Reader Bill, who sends in this video of what his DVR recorded during last night’s American Idol finale, says:
“Just thought you would like to see for yourself the kind of service Comcast delivers for a $150 a month.”
You know, Bill. This happens to me every time I record football on CBS. (Full disclosure: I don’t have Comcast.) I’m always having to record 60 minutes, too. It used to bug me, but I’m starting to like 60 minutes more and more every year… their consumer reporting is really interesting… I think it’s a deliberate plot.
Anyway, you’re not alone, we found another poor Comcast user whose DVR cut out. And another one. And another one. And it wasn’t just Comcast either…
Personally, as someone who liked the Sopranos finale, I think it’s almost better this way.
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Hey Meg,
Off topic: If you like 60 Minutes, you’ll get a kick out of this video (Safe for work)
The problem is not limited to Comcast-I have Cablevision and my DVR routinely cuts off the last minute or two of most everything I record. For the “Season Pass” programs, (I’m a former TIVO user) such as The Colbert Report, I have to schedule a manual recording to add extra minutes. And that doesn’t always work because you end up with recording conflicts-you cannot record more than two shows at any one time.
It wouldn’t have been any different if you set a VCR to stop recording at 10:00. That’s not Comcast’s fault, or your DVR’s fault, or anybody else’s fault but your own.
ALWAYS extend your recording times by 5-15 minutes, just to play it safe.
I agree that this is a complete non-story- an increasing phenomenon here, which is starting to impact how often I come by.
The original submitter is probably one of those who won’t let anyone talk about last week’s episodes of shows for like 6 days until he catches up.
My TiVo Series 3 experience was actually WORSE. I was in shock when this happened. Very similar situation, except Seacrest actually got to the part where he was saying the name of the winner, and it cut off immediately after he said the name “David” (immediatly before saying the last name!).
It was a serious cliffhanger!
Good thing CNN had an article up about the winner…
But won’t someone please explain why this happened? I mean, why would a DVR not record an entire show? I wish several different posters would explain this issue.
I don’t have a Comcast DVR, but I do have TiVO, and it has this neat little feature that allows you to stop the recording later than the program. We stop football, live tv show, or anything we are super interested in catching the ending on, anywhere from 15 minutes – 2 hours AFTER the recording is supposed to stop.
@dotcomrade: I have to do that for the Report, also. But TiVO has made it so that the other shows record – they just start late.
I’m no fan of Comcast but as others have said this is not their issue. At worst they need to provide better instructions with their DVRs… Even before I figured out that I could extend the recording time I knew that I had to record whatever was on after live events just in case.
Hey kids… If it doesn’t *say* TiVo, it’s *not* TiVo.
@basket548: Because the show ran over the time slot, I guess. Or a case of the Comcast-owned DVR being set to the incorrect time (no doubt by Comcast).
@mblackburn: “Next time set a manual recording from say xx:xx to XX:05 to give yourself that run over time.”
Agree. This is especially critical in Hawaii, where I used to live. The TV stations out there insert extra commercials into prime-time programming (they have to tape-delay everything because there’s no live Hawaiian network feed), so the 10 o’clock local news usually doesn’t come on until around 10:07 PM.
If you don’t account for it, you miss the last few minutes of your show. Locals learn to make allowances for that kind of thing.
1) Who cares, it American Idol.
2) The DVR records based on the shows schedule, its not Comcast’s fault that it ran over the aloted time.
3) You can change it manually to record 5 minutes before and after, thats what I did.
4) Because of American Idol they decided to cut some of Two and a Half Men, and that sucked because I have only see that episode 4 times all the way through.
5) Every news show was playing the clip over and over.
6) It is all over the internet.
Nuff said…
Anyone else remember when Perry picked up the fumble against the Detriot Lions and was running for a defensive touchdown when the news broke in to tell us Reagan walked away from negotiations in Rejkevik?
my Charter DVR did the same exact thing pissed me off
My Dish Network did the same thing.
@basket548: Doesn’t look like anyone really “answered” what happened here…. Every cable box that has a guide in it (comcast, tw, cablevision, dtv, dish, verizon, cablevision, etc…) gets the guide data from a THIRD-PARTY. In the case of tivo, they get the data from Tribune Media. For some reason Tribune’s data is much better than everyone else’s, thus why tivo’s are usually correct. However, AI was only SCHEDULED from 8-10pm. The guide data cannot be changed on the fly because “whoops! we’re going over!!!” You just have to “know” what shows might go over (sports, live tv, etc) and pad the dvr for it. The DVR DID record the whole entire show; what it thought was the entire show wasn’t actually, but it did record the entire show. This is not (insert cable co.’s name here) fault. It’s a combination of the networks, the guide data providers, and users who don’t know that AI will not last for only 2 hours…
Comcast is not at fault!
THE CUTOFF AT MY HOUSE WAS WORSE.
“The winner of …. is…. David [STOPPED]“
Right in between the first and last name. You don’t know which David won. The suspense and upset at that point was amazing.
@mantari:
My tivo did that too!
Had to go look it up on the web.
If it helps, the guy with the bad haircut won.
/Didn’t watch it.
//Comcast is awful.
@Kounji:
Ha, I agree with Kounji… But its not Comcast’s fault you didn’t tell the device to record a few minutes over for a LIVE television broadcast. Get mad at American Idol for running the show longer and not managing their time well.
@Troy F.: Or use the sports channels for sports and the channel for everything else for everything else.
yeah, I hate to say it, but I don;t think Comcast is at fault here. I’m sure that their DVR can only record a show for its allotted time-slot, so cut-offs are fairly common for live-shows, or shows that ran long. of course, you can always manually set your DVR to record for an extra X amount of minutes. If American Idol usually runs from 9-10pm Est, set it to record to something like 10:10PM. Even when it does end reasonably, it usually cuts off the ending song, or the “NEXT TIME!” clip.
That’s what you get for watching American Idol
It is quite simple to set your DVR to run longer. Any live show should probably be set to run an extra few minutes just in case.
Had nothing to do with the DVR, everything to do with the fact they couldnt fit everything into 2 hours. I mean come on, it takes a whole bunch of time to announce a winner out of 2 remaining people.
FOX should be shot for keeping the show on the air, much less dragging it out into 42 episodes, making 1 and 2 hour episodes out of 3 or 4 remaining contestants and pre-empting actual good shows like House.
@RagingTowers: Exactly! American Idol sucks.
Its one of the main reasons why the music industry is in the shitter.
Good job CommmunistCast!
If that was my DVR it would be entombed with all the nuclear waste. I consider American Idol and such shows as waste of my valuable time and money.
Then again, It’s not mine and you have your show preference.
In any case, any live show I record is always set to record at least 15 minutes more than what would be the exact finish time. Anybody with a DVR does this with sports.
I hate it when shows that are not live run past their scheduled time. It doesn’t seem as bad now but I know a season or two ago on Lost the comcast guide would say 8-9pm but actually run to 9:01 or :02. That annoys me. It seems you see more shows with accurate times now. Still when it happens it’s very annoying.
I would think cutting off American Idol would make people like Comcast a lot more. I mean, really. It’s freakin’ American Idol.
My wife said our living room TiVo did the same thing. “winner is…. David–*bong*”
The show didn’t finish until 3 minutes after the hour. No big mystery here, folks.
His DVR was getting payback for making it record American Idol.
My Cox DVR did the exact same thing but it made it about 3 seconds farther into the broadcast where Ryan said, “The winner is David…” and then it cut off.
The problems for this lie mostly with the broadcasters running over (either occasionally or habitually–on purpose just to screw with DVR users) their time slot.
This is why I resisted joining the 21st century for so long. With my VCR I could set the time I wanted and I always set it a few minutes later than when the show was supposed to end.
My Comcast box is 2 minutes behind real time. It drives my son crazy when South Park recordings end just before the show ends.
Ha!
I’ve got Dish. We saw the results, but missed the final performance. So it’s most likely Fox’s fault for going over.
@emt888: thats a shame you think you cant do that in the 21st century with DVRs.
Blame the network, not Comcast. My DVR always cuts off the last few seconds of The Soup on Fridays. Do I complain about Cablevision? Nope. It’s E! that’s to blame.
I’ve actually tried to add a couple minutes to the recording time at the end, but it never takes. Haven’t really been determined enough to find out why. It’s not like it’s Lost or Reaper or something like that.
Honestly, if you’re DVRing American Idol, you’ve got a whole bunch of problems apart from Comcast anyway…
I don’t get this post. The show ran over it’s time limit, hence the PVR not picking it up. Why is the guy whining about Comcast service? I always set it for about five minutes after a show just to be safe, as this has happened numerous times with my Rogers PVR. It’s the show going over the limit, not Comcast.
Even my Dish 7100 DVR from 1999 can extend recordings slightly past the scheduled time.
I really hope you are an elderly 70 year old to excuse you not figuring this out for yourself. Then again, if you are this mad over American Idol something tells me age is not the problem here.
Quit your whining. Most shows are off schedule by a minute or two nowadays. Either pad your recording time or cross your fingers. Sheesh, why is this so hard to figure out? This problem isn’t new. I’ve been padding my recording times since my VCR days when I manually set up recording times.
Padding can cause a timing overlap problem if you want to record something else on a different channel that begins before the overlap ends. I can record up to two channels at the same time so usually the overlap isn’t a problem for me.
You want real recording headaches try recording during football season. Everything is always off schedule. I end up having to record the entire evening line-up till about midnight just to make sure I get everything.
My Brighthouse DVR has the same interface, probably from Scientific Atlanta as well. I just set it to record 2 minutes before it starts and 2 minutes after. You can configure this easily, you would have thought this person would have figured it out by now.
Yet again, by Time Warner box did the same thing. Also a Scientific Altantic. Really they couldn’t have planned an edit that good. I half expected to see a message pop up saying that if you wanted to see the results, get out your credit card and go to AmericanIdol.com.
ugh . It ran late thats why it cut it off. No reason to bash comcast . for something like this ALWAYS manually program it.
I just don’t understand how a two hour show of filler can go long.
Way before anyone could record from their TVs…. Am I the only one here old enough to remember “the Heidi game”? Talk about a broadcasting fiasco!
[en.wikipedia.org]
I guess this has to do something with shows sometimes lasting more than the usual time. For instance, sometimes a show ends at 10:02.
Yes not a comcast issue..its the show itself that ran long. To avoid you shoudl always set up a manual recording and add 10-15 mins or more on critical shows…( Id add an hour to sports game to be sure you get the whole game)
DVRs are only as smart as the person who programs it to record
people watch american idol? must be other parts of the country because i do not know a single person in the tristate area that watches that or Survivor.