Another day, another missed recording. This time, the recording showed a “recording of this content is prohibited by the content provider” error and was cancelled. Strangely enough, the Recording History showed two entries for this program. One entry showed that the recording was cancelled because of the “recording is prohibited” problem. The other entry showed that the show was recorded and then deleted by “another user or application” (There is no other user). This system seems to behave in an entirely unpredictable manner. Probably 50% of my recordings fail by one means or another.

Last week a recording of Grey’s Anatomy stopped 2/3 of the way through !!  Again there were two entries in the history. One entry showed that after 39 minutes the recording was stopped “because the recording was of Copy Never content. The other entry stated that the show was not recorded at all because “recording of this content is prohibited by the content provider.” In fact 39 minutes of the show was recorded. Does any of this make sense?

Of course this is all in addition to the frequent “No TV Signal” error that occurs unpredictably and inconsistently. Seemingly, due to Media Center somehow “timing out” as the channel is being changed to the scheduled recording channel.

I am so disappointed. Is anyone from MS out there listening (or Dell or AMD for that matter)? The recent Media Center update (KB 955519) seems to be causing more problems than it solves so I have been reluctant to install it.

Is there a new firmware update for the tuner coming? (Currently have firmware 1.17.1.08040741    and Driver 6.0.6000.16386)

Back in the spring, during the widespread “restricted content” crisis, I did uninstall the Dell Support Software which helped a little, but all recording is still dicey, but of course only intermittently which makes me reluctant to take the time to completely wipe the drive and start fresh…I’m not confident that it would help.

I am pretty disgusted by this entire enterprise. Looking at other threads, I see that there are others who are having similar problems, so I don’t think I’m the only one who is quite turned off the entire “Media Center Experience”.

Entertainment should be a relaxing thing; not a stressful thing. It is very disappointing that MS and Dell and AMD all seem to be taking a hands-off approach. I think we all feel like Robinson Crusoe here…..could someone (preferably the MS moderator) please acknowledge at least that someone is looking into this vast array of “issues”?

Looking at the posts here, I see very limited response from the supposed MS representative. It’s a pretty lonely and frustrating feeling.

My system: Vista Home Premium with SP1; Dell XPS 420; single ATI CableCard tuner OCCUR; no TV pack installed; no KB 955519 installed

Thanks, kklemme (frustrated)