DirecTV Wishlist

Posted on January 26, 2012

I have had DirecTV for almost two years now, and have been very happy with the service, price and quality. Sure there have been a few storms that have knocked out our picture for a few hours, but nothing devastating. Their multi-room DVR service is pretty good, but it has it’s flaws. Here are five things I would like to see DirecTV improve upon.

1. Set a Recording From Any DVR to Another DVR

The multi-room viewing concept of DirectTV allows users to watch any recorded show from any DVR in the house on any other DVR or HD receiver in the same house. This nothing earth shattering. AT&T U-Verse had this first (I think) and I believe Comcast supports it now as well. There’s a minor annoyance with setting recordings though, and it’s likely that this annoyance is only realized because of an added feature to the non-DVR receivers.

DirecTV allows recordings to be scheduled from non-DVRs. When doing this, another DVR in the house must be selected as the location for this recording. This is super handy, and well implemented. For whatever reason though, this feature does not carry over to the DVRs themselves. When selecting something to record, there is no option to record it to a different DVR in the house. Sure, it’s only a 5 second walk to another room in the house to set this recording, but that logic would apply to the non-DVR receivers too. It’s obvious that this option shouldn’t be presented every time a recording is scheduled, but it would be nice to at least have the option to change a recording to a different DVR at some point.

2. View Recording Queues For Other DVRs

This goes hand-in-hand with #1. Presently, the only upcoming recordings that can be viewed are for the DVR they are being viewed on. This presents a minor inconvenience, especially when setting a recording from the non-DVR receiver. Currently, when a recording is scheduled for another DVR from a non-DVR receiver, or the iOS apps, there is no way to know if there is a conflict. The recording is sent, and as long as the DVR receives the message, there is no notification of conflicts, and therefore no guarantee that the program will actually be recorded. The only way to verify this is to check on the target DVR later. Overall, this is just a convenience thing. When a schedule conflict happens on one DVR, it would be nice to see where there is available space, so you know which one to go to where there isn’t a conflict.

3. Notifications of Failed Recordings

There is nothing more annoying than thinking something is set to record and finding out later it did not record. If recordings are setup locally and there is an identifiable conflict, that is presented to the user immediately. There are flaws with this though.

If recordings are sent via a non-DVR or the iOS apps, the user is told the request was successful as long as the request was successfully sent, and not whether or not it will actually record. If there is a conflict, the request is immediately discarded by the target DVR. This isn’t the only kind of conflict though. If a user has a recurring recording setup, often referred to as a “season pass”, there may be conflicts that pop up at a later time.

For example, perhaps a user has two recurring recordings setup for 8 PM on Sunday for new episodes of two different programs, but neither program has a new episode in the next two weeks. Then say, that another recurring Sunday night recording is setup for a new show that is starting this week, also at 8 PM. No conflict will be presented. But when it comes time to record the last requested recording will just be ignored because only two programs can be recorded simultaneously. This behavior makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make sense is that there is no way for the user to know this until they try to go watch the show and find out it’s not there. There is an option to show recording history that would confirm for the user that a recording did not take place, but that doesn’t help after the fact.

What would make the most sense, is to alert the user of conflicts, preferably as soon as they are detected. The DirecTV guide goes out two weeks, so in most cases the DVR should be aware of these conflicts two weeks in advance. It doesn’t seem like it would be that complicated to audit these recordings once a day and give the user a message that there is a conflict.

4. Unreliable On-Demand

DirecTV like most cable/satellite providers has an “On-Demand” feature that allows for the viewing of hundreds of movies, TV shows and other video clips. Unfortunately, due to some sort of technical limitation, the “whole-home” DVR service prevents just connecting an ethernet cable to back one of each DVR and having access to On-Demand. Instead an additional piece of hardware is required.

This “internet connection box”, or whatever it’s called, hooks into the primary DVR and wireless connects to the internet. Until about a year ago, this box cost about $25, but included an additional installation fee of about $50 or so. Of course the installer never told me that this extra box was required during the original install which would have saved me the $50 installation fee. Within the last year or so DirecTV began offering a “self-install” kit, which cost a bit more but didn’t require a professional installation.

There are not a lot of steps to the setup. It requires the connection of coax cable to a DVR, then some on-screen setup. This is where things got hairy though. Despite my techsaviness, I had a terrible time getting it to connect to my wireless network. I eventually tried a different access point, and found that somehow that solved the connection issues. After several hours, it was finally working, or so I thought.

The only time the device seems to actually be used is when “downloading” something on demand. On-demand on DirecTV actually downloads the programming onto the DVR and it shows up like any other recorded program. It’s unclear whether this is any sort of advantage or not. The biggest issue with the whole system though, is that it’s very unreliable. A program rarely downloads successfully the first time without the download stopping and starting at least once. Also, the download speeds seem to be incredibly slow, meaning that often a show can not be viewed “on-demand”, but rather can be queued up for viewing at a later time. It’s entirely possible this could be related to my internet speed, but it seems more likely the fact that it’s wireless only, and unreliable

5. New Guide Colors

Recently DirecTV upgraded their guide to be more “high definition”. This also included a color change from white text on a blue background to white text on a black background. They also added new colored icons for recording programs and auto-tuning and shrunk the size of guide rows down to fit more on a screen at a time. My theory as to why they moved to white on black is that it would be easier on the eyes since a lot of people probably watch TV in the dark. It seems like a good idea in theory, but seems to fail in practice. It seems a bit straining on the eyes in most cases, and unless you have a Plasma TV with deep blacks, it probably isn’t really that easy on the eyes.

Wrap-Up

Many of these issues are minor quibbles. None of them are disqualifying offenses, but it would certainly be nice to seem these minor improvements made. Most of these are likely software limitations based on the way the existing system was designed to work originally, and then modified to have multi-room viewing capability.

Full Modern Warfare 3 Release Calendar Published

The calendar of all Modern Warfare 3 content has been released. It is pretty amazing to see how much content there is going to be. All of the dates say “Elite Only”, so it’s still unclear when non-Elite members will be able to purchase it. There will be 20 maps, with one coming each month. Seems like a good strategy.

(via acSlater)

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Treme Season 3 Coming In The Fall

Alan Sepinwall on Treme season 3:

Presumably, “Boardwalk Empire” season 3 will also be on in the fall, and HBO still has to schedule Aaron Sorkin’s drama about cable TV news, so “Treme” could wind up airing on a different night, after all. We’ll see. David Simon has told me and Dave that ideally the show would run four seasons, but that’ll be up to HBO to decide. The ratings for the first two seasons weren’t particularly strong, and at the moment it’s a show that exists because HBO likes it and wants to be in business with Simon. Hopefully, whenever it airs in the fall, they’ll still feel that way about it.

Treme season 3 is coming some time in the fall, but no one knows when exactly. I know most people, including Chris, have been down on the show, but I thoroughly enjoy it. Is it one of my favorites? No, everything can’t be Breaking Bad and Mad Men. But I would still pick it over several other current shows I watch.

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The Flip Side of a Big Audience

Gina Trapani on having a big audience:

Like mosquitoes to a lightbulb at night, high visibility attracts spammers. Seven percent of the comments I receive on a given post on Google+ can be spam. Seven percent! Not to mention the daily trolling, harassment, and for women, weekly messages from men who feel the need to share their opinion on your physical appearance.

Tripani’s post is a cautionary tale for anyone who wishes they had a five or six digit Twitter follower number and thousands of unique visitors a month on their blog. It seems like she isn’t alone. I have heard other bloggers talk about how buried they can be with e-mails. I myself am striving just for a regular readership, no matter what the size.

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Bluelounge MiniDock iPhone Wall Dock Adapter

The Blue Lounge MiniDock is an interesting little gadget for iPhone users. They aren’t the first ones to come up with this minimal concept of a lip on the outlet, but this is the first I have seen that uses the existing iPhone power adapter. I assume that makes it cheaper to make, and at $19, it’s not a bad deal.

(via Macgasm)

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Joe Paterno’s Legacy

Rick Reilly:

[Former Penn St. defensive back Adam] Taliaferro wound up in a hospital bed in Philadelphia, everything frozen solid below the neck. Doctors said he had about a 3 percent chance of walking again. And every other week, Paterno would fly to Philly to see him.

At some point, it’s very possible that we will find out Joe Paterno covered something up. If so, that’s unforgivable. But in the meantime, he is innocent until proven guilty. And in the wake of his passing, we can’t forget all that good things this guy did for so many people.

And just to be clear, I am not condoning Paterno for doing anything that even skims the idea of a coverup. But we don’t know anything yet. Him simply admitting that he “should have done more” means nothing. Everyone who has ever been associated with a scandal or tragedy has wished they’d done more. Simply feeling that way is not an admission of guilt.

The most important thing in all of this is that people who did wrong on punished. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping for Paterno to be vindicated.

(Click to view source article)

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The Future Affect of Binge Television Watching

Mary McNamara of the LA Times:

Caught between overstocked DVR queues — when you’re so behind already, why not save all those “Mad Men” episodes for a rainy day and then simply watch them one after another? — and the increasing availability of entire seasons on DVD and the Internet, television has become something to be gorged upon, with tales designed to be told over months consumed in a matter of hours. It’s television as novel rather than serialized story.

There is no bigger trend in TV watching than this idea of “catching up” on series you missed. Many people have given up their cable subscriptions and spend their time watching TV shows on Netflix that they never watched when they were on. I did this with The Sopranos before the final season, and have done it with a couple of other shows.

I agree with McNamara that it definitely changes the way that you watch a show. Longer story arcs are not as annoying because the gratification comes sooner than waiting 8 months of one episode bursts. I think the writers could make more complex stories because it won’t be as difficult for people to remember plot points when they watch shows all at once.

I wouldn’t make too much of this though. TV writing has evolved plenty over the last 20 years, and will continue to, no matter what.

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Want Bluetooth/WiFi Toggle in iOS Notification Center

Dave Caolo on iOS Notification Center:

Wi-Fi/Bluetooth toggle. As the settings I change most often, I’d like quick access right in the Notification Center. Swipe on, swipe off.

I have mentioned one of his other wishlist items before, and longed for a quick toggle for these two things to be added to iOS, but never considered Notification Center as an option. Works for me. Anything is better than digging into multiple menus.

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When Good Websites Go Bad

Posted on January 24, 2012

The old cliche is that “no one likes change”. Over the years, this has applied to many things, and with the immense popularity of the world wide web, it’s no surprise that this now applies to websites. Facebook has been the subject of vitriol with every design change they make. The vocal minority is always quick to express their displeasure, including creating a seemingly endless list of Facebook groups dedicated to reverting the changes. Of course the opposition is never big enough to cause changes to be reverted, and most people refuse to execute the only action that will lead to reversing changes, stop visiting the site. With a site like Facebook, one that is used for communication as much as it is just general content consumption, is much harder to “give up” than a news site or blog.

Most news sites and many blogs generate income for their owners and writers. As a result, design and content decisions are often more about money and less about what’s best for the user. There is a clear parallel between websites/blogs and musical groups. Fans have always taken pride in getting in early on musical groups, allowing them to say “I was listening to [insert band name] before they were popular”. When bands sign with a big label, or put out an album designed to attract a larger audience, which sometimes means tweaking their musical style, fans often accuse them of “selling out”.

What makes this so crazy is, that while these bands are “artists”, they are still human beings, who need to make money and support their family. Many of these bands spend, essentially years, on the road, with barely enough money for food at times. It’s unfair to blame them for wanting to make more money. Most people wouldn’t turn down a promotion or raise at their job if offered, so it’s unfair to blame musical groups for essentially doing the same.

With that in mind, I don’t blame websites and blogs for selling their sites and/or changing their design or content to increase their income, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Three of my favorite websites have made changes in the last six months or so, which has led me to question whether to continue my relationship with them.

Mashable is a website dedicated to social media news, as well as tips for other web-related things. Their content ranges from news about sites like Twitter and Facebook, browser plug-ins and add-ons, business news and tips related to social media and a whole lot more. Their cluttered website design has never been a favorite of mine, but since I spend most of my time reading their site in my RSS reader, it’s never bothered me all that much.

There has been a new development in the last few months, however, that has become very aggravating. Mashable has long been known for creating lots of “list” style posts, such as CoTweet Gone: Here Are 7 Great Alternatives. By default, these types of lists include an embedded slideshow to view each item on the list. This forces a click through from the RSS feed in order to view the complete list. There is an option below the slideshow to view the list on one page, but it still requires a click through to get there. Its unclear whether this slideshow “widget” was created to increase page views or benefit the user, but it sure seems like the former. At times, these slideshows feel sluggish and don’t seem to add a lot of value. While this new development is not a disqualifying offense, it’s certainly a strike against. I am not giving up on Mashable, but I hope this isn’t the start of a new trend.

One of my favorite sites on the internet was TV Squad, a TV blog which I discovered a few years ago. It was part of Weblogs Inc., although it only came into existence a few months before AOL bought Weblogs Inc. back in 2005. Sometime in 2011, TV Squad officially became AOL TV. This change didn’t seem to have much impact on the content, and the website was still the same old TV news site. But after the Huffington Post bought AOL, AOL TV became HuffPost TV.

After a few weeks, things seemed different. The TV recaps that were once a staple, became much more infrequent. The number of “opiniony”, blog-type posts increased tenfold, and the news became a bit more scarce. I am all for blogs, and opinions on things, but my primary use for this site was recaps of shows and news about them, as opposed to a constant stream of, sometimes odd insight. I haven’t spent a lot of time investigating whether there is some sort of special RSS field I can dig up that will avoid these blog posts, and instead just includes news and recaps, but there is nothing obvious. Without this, the signal-to-noise ratio is a bit out of control. Hopefully I can find a suitable alternative.

Last is The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW). TUAW was one of the first Apple news sites I started reading about 7 years ago when I first decided I wanted a Mac. It was also a blog owned by Weblogs Inc., and was therefore also purchased by AOL, and, at least according to their masthead at the time of this writing, part of AOL Tech and not The Huffington Post. TUAW underwent a nice redesign in 2011, and overall the site looks really sharp.

One of the major changes though, was the removal of the complete text of articles from the main page, requiring a click through to see the full content. I am convinced this decision was more about cleaning up the home page, making things look more uniform and allowing for more stories to be listed on the front page. This change caused outrage from their loyal fan base. Unlike most websites though, TUAW opted to implement and aptly named “Quick Look” feature, which creates a shadowbox-like window that overlays the middle of browser window and contains the full context of the article. This provides a few advantages. It’s slightly faster than loading the entire website template, and creates a relatively clean environment for reading the post.

At the end of the day, all of these websites made changes, mostly in their own best interest. But like that band that went from touring the country in a van, which they slept in, to being in Pepsi commercials, you can’t blame them. Sometimes they see the error in their ways, like TUAW. Other times their users are forced to weigh their options and decide if they could get similar content with a better experience elsewhere. These decisions are often tough, and, like in the case of me and Mashable, is not always as simple as one and done.

E:60 Piece On Former Wrestler Scott Hall

Amazing E:60 piece from back in October on former WWE/WCW Scott Hall and his addiction to drugs and alcohol. It’s only about 20 minutes long and a must see for anyone who was a wrestling fan in the ’90s. I really had no idea how bad he was.

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