A note from Echostar on some of the 721 reported bugs.

[dbronstein]

&ou miss my point. There is a work around and the sky is not falling - despite the adamant assertions to the contrary. Bugs happen. If the coder in question is under the age of 25, he might well have never owned a cassette player. Obviously, it shouldn't skip you to the beginning unless the intent is that pause once you "pause" but pause twice you "stop." Nevertheless, hitting play works great. Now that everyone knows the issue, skipping to the beginning (in the eyes of a coder) becomes "user error."

Just being devils advocate as it is a position I think I have some understanding on.

The pause button works exactly the same way in every CD player I've ever owned as well. There's no reason why the developers shouldn't know that's how the pause button is expected to work no matter how young they are.

And even if for some reason the developers have lived in a cave for their entire lives, who in their right mind would intentionally code the pause button to return to the beginning of the recording? Calling that "user error" simply because there is a work around is the stupidest thing I have heard in a long time.

I am a software developer as well so I have a bit of experience with this as well. Having a work around for a bug does lower the priority a bit, but that doesn't mean we just refer to it as "user error" and ignore it. We still fix it.

Dennis

 

[Randy_B]

I certainly admire someone willing to step up to the plate as "devils advocate" for a discussion.

I know of no rule that says hitting pause twice should first pause then unpause something.

As a basic rule I certainly agree, but if you don't intend for it to work that way, then it shouldn't from the start. I tried a limited test of this with a DVD player and VCR in our house. Both only resumed play with a press of the "play" button. Hitting pause again did nothing. Dish PVRs (I have had all 3 models: DP, 501 & 721) have always resumed play with a second press of the pause button. In my book that makes it a common practice with their PVR products.

As a software engineer, I can tell you that given a valid work around - you might never see a "fix" for the issue you log

So am I. My company is SEI CMM level 5 certified. I disagree w/jcrash to the point that it is acceptable or even common practice. Unless that work around is described in the owners manual, then that attitude is crappy. How many of the 721 owners will intuitively "know" about this work around. We know from the generous folks at this site who share what they hear. I haven't received any notification from E* about this. I haven't received an errata page for the instruction manual and of the 4 CSRs and tech reps I spoke with about this issue, NONE mentioned the "work around". Work arounds as a temprorary solution are a way of life, but being so lazy as a manufacturer to say "huh, that works, screw the real fix" is not satisfactory.

If there was, the issue was just about never a high priority.

Kinda scary. I am glad my staff doesn't have that philosophy. Fortunately, according the adv tech support rep I spoke with at the end of my call, they have received a number of complaints and they are working on a fix. We will have to wait and see.

 

[Bill D]

They can't even fix the bugs that don't have a workaround, imagine how long it would take to get to one that does. I agree, unless they are posting something on their website or in a message on the 721 to users, then unless you visit this site how would you know..
I have always hit play to pause on anything, I guess I always felt the need to press what I want the equipment to do.

 

[Allamand]

point is, they made a BUG, if I take my new car in to the shop, and they change something that was fine, would you bitch?

They Pause button doesn't do this on the 508 I have, and never did it before on the 721.. So if they don't want to fix it, they should simply offer the older software ver.

MS doesn't make me run with their newest version, and I should be able to get back something that was fine before.

Dish needs to really straighten up and take note, as I will not be a returning customer when my years up. The hardware brakes, I'm gone..unless they so so great improvement on their part.

Every one can have there own views, that is great, but Dish just don't give a crap about it's costumers, that I can see after 8 months

 

[Stargazer]

I hope the 522's are not as buggy as the 721 has become and that it does not arrive buggy.

Also the 322's are more suseptable to bugs because of the dual tuners with two tv outputs and the interaction of having to switch from one tuner to the other and which tuner to access, you know that there are bound to be bugs show up eventually, with there having to be additional software to support that functionality.