DishOnline - Two different interfaces??

[Jim5506]

I was on DishOnLine earlier this evening watching one of my local stations in Lubbock from here in the Dallas area and the interface only had 4 or 5 buttons at the bottom of the screen. One of them was a hide show remote button which let me bring up the replica 722k remote from home which did not have the guide button and several others enabled. It looked a lot like the interface for my SlingBox AV.

I got out for a few minutes and when I just went back in the old Dish Online interface was back with all the controls along the bottom - I HATE THAT CLUNKY THING!!

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Miner]

Interesting. It sounds like a little like the slingbox.com screen, but modified for DOL. Perhaps testing for the sling extender? I'm with you about DOL. Very much a kluge of an application. I've never had a sling box, but like the feel of slingbox for watching TV2.
Miner

 

[pabeader]

yes, it depends on the phase of the moon and how you hold your face and maybe even the day of the week. seriously though, i have seen the same thing, i have even captured a screen shot of it, just to prove it. it seems that the first time you connect on a given day, you have a greater chance of getting the good one. any connection after that is the yucky one. come back tommorow and you stand a chance of getting the good one again. so far, nobody "in the know" has been able to explain this.

 

[TG2]

The real answer ... is that when the application (Web Sling Player) was starting up .. it glitched. Because of that glitch it did not properly receive the BS command from Dish that says "put THESE control functions down there and nothing else"

Like many things.. Dish puts down the universal tool ... the engine .... and then covers it in different layers of sh*t & shine-ola until its how they want to present it to you.. if you were using a Sling Box (not the adapter) then you'd get the remote control option pretty much all the time ... and most of the buttons on the remote would then work.. where as you noticed with the remote.. you couldn't click the Guide button, or DVR button and get responses..

Its like Dish's design team never took Design 101 ... where you implement the original in digital form 100% ... AND THEN you start optimizing... I know the difference in technologies accounts for some things.. but that doesn't stop you from copying the appearances.. and then filling in the functionality... its like they never tried to or more likely never worked down a list of features to make sure features from one User Interface to the Next performs all the same functions even..

 

[Jim5506]

I think, perhaps they have a portal that runs on several different servers and if you get lucky you hit the server with the better interface.

BTY, the better interface also seemed to have a better picture, once it settled down, much less blocky and jerky than the regular DOL stream.

Come on, Charlie, load the good software on all your servers!!

 

[RT-Cat]

I was on DishOnLine earlier this evening watching one of my local stations in Lubbock from here in the Dallas area and the interface only had 4 or 5 buttons at the bottom of the screen. One of them was a hide show remote button which let me bring up the replica 722k remote from home which did not have the guide button and several others enabled. It looked a lot like the interface for my SlingBox AV.

I got out for a few minutes and when I just went back in the old Dish Online interface was back with all the controls along the bottom - I HATE THAT CLUNKY THING!!

Has anyone else experienced this?

Yes. IF and I mean IF the adapter works that day, it is just a guess which one you will receive. Sure is a drag. . . .

RT.

 

[TG2]

I think, perhaps they have a portal that runs on several different servers and if you get lucky you hit the server with the better interface.
BTY, the better interface also seemed to have a better picture, once it settled down, much less blocky and jerky than the regular DOL stream.
Come on, Charlie, load the good software on all your servers!!

The software runs local to you ... there's no web interface ... its all inside the WebSlingPlayer ... it was designed to be a universal player .. which is why you get the same plugin if you go to Watch.Sling.Com ... the interface you see is told to be displayed as it is.. the remote control you saw is always available.. just not enabled by Dish normally. The rest is only perceptions.

Each time it starts the plugins you are given the connection to your sling (722/922), and it attempts to adapt and stream based on the quality of the connection the software believes it has. This can be influenced by connection to Dish/Sling's analytics sites.. but it can also be conditioned on the software running as is on the pc.. memory leaks that rob it of resources, or caching and indexing, etc.. the more tasks the more the effect.

One of the things you can do .. in *regular* mode on the pc (not full screen) is CTRL + Left Mouse click in the playback window and you'll get detailed specs on the stream. (see screen shot) Compare these specs at times the picture isn't so great with times it is.. and maybe you'll get a better correlation.

Keep an eye on the bit rates.. like above.. notice the average was 5270k ... but the video bitrate was only 5130k .. so where was the other 140k used? 96k in audio ... still leaves 54k somewhere.. (although that's based on an average total but instantaneous sub-components)

 

[Rowland]

I have recently had the same experience. What is going on with this feature?