Just checked, got a new target version of A8.
We should start to see it on our boxes tommorow they say.
I called and asked what 'fixes' it has.

They said it fixes the Black & White on PAUSE,
Turns off the FAN until it gets too hot, 60 I think.
Some more Caller ID improvements,
Better tuning, so you don't get the wrong bar and channel messed up,
SKIP back not jumping to beginning of programs.
Thats it.

He said this was NOT the biggie bug and features release as expected.
It requires a lot of testing with so many changes and should be out before Christmas.

At least its something. Gets the machine that much closer to being 100% stable...

This is totally unacceptable!!!

We paid $800 for this boat anchor ... I can't even use pause or I lose my sound and have to soft reboot ... so much for it being a PVR.

I am sick and tired of the run around I am getting and will exercise the commitment that *C has made to me allowing me to return my 530 for a full refund.

This version (If the source information is correct) does nothing for me as I will still be soft booting the unit nightly. I have gone through a system reset with drive format recently with no resolution to my problems and *C will not replace my hardware but keep telling me that no one else is having problems I am having (Many of them documented on this forum).

I am tired of fighting this fight and spending hours on the phone with tech support!

Get the name of the CSRs you are speaking to before you even start your phone conversation with them. Document it, and then contact Jim Cummings at StarChoice giving him the full details.

Perhaps they are trained to lie and tell you that you are the only one calling with the problem so it cannot be a StarChoice problem, it is the way you are using the machine. It's a quick and dirty way to get you off of the phone hopefully leaving you speechless. You might want to tell the CSR that you are the first of many thousand of customers who are experiencing problems and you personally don't give a damn if nobody else has called about it yet. What is that information supposed to do for you? Think about it. Just answer them with the same BS that they are giving you.

This is totally unacceptable!!!

We paid $800 for this boat anchor ... I can't even use pause or I lose my sound and have to soft reboot ... so much for it being a PVR.

I am sick and tired of the run around I am getting and will exercise the commitment that *C has made to me allowing me to return my 530 for a full refund.

This version (If the source information is correct) does nothing for me as I will still be soft booting the unit nightly. I have gone through a system reset with drive format recently with no resolution to my problems and *C will not replace my hardware but keep telling me that no one else is having problems I am having (Many of them documented on this forum).

I am tired of fighting this fight and spending hours on the phone with tech support!


I've had a 9200 since it's release back in July....excellent PVR. I think I have had one lockup. Search works great (even though it's on 48 hours worth of guide).

I had a DSR530....returned it (had 30 days at FS) and from what I've been reading since then...I made the right move!

I keep reading about Customer Service being the reason some have gone to Starchoice over Bell....hmmm....I guess that is a good thing since you will be spending HOURS on the phone with them trouble shooting your DSR530 issues.

I've only had to deal with the Bell CS department once.....and that was for activation back on July 8th.

Just my 2 cents.

L8R.

Woke up today to find that I had taken the A8 update. Only had about 5 minutes to play with it. It appears to have solved the BW issue when paused. Also RW and FF seem smoother, however one problem that my system had before the update is still present in that when I pause live tv my first pause actually jumps back about 20 secs. Would have liked to see that one fixed.

At least its something. Gets the machine that much closer to being 100% stable...


I would like to make a suggestion for anyone who's machine downloads A8.
The very first thing I would do once it's downloaded, is to power cycle the unit. Pull the AC cord on the back of the machine, wait 30 seconds, then plug it back in and let it reboot. This way you are clearing out any garbage in memory and you'll be starting with a clean slate to base future testing on.
Just my 1 cent worth. :)

I had hoped that the update would fix the "resume" problem for recorded programs. I tried a few shows this morning and it does not seem to be fixed at all.

It is all very annoying.

I had hoped that the update would fix the "resume" problem for recorded programs. I tried a few shows this morning and it does not seem to be fixed at all.

It is all very annoying.

You may want to try the resume function with a new recording made with A8.
Perhaps the corrupted flags in the recordings made with the previous firmware are still there. Worth a try.

Perhaps they are trained to lie and tell you that you are the only one calling with the problem so it cannot be a StarChoice problem, it is the way you are using the machine. It's a quick and dirty way to get you off of the phone hopefully leaving you speechless. You might want to tell the CSR that you are the first of many thousand of customers who are experiencing problems and you personally don't give a damn if nobody else has called about it yet. What is that information supposed to do for you? Think about it. Just answer them with the same BS that they are giving you.
Lay off the CSRs. Lets say that 35% of DVR530s are in fact physically defective. Without authorization or a plan from management, the CSRs can't do anything about it. If they acknowledge the unit is defective, but can't give you a replacement, they look like even bigger idiots and you get even angrier.
Besides, most companies frown upon staff bad-mouthing their products.

If you've done the troubleshooting and have it documented who you've spoken to and what you've done, and the unit still doesn't work, escalate to a supervisor or management.

Well said Satellite! A8 seems to be running fine on my machine. I had a flicker through my DVI connection which seems to be gone and I won't miss the fan noise.

satellite:

That's my opinion about the CSRs. If you see things differently that is fine too. We are all entitled to our opinions and nobody should be telling any one of us what to do, such as "lay off the CSRs". I don't think anybody here is deliberately picking on the CSRs, but if there is a problem with one why should we have to shove it under the carpet to appease you satellite? I have had one named "Greg" lie to me, just like Osmosis had one lie to him. I could not care less if they are not informed of their product. Should that be MY problem? If people are going to pay whopping sums of money, companies who are selling the merchandise need to be held liable for the garbage that they are turning out, and not lie to the customer by telling them that nobody else is having any problems. Any CSR who would say that would have to be:

- brand spanking new
- lying

Those are the only 2 things that could be going on. I happened to ask Greg if he had worked there for long. His rather arrogant voice stated, "I have worked here for three months and you are the ONLY person to report a problem with the DSR530." I contacted Jim Cummings who straightened this out. I suggest Osmosis or any others to feel free to contact the higher ups but first you should be getting the name of the CSR that you are dealing with. There is no way that they will stop the CSRs from performing badly on the phone unless they know which CSRs are doing it.

I will say that the customer service is probably better than Bell's, but I would be lying to say that it is great. I have only called them 5 times in total and 3 out of 5 calls were met with snippy comments and lies. I agree, the staff should never be bad-mouthing their product, but as a customer I would feel a lot better if I was told, "We are aware of the problems that you are reporting. We currently have staff working on these problems and hope to have it resolved soon." That sounds better than "You are the only person with this problem." It makes me feel that since I'm the only one calling with a problem, they are not going to do anything about it. I don't care if I'm the only one with a problem. Who cares?!? If there is a problem - there is a problem.

As for the .A8 version, I have not fully tested it yet as I just got home from work. This morning I noticed that I received the .A8 version, and pressed pause on a show that I had previously recorded. I then pressed "slow motion backward" and it skipped ahead 1 minute. So that bug was not fixed. I will play with it now to see what other bugs are still present and will make my comments on this later - good or bad.

Comments regarding A8 should focus on the bugs they said they fixed and verify if they are in fact fixed.

They know the other bugs fixes will come in future releases.

Anything else is a waste of Hugh's bandwidth as it's all been hashed around ad nauseum.

We don't need a bunch of whiners to say they didn't go far enough, be happy they made some solid fixes of some major bugs and sent them out, I'm told they hadn't planned to give this one to us initially.

Any release that makes the box better is good with me.
I think I've seen more fixes for the better with this box than my 'other' unit that shall remain unnamed after several years.

At least with that behind them they can move forward to the next release when some more bugs will get fixed.

I'm sure anything here really doesn't affect how fast they move.
Things take as long as things take.

Now if there is something really NEW, that call it in to make sure they know about it.

So far the new code seems to be working quite well for me. When I pause live tv now it does pause properly instead of jumping back. I did notice a problem with the call display. It would always mess up the long distance calls before the new code downloaded but now it displays correctly. Now the local calls do not show up at all. (only an open ended bracket shows). I tested it with my cell (Rogers) and it did not display. I have not received a call from a local land line, so I'm not sure if that displays correctly or not. The cell always showed the number before the update last night. Has anyone else tested it.

So far the new code seems to be working quite well for me. When I pause live tv now it does pause properly instead of jumping back. I did notice a problem with the call display. It would always mess up the long distance calls before the new code downloaded but now it displays correctly. Now the local calls do not show up at all. (only an open ended bracket shows). I tested it with my cell (Rogers) and it did not display. I have not received a call from a local land line, so I'm not sure if that displays correctly or not. The cell always showed the number before the update last night. Has anyone else tested it.

The call display on mine was totally screwed up with prior firmware. Version A8 works well. I get just the (---) in front of the number now when it's a call within my own area code. If it's outside of my area code, say from Nova Scotia, I get (902) in front of the number. Name also displays correctly.

With the new A8, I have noticed that I can now pause live tv with success. Hurray! However, it does not resume in the place that it should. The first time I used pause on a live show, it bumped me back about 15 seconds. Okay, no big deal, I can live with that. However, the second time I pressed pause on the same live show, it bumped me back to the beginning. That is a big deal!

They didn't address the resume issue for recorded problems and that was the one that I was most hopeful for. It is frustrating to not be able to go in and out of the recorded program without having to use the FFWD and REW buttons. To have to wait until Christmas time for that to be fixed is ridiculous. *C is asking people to have a machine not function properly for six months of ownership. Six months of WARRANTY ownership. Disgusting.

I appreciate what you are saying ARR about only commenting on just the A8 fixes. However, after three months of owning this thing, I am tired of being patient and understanding. They rushed the sale of this machine and they shouldn't have. For the amount of money we have spent, we should not have to be patient and understanding. It wasn't as if this was some phenomenal deal or something. And that is my opinion. And I am allowed to express it.

I tried it a bit this morning. Seems a bit more stable. Still has the following problems.

-Resume does not go back to proper time (Even with a new A8 recording.)
-Half the channels still experience pixelated skip forward and slow fast forward
-Still a long delay when you press the record option when setting up a recording with a conflict. And during this wait time the Record button is not denounced so you end up with multiple conflicts when you try again.
-Still needs a UPS to recover from a power outage or else it will disable all the timers.

It took me 10 minutes to find these what are the testers at Motorola doing.

I have noticed that with the A8 download, my jump ahead button does not seem to be working. Watching a recorded program, it will take me back to the beginning. I used to have this problem, but it has been working for the longest time. Is anyone else having this problem? Is it a symptom of the A8 download or something else?

I'm not sure if the following is an old reported problem, but it a serious failure IMO:
I recorded a program (NFL football on HD) last night (on release A8), then started to watch it before the recording completed. Using the Skip Forward button, the 530 always went back to the start of the recording. Several times, I did something (not sure what), and lost the sound. The only way back was to stop the playback, select another channel which brought back the sound, and then fast forward (very slowly) to find the point I was watching. Very poor!

Now to check if this a due to watching a program still recording, I cancelled the recording at the end of the 3rd quarter, deleted it, and started a new recording. When I watched that program this morning, I had all the same problems as described above.

I'm not sure if the following is an old reported problem, but it a serious failure IMO:
I recorded a program (NFL football on HD) last night (on release A8), then started to watch it before the recording completed. Using the Skip Forward button, the 530 always went back to the start of the recording. Several times, I did something (not sure what), and lost the sound. The only way back was to stop the playback, select another channel which brought back the sound, and then fast forward (very slowly) to find the point I was watching. Very poor!

Now to check if this a due to watching a program still recording, I cancelled the recording at the end of the 3rd quarter, deleted it, and started a new recording. When I watched that program this morning, I had all the same problems as described above.

Its time to RESET your 530.

I had the same issues...did a hard reset...and the issue was fixed.