[Milominderbinder2]

This document summarizes some key user interface problems with the HR20. The focus is just on problems that would not require new documentation in the manual. None of these items would require new menu options or add to the complexity of the HR20.

Here are 13 flaws and 3 possible workarounds:
+ 6 features that do not work as promised in the manual.
+ 3 buttons don't work as expected.
+ 4 key flaws in the user interface

If we can convince D* to make these corrections, the HR20 could have a more intuitive user interface and they could reduce call center volume. Reliability problems and new features are not listed.

If you have not taken the survey in the last week, Doug has made many improvements. These 13 items come from the work being done in the Wishlist Survey.

- Craig

 

[dervari]

Get the thing recording reliably before they spend time on these items. I couldn't care less about most of the items. Dual Buffers? UI quirks? Let it slide until the thing records and plays back 100%. No more BSODs, missed/canceled/partial recordings, or unwatchable recordings.

 

[tejohnson]

I (and I am sure others might) agree that OTA is a pretty big feature that is a must. This is one of the features that led me to purchase the HR20 in the first place.

As to stability, etc. It is going to be a tough road ahead. Without D* having much real info to go on in the way of debug info that caused the stability occurance, I don't see how the developers can quickly and effectively eliminate most of the issues. From what I have seen, all stability issues I have had thus far have been since I swapped out my dual LNB ODU for a slimline (90%+ signals from each bird), and added the HD programming (which I think is the primary stability culprit).

I would gladly offer my household up as someone whom would allow D* to gather statistics from my HR20 if a) they have the capability to generate them, and b) have the ability to receive the data.

 

[islesfan]

The ability to edit "Chs I Receive" is the big one here. Without this ability, the sports packages are useless (of course, the HR20 POS either deletes or cancels all recordings on NHL Center Ice automatically before you can view them, so this is actually secondary at the moment).

In my case, I have a autorecord search set for Islanders - Sports - Hockey. Since I cannot turn off the channels I don't receive, it will always try to record the games on channels in the 600's which I don't get, rather than channels in the 700's which I do get.

However, D* has assured me they are working on this problem, and I believe them, of course...

 

[dervari]

I'm just concerned if they start mucking with the UI and (especially) dual buffers, it's going to affect the somewhat questionable stability of the unit.

 

[mtnagel]

Good job, but here are some issues:

The User Interface is sometimes not very user unfriendly

I think you meant, "not very user friendly" or " sometimes very user unfriendly."

OTA - You might want to add that it will never be able to record 3 things at once. At least that's what Earl said.

I know we've gone back and forth about parental controls, but have you ever tried using them? You wrote

- Parental Controls only work while watching live TV.
- Parental Controls must work on the Digital Video Recorder's recordings in My Playlist.

but they do work sort of in My Playlist.
- if I try to play something that should be blocked, I'm prompted for the password. That works as advertised.
- "blocked title" shows up for some of the blocked content, like TV-MA stuff, but not for other stuff. Also, if you have a group, it will show blocked title for the ones in the group, but not the group title (even for MA stuff). So they work sort of.

About this

Pressing the Guide button should bring up the Guide as the Guide button promises.

there is a tip in the manual that says to press the guide button twice to bring up the guide. To me that means they will never "fix" this since manual will then be wrong (though it's obviously wrong in other places, so who knows).

And AMEN to the turn off the animation statement.

 

[Stuart Sweet]

Excellent post. Well said. The manual should be revised to reflect the published features that aren't ever going to materialize (example: being able to record OTA and two sat tuners all at once). The new manual should, at the very least, be posted on the web site and a small "errata" insert should be printed and inserted in the manual that ships with new HR20s.

 

[Milominderbinder2]

Matt,

Thank you for the corrections. Each should be good now.

As to OTA, this is the third draft of the manual and it still shows in multiple places that you will be able to record two Sat and one OTA at tthe same time. They have caught dozens of other errors but they stand by the three recordings at once.

They will have to fix the Guide button. If they wanted it to be Channel Categories, it should have been labeled Channel Categories.

They just screwed up and did not connect the Guide button to the Guide. There is no one anywhere who thinks that Channel Categories is so important it chould have it's own button on the remote.

To paraphrase Jimmy Johnson, Making the Guide button go to something called Channel Categories. That is Duh-umb.

I can only guess that it was the same guy who thought it would be funny to have everything move in slow motion animation.

Making the List button go the wrong place must be good for some yuks.

Making the arrows sometimes work and sometimes not work must get quite the laughs as well.

The good thing is that some of the HR20 programming errors are just plumbing connections that can be easily corrected. They just fixed the H20 List button to go back to it's index point in My VOD. They can fix the HR20 too.

Have a great thanksgiving.

- Craig

 

[jjcaudle]

Could someone tell me why OTA is so difficult? it sounds like a very basic function not to have. The H20 and H10-250 had it. Why is it so that it couldn't have been provided on rollout?

 

[glennb]

Could someone tell me why OTA is so difficult? it sounds like a very basic function not to have. The H20 and H10-250 had it. Why is it so that it couldn't have been provided on rollout?

I'm sure there's a lot more to it than just flicking on a basic function with software. If it was so easy there would no reason to hold out on us.

Let them keep on testing it till they feel it's ready to release.
Soon I hope.

 

[Tom Robertson]

OTA HD is still evolving. Many people in many forums have reported problems with TV stations, HD burps, multipath distortion (ghosts from the old TV days), and general issues of interoperability between the TV station and the receiver. Regularly telling the TV and receivers to rescan the airwaves for channel assignments is all too common right now.

Add to that there is much more guide information to deal with. Perhaps from multiple sources, if D* were to rely on locally broadcast guide info as well as their sat. guide stream. And there are new sections of hardware to turn up in a box that already has stability issues.

Should it be fairly easy to enable? Yes. And D* may have everything ready and is waiting for stability first. (And I completely agree with them. No need to over-overload the CSRs with both an unstable box and a new major set of features.)

Should the box been better tested before release and so that OTA could be there from day 1? Now that is a question for each to answer for themselves. I suspect anyone reading the forums has some idea of my thoughts...

Happy Thanksgiving,
Tom

 

[untouchable]

If you read the owners manual very close, it says that you can record 3 programs at once...I'm guessing OTA, and the sat inputs...but it does infact say it.

 

[hasan]

If you read the owners manual very close, it says that you can record 3 programs at once...I'm guessing OTA, and the sat inputs...but it does infact say it.

Yes, but the insiders to the engineering team say that the manual is WRONG. 2 recordings at a time, max will be the case.

2 OTA
1 OTA, 1 SAT
2 SAT

That's it. This has been discussed to death in these forums...forget the manual, it's wrong. (Of course, we don't have OTA yet (double bummer), so we'll see.) Given these sources have been highly accurate over the past couple months, I see no reason to doubt them now.

 

[UncD2000]

Could someone tell me why OTA is so difficult? it sounds like a very basic function not to have. The H20 and H10-250 had it. Why is it so that it couldn't have been provided on rollout?

Maybe D* wanted to get as much feedback as possible on the MPEG4 locals. If OTA were enabled from the start, many of us might not have used the MPEG4 channels when we ran into a few glitches on them. I am impressed with the MPEG4 PQ and look forward to the new national HD channels next year, but I'll probably rely on OTA for the locals once it is activated.

 

[Milominderbinder2]

Sorry! A week ago I inadvertantly deleted the pdf file that this was all about!
It is back now in the first post. My apologies.
- Craig

 

[Jeremy W]

They just screwed up and did not connect the Guide button to the Guide.

While it is incredibly stupid, this was not a mistake. Every DirecTV receiver is designed like this.

 

[pappys]

"- In all menus, the Left Arrow should function like the BACK button."

When in the guide, do you want it to go BACK? Or do you want it to scroll back to the left. I consider the guide a menu.

If it scrolled left 1st on the guide and then back, that would be ok. You would also need the scroll left>Back feature when navigating in the menu, if you are in the big main box and scroll left to get back to the menu columns