HR34 pixelates and freezes ONLY during commercials

[diitto]

We've had an HR34-700 for going on three years now and have had many issues that seem to come, stay for a while and then, magically, sort of go away, maybe after a software update. I don't watch those perhaps as closely as I should. But recently it developed a new issue. Programming, whether live or played back from the DVR seems to work well these days. No freezes, just works. That is until a commercial starts running. Not all commercials but some, quite a few I would say.

If I'm watching live tv, I switch up or down one channel and then right back. That often fixes the issue for the moment because otherwise, it will pixelate and freeze so badly that finally it's just not moving at all and you're gonna be done watching tv unless you do something. When playing back from a DVR where I usually fly through the commercials anyway, if I am not paying attention and a commercial comes on and starts freezing, I just fast forward and it pops through the bad part and on it goes.

But why commercials only??? How are commercials different from regular programming and how is the HR34 getting messed up these days on commercials only???

One day I am planning to seek a new Genie but so far we've chosen to stay with this one as my wife has quite a bit of saved content she's never watched.

Thoughts??? thanks... bob

 

[raoul5788]

It could be the local ads that are downloaded to the hard drive. My guess is the hard drive is starting to go. Do you have any issues with recorded content? It may be time to catch up on the recordings and request a new Genie.