[mkdtv21]

I don't know exactly if this is true or what it's about, but my mother was using the dvr this morning and when she opened the playlist she got a message saying would you like to share your recordings with other people including an address to put in. She told me today about it and she just exited out of it but I can't find anywhere how to get back to that option or screen so could someone explain what this is and tell me how to get to it.

Thanks

 

[Scott Kocourek]

Sounds interesting but this is the first I've heard of it.

 

[dpeters11]

Are you sure she didn't launch the Social TV app?

 

[mkdtv21]

The thing is I'm only hearing this second hand so I don't know exactly what she saw but I didn't know you could open up the social tv app when the playlist is open. I did receive the software update last night and this was the first time the playlist was opened since the new update so I don't know.

 

[Carl Spock]

If she just got the new software, there is a documented bug that might explain what she saw.

If she doesn't have Whole Home DVR and got the new software last night, there can be a message when she first goes to the List saying she now can share her shows. It implies she's been authorized for WHDVR. When the customer goes into the menu to turn on WHDVR, they find out they can't. The invitation was a false alarm.

Maybe this is what she saw. Check to see if she got the new software the previous evening.

 

[CCarncross]

I'd bet it was the whole home sharing message.....there have been several threads about it.

 

[allenn]

I'd bet it was the whole home sharing message.....there have been several threads about it.

Sounds that way to me too. The OP's mother got the new firmware which is triggering the MRV message.

 

[TomCat]

I find it a little disturbing that DTV would think that this is a "feature" of any importance. Sounds like a "me too" feature or preemptive strike at competitors. Social media has its place, but really? Do we need one more crap-app feature that really adds little or no value slowing our DVRs down even more?

People not buying into the FaceBook IPO is the first real indication of some actual sanity in the rush to embrace social media, in a sea of mob mentality and herd insanity. I could not give two $#!+s what anyone else might be recording, could you?

Its time DTV got out of the bubble and got back to what's important, which is adding real value by addressing the stability and sluggishness issues of their DVRs, rather than adding bloatware that undermines it. Put the money (our money) there, if you want to support your business infrastructure. Crap-apps are the exact wrong direction.

 

[CCarncross]

TomCat I think you've misunderstood....the new firmware accidentally thinks everyone has their dvrs networked and is using MRV...that is the message, it has absolutely nothing to do with social networking or any "crap-app" as you put it.

 

[Scott Kocourek]

TomCat I think you've misunderstood....the new firmware accidentally thinks everyone has their dvrs networked and is using MRV...that is the message, it has absolutely nothing to do with social networking or any "crap-app" as you put it.

Correct, I think he's talking about something that isn't there. A person is not required to use the "crap-apps" or Whole Home for that matter but the receivers must be letting you know that the Whole Home is available.

 

[TomCat]

TomCat I think you've misunderstood....the new firmware accidentally thinks everyone has their dvrs networked and is using MRV...that is the message, it has absolutely nothing to do with social networking or any "crap-app" as you put it.

Maybe so, but my point still stands. and I was basing this on posts in this very thread that raised the possibility of it being a "social app" (their wording, not mine).

Also, assuming it is the WH bug as others have also speculated, how do we think this "bug" got there in the first place? While WH might even be a great idea, and not really something that falls into the category of a crap-app, I have no intent of ever using it, so it might as well be a crap-app as far as I'm concerned, because it stretches resources thin for no good reason as far as I am concerned, and that means it does fall into the category of DTV tweaking and bloating up a system for reasons that have no benefit to me, risking the stability and responsiveness of the basic features that I do care about. IOW, that behavior on their part threatens the same exact things that the crap-apps threaten.

I would not be so vocal about it if they were not so capricious and arrogant about what they try to do, as if they didn't think that there were real consequences at stake (which, sadly have been proven way too many times in the last three years) and that they have some sort of broad license to shoot from the hip to meddle in systems we depend on to be reliable and responsive without them considering those consequences or even thinking about that at all. But they ARE capricious, and arrogant, and meddling, and careless, and inconsiderate of the potential consequences, and they need to hear from us who think we all would be better off if they would behave like a responsible service company behaves, which they don't, and haven't, for a few years running now, so I will not be silenced on this matter.

I, as a paying customer, should not have to deal with "bugs" (or threats to reliability and responsiveness) that are the result of features added carelessly after the fact that I never asked for, or would have wanted in the first place. One size does NOT fit all. There is a certain leap of faith that is taken when placed under contract by a service company for a number of years that the service we are investing in is understood to be of a particular level of quality and reliability, and that it is expected to NOT change with their every whim.

GM doesn't move the gas and brake pedals around after you buy a car from them, and DTV should not be screwing around with the UI by changing how certain tasks are done, either. Yet they do, whenever they like.That's wrong. Leave what works alone. Stop fixing problems I don't have.

However benign or helpful some of these tweaks may be, and I think not really very, let's hope you all don't expect me or lots of other basic users who fork over north of a hundee every month, to actually be happy about this state of affairs, because if so, you will be disappointed.

OK, I'm stepping off the soap box. Everyone return to your homes; nothing to see here.

 

[Beerstalker]

Would you really rather DirecTV not do anything to the boxes after they are released? Would you rather have to pay $200 every couple of years to get a new box in order to get the new features?

You do realize that GM/Ford, etc. do make improvements to their products all the time too right. If they figure out that the software in teh computer has issues, or figure out a better way for it to run they upgrade the programming when you take it into service. Same thing with parts, if they can make improvements to the brakes or alternator they will make those changes and replacment parts will come with the improvements rather than them just keep making the old ones that don't work as well.

Could DirecTV do a better job of testing things out before they push them nationwide, probably. But they try to do the best they can. Do they have programmers that aren't quite as good as others, I'm sure they do. Just about every place you go you can find people who aren't all that great at their job, and would be better suited to do somethign else but that's the facts of life. That's why they have stuff like the CE program here, to try to get it out there and have various people try it in the real world to try to find the bugs, rather than just having a few in their labs that they try it on first. But the fact is there is so many different things that can happen that it's pretty much impossible to catch everything. You can't expect them to test every program on every model reciever from every manufacturer, with every iteration of components in them for every firware release. Not to mention every different setup for how the dish and wiring might be done, or every TV, AV receiver, etc. that the DirecTV boxes might be hooked up to. You do the best you can and release firmware patches to try to fix the bugs that come up.

 

[CCarncross]

And with that rant, welcome to my ignore list TC.....