Double Play Feature - Yoo Hoo

[mzpro5]

One thing that I was always PO'd about when i went from SD to HD with DirecTV is that even though the box was a dual tuner you could not switch between 2 programs and "keep the history" on each so you could rewind unless you were recording both at the same time.

Turned on the TV this morning and push the Guide button and get a message about a new feature - Double Play. Now I can finally switch between 2 channels and keep the history for both so I can rewind each channel.

[David MacLeod]

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=163476

discussed in detail (with instructions/parameters) in this thread and in the hd dvr forum.

[mzpro5]

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=163476

discussed in detail (with instructions/parameters) in this thread and in the hd dvr forum.

Thanks. I had been totally unaware they were going to be doing this. guess I'm really out of the loop. :lol:

[David MacLeod]

guess I'm really out of the loop. :lol:

that happens to me more than I care to admit :D :D

[jventre]

The new DoublePLay feature may be nice but as far as I know DTV still does not yet have Picture -in-Picture capability. Left Dish 3 years ago and had PIP even then. Why is DTV so far behind on this capability. For sprots fans watching 2 games at the same time is a lot better than the ability to readily switch between games and pick up where you left off. That's not real time like PIP is.

[gregjones]

The new DoublePLay feature may be nice but as far as I know DTV still does not yet have Picture -in-Picture capability. Left Dish 3 years ago and had PIP even then. Why is DTV so far behind on this capability. For sprots fans watching 2 games at the same time is a lot better than the ability to readily switch between games and pick up where you left off. That's not real time like PIP is.

I completely disagree. I have yet to find PIP even remotely useful. I pause one game, change tuners and watch (skipping between plays for football) until the commercial. Then I pause and switch to the original game (skipping commercials and in between plays) and watch until the commercial.

If someone truly wants to watch multiple games, they can watch the sports mix channels.

[Kheldar]

II have yet to find PIP even remotely useful

+1

It's too much of a distraction.

[hasan]

I completely disagree. I have yet to find PIP even remotely useful. I pause one game, change tuners and watch (skipping between plays for football) until the commercial. Then I pause and switch to the original game (skipping commercials and in between plays) and watch until the commercial.

If someone truly wants to watch multiple games, they can watch the sports mix channels.

I've had PIP on my main TV(s) for over a decade. I've used it, perhaps twice. It is nothing but a distraction. DP is much more useful for me. As I actually enjoy the game of football as opposed to being consumed by a rooting interest, I record the games I might be interested in. That way I can review plays repeatedly at my leisure, as well as selectively involving the announcing crew. PIP does nothing for this.

For me PIP is a lot of sizzle and little substance, and certainly not worth the processor cycles required to implement it on a D* receiver.

[RACJ2]

The new DoublePLay feature may be nice but as far as I know DTV still does not yet have Picture -in-Picture capability. Left Dish 3 years ago and had PIP even then. Why is DTV so far behind on this capability. For sprots fans watching 2 games at the same time is a lot better than the ability to readily switch between games and pick up where you left off. That's not real time like PIP is.I have to agree with you that PIP would be nice. I have PIP/POP on both my flat screens and do use it sometimes. I can monitor a game that I'm not real interested in, while watching another show. For me it isn't distracting, but for my wife PIP is annoying. She can put up with POP better. The problem with this feature is that you and I are in the minority.

If you want to confirm this, just go out and try to buy a new model flat screen TV with PIP or POP. Very few models have it and most of the ones that do, PIP only works on the RF input. And you can't even swap the picture. That's how my Samsung LCD works.

I don't know how Dish's PIP worked, but some of the cable DVR's were designed for the old 4:3 screen. If you had a newer 16:9, the PIP was towards the middle of the screen. And you couldn't move the position of it, which made it very annoying.

[jdspencer]

Another negative with having PiP built into the DVR is that you are limited to both screens coming from the DVR. If the PiP is built into the TV, then you have more flexibility on what each screen can display. With my RPTV it can PiP/PoP any combination of the available inputs. Of course, the PiP window won't be HD. Some newer TVs that have PiP are limited to one of them being from the tuner. I haven't used PiP in several years and now with DP available, it's even less likely I'll use it.

[David MacLeod]

perhaps this should be split into another separate topic since its not related to DoublePlay.

[gfrang]

Still haven't got my update yet, maybe tomorrow -Yoo Hoo.

[RACJ2]

perhaps this should be split into another separate topic since its not related to DoublePlay.I think the PIP part is over and this happens in all threads. Just look at the WGN HD thread, where most of the posts are about other channels.

[tthunder38]

Why is DTV so far behind on this capability. For sprots fans watching 2 games at the same time is a lot better than the ability to readily switch between games and pick up where you left off. That's not real time like PIP is.

Personally, I couldn't agree more.....why not have the option of viewing both tuners in real time instead of switching back and forth?

[scrybigtv]

Question: For those of us with PIP capable TVs (I'm referring to TVs that require a separate tuner to actually use the PIP feature), can we take advantage of the TV's PIP by utilizing the D* HD DVR tuners? I seem to be understanding that from some of the above posts.

[Jhon69]

Question: For those of us with PIP capable TVs (I'm referring to TVs that require a separate tuner to actually use the PIP feature), can we take advantage of the TV's PIP by utilizing the D* HD DVR tuners? I seem to be understanding that from some of the above posts.

No because D*'s HDDVR does not have dual tuner outputs.If it did you could,you need to connect up your PIP to another video source.

[Stuart Sweet]

I'm moving this to the HD DVR forum.

[RACJ2]

Question: For those of us with PIP capable TVs (I'm referring to TVs that require a separate tuner to actually use the PIP feature), can we take advantage of the TV's PIP by utilizing the D* HD DVR tuners? I seem to be understanding that from some of the above posts.You can accomplish this with the D* HD DVR tuners, but it requires 2 HD DVRs, one tuner from each.

[ht2]

The new DoublePLay feature may be nice but as far as I know DTV still does not yet have Picture -in-Picture capability. Left Dish 3 years ago and had PIP even then. Why is DTV so far behind on this capability. For sprots fans watching 2 games at the same time is a lot better than the ability to readily switch between games and pick up where you left off. That's not real time like PIP is.

I agree. I need small PIP window to show me when CM is over.

[billsharpe]

You can accomplish this with the D* HD DVR tuners, but it requires 2 HD DVRs, one tuner from each.

I'm using PIP with the HD DVR output for one channel and TV OTA for the other. I've only used it a couple times -- the one I remember is the Phillies in the World Series last year while SC was playing college football. I kept the small picture on the baseball game as there's not nearly the same amount of action in that sport.

Bill

[MarkEHansen]

If not too out of place, I would like to comment on the DP feature :)

I came from the DirecTiVo days, where the DLB was a key feature for me. When I upgraded to the DirecTV HR23 recently, I really went through DLB withdrawals :D

However, the DP feature is really great. It was easy to turn on (IMO) so the fact that it's not always on is not a real big deal. There were times when I turned on the TV and found that what was buffered on the other tuner was of interest to me, but that happened once in a thousand (okay, maybe more often than that), but I don't really need it.

It is especially useful when one show runs a little over and you don't want to go through the hassle of recording/deleting the other show. I can just set the other tuner on that channel and come back to finish my current program.

I give it two thumbs up :allthumbs