in excatly the same spot. If I try to fast forward, the play/pause position indicator advances but the time of the freeze stays constant (so let's say it advances to to the 2 hour mark, it will still read 1h29m or whatever). 

Is this a failed hard drive in the PVR? Or was there some firmware update that won't allow proper playback of recordings?

[Tink]

Got a second Pvr installed 2 months ago… fast forward now every recording I try to watch pauses then skips a few seconds on every recording…. Both Pvrs doing this? Anyone have suggestions?

[BellKris]

Hi there @Tink. Welcome to the Bell Community, and thanks for your post.

For the Community to be better able to assist, could you please provide some further details?

• Are you able to share which television service you subscribe to?
• What models of receivers you have?
• Could you clarify as to what you mean by "every recording"? Does this occur with all recordings, all scheduled recordings, or just specific ones?

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

[ljccan]

Anyone experiencing random pausing while watching a recording? For the past 2 months we get recordings pausing while watching. Happens randomly at different times of the day. Live TV works fine.

[BellPatricia]

Good day @ljccan,

Thanks for your post 🙂

The Community wants to help, we just need a bit more information.

Can you clarify what type of receiver(s) you are using, and if this happens on multiple receivers/devices in your home? Does it affect only newer recordings, or are you having trouble watching any previously recorded content too? Are you connected via Wi-Fi or Ethernet? 

To start, we recommend rebooting your TV equipment by unplugging the receiver(s) for around one minute. Then power everything back up and test to see if you are able to watch your recordings without interruption.

Let the Community know if you have any other questions,

- Patricia 

[gimbal]

In my case it was a failed (failing) hard drive in the PVR. I had the PVR replaced - but this is no guarantee, as Bell recycles/refurbishes PVRs back to customers, and I'm not sure if they properly test the condition of the hard drive (my guess would be they just erase it without checking - so there is a small chance you get another PVR with similar issues as the pool of available PVRs ages.

Depending on where you live, and what Bell service is available to you, you might be able to upgrade to the newer TV receivers ("Bell Fibe TV Box") which records on the Bell server, not on your local device - which would also solve the problem. Then you are effectively streaming the recording from Bell, and this has the advantage of being able to watch the recording on any of your TV receivers, or even your phone or tablet with the Bell TV appl.

[ljccan]

I have the newest 7802 receivers. All recordings old and new will randomly pause on all receivers. All receivers are directly connected by ethernet to the modem. Recordings on the app work with no random pausing.

I have reboot these boxes at least 100 times sometimes 2X per day with no change.

[ljccan]

I have the cloud PVR. No hard drives locally. The issue behaves like the data is buffering.

[gimbal]

Perhaps try setting the receivers to lower resolution? For example If your TV is not 4K (and most content is not 4K anyway) set it to 1080? Just a thought.

[ljccan]

There is no issue with live TV at 4K. No pausing. Only pauses on recordings. I have no 4K recordings. Bell recordings are mostly 720P.

[AlexS]

Actually they are indeed mostly 1080P, but the bitrate and codex are mediocre. If you compare the same full-screen news clip unloaded on YouTube, they are similar to those 1080P free clips with paid picture quality option.

[ljccan]

Unless something changed recently they were always up converting 720 signals to the nativre format. This was to conserve bandwidth on the core network. Same applied to fibe tv and expressVu 

[totallyconfused]

Let's start with the equipment, all of which is about 8 years old (and therefore out of warranty). My system consists of a Bell Home Hub 2000, VIP 2262 PVR connected to LAN1 of the Home Hub and the basement TV, VAP2500 WAP connected to LAN 3 of the Home Hub and two VIP 2502s serving TVs in the living room and bedroom. All other devices (laptops, desktop, tablet) are served by the Home Hub wireless. No, I didn't forget to mention cell phones - we don't have any! This arrangement has worked admirably until a couple of weeks ago when I returned home from vacation to find that none of the wireless devices had connectivity with the primary SSID that they were previously connected to. After many fruitless resets and re-entry of primary SSID password, I gave up and enabled the guest SSID with the same password as the primary SSID. Everything is now connected to the guest SSID, but I feel that things are a bit slower than before. Two wireless boosters that were also served by the primary SSID (one to provide access to the security system PVR in the attic and one for front porch wireless service) seem to still be working without any change of SSID. Here's another tricky part - Now if I watch live television on any set, everything is hunky-dory. However, if I try to watch a playback from the PVR on any TV other than the one connected to the PVR, the playback will freeze a few times and then completely lock up, causing much marital strife and recriminations. Helpful comments are solicited.

[BellPatricia]

Good afternoon @totallyconfused,

Thanks for reaching out to the Bell Community 🙂

Very interesting, and we will do our best to help. 

Is this happening on all of the recordings, or just one in particular?

How many green Wi-Fi bars do you see on the front of your 2502 receivers? 

We recommend that you reboot all of the TV receivers & your modem. Also, check to ensure that the Whole Home Wi-Fi setting is turned on in your modem GUI.

Please try those steps, and let the Community know if you continue to have any trouble.

- Patricia

[Dave01]

same thing..just started. 
Watching the nhl playoffs and I have to watch it live as the screen keeps freezing. So frustrating..!!

[Dave01]

what hard drive..? I thought these were cloud based now..