Comcast came out to review the problems I am having with the DVR. Those problems being many like the screen going black when I try to play anything on the DVR or after I pause or try to rewind live TV, no sound after recording if the DVR was turned off at the time of the recording, and the remote not talking to the DVR (if you hit pause a couple of times and nothing happens then all of the sudden everything happens all at once).
They told me the black screen (which can be cleared up with a hard reboot of the system at this point) means the hard drive is going bad and I should get it replaced ASAP. The remote control issues should probably be fixed with an upcoming upload to the DVR boxes from Comcast in the next few weeks.
Unsurprisingly the same day they were scheduled to come out I lost all cable services TV and internet. When they arrived the also checked the outside lines and found squirrels had chewed through the cables.
So I got pretty good service from them and my outdoor cables were fixed the next day.