DISH Remote Access being replaced by DISH Online?

[TonyT@DISH Network]

In reference to your number 1 issue, Nominal, the PM is all over it. He has been steadily communicating his findings with me with regard to that issue, and TG2s.

With regard to functionality, I will certainly let him know. I would assume that was coming, but at the same time, I don't want to be wrong about it.

BTW, TG2, I love the reference to food.. THAT is something I get!

 

[TG2]

BTW, TG2, I love the reference to food.. THAT is something I get!

where's the extra large smiley face when ya need it..

back to my axe ... the number one reason I'm harping so much on it.. for 5 months I submitted feedback on problems with DRA never hearing a peep... then in the pst 3 weeks confirmed first from an executive team response (not sure how high up the person was, just that was the team that got the email) and then here at sat guys and in the past week with that $@#$@#)(!@# pop-up .... which basically signifies all that constant pressure to request changes ... lets be honest bug fixes ... be addressed, when all the time dish is getting rid of DRA for DO.

And now the pressure is on .... because D.O. has failed EVEN MORE than DRA to capture the experience of having a DVR in the hands of a user ... and DO will go live with those programming/creating it saying "why didn't someone ask for "that" sooner?"

I don't know if I would be as pissed sounding about these things if Dish was more responsive when you hit the feedback button .. select "bug" and submit one (DRA) or provided follow up for D.O. feedback.

Now, its coming from you guys (Dish IRT) but it shouldn't have to ... I know have said that several times as well...

And now that the impending nature is as it is ... DRA soon gone, D.O. all that we're left with .. it still begs the question.. what was Dish thinking?

You would think the number one thing on Dish's mind, for putting into the DO web pages/software ... for something that deals with a customers' DVR, is the same control and data functionality that the user has when they are in front of the DVR!

How could Resume *not* have been initially in DishOnline?? What ... did someone go back to the drawing board and pretend like they've never touched a DVR, much less worked with DRA to see any draw backs or plan any of the "how to do it better" ideas?

I worry that D.O. will go online/live as it is ... because technically like with Windows .. when you hit the Release Candidate (public beta for dish is more like a Windows R.C.) ... you're only working on big bugs, not adding feature & functionality to the core of the OS (DO's core options)...

 

[TheKrell]

I have been talking to the platform manager for DISH Online, and all things Sling, directly about some of your issues...

Do I understand you to mean this platform manager is not only doing DishOnline but also "all things Sling?" Can you ask him what the prospects are for a standalone player that (1) works without any Internet involvement and (2) acts a whole lot more like the Slingbox/Slingplayer of yore?

What do you make of this suggestion by TG2?

I don't see DISH ever going back to allow you access to your content your way without having the access rights verified by them. (part of the purpose of requiring internet connectivity DRM)

Is this why we have to deal with these cumbersome websites? The data stream is already encrypted!

 

[TG2]

Is this why we have to deal with these cumbersome websites? The data stream is already encrypted!

not to mean the web sites.. but the stand alone player without internet access.

Even SlingBox's current Stand Alone Players require access to the internet. It does authentication, and "stream control" from what I've seen in the log files.

 

[ESPNSTI]

Is there no conflict management of events? DRA and my 622 itself both show conflicts but I don't see an interface in DO to handle this.
In DO I see "Recordings" and "Scheduled", but I don't see the word conflict anywhere.
DRA's conflict handling isn't brilliant, the grouping of multiple conflicts for the same time slot is a pain, and you can't see the start/end times and other important details for the conflicts.
However not having any conflict handling in DO is worse.

For me, the main reason for using DRA/DO is to be able to handle timers and events while I'm not at home, especially when I'm away for a week or so.
Not having conflict handling means that DO is not usable for me.

Along the same lines, where is the management of Timers and Skipped Events in DO?

Is DO still in an early stage of development with respect to the feature set?
Or is this more or less it as far as features go?
When DRA was first released, I sent about 30 or so suggestions to the feedback.
All of them were very reasonable, and most of them should have been quick things to change, but none of them were ever addressed.
DO looks very pretty and all, but it's not particularly practical for me.
I tend to prefer the opposite, I don't much care how it looks as long as it does what I need it to
do.

Having said all this, I don't actually use DRA/DO much, but that's mostly a result of it being nowhere near as easy to use as the 622 itself and I'm not away that often.

On a positive note, I do really like the look of the UI.

 

[TG2]

Is there no conflict management of events? DRA and my 622 itself both show conflicts but I don't see an interface in DO to handle this.

There is .. when it detects them it shows up above your timers .. the problems go well beyond trying to manage .. the best I saw with the 1 conflict I had a month ago, was to let it go or delete the timer. Anything else was just an exercise in futility.

In DO I see "Recordings" and "Scheduled", but I don't see the word conflict anywhere.

when you click on scheduled, it should come up with the "conflict" up there next to the DVR Usage area... at least thats what it use to do... but the only options I see are to change the whole timer (ie. timer options) or delete an individual timer. AND the timer conflict wasn't (maybe its changed) able to realize that while there was a conflict with the original timer, it would auto re-fire for the next instance.

case in point ... Stargate Universe .. was played at 9pm and 11pm... 9pm I'd have a conflict with two other shows recording.. I could have gone in, and set the timer (for all SGU events) to be a higher prioirity than my other timers on that night ... or deleted it, or even deleted just that one instance.

But the DVR automatically would have skipped my 9pm showing ... with a conflict X on it in the guide ... and set up to record the show at 11pm .... because it KNEW the 9pm timer failed... and that episode *didn't* exist .... so it would capture it at the later time since it was still new and not on the DVR yet.. or however else it worked its magic *on* the dvr itself..

DRA's conflict handling isn't brilliant, the grouping of multiple conflicts for the same time slot is a pain, and you can't see the start/end times and other important details for the conflicts.
However not having any conflict handling in DO is worse.

For me, the main reason for using DRA/DO is to be able to handle timers and events while I'm not at home, especially when I'm away for a week or so.
Not having conflict handling means that DO is not usable for me.

Along the same lines, where is the management of Timers and Skipped Events in DO?

all non-existant for the most part ... perhaps it shows the next recording time of the event if its available ... but otherwise crickets and blank areas of the site are the norm.

Is DO still in an early stage of development with respect to the feature set?
Or is this more or less it as far as features go?
When DRA was first released, I sent about 30 or so suggestions to the feedback.
All of them were very reasonable, and most of them should have been quick things to change, but none of them were ever addressed.
DO looks very pretty and all, but it's not particularly practical for me.
I tend to prefer the opposite, I don't much care how it looks as long as it does what I need it to
do.

Having said all this, I don't actually use DRA/DO much, but that's mostly a result of it being nowhere near as easy to use as the 622 itself and I'm not away that often.

On a positive note, I do really like the look of the UI.

Early development release? -- NO this is it.. they have expressed NO Plans for updates, for corrections or even WTF they are doing

As to the "nice look of the ui" .. you're insane. Put on your pink shirt, get the rubber stamp for the ink that won't wash off, and join homer simpson in cell 3 please.

SERIOUSLY... I just looked at the new redesign... or what ever it is they've done.. I went into my Account scren to see the DVR information, i've two of them ...

AND ARE THEY F**KING KIDDING? BLACK TEXT ON MEDIUM TO DARK GRAY!!!

I couldn't make out my "email address" and when I got closer to look at the screen I saw they didn't have my email address there.. they had my User ID ... and then under the User ID area they had my full name!

And the page is a gradient scale from dark gray at the top to light bluegray at the bottom ... and while at the top you could make out the field names (User ID ... Email Address) ... once it got to that part and lower.. the details about ME were more visible... but then the column/field headings were HARDER to read because they were in LIGHT GRAY on a Gray Background..

Someone there must be trying to be "hip" or pay homage to HHGTTG taking a page out of the "all black controls on an all black console" idea.. f**king retards.. I'm sorry to be crude ... but REALLY how much more of their stupidity can any person take?

 

[topcat5]

Either I don't get it, or it is really that bad, but for me, Dish Online has zero utility, is completely unintuitive, and looks to be nothing more than a vehicle to push additional content onto subscribers. The home page should offer up a menu of useful things to do such as manage the DVR, schedule a recording, etc. Instead offers up completely useless recommendations, premium channel content I don't subscribe to, and two categories split by movies and TV shows. The drill downs under those are fairly useless as well. All in all its a waste of a webpage that is also slow to load.

People are looking for something with the utility and ease of a bank ATM, not a video game combined with a billboard. Google succeeded where the others didn't by keeping it simple.

Dish Online is what a marketing department would produce. Over hyped and little utility. Don't you guys at least think your subscribers might see through this? At least Dish Remote Access, for all its issues, did provide some utility. If Dish goes through with the planes to force people over to DO, then I agree with the others, it's a huge step backwards.

 

[Bobby]

But, you can do all of the things you were able to do with remote access. You press Guide to see the guide and you can set a recording that way. You press View DVR, on the top right, and you now have access to the DVR. You can look at what is scheduled and what is recorded. Dish just wants to put everything on one website instead of two. It makes sense to me.

 

[Tampa8]

If it worked for me I would agree. I doesn't and DRA did. It doesn't see my DVR on either receiver, it does see the program guide and identifies the correct receivers. It sometimes says a receiver is off line, yet can see the correct program guide, and at the same time says the other receiver is on line, yet has a generic guide. It's messed up, period.

 

[TG2]

But, you can do all of the things you were able to do with remote access. You press Guide to see the guide and you can set a recording that way. You press View DVR, on the top right, and you now have access to the DVR. You can look at what is scheduled and what is recorded. Dish just wants to put everything on one website instead of two. It makes sense to me.

what doesn't make sense ... is

• those with Sling Adapters, pressing play on an item plays on TV1 rather than on the web page most of the time .. thus making "Dish Online" unusable for remote playback of DVR content.
• DRA directly allowed "play on web" "play on tv" and if you had already played some of a show the play options then included "Start Over on" .. as well as "Resume On" so that the user could continue or start over from where they were via web or tv .. etc.. NONE of that is directly available on DO, AND there have been times in the past couple of months that randomly it would choose one or the other for you without warning
• DRA allowed you to view a few lines of the guide *WHILE* watching the benefit of this, is that you didn't have to close the view window to see whats on another channel, or coming up on the same channel you're on ... which while minor ... is made MUCH more annoying because it takes 20 to 40 seconds once you decide on what you want to watch in the guide... to re-display in the view area because of that re-authorization. So .. tune in to something.. don't like it and want to find something else? ... back to the guide.. chose something else wait another 30 to 60 seconds oh.. decide thats not what you want, ... again and again..
• DRA also allowed you to chose other DVR items ... same issue, rather than just switching content more easily from one event to another .. again you have to close the playback window, chose the other item, wait up to a minute for it to start .. etc..
• DRA also did not mix content types ... I can't tell you how severely pissed I was the first time I selected the group event for Late Night with Craig Ferguson ... at the TOP of which I had a 6 minute segment of the show saved on its own ... only to have the view window open ... preload HULU content with that big play button in the center of the view screen .. and to press that play button ... only to find it was F**KING HULU CONTENT! If **I** wanted hulu content I would have bloody well f**king typed HULU into my browser bar.. you would think.. when a user MANUALLY SELECTS to "View DVR" that the content you would get displayed is from *MY DVR ONLY* ... or at worst would at least give a user the option to select between "related non dvr content" being mixed with DVR content, and or that the DEFAULT play option would be something from my DVR .. NOT F**KING HULU!

Dont' get me wrong.. sure its nice to have a "portal" site where users can select a mixed grab bag of content to play from, all within one frame of reference.. but what isn't cool, is to not even duplicate the best features of Dish Remote Access, into Dish Online .. not to give users the choices to keep some separation between their DVR content and Online Content ... and worse is that the play on TV1 bug has been there for some people for over 5 months, and has been reliably there for me for 7 weeks... again.. making Dish Online completely unusable for my needs.. my sole need at this time is DVR Playback functionality.. and this website has NONE of it in spades. I can delete things.. "oh joy" .. but I can't play them ... *AND* when I record a series of shows .. if I later record just a snippet ... like in the above Craigie 6 minute snippet.. and then rename that snippet on my physical DVR so that it stands out more when scrolling through the shows ... that rename is completely thrown away by Dish Online

so what I'm saying there... is that Dish Online still didn't even get the features we have on our own DVR's correct..

Portal.. sure.. makes sense.. would make more sense if you gave users the ability to keep some things separate (why not give me a tab when I'm in my View DVR space .. craig ferguson "DVR" and "Web Related" so I can easily weed out the two. and before you say "but on that playback page they show you line by line your dvr items... 1) smaller play buttons for my dvr content ... that large play button was default loaded with Hulu content and 2) have more than 5 or 6 episodes or even separate snippets of the same series ... once you go above 5 or 6 items, you have to again select a "show all" option because after the 6th item, they start showing web related content again... making you have to DOUBLE the "show all" from my dvr.

Fix the bugs.. and at least that frustration goes away ... and what DishOnline SHOULD have done .. was start off re-creating the DVR on the web ... by default they group everything .. I don't do that on *my* dvr .. do you do that by default on yours? Mine defaults to recorded order .. so that when I've gone 48 hrs during peak season watching time .. my monday and tuesday 12 hours of recordings are in some form of order .. but thanks to DO's group everything I'm left guessing which show was newly recorded since most things are alphabetic or timer order not most recently recorded order..

DishOnline sucks.

I'd rather keep DRA .. or keep DRA and DO and then I'll usually stay on DRA and only once in a while going to DO ... DRA is more of what I need than DO .. its less distracting with the locked /unlocked content, and it does what it says "Dish Remote Access" hell on till 5 or 6 days ago for the past 2 months I couldn't watch ANY premium content on DO because they hadn't updated the WideVine Media DRM crap and the plugin they used for Firefox 4.0.1 was not compatible. 2 f**king months for them to get that updated (and Widevine told me in email they had the plugin updated less than 2 days after 4.0.1 was out, so that means it was DISH that failed to get it up there)

 

[topcat5]

Exactly. It shouldn't be that difficult to create a tool that simply lets someone do effective searches for stuff you have subscribed too, set it to record, and manage the DVR. Instead we get a jumbled non-intuitive mess on DO that is graphics intensive (hence slow) and which consistently yields results for content that requires additional subscriptions and rent. I understand the "portal" concept, but goodness, not everything has to be converted to this format. A huge number of us are not sling subscribers and don't care about watching rental moves on a phone.

Dish Online is annoying at best and ruins the concept of managing a DVR on the Internet. (hint to Dish: it's supposed to be easier) Dish's service is already pretty pricey, don't insult us with a tool whose main purpose is to push additional rentals and subscriptions and don't insult us with a tool that even does a poor job of that.