I'm sure others have experienced this type of problem before, but I feel compelled to post my huge inconvenience that I just had with the Gateway.

I had the Canucks vs. Maple Leafs game scheduled to record from 4:00pm to 7:00 pm PST as I couldn't be home in time to watch it. When I got home here at 7:30 and started to watch it, the Gateway initially showed the full 3 hours recorded, however 26 minutes into the playback of the game (just after the first goal) the playback stopped and the gateway is asking me if I want to keep the recording or delete it. Now when I look at the recording it says there is only 26 minutes available to watch.

I used the Shaw conceirge service for support and was immediately transferred over to Gateway support via a phone call back. The guy at Shaw investigated something on his end and came back with bad news saying the recording failed due to a network problem on their end and said there is no way to recover from it.

I asked for a service credit and was denied. He said problems like this are normal with the Gateway but assured me it shouldn't happen again. Not sure how it can be normal, but not happen again.

Anyways, to me this is a huge strike against the gateway and Shaw! I never experienced an issue like this with Telus Optik, and when i did have quirks with optik, they were always quick to give me credits to my account.

If any Shaw representatives are reading this message, I would suggest matching Telus customer service!

I recorded the game and started watching it about 20 minutes after it started, pausing, rewinding and fast forwarding through commercials until I was caught up, but was still watching the recording, as opposed to live, until the end.

I did have one small problem when I rewound to watch the first goal, and the portal briefly displayed a "Cannot connect to Gateway" message, but it only lasted a couple of seconds before everything was back to normal.

Yeah, Shaw tech support tells me they experienced a network issue at about that point where gateway units disconnected from the network. Obviously this caused my unit to fail to continue recording, where as you were able to keep going because you where watching live at the moment.

I see it was a good game according to the 6-2 score (from my opinion being a canucks fan), but now I wont actually get to see it - which sucks!

Oh well, I'll take it as strike 1. 2 more and the Gateway is toast in our house, plus every other person i ever talk to about it. I might sound bitter, but I hate glitchy systems and when there are options out there, second rate hardware is not my thing! Consumers should not have to be guinee pigs to large companies with Beta equipment.

Failed recordings are JUST as likely on the old Motorola (and Pace) systems, as they are on the Gateway.