I been having the "normal" problems with the 530 that everyone else has had. I do two things to prevent lockups, freezing, etc, that may be of help to others (or perhaps it was plain luck):

1. Unplug the receiver from it's power source, either from the back of the 530, or from wall plug every couple of weeks for a minute or so.

2. Never use fast forward when watching a program from the PVR at the same time another timer is going to start, i.e. 8:00, 8:30, etc. I wait until the new program has actually started recording.

just my 2 cents worth!!
I agree with your number 2 I found this out by accident and reported it as a bug a long time ago but I don't think it was ever fixed. When it happened I could not control the pgm that I was replaying - it would continue to play FF until it ended and then I had to reboot to get it going again.

My DSR 530 is about 4 1/2 years old. It has performed well up until the last month.

Every few days when I first turn on the unit it locks up ... pushing any of the controls on the remote or the unit itself has no effect ... I cannot even turn the unit off. I can watch the channel that it is tuned to as long as I want but with no controls.

Powering the unit off and on (pulling the power cord) always solves the problem (although some times I have to repeat the reboot once or twice). Once the unit is up and running properly it perform flawlessly for the rest of the evening with all controls functioning including recording.

It is rather annoying ... and I have a strong felling it is going to fail one day soon!

These were the symptoms of my 3rd unit. Neigh, the end is near! Better watch anything you've saved.

I have had this (the 5th) 530 for 2 years with no problems and now suddenly I am having problems with recordings.
I set a timer and the program records properly ( I assume), it displays in the recorded program list, but when I go to watch it the program will not play. I hit enter on the play icon and suddenly the play icon turns to stop and no program will display. This has happened 3 times now in the past 3 weeks. Not all programs do this, just some.
The most recent was last nights Grammy nominee concert recorded on the West HD feed.
Any ideas?

Yes, I just had the same thing happen to me on a 530. The answer is call Shaw Direct and they will send you another one.

I have had this (the 5th) 530 for 2 years with no problems and now suddenly I am having problems with recordings.
I set a timer and the program records properly ( I assume), it displays in the recorded program list, but when I go to watch it the program will not play. I hit enter on the play icon and suddenly the play icon turns to stop and no program will display. This has happened 3 times now in the past 3 weeks. Not all programs do this, just some.
The most recent was last nights Grammy nominee concert recorded on the West HD feed.
Any ideas?
You might try unplugging the unit, then plugging it back in and letting it get the guide back and everything, then getting rid of any and all shows you have saved that gave you any problems. With my various issues with 530s (also on #5) I *did* come across a situation -- that ended up being true -- where tech escalation said that any recordings one has that are corrupted in any way can affect the recording capabilites in general. My point being that if you've kept any problematic recordings, the issue can continue until all problematic recordings are gone.

Random recording problems can be often fixed by doing some things which I've read over and over in these forums...

1. Turn off the 'Live' recording feature on the 530 if you don't use it.

2. Clean up old recordings and get rid of them...but never leave the hard drive completely empty...record 5 minutes of something and leave it there forever.

3. Make sure unit is not getting too hot. Check for proper ventilation. (Item #1 helps with this also)

For a $700 machine it's ridiculous to have to even worry about your step 1 or step 2. Users should only have to be responsible for #3. Sad part about it is, you are entirely correct in your post.

I disagree somewhat with your comment.

If you owned a computer and ran extra programs you weren't using (#1), and never cleaned up or defragged your hard drive (#2), you are going to have more problems than the average guy.

I'm not saying the 530 is problem-free, but they need TLC just like any other piece of equipment. I've got 3 530's (all cost $0) in my house and none have been 'down' more seriously than having to do a reboot.

Wow Jimbo, how do I get one of those 0$ 530? :)

I disagree with you. We're not talking about RUNNING programs here. We're talking about STORAGE. Big difference. You can have your computer harddrive loaded with programs that you aren't using, and if they are not running, then they are not affecting your computer's performance. Unless, of course your harddrive is getting close to full. With the 530 people talk about keeping over 10 HOURS HD SPACE FREED UP to maintain satisfactory performance. It's only capable of 25 hours of HD (160 GB harddrive). 10 hours out of 25 is 40%. A computer harddrive with 40% free space is NOT going to have performance trouble due to storage. I for one do not think that's acceptable. Turn off Live recording?????? That's one of the reasons I wanted a PVR. If the feature is there, then you should not have to turn it off to get the thing to perform properly. As for #2, I do not want to delete all my old recordings. I record them for a reason. If I have 25 hours HD storage capacity, then I want to be able to use it. That's the point of it. As for defrag, new PC operating systems automatically defrag anyway. The common user wouldn't know these things anyway. You should be able to use the 530 PVR until it's full, or close to it, and then a message should pop up telling you you have no more space. Then you can decide what to delete. That's the way it worked when I was with Bell.

Wow Jimbo, how do I get one of those 0$ 530? :)
+1 ^^^^ Do tell Jimbo54, my first 530 cost me $790 when you include the tax. Just a brutal cost for a lack luster and problematic machine IMO.

I got my 3 free 530's (and 2 505's) courtesy Shaw Cable. As part of their trade in promotion, they ended up with hundreds of Bell and SD receivers, old and new. They send these in to our local electronic recycling depot, where I volunteer. I just had to go through a few receivers and find a few with free and clear serial #'s :) And SD would even repair any non-functional receivers, but all were OK.

Sometimes things just go well...

And I guess if I paid $790 for a receiver that wasn't doing the job for me, I would not be happy either. (I notice the 530 is down to $239 now after credits.)

Now that's recycling! I'm jealous.

The best I have been able to do is a PVR for $200 and two 505's for $25 each, all purchased on Craig's List.

Once an item is at our electronics recycling depots in the Vancouver area, they won't let anything back out the door. I've tried shopping there when droping off other items. Too bad since putting items back into use is a better way to recycle something that scrapping it to reuse only some of the material contained inside.

When the last 530 packed it in (I think that one was only a few months old :mad:), it was in the middle of the hockey playoffs. That cost me another $700 because I wasn't about to wait two friggin weeks for SC to send a replacement. I bought an additional 4 year warranty on this one from Audio-Video because the warranty was pretty cheap. When this one craps out, and it likely will, I get a brand-new one immediately whatever model is current. No refurbished piece of crap and no waits!

Just received my sixth replacement 530. Plugged it in; phoned SD. Girl had to pass me on to a more knowledgeable person because It was a 530 that needed authorization. The second lady. a more knowledgeable person could not get the recording part to work. She told me some bunkum. 1. That you cannot turn off a 530 if you are on a high definition program or it will cause problems. She said you first had to change to a standard def channel 2. that you are not supposed to leave the receiver on overnight. 3 that you cannot connect more than one receiver to a television. What a load of rot. She had to pass me on to a 2nd level tech who did know what he was talking about. After a total two hours on the telephone he admitted the replacement receiver was faulty and would send me another one. This will be the 7th receiver.

Maybe a new observation here - I haven't seen reference to it after doing a search. When watching a recorded show you can't pause when the phone rings if you have caller id turned on.

I was watching a recorded show and, when the PVR started recording another show, the unit locked up. Is this a known problem or just my unit?

This is a known problem. It has happend to me a few times as well. If you start watching a recorded program or are deleting a recorded program when a new program is just starting to record you have a good chance of locking up the receiver. Try to avoid making any changes with the PVR section until the receiver has been recording for at least 30 seconds.

I was watching a recorded show and, when the PVR started recording another show, the unit locked up. Is this a known problem or just my unit?
Turn off the Live on Disk function if you're not using it. With some units, it's a "two out of three" thing. You can watch something that's recording, plus record something else at the same time. But you gotta turn off that Live on Disk as it's working all the time otherwise. It's not great to have to do that, obviously, but it helps. Particularly around the time that it's starting to record something new, like on the hour.

The Hans