A while back my pioneer refused to record progs on Five and recently did the same for C4.

Can somebody out there enlighten me on this "mystery"? Please?

Recording other channels are OK including E4.

In what way did it refuse to record? Did the programme not appear in the schedule when you pressed Record? Did it appear in the schedule correctly but did it not switch itself on at the relevant time? Did it appear to switch itself on but when you came to play it back there was nothing there? Did the recording appear in your list of recorded programmes but was empty?

The display reads "can't record" when I use the onstant record button.

When set to record on timer it would just record the 1st minute of the programme.

This only happens with programmes on Channel 4 and Five and the new Five channels.

Is this analogue or digital?

digital via Sky

This is a copy protection issue that seems to affect some Pioneers.
I think rather than falsely reading an incoming Macrovision signal the Pioneer is reading that some Copy Once material is inputting.
I think its a glitch on the Pioneer.
I had it when I tried to copy a VHS onto one of my Pioneers'.
6 episodes of a series,5 copied fine,the 6th one was apparently a Copy Once recording.
I used my Macro blaster scart lead to get around it ,but it seems an intermittent fault normally.
If possible try and borrow someone else's Sky card.
I would bet that a different card would sort it out.
Let us know

What's a Macro blaster scart lead?

A special scart lead that removes copy protection like Macrovision enabling you to copy dvd's,VHS or even Sky Box Office.
However,it has a couple of legit uses too.


www.sonel.com

Useful to know. Booked a pay for view the other day but didn't have time to watch it all so record it to my 530.. or at least I thought I did. Got 10 minutes of the film then it stopped recording due to copy protection (why haven't we got a really pissed off emoticon? lol)