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DirecTV's DVRs (perhaps only some of them) have a bug such that sometimes when you delete a recording, instead of deleting only the one you had selected, it deletes ALL of the episodes you had recorded of that TV show.
See: DVR deleting entire show list instead of one episode
That thread is 3 years old and you'd think it would be fixed by now. But Qiao's DVR has had the problem as far back as November 2020, and it still happens, even though its firmware appears to be up to date. The problem seems to happens when we delete two or more recordings in a row. To avoid the problem, we have to either not delete any episodes until we've caught up and watched all of them (the safest method), or only delete one, then back out of the menu and come back in if we want to delete another.
When I'm not at Qiao's house, he records the daily Jeopardy episodes so we can watch them together when I come by. So there is usually a backlog of many episodes for us to watch. But when there are re-runs, we want to delete those from the list. Because of the DVR bug, it has now happened 3 times that the DVR has deleted our whole backlog of unwatched Jeopardy episodes when we only selected to delete a few re-runs!
It's a (big yet muted) disappointment each time it happens. (On one hand, they are only TV episodes, and not even part of story arc. But I looked forward to watching them, and then they're abruptly taken away. The lost ones included some of the last season which Trebek hosted before his passing.)
As far as I have found, past Jeopardy episodes aren't officially available anywhere to watch at will. That makes no sense to me. Why would such a popular show have no way for people to watch missed episodes? Even when an episode is pre-empted for whatever reason, there's no way to go back and watch it. From what I've read, that's even more disappointing for the contestants who played on those days, as their friends and neighbors end up not being able to see their performance.
One can find recent episodes various people have posted to YouTube, if they haven't gotten taken down yet, but it's a matter of luck.
Anyway.
We could talk to DirecTV tech support about the DVR problem, but I haven't felt up to it. I suspect they'd want to replace the DVR. I'm not convinced that would fix the problem, and it would probably mean losing the other recordings on the DVR that we haven't yet watched. I don't have time to catch up with watching everything at once, as there are always more shows being recorded in the meantime. It's a Catch-22.
So. I had the idea to get an over-the-air (OTA) DVR, for recording shows like Jeopardy that don't require cable to watch. We could have it as backup.
It turns out there are some fancy OTA DVRs that even let you stream recordings to your mobile devices, and even when you're not at home. But they have limitations such as only working with some kinds of TVs, requiring a monthly fee or being very expensive, etc.
So then I looked for and found more basic DVRs, like VHS recorders used to be. With these DVRs, instead of having to supply VHS tapes, you have to supply your own external hard drive. But the user reviews I've read have given me concerns. One review said a DVR ruined their TV's HDMI port. I'd hate that to happen. Other reviews mention other problems. I'll just have to choose one that sounds the best. Or forget about it and live without it.
See: DVR deleting entire show list instead of one episode
That thread is 3 years old and you'd think it would be fixed by now. But Qiao's DVR has had the problem as far back as November 2020, and it still happens, even though its firmware appears to be up to date. The problem seems to happens when we delete two or more recordings in a row. To avoid the problem, we have to either not delete any episodes until we've caught up and watched all of them (the safest method), or only delete one, then back out of the menu and come back in if we want to delete another.
When I'm not at Qiao's house, he records the daily Jeopardy episodes so we can watch them together when I come by. So there is usually a backlog of many episodes for us to watch. But when there are re-runs, we want to delete those from the list. Because of the DVR bug, it has now happened 3 times that the DVR has deleted our whole backlog of unwatched Jeopardy episodes when we only selected to delete a few re-runs!
It's a (big yet muted) disappointment each time it happens. (On one hand, they are only TV episodes, and not even part of story arc. But I looked forward to watching them, and then they're abruptly taken away. The lost ones included some of the last season which Trebek hosted before his passing.)
As far as I have found, past Jeopardy episodes aren't officially available anywhere to watch at will. That makes no sense to me. Why would such a popular show have no way for people to watch missed episodes? Even when an episode is pre-empted for whatever reason, there's no way to go back and watch it. From what I've read, that's even more disappointing for the contestants who played on those days, as their friends and neighbors end up not being able to see their performance.
One can find recent episodes various people have posted to YouTube, if they haven't gotten taken down yet, but it's a matter of luck.
Anyway.
We could talk to DirecTV tech support about the DVR problem, but I haven't felt up to it. I suspect they'd want to replace the DVR. I'm not convinced that would fix the problem, and it would probably mean losing the other recordings on the DVR that we haven't yet watched. I don't have time to catch up with watching everything at once, as there are always more shows being recorded in the meantime. It's a Catch-22.
So. I had the idea to get an over-the-air (OTA) DVR, for recording shows like Jeopardy that don't require cable to watch. We could have it as backup.
It turns out there are some fancy OTA DVRs that even let you stream recordings to your mobile devices, and even when you're not at home. But they have limitations such as only working with some kinds of TVs, requiring a monthly fee or being very expensive, etc.
So then I looked for and found more basic DVRs, like VHS recorders used to be. With these DVRs, instead of having to supply VHS tapes, you have to supply your own external hard drive. But the user reviews I've read have given me concerns. One review said a DVR ruined their TV's HDMI port. I'd hate that to happen. Other reviews mention other problems. I'll just have to choose one that sounds the best. Or forget about it and live without it.