Instruction: Given a question and the related document, and generate the answer to the question based on the information provided in the document.

Input:
Question: During playback the dvr will skip or freeze up. What would cause this to happen? Could this be a hard drive issue?
Document: Hey everyone! If you're having problems with your Channel Master CM7000PAL, I've discovered some things that might help you out.First some background. The first unit I had worked fine in the beginning but after about 4 months I started to hear a clicking sound which I believe was the hard drive. Playback of recordings started becoming an issue shortly after & then finally I think the hard drive just died.
These annoyances I could live with as you get what you pay for. What I can not live with and is why I would NEVER recommend this product to anyone is poor product design and even worse terrible customer service.The product turned out to be extremely poorly designed in that the hard drive appears to get too hot and has inadequate ventilation and dies. After 7 months the screen just shows it is waiting to load and never does anything even after unplugging.
I gave it 4 stars because of the hard drive size. For the price it should be larger. Also, there should be the abibilty to hook up an external hard drive..perhaps they will upgrade the software to do just that. For me these things weren't a big issue. I just wanted the ability to record shows (mostly football..mostly Packers) and watch them on my timing and without the commercials.
Love this DVR for Antenna. Like Dish network and this has the same program guide as Dish. If the tv stations would send out their information for the program guide that would be a little more helpful as sometimes you do not have a listing as what will come on the next day. This is not the dvr issue as I understand it is the tv stations sending out the information so it's available. Worth the money.
I didn't think this would be a problem, but the TVGOs channel guide in my area is still broadcast on a channel that's analog. The Channel Master couldn't see it, so I only received same day schedule information.-Only a 250 GB hard drive. Really? In today's market where 1 TB drives are going for $60, they only included a 250 MB drive?
I read somewhere that it is an old Dish network DVR modified for OTA recording. It sure would explain the feeling.Unfortunately this seems like the only game in town for OTA HD recording on a hard drive unless one is ready to use a full blown computer with media support.Because of #1 we never watch live TV through this unit and use only to record something for future viewing.
I Bought a channel master 7000PAL in August. I have had nothing but trouble since bought. I have called there Customer service many times I have never talked to a live person. After being on hold for an hour a recording tells you to leave phone number and someone will call back that didn't happen so I tried E-mail that didn't work either. If your looking for a for a dvr for over the air (antenna) don't waste your money on channel master.
My Channelmaster CM 7000 dvr is stuck on loading...please wait loop. It seems to be a corrupt timer issue that its precursors had.I tried disconnecting antenna to reset the DVR to the factory defaults under Menu ->  Setup -> System Setup -> Restore Factory Defaults but i cannot get to any functions. According to google search ([...])  the DVR may be dead. It is an expesive piece of junk. Very disappointing.
A convenient button on the remote provides an automatic skip forward of 30 seconds, which when pressed multiple times corresponds almost exactly with a commercial break.An Ethernet port is provided for automated firmware updates, or updates can be manually transferred via a "thumb drive" to the included USB port.
The lifetime of free tv scheduling is what really drew us to this unit--no more monthly fees. I upgraded the hard drive in mine and if you are interested you can read about how I did it at johnfixesstuff.blogspot.com.
Answer: Another possibility is a reception problem during recording, so I'd suggesting waiting to see if it happens on more than one channel and that you have really soild reception when not recording.  Although I've not had this problem, other strange things have rarely occured, and usually unplugging the power cord for a minute or so and plugging back in solves it.