*Sigh* - I miss TiVo! DirecTV disappointing!

I just did the opposite of you. Went to TIVO Bolt VOX and 2 Minis after 14 years with DirecTV. My feeling is that the AT&T purchase of DirecTV changed the culture and direction of a once great service. For the last year I had a Genie 2 and C61K's. Your comments are similar to what I have experienced.

I always enjoyed the TIVO's DirecTV used beginning with the HDVR2's and the HR10-250 more then 10 years ago. It is kind of like going back to an old friend. I enjoy the Hydra interface and the speed and responsiveness of the TIVO's The guide is clear and displays 10 lines at a time. I remember the live guide that was removed with Hydra and hope they add it back into the mix.

At one time the satellite experience was superior to cable both in price and technology. Not any more. Comcast has slowly improved the customer service and technology. It is really nice to be able to fly through channel changes and button pushes. The TIVO experience, though costly, is worth it for me. It simply just works!

 

I left DirecTV when Tivo had a blow-out on refurbed Roamios and $199 lifetime service. Picked up 5 Tivos and have since added three minis to the mix. Terrific experience. Add in PLEX and built in iHeart, MLB.tv and Netflix...can't be beat. Lucky for me...Cox deal is $175/month for all TV channels(including movie channels), 300 MB internet and basic alarm services. Climbs to $195 next year (taxes and fees included). I wish you luck with your DirecTV service. Once ATT took over, I was out and never looked back.
I remember another sticking point was PAC12...that's included as well. I also remember hating the bugginess of the receivers. The remote control would sometimes double up on keystrokes, other times the receivers would bog down like crazy. Not missing any aspect of my time with DirecTV and I find their current commercials about cable quite laughable.

 

do you seriously treat STB as your computer or tablet or smartphone ? just looking at interface and menus?
then try to understand its purpose - to view and listen channels for desired program

 

I thought D* made a serious mistake when they discontinued the SD Tivos. I still hold that opinion.

Rich

 

• When downloading programs to my tablet, the "preparing" step takes forever. Why can't it transcode on the fly like TiVo does? I know i can pre-prepare everything, but why waste all that HD space if I only download a few shows a week when I travel for work. "so keep in mind here the transcoding even on the Tivos differs from model to model. The Roamio has the same chipset from the stream which was dedicated to transcoding and was faster. The bolt uses the onboard chipset and only support 2 transcodes and is much slower on the fly"

• Speaking of downloaded shows.... Once they ARE finally downloaded, the quality is terrible for this day and age. I generally do better just streaming the show from HBO Go or ShowTime Anytime when I'm at a hotel with halfway decent internet. The difference in quality is stark. It's like DirecTV uses 640 x 480 or something. Get with the times! 1080P! Same goes with streaming from the DirecTV app - quality is poor. "Part of this reason is why Tivo still does not support OOH Streaming on the iphone. It doesnt support a variable bit rate.. However though some of this does have to do with the HR44/54 not having the horsepower to stream full bore.. The HS17 might be better but i dont believe the code has been written to take advantage of this yet Streaming though shows from Directv On Demand should be at full res"

• I have one Genie mini box that I have to reset a large percentage of the time for some reason. Its the 4k Genie mini and at times, it just completely freezes up for no apparent reason. It generally happens when I'm pausing or fast forwarded but it's very frustrating. Luckily, it resets pretty quickly compared to the TiVos I use to have. I have also tried swapping this out for the standard Genie box and it does the same thing. My wireless Genie mini however seems to do fine. " this one i am not sure about.. I have 4 wired minis and have no issues with freezing"

• My last complaint is regarding recording SEASON passes. Is there any way to limit them to only recording ONE channel? For example, I want to record the FIRST RUN of the Showtime show - INSIDE THE NFL. It comes out once a week on Tuesday night on Showtime, but then gets repeated on NFL network throughout the week. I have record only FIRST RUN selected, but in any given week, my Genies record like 7 or 8 of the SAME episode. " Yes set up the season pass from the app.. It will allow you to restrict to one channel"

 

and again, HW is bare minimum and fine-designed for main purpose of STB - show a program
all other tasks is optional and made just for attract users like you, but unfortunately resources are still limited

 

That is a new "feature" they added with the new GUI. Lots of complaints about that over on the CE Forum but DirecTV doesn't care or listen.

 

I have yet to have an issue with the all channels

 

Well, GregPilot, welcome to DirecTv. You've recognized some downsides but there as some upsides, too. It's about like any service. This is a great community that will help you endlessly on everything DirecTv so it's a great resource. The one thing that will be harder to garner support for here is the lack of technology. Like you, I've recognized the technology to be subpar but you'll find this to be a community that largely (of course not everyone) seems to want to brush that aside and to the point of trying to pretend like it's not a valid point. I don't understand why but it's reality. Many of us are stuck one way or another so it often tends to be venting instead of truly productive but the end result is the same. Overall, it's a pretty good service but if you're a technology geek you may want to check out Dish, even though you have ATT internet. I've really been clamoring for a Hopper 3 but the grass is always greener...ya know?

Good luck.

 

By the way, you do realize that you can get a Tivo unit through DirecTv, right? I haven't used the Tivo units since the days they were made by Sony and other equipment manufacturers but I assume the software is similar to what you're accustomed to. Might be a good thing to research here if you REALLY want the Tivo interface. My understanding is that you do lose the networked feature of the boxes, though.

 

It is not the same interface and you can no longer that get that unit

 

I believe you because I know nothing but I see them for sale many places, including weakknees. They won't activate it?

 

Directv stopped selling them Weakness may have leftover stock. But the unit is a modified HR21 running a TiVo interface from 2 generations ago

 

Best way to do season pass is to go to the show on the guide on a station and double press the record button. Looking at season pass should then give you only that show on that channel. If you do from search is sometimes shows ANYCHANNEL.
If not doing that way try it

 

None of that appears to be possible.