An observation about the HR20 from a consumer viewpoint

TomF said:

Would any of us put up with these kind of problems (and this kind of treatment form the manufacturer) if this happened with our HDTVs? Our A/V receivers? Our DVD players? Our iPods? Our cell phones? Our microwaves?

Image if you bought a microwave and all you expected was that you could put in a meal and expect it to come out ready to eat. But sometimes it didn't heat the food at all, sometimes the buttons didn't even work, and sometimes the food cooked but when you opened it up the food disappeared?

Click to expand...

So what do you do in those cases?

• You call to report the problem
• You scheduled to get it repaired or replaced
• Ultimately... you return it

So why is it any different in the case of the HR20?
So why was it assumed (for what ever reason), the unit would work without flaw on day one the unit was released?
So why is it still a debate 4 months later....

As I was to say in another post...
The HR20 is what it is.... It was released in the state that it was...
But that is the past... and really, all that matters now at this point... is what is DirecTV going to do to fix the unit...

Until DirecTV changes something with their CSRs level... their official portal for communication with their customers.... nothing is going to change with regards to the "reporting" of problems. really isn't.

This forum has grown in such a way, and with an amazing growth in users over the last 4 months... .and bascially has become a defacto place to report the issues.... Be it right or wrong

Any time you replace a mature product, and the Tivo was a mature product, with new technology, you're going to have these issues. I've lived that from a software perspective. The company I used to work for replaced a 10 year old DOS based product with a new Windows/SQL Server based product and it was BAD... I'm talking bad like they had to give it away... It has gotten much better, but the first release needed a lot of work. Same is true here...

I think the beef we all have is having to be Beta testers and paying for the privilege. I had to discover this site in order to figure out what was really wrong with my system. D*'s installers and CSRs were useless. I've called them several times with my concerns and either they had no clue about the issues we all report here, or they gave me the standard, we're working on it, we're sorry... bla bla bla...

I guess I'm just pissed that I HAD to come here to figure out what is wrong and get info on fixes and such.... After waiting for SOOOOO long for them to release the HR20, I was expecting better. The good news is I am a geek and like troubleshooting issues... the bad news is my wife is not and she's getting frustrated with the whole thing. I don't think I would ever recommend the HR20 to a random person who doesn't like living on the bleeding edge of technology.

Z

Sorry to have posted and run, but my initial post was just before Thanksgiving and since then I've had more pressing issues to deal with, so I'm responding now.

Earl Bonovich said:

So why was it assumed (for what ever reason), the unit would work without flaw on day one the unit was released?
So why is it still a debate 4 months later....

Click to expand...

I have a reasonable assumption that ANY consumer product that I buy will work without flaws. I also assume that the engineers that designed the product had tested it to the point where all of the flaws had already been found before sending it to market. And no, the HR20 isn't any different in that regard. It is marketed as a DVR and for many people it does not do that basic function reliably. And the fact that we're still having these discussions 4 months later just shows how poorly DirecTV tested this unit because we SHOULDN'T be having these discussion 4 months later.

Earl Bonovich said:

The HR20 is what it is.... It was released in the state that it was...
But that is the past... and really, all that matters now at this point... is what is DirecTV going to do to fix the unit...

Click to expand...

Yeah, the HR20 is what it is and was released in the state that it was and that is in the past, but products that are released in a fundamentally flawed state like this are what results in recalls and/or class action suits. And what really matters is not only what DirecTV is doing to fix the problems, but what they are OFFICIALLY doing to respond to the problems and inform their customers. And that is absolutely nothing! I would expect to be able to go to the DirecTV website and be able to read something where DirecTV acknowledges that they have had problems with the HR20, that they're working on the problem, and how to report problems directly to DirecTV without having to go through their lame front-line CSRs. How about a separate "HR20 Hotline" where HR20 customers can call to report problems, find answers, etc.?

Earl Bonovich said:

This forum has grown in such a way, and with an amazing growth in users over the last 4 months... .and basically has become a de facto place to report the issues.... Be it right or wrong

Click to expand...

The growth in users is probably a direct result of the fact that many people find that their HR20 is not working as expected and are looking for a place to share their misery. I would not expect to have to find a non-DirecTV sponsored public forum in order to find out why my HR20 is not working correctly, learn about software releases and report problems.

Not to diminish any of your efforts, as you have been an extremely good source of information, but why isn't DirecTV represented officially in this forum? The fact that the best conduit for information on the HR20 is a non-DirecTV connected public forum with an non-DirecTV-employed unpaid volunteer who does this out of the goodness of his heart is something that DirecTV should be ASHAMED of!

And if this really were a support forum, we would have one thread for every software release that deals only with people reporting that they still have x problem from before the update and/or that since the update they are now experiencing y problem, or that since the update z problem has been fixed. No banter, no "I don't have that problem, you're an idiot" and "Why isn't OTA turned on in this release?". As moderator, you should be deleting or moving any post in an "official" release thread that doesn't deal specifically with problems/solutions.

You may think that I'm only ranting because I'm frustrated with my semi-functional DVR, but let's turn this into something positive. Let's get DirecTV officially involved in this forum. Why not? TiVo has had official representation on TiVo Community Forums. We have a local forum for HD OTA customers and there is an engineer from each local station with an official presence in each forum devoted to that station. Someone reports an audio/video problem and the engineer might respond giving the technical description of the problem, or that hardware failed, needs replacing, and it will take 48 hours.

Let's change the status quo and get DirecTV involved and communicating directly to their customers. Let's have specific threads to report problems and nothing else. They owe it to their customers.

Earl, you have done an amazing job here but DirecTV needs to step up to the plate and do something official.

glennb said:

I'm sure all the bugs will be worked out.

Don't compare the HR20 to a microwave oven, ipod, cell phone, etc... It's not the same thing.

If your ipod was acting flaky would you call Apple and say - What if my microwave oven acted this way ?

Click to expand...

I have high hopes that all of the bugs will be worked out and that the HR20 could become a great DVR.

As for the comparisons, you're missing the point. The scenario I described for the microwave oven is an analogy (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analogy). Putting is more simply, what if your new microwave oven exhibited the unreliability of the HR20? And the "problems" I used with the microwave oven analogy are exactly what some HR20 users are experiencing: Sometimes it doesn't record, sometimes it records, but not the whole program (for the microwave the food would not be properly cooked), and sometimes it apparently records the whole program but when you go to watch it, the program gets deleted (the food gets cooked properly, but it disappears when you open the door).

And my iPods (both of them) have worked properly and reliably since the day that I bought them (Apple knows not to release a product before it is ready). And so has every other electronic item (except computers) that I've purchased in recent memory. Nothing I've EVER purchased new has been this unreliable (well, except maybe the '72 Pinto, but I swore off American cars after that).