Useless service for the price. Going to cancel and move to internet based service

My explora's hardrive somehow became *******. Not sure how this happened as I take great care of it. Nonetheless they said I needed to swap it out for a new decoder (at my expense obviously). Took the decoder home, did a software upgrade and it will not let me pause live tv or record anything. Called the call center and had the most useless and unhelpful response ever. Asked for a manager to call me which never happened. For what they charge the service should not be completely inept. I can see why so many people are cancelling and moving to internet based services. I will be doing the same if someone doesn't call me to sort this out.