Holey Dribble

I switched from Comcast to DirecTV about a year ago. The experiance has been a weird mix of satisfaction, confusion, anger, and frustration.

When I was with Comcast I had a Tivo 1 box. I was create! It was the first DVR and as everyone knows, it changed the way we watch television forever. The controls were easy to use. It had a "favorites" list. You could auto-record based on keywords, actors, catagories, and more. It was truly a wonderous piece of software. I bought a lifetime subscription.

After Tivo 1 they came out with Tivo Series 2. The big sell was for duel tuner support. I didn't get it because I'm cheap and didn't want to change my subscription to a monthly one. However, after missing many shows I REALLY wanted the duel tuners. I was also having various issues with Comcast. They are not a very consumer friendly company. I get the feeling that they will go to great length to help you BECOME a customer. After that they know you are locked into a contract with a big penalty so they treat you like dirt.

So time passed and I finally decide to switch to an new DVR and possible a new cable provider. I figured that Tivo as well as the competition has had many years to perfect the DVR and therefore it wouldn't matter what DVR I got...it would be better than what I had. WRONG!!!!

I switched to DirecTV and got thier lates reciever...called a HR20.

The first thing I noticed is the remote. It has about 8 extra buttons on it that you won't find on any universal remote. They are DirecTV specific. This means that there's almost no way for you to use any remote but thiers. That seems wierd, odd, and incoveniant. I also didn't see how having all those extra button helped the user experiance. So I have to use thier remote to control the DirecTV box and another to control the Stereo/DVD player. They make it possible to program thier remote to control other devices but the functionality is significantly reduced so it's not really worthwhile.

The next thing was when I started it up. I'd signed up for the Choice package that provides about 150 channels (that's really not a lot since most of them are Pay-Per-View which doesn't count as a channel if you have to pay extra for it). So I look at the "Guide" and it shows about 600 channels!!! I thought I'd hit the jackpot! There must be some mistake... So I try watching some of them. That doesn't work. Nearly every channel I visit caused the screen to go black and a little message on the bottom appears, "Searching for available content...". After about 1 minute is says I'm not authorized and I should contact them if I was to add it to my subscription.

The workaround...not. I read through the manual and found this feature called "Channels I Get". It says that if you select it, it will only show you channels you are actually authorized to see. Perfect! I enable it...nope, it's the same. What else is wierd is the "Channels I Get" shows that I get almost 500 channels...which I don't. Wierd, wierd, wierd. I don't know what to do so I call customer service. You can probably guess how that went. First I waded through the dozens of phone button pushes. Finally I'm talking to a real person. Hurray! After explaining the problem the support person tells me that I "don't understand how the system works." She then precedes to explain that it's supposed to do exactly what it's doing. After some discussion I pull out the manual and quote to here the page.

http://www.directv.com/see/pdf/060508HR20UserGuidev1_0b.pdf

Page 33:


Channels I Get
In addition to displaying all channels or creating lists of favorite channels, you can also set your DIRECTV Plus Receiver to display only the channels that are in your current subscription package.
To see the channels you receive, select Ch’s I Get from the left menu of the Favorites screen. To set Ch’s I Get as your current channel list, select the Set Current menu item from the Favorites screen, then change the Current Favorites option to Ch’s I Get.

The customer support person explains that I'm misinterpreting the wording. She explains that it means that it shows all the channels that you could get if you got all the channels. I quote to her the line, "only the channels that are in your current subscription". Finally she puts me on hold and I get to talk to someone else. This person seems to know more about it but still refused to admit the the manual and the software should agree with each other. Wierd. After going around and around I get put on hold again. This time I get to talk to someone that YAY admits that it's a bug in thier software!!! I'm strangly pleased. Why should I be happy?? He just told me that system does not work and I'm glad? The only way I can explain it is that it took so much time and effort to get them to admit is that the admission became the mission.

This guy explained that there was a thing called a "favorites list" which I could specify the specific channels I get and then the Guide will only show those. Ok, fine, it's inconveniant but perhaps I can live with that.

Next I went about trying to set up a favorites list. The list is in numberical order by channels. All I need is a numberical list of the channels on my subscription. No problem I'll just go to the DirecTV web site and get one. Wrong...there is no such thing. The only list they have is in alphabetical order by the name of the channel. Now I'm getting really annoyed. Not only does thier advertised software not work. Not only is thier support staff completely ignorant. Not only do you have to go through a long and complicated process to work around it. All that and they make getting the information even more difficult! What is wrong with them? Can't they sort numerically just one time? Apparantly counting is beyond thier skills.

Finally I have everything set up.... sadly the nighmare is only getting started.

I need to setup up my favorite programs. That seems easy enough. I use search to find them. Great, it looks all the shows I want appear on a number of channels. I set them to record automatically with each new show. Now I can just sit back and wait for them to appear. I'm looking forward to it.

That evening I get a bunch of shows on my list. Here we go.... BLACK SCREEN..."Searching for Available Content...".... UNAUTHORIZED. !!! What the hell??! It turns out that when you do a search it looks at ALL CHANNELS, not just the ones you recieve. What about the "favorites list" that I set up? Well, it turns out that it ignores it.

How am I supposed to use this software? I'm completely confused, annoyed, angry, and frustrated.

It's time to use the source of all worldly knowledge...the internet. I'm pretty good and finding information. I review the DirecTV customer service forums...not help. All they say is what I already know...it's broken, use a favorites list. They don't explain that they doesn't solve a whole host of other problems. I search some more. I finally find that this problem has been around since November, 2005 when the R15 DirecTV box was released.

The bug as been around since late 2005!! It affects every single user. It's a horrible user experiance. What are they thinking? Better yet, what are they doing? Not fixing the bug, that's for sure.

Summary
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I hate DirecTV software. I'm trying to decide the right course of action. Do I stick service and replace the recieve with Tivo Series 2? Do I go to another service? What is the best cost/ease of use option? I'm not sure yet.

I do know this. I do not recommend the DirecTV DVR to anyone. It's one of the worst products I've ever seen.