R15 - Find By identifying the wrong programs [Archive]

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zortapa

11-20-05, 07:18 AM

On several occasions during the past week, I used FIND BY - TITLE to search for episodes of The West Wing. However, my R15 kept returning episodes of The Westerner. WTH????

This morning I decided to Find The Westerner and then to Find The West Wing again. Only after doing this did Find By actually return episodes of the West Wing.

It appears that the R15 remembers some search information and reuses it in subsequent searches, even if the information is wrong. I suspect the R15 first incorporated the wrong info when I used Find By before the Guide was very populated.

Has anyone else seen Find By return episodes from the wrong show?

ad301

11-20-05, 09:50 AM

I think the Find function is completely broken. What you cite is an example. And if you try to autorecord Finds, it just gets worse. It will record on channels you don't receive. It will record on channels you don't want (PPV for instance). It records partial programs. It populates the To Do list with programs you may or not want, but you have absolutely no way of finding out what find they are being generated by.

If you are a sports fan, the only way to automatically and reliably record your team's games on directivo machines is through the use of autorecording wishlists. Due to the way DirecTV formats their guide data with "Team1 @ Team2" as the episode title, there is no way to have a season pass for "NFL Football", for example. So, you use an autorecording wishlist set up for "MyTeam">Show Type>Event. It works very well. On the r15, I have three such autorecords, Giants, Jets, and Islanders. Right now "Giants" is recording a 5 1/2 hour block on ch 712, although I am not a Sunday Ticket subscriber. The to do list is showing Giants at 1pm on ch 712 and Jets at 4pm on ch 380, which I do receive but is not in my current channels list, as I have channel 2 for cbs. By the time these roll around, they may or may not record on the proper channel, as the to do list seems to always be changing. Yesterday, it showed the Islander game all day scheduled for 7:30 on channel 770, and as I don't subscribe to Center Ice, that would have been incorrect. However this morning I checked, and it did actually record on ch 624 FSNY. Unfortunately, it started half an hour late.

ISWIZ

11-20-05, 10:56 AM

Have you tried setting your channels to the only ones you receive or want as your default search?

ad301

11-20-05, 11:44 AM

Have you tried setting your channels to the only ones you receive or want as your default search?

If you can tell me how to do that, I'd appreciate it. I have populated one of my favorites lists with only the channels I receive or am interested in receiving, excluding PPV channels and RSNs which I can't receive. I call it "My Chans". I have that selected as my guide view. I can't find any other way to exclude channels I don't want from find results.

ad301

11-20-05, 02:31 PM

Update:

From 1pm until 3:10, the r15 tried recording the Giants game on ch 712, but of course there was no signal. Suddenly, at 3:10, it switched to ch 388. MyVOD now lists "Eagles @ Giants, Today, 1:00p, 388 FOX". At 3:27, if I pause the recording, it shows 0:17 into a 3:00 block. Neither 712 or 388 is in my currently selected guide channels.

ad301

11-20-05, 03:08 PM

Update:

At 4:00, it stopped recording the Giants game, despite the fact that I have the autorecord set with 1 hour of end padding. It did start recording the Jets game on time. But now I can't figure out a way to watch the end of the first game without stopping the second recording.

ad301

11-20-05, 03:13 PM

Update:

I figured out how to watch the end of the Giants game. I switched over to the r10.

ad301

11-20-05, 03:26 PM

Alexandrepsf

11-20-05, 05:50 PM

We should ask DirecTV to pay us for the beta testing that they obviously did not do properly,

Wolffpack

11-20-05, 06:51 PM

Wolffpack

11-20-05, 06:54 PM

We should ask DirecTV to pay us for the beta testing that they obviously did not do properly,
What, are you crazy or just new to DTV. Anyone using a new piece of hardware is by default a beta tester. The R15 is what, about 20 days old so far. What do you expect? :)

Too bad that you have no way to directly report these problems other than via these forums.

zortapa

11-21-05, 08:32 AM

Update:

I figured out how to get the end of the first game on the r15. I called up the guide and highlighted the next show on ch 5 Fox, hit the record button, and up came the conflict screen. Apparently tuner 1 is tied up with "Jets @ Broncos 4... Today 6:00a-5:00p 715 NFL". (I swear I'm not making this up!) Tuner 2 has "Jets @ Broncos Today 4:00p-8:00p 2 NY2". So, I cancel 1, and now I can watch the end of game 1. (Meanwhile, the program tuner 1 was supposed to be recording has never been in the MyVOD listing.)

ad301 -- Thanks for all the updates. Wow! This is disturbing, but it may also shed some liight on how the R15 ends up with only partial recordings..

Assume that two shows are currently recording, and that they have priorties 4 (on tuner 1) and 5 (on tuner 2). Now, suppose you come along and schedule a recording with priority 1 that is to start before either of the two current recordings has finished. My guess is that when the priority 1 show starts, or perhaps 5 minutes before it starts, the R15 stops the show on tuner 2 (with priority 5) and starts the new priority 1 show.

I could also envision a scenario in which only the latter portion of a show is recorded. Suppose that tuner 1 has a priority 1 show recording from 4 to 5, and that tuner 2 has a priority 2 show recording from 4 to 6. Now, suppose that there is yet another show (priority 3) that is scheduled to record from 4 to 6. I suspect that the R15 might start recording the priority 3 show at 5, just after the priority 1 show has stopped.

In other words, this may be a very dynamic process in which current recordings can be bumped off a tuner by either a change in the guide data or by a change on the TO DO list by the user. It also may have something to do with how the show was first scheduled (i.e., manual record, series, autorecord, etc.).

While I have not yet tested any of this, I will do so tonight when I get home unless someone else can test it first.

Alexandrepsf

11-21-05, 01:51 PM

What, are you crazy or just new to DTV. Anyone using a new piece of hardware is by default a beta tester. The R15 is what, about 20 days old so far. What do you expect? :)

Too bad that you have no way to directly report these problems other than via these forums.

Now I am not Crazy. I am a longtime D* client and even longer DVR user and a software engineer.

I know that no software can be without bugs, there will always be bugs around. But then there are high priority bugs and other bugs.

A crash of the software (it happened to me on the first day of usage and since I saw it several times) is a High Priority bug that they had to see and fix. A serie link that does not record first runs and instead record repeats is a High priority bug, because after all the first (and main) thing that we all want from our DVR is that it records our favorite shows that we can not watch at the airing time. There was another big bug that I can not remember right now ( I am at work).

So in conclusion I should say that a buggy software is ok as long as there is no High Priority bug, which is not the case with R15. Instead of finding minor usability bugs that usually are difficult to find by a QA team, we are finding high prority bugs for them.

But that being said, I like the idea that they are developing with their DVR and will continue using the box (I packed my DTivo and soon will sell it on Ebay) and help them to fix all the bugs and have a good functional box, specially that this software is going to be used for the next HDTV DVR box and that is the box that I would like to have perfectly functional out of the box.

Cheers,
Alex

Wolffpack

11-21-05, 02:07 PM

Now I am not Crazy. I am a longtime D* client and even longer DVR user and a software engineer.

I know that no software can be without bugs, there will always be bugs around. But then there are high priority bugs and other bugs.

A crash of the software (it happened to me on the first day of usage and since I saw it several times) is a High Priority bug that they had to see and fix. A serie link that does not record first runs and instead record repeats is a High priority bug, because after all the first (and main) thing that we all want from our DVR is that it records our favorite shows that we can not watch at the airing time. There was another big bug that I can not remember right now ( I am at work).

So in conclusion I should say that a buggy software is ok as long as there is no High Priority bug, which is not the case with R15. Instead of finding minor usability bugs that usually are difficult to find by a QA team, we are finding high prority bugs for them.

But that being said, I like the idea that they are developing with their DVR and will continue using the box (I packed my DTivo and soon will sell it on Ebay) and help them to fix all the bugs and have a good functional box, specially that this software is going to be used for the next HDTV DVR box and that is the box that I would like to have perfectly functional out of the box.

Cheers,
Alex

I agree Alex. Since you have been a long time DTV customer you must know they do rush hardware to market. For myself, I'm sticking with my Dtivos. A solid know product. At least for now. Good luck with the R15s.

Alexandrepsf

11-21-05, 11:35 PM

Thanks Wolf.

But I still feel that D* is taking advantage of our passion for new technologies in their interest. We should be paid for beta testing their box. :D

Clint Lamor

11-22-05, 09:58 AM

fergiej

11-22-05, 10:09 AM

I don't know that we should be paid BUT I think we should be awarded. How about getting all of us in on their Beta team and let us see the new stuff. We are a good group to have test this we know what these boxes should do and we use them far harder then most newbs would use them. Take advantage of that let us punch holes, Tivo isn't going to be supported on their system any longer so it's in my best interest to make this box work WELL.
I really like this idea. if I could see what was going on from their POV, I'd be happy to stay the course with this thing. As it is now, I'm getting ready to move back to the R10 for now. I was hoping to be able to move it to the basement, but not yet...

walters

11-22-05, 10:33 AM

I'm baffled that as long as they've been working with TiVo they didn't figure that out. It's no secret that there's a long line of TiVo users wanting to test their stuff, willing to really put in the time and effort to find and reproduce issues, and generally keep their mouths shut about it.

Alexandrepsf

11-22-05, 10:47 AM

I don't know that we should be paid BUT I think we should be awarded. How about getting all of us in on their Beta team and let us see the new stuff. We are a good group to have test this we know what these boxes should do and we use them far harder then most newbs would use them. Take advantage of that let us punch holes, Tivo isn't going to be supported on their system any longer so it's in my best interest to make this box work WELL.

I was not really serious about being paid, a "User based Beta Testers" team is a great idea.

Hey Mr. (or Ms) DirecTV if you read this thread pass the message to your superiors. :)

Cheers,
Alex

Clint Lamor

11-22-05, 01:18 PM

I was not really serious about being paid, a "User based Beta Testers" team is a great idea.

Hey Mr. (or Ms) DirecTV if you read this thread pass the message to your superiors. :)

Cheers,
Alex

I didn't really think you where, I just think that there should be a focused user based test group to allow people to put it through the paces, post to Test Group only forums and figure out whats going on with this thing. We complain, they fix, push out the new OS to specific tagged boxes, we test more, give feedback and so on. I for one am more then willing to have the box wipe out everything I have done if it screws up, in the name of progress.

Wolffpack

11-22-05, 02:43 PM

I didn't really think you where, I just think that there should be a focused user based test group to allow people to put it through the paces, post to Test Group only forums and figure out whats going on with this thing. We complain, they fix, push out the new OS to specific tagged boxes, we test more, give feedback and so on. I for one am more then willing to have the box wipe out everything I have done if it screws up, in the name of progress.
Forget about it.

If you look back, this same topic has been brought up many times over the past years regarding many different receivers that DTV has released. I remember the Samsung HD receiver I purchased for $599 a few years back. It didn't handle DT HD or OTA properly and took about a year for them to get it patched to a level that was usable.

Even after a year they had a new model out so they stopped producing patches for the one I have. It still just plain freezes a couple of times a week that requires a power down to reset.

DTV doesn't work that way. I don't know who they use to Beta if anyone. As stated here they should use experienced customers and really listen to the feedback. But they have their own priorities. It'll take many complaints for this to change.

Clint Lamor

11-22-05, 02:58 PM

Forget about it.

If you look back, this same topic has been brought up many times over the past years regarding many different receivers that DTV has released. I remember the Samsung HD receiver I purchased for $599 a few years back. It didn't handle DT HD or OTA properly and took about a year for them to get it patched to a level that was usable.

Even after a year they had a new model out so they stopped producing patches for the one I have. It still just plain freezes a couple of times a week that requires a power down to reset.

DTV doesn't work that way. I don't know who they use to Beta if anyone. As stated here they should use experienced customers and really listen to the feedback. But they have their own priorities. It'll take many complaints for this to change.

Well this isn't really just DirecTV driving this, it's NDS/Newscorp driving it so we would need to know how they handle things. As for who they had Beta it from what I have read on the net it was mostly people who work for DirecTV. I can only hope they listen and they start having the public (subset testers) test the product.

ISWIZ

11-23-05, 05:25 AM

FYI, while Tivo does not use "THE" as a lead in searches, the R15 does. So searching for "West Wing" must start with "The". And while it is different, it works. Tivo threw me when I didn't know they dropped "a" and "the". It's like a new car, someone put the dang volume control on my steering wheel.

fergiej

11-23-05, 06:55 AM

I can only hope they listen and they start having the public (subset testers) test the product.
They have...Everyone who bought one. ;)

Clint Lamor

11-23-05, 12:11 PM

They have...Everyone who bought one. ;)

Very true lol but now they need to give us an official way of complaining about these things and to get some feedback from them.