ouijal said:
Wow, big surprise. Earl takes up for a DirecTV move. Really Earl, I appreciate your knowledge but your DirecTV spin-doctoring does get a little old after awhile. You don't have to explain it any more times if all you are going to do is tow the DirecTV company line. Though it is funny how you have time and time again brushed off reports of major problems here but now say blank recordings was "MAJOR that was affecting a SIGNIFICANT amount of the HR20 user base".
As a software developer for many years, I cannot fathom how anyone can stick up for knowingly introducing another huge bug for the sake of fixing a huge bug. Fixing a problem while knowingly creating an equally big problem is not how you update software, even if there is a workaround. You cannot use the severity of a previous bug as an excuse to rush out a fix even though it introduces another severe bug. You can explain it as many times as it take to make DirecTV happy, but it will never make sense to me.
And I do not appreciate you making it seem like I only care because the new FFWD bug is bothering me. The software I write deals with millions of people and thousands of business all over the world, I am well versed in thinking of the big picture and not just focusing on what I or a small group of people want. I have very few problems with the HR20 and frankly the FFWD bug doesn't bother me all that much, but it is symptomatic of what i perceive as a development process @ DirecTV that is woefully out of touch.
They should have held back the last update until they could put it out there without pissing off a whole new set of people. Of course it is painfully obvious they should have held this box back from release period.
Surprise Surprise, when people can't see the forest, but focus on their one tree.
Someone explain to me; why is it "spin-doctoring" when I simply explain the FACTS on the situation?
It is EXACTLY why the decision was made... If you don't agree with their rational, so be it... but it doesn't change the FACTS on why the decision was made to push 0xDC with the flaw in FF, vs not pusshing it out.
Please do show me one thread... that I have "denied" or pushed it off as something not happening, or not saying that it does effect people... find one... go ahead... as you will be very hard pressed to find one. I don't deny that the box has issues.... If anything I try to help dig through a little more to find the root cause of the issue, or some pattern.
And provide some sort of work around or "explanation" on why it may be occuring. But I haven't once said... "You are full of it, that isn't happening"
Have you talked to any DirecTV employees that are actually responsible for the HR20? And have also heard the volume of calls, not reflected by this forum? If you have... and you gettting a different answer then when I talk to those people... then....
BTW... This is not "new" concept of releasiong critical updates, with known issues.
Microsoft, Apple, Intel, Sony, Cisco/Linksys, and so on....
They all release patches and software updates, that have had "known" issues... may not affected "you"... but may affect someone else.... The question is... are they going to fix it and when.
I as a software developer and as a project lead, have had to make the decision before. Do you fix the problem that is causing the main function of the unit to fail... while damaging a secondary function in certain scenerios... and then fixing that secondary function at a later time.
I've done it... and the software had the effect on thousands of people.. Doesn't really matter if effects millions, or thousands, or just 1... someone is going to be un happy... and that is the balance conundrum (sp?) of the decision.
Bringing it back to FACTS...
If you want to know "why" there was no software update this wednesday.
It is because the Beta Testers (which a lot of you don't believe happen) found a new issue, which occurs when a number of "things" match up. In fact it only hit 1 beta tester, until they finally could reproduce it in the lab.
Guess what the result was? The decision was made to hold the release until it was fixed. The issue was serious enough, even though it only affected 1 person in "real life testing". That it warranted the cancellation of the update.
Thus we are looking at possible another week (could be sooner though), or even longer depending how the testing goes for the latest build.
If you are wating for a perfect software package? Or the silver bullet software release, before it goes out.... You are going to be waiting a very long time... for ANY product (not just the HR20)