"info" on programs - confusing.

[Aliens]

I spoke with Veronica, and they do acknowledge there is a problem and they are working on it. She said they are aware of issues with the NFL Network and are working to resolve those. I explained that the NFL Network isn’t the only one with OAD problems and that it was widespread, and she took that info. She said the engineers are running tests to compare what they have with what Dish has. I sent her the screen-caps, and in addition to asking they add the missing OAD, asked her to include these recording options: daily, once, weekly, and M-F, so the engineers would see those as well.

I covered a lot of ground with Veronica. Including the difference between a time-consuming manual recording vs. pushing a button twice. Tribune Media Services. Where are the OADs? And what it is like for a former Dish customer to transition and miss one or two things they accustomed to, and how DirecTV customers sometimes don’t know what they are missing; stating that it goes both ways, and that both providers have positives and negatives. It was a good conversation I feel confident they are actually looking into our concerns.

 

[Jimbo]

I had him look and see if College Game Day has OAD info, and it does not. Sportscenter doesn't have the info listed either, but it only records new episodes, not the identical repeats. If you DVR Sportscenter on D*, it records EVERY SINGLE episode! Another friend with Comcast up north said that if you set a Comcast DVR to record shows like Sportscenter that appear on multiple channels (ESPN, ESPNews, ESPN2), it will ask you if you want to record from "This channel only" or "all channels" meaning that all you have to do is record "sportscenter" and it will find it on all 3 channels. Does D* do that, I don't think they do.

IF there is NO Air Date, how does the DVR determine a repeat ?
They don't give Titles to the Sport Centers, if that or the Air Date isn't known, I don't know how you would expect it to know the difference.

It probably comes down to the PSIP, theres probably a lot of info still being sent that doesn't show up on the screen.

 

[ejb1980]

Jimbo, that was my thought too... How does it know? There must be hidden info, as you say, that it can see that we can't.

I would love to get a hold of the guide for just one day. I would have them fix the inconsistent HD in the name (Velocity? Unimas? MoreMax?) I would get them to show the HD icon when the show is HD and NOT when it's not. And the VOD "+" to all the channels with VOD (Cooking? LMN? NGW? ALL ABC/CBS/NBC/Univision locals?) and take it off channels without VOD (Telemundo.) None of these things are major, but I am OCD and I had no idea there was NGW VOD!!

 

[dalyew]

Like I said earlier, more than likely it's in the software they use, they probably have a set number of items they want and don't see the need for the rest, that said, more info is always better.

Personally, I would like to see them add the other things you have mentioned, like being able to tell something to record M-F or weekends only ... would also like to be able to have it record the second showing of an episode (same ep) if the first time slot would become a conflict with another show ... such as the shows that are on at say 9pm and rerun over night, if I have my allotment of recordings already accounted for at 9 pm, it should automatically see the same EP and Record the later one ...

Jimbo, I forgot about that feature. Recording with Dish was like "set it & forget it" but with Direct it's a constant monitoring and unpredictable series recordings. Just had to delete a ton of EPL Soccer matches from NBC Sports as it is recording everything programmed "English Premier League Soccer". It's not making any distinction between live or repeat matches, even recording matches it already recorded earlier in the day.

Like you said, I too think they're not using all the info they're getting which could help them to eliminate the problem.

 

[Aliens]

IF there is NO Air Date, how does the DVR determine a repeat ?
They don't give Titles to the Sport Centers, if that or the Air Date isn't known, I don't know how you would expect it to know the difference.

It probably comes down to the PSIP, theres probably a lot of info still being sent that doesn't show up on the screen.

Probably the same way Dish does it. You see the program, the channel, the current day and date, and the time in the pic below. This is where the added options come in and would solve the repeats we are experiencing. If you select M-F, it will record M-F only at that time that is showing. If you select daily, it will record at that time every day of the week. If you select weekly, it will record once every week at that time on Friday. I hope that isn’t confusing.

 

[ejb1980]

They have autotune and DVR??? I want that!!!!! (What is reminder?)

 

[Jimbo]

Jimbo, I forgot about that feature. Recording with Dish was like "set it & forget it" but with Direct it's a constant monitoring and unpredictable series recordings. Just had to delete a ton of EPL Soccer matches from NBC Sports as it is recording everything programmed "English Premier League Soccer". It's not making any distinction between live or repeat matches, even recording matches it already recorded earlier in the day.

Like you said, I too think they're not using all the info they're getting which could help them to eliminate the problem.

OTOH, I set my programs to Record and forget it, never have a problem with Recordings.

 

[Aliens]

I just spoke with Veronica and she has no new information regarding the missing OADs or the added recording options I requested. She said if we didn’t receive any changes in the latest software release, which we didn’t, then they are either still working on it or other issues have a higher priority. I told her that I now think they aren’t going to do anything, and she said she wouldn’t say that, but couldn’t say they would. I didn’t get a, “Let me look into this for you,” or anything.

Frustrating and disappointing.

I have two M-F manual timers that I scheduled to start this week that were ignored. It didn’t want to start recording them until next Monday.

 

[texasbrit]

I just spoke with Veronica and she has no new information regarding the missing OADs or the added recording options I requested. She said if we didn’t receive any changes in the latest software release, which we didn’t, then they are either still working on it or other issues have a higher priority. I told her that I now think they aren’t going to do anything, and she said she wouldn’t say that, but couldn’t say they would. I didn’t get a, “Let me look into this for you,” or anything.

Frustrating and disappointing.

I have two M-F manual timers that I scheduled to start this week that were ignored. It didn’t want to start recording them until next Monday.

Your chances of getting any of this stuff soon are close to nil. Any software development program is usually planned out for several months, maybe a year, and unless critical bugs show up and need to be fixed, software changes go through a development cycle including specification, design, implementation and both alpha and beta testing. A new feature would usually be seen by the beta testing program at least a couple of months before it hits the streets in a national release. Veronica, or indeed anyone you might talk to on the phone, has no access to the development plan - indeed, having worked for many software development companies, I can tell you that the plan is company confidential and only when something is actually ready for release will anyone outside the development organization know about it.

 

[ejb1980]

I just spoke with Veronica and she has no new information regarding the missing OADs or the added recording options I requested. She said if we didn’t receive any changes in the latest software release, which we didn’t, then they are either still working on it or other issues have a higher priority. I told her that I now think they aren’t going to do anything, and she said she wouldn’t say that, but couldn’t say they would. I didn’t get a, “Let me look into this for you,” or anything.

Frustrating and disappointing.

I have two M-F manual timers that I scheduled to start this week that were ignored. It didn’t want to start recording them until next Monday.

Frustrating indeed. My stupid Genie missed a recording last week, too. Brooklyn 99 did not record, either. The directv feed of my local Fox had "To be announced" in the guide Tuesday 8pm-10pm. The AM21 feed of the same channel and the other Fox affiliate I get OTA both had complete data, but since we can't have the show record from ANY channel (except in the case of sports teams), it missed it. I KNOW that the guide data WAS there Monday, because I always check to verify that the recordings are showing up. But it disappeared overnight. Gets old fast. If they are going to try to get $25/month from new customers for "advanced" receivers, the receivers should at least record reliably.

 

[SpencerCat]

I’ve been following this thread since it started and even posted in response to the OP. I’ve resisted posting again, but I finally gave in and decided to get involved again.

I was a Dish subscriber for 13 years but came over to DirecTV in order to receive the new customer discounts.

As someone posted, Dish recordings were “set it & forget it”. DirecTV recordings are “set it & check it, & check it, & check it, …”

Recently I set the Daily Show to record only new episodes, but when I looked at the To Do list, I saw that the Daily Show was set to record at 4:30 pm, 8:00 pm, and 10:00 pm, every day. AND the shows were all reruns because Stewart was on vacation that week and all of the scheduled recordings had first aired dates earlier than the day they were set to record.

Also, I have another program set to record all episodes, and that worked for several weeks, but one night I noticed that the Record light was not on when the program should have been recording. When I investigated, I discovered that the program had disappeared from the Series Manager.

Dish certainly has problems, not the least of which is a wacko owner, but at least their DVR’s consistently work correctly, and people don’t have to keep checking to be sure that scheduled programs will record and don’t mysteriously disappear from the recording schedule.

I’ve pretty much decided that when my 2-year commitment is up with DirecTV 10 months from now, I will be going back to Dish, partly to receive the new customer discounts and partly because I have no confidence in DirecTV’s technical competence regarding reliable, consistent program recording.

The fact that some people have developed workarounds for DirecTV’s deficiencies is of no interest to me. Instead of developing workarounds, how about fixing the problems? If Dish can do it, then DirecTV can certainly do it.

End of mini-rant.

 

[ejb1980]

I’ve been following this thread since it started and even posted in response to the OP. I’ve resisted posting again, but I finally gave in and decided to get involved again.

I was a Dish subscriber for 13 years but came over to DirecTV in order to receive the new customer discounts.

As someone posted, Dish recordings were “set it & forget it”. DirecTV recordings are “set it & check it, & check it, & check it, …”

Recently I set the Daily Show to record only new episodes, but when I looked at the To Do list, I saw that the Daily Show was set to record at 4:30 pm, 8:00 pm, and 10:00 pm, every day. AND the shows were all reruns because Stewart was on vacation that week and all of the scheduled recordings had first aired dates earlier than the day they were set to record.

Also, I have another program set to record all episodes, and that worked for several weeks, but one night I noticed that the Record light was not on when the program should have been recording. When I investigated, I discovered that the program had disappeared from the Series Manager.

Dish certainly has problems, not the least of which is a wacko owner, but at least their DVR’s consistently work correctly, and people don’t have to keep checking to be sure that scheduled programs will record and don’t mysteriously disappear from the recording schedule.

I’ve pretty much decided that when my 2-year commitment is up with DirecTV 10 months from now, I will be going back to Dish, partly to receive the new customer discounts and partly because I have no confidence in DirecTV’s technical competence regarding reliable, consistent program recording.

The fact that some people have developed workarounds for DirecTV’s deficiencies is of no interest to me. Instead of developing workarounds, how about fixing the problems? If Dish can do it, then DirecTV can certainly do it.

End of mini-rant.

The Daily Show has done the same for me. And it will miss Colbert Report, which is what was the missed show in my post.

 

[raoul5788]

I’ve been following this thread since it started and even posted in response to the OP. I’ve resisted posting again, but I finally gave in and decided to get involved again.

I was a Dish subscriber for 13 years but came over to DirecTV in order to receive the new customer discounts.

As someone posted, Dish recordings were “set it & forget it”. DirecTV recordings are “set it & check it, & check it, & check it, …”

Recently I set the Daily Show to record only new episodes, but when I looked at the To Do list, I saw that the Daily Show was set to record at 4:30 pm, 8:00 pm, and 10:00 pm, every day. AND the shows were all reruns because Stewart was on vacation that week and all of the scheduled recordings had first aired dates earlier than the day they were set to record.

Also, I have another program set to record all episodes, and that worked for several weeks, but one night I noticed that the Record light was not on when the program should have been recording. When I investigated, I discovered that the program had disappeared from the Series Manager.

Dish certainly has problems, not the least of which is a wacko owner, but at least their DVR’s consistently work correctly, and people don’t have to keep checking to be sure that scheduled programs will record and don’t mysteriously disappear from the recording schedule.

I’ve pretty much decided that when my 2-year commitment is up with DirecTV 10 months from now, I will be going back to Dish, partly to receive the new customer discounts and partly because I have no confidence in DirecTV’s technical competence regarding reliable, consistent program recording.

The fact that some people have developed workarounds for DirecTV’s deficiencies is of no interest to me. Instead of developing workarounds, how about fixing the problems? If Dish can do it, then DirecTV can certainly do it.

End of mini-rant.

Unless I'm mistaken, aren't virtually all of the missed/improper recordings due to faulty guide data? Why blame Directv for that?

 

[ejb1980]

Unless I'm mistaken, aren't virtually all of the missed/improper recordings due to faulty guide data? Why blame Directv for that?

That is the point of the thread. The guide data is ONLY wrong/incomplete on Directv!!! Not cable or Dish, their guide data is complete.

 

[texasbrit]

I'm not apologetic for DirecTV, because I don't need to be. I don't use any workarounds, and I don't check to see if programs are going to record either, and it's years since I missed a recording. The problem with the Daily Show is well known, and it's because the channel often duplicates the metadata for every showing of the program on the same day, or does not put in any episode data, so the DVR sees the first run flag or sees there is no program info in the metadata and then does what it has been told, or records it anyway because it wants to err on the safe side. The channel is either too lazy to change the metadata, or wants you to record the program multiple times to make sure you see it and the associated commercials.
And I have never ever had a program "disappear" from the series manager, and I have used just about every DVR ever available from DirecTV, I currently have four including the Genie.

As far as the local Fox station is concerned, the data comes from the station to Tribune and then Tribune supplies it to DirecTV, so if it says "to be announced" that's because Tribune set it up that way.

 

[ejb1980]

I'm not apologetic for DirecTV, because I don't need to be. I don't use any workarounds, and I don't check to see if programs are going to record either, and it's years since I missed a recording. The problem with the Daily Show is well known, and it's because the channel often duplicates the metadata for every showing of the program on the same day, or does not put in any episode data, so the DVR sees the first run flag or sees there is no program info in the metadata and then does what it has been told, or records it anyway because it wants to err on the safe side. The channel is either too lazy to change the metadata, or wants you to record the program multiple times to make sure you see it and the associated commercials.
And I have never ever had a program "disappear" from the series manager, and I have used just about every DVR ever available from DirecTV, I currently have four including the Genie.

As far as the local Fox station is concerned, the data comes from the station to Tribune and then Tribune supplies it to DirecTV, so if it says "to be announced" that's because Tribune set it up that way.

There are posts in this thread that show that the same "missing" information is NOT missing on cable AND Dish for some shows. How can Tribune provide the guide data on Monday on all 3 sources and then it be gone the next day ONLY on the source maintained by Directv? The AM21 guide data comes from Tribune as well. I have never seen that before (I do see Orioles games change to "To Be Announced" on MASN sometimes the day of the game when they have been there for over a week, but never on another channel).

 

[SpencerCat]

Unless I'm mistaken, aren't virtually all of the missed/improper recordings due to faulty guide data? Why blame Directv for that?

My point, and I think the point of others in this thread, is that if DirecTV and Dish both use guide data from Tribune Media Services, then why does Dish get it right and DirecTV get it wrong?

Also, faulty guide data doesn't explain a program disappearing from my Series Manager; this indicates a bug in DirecTV's software, and they can't pass the buck to someone else. This is especially troubling because if I go away for a few days and then come home expecting to watch programs recorded while I was away, and then discover that my scheduled recordings mysteriously disappeared from Series Manager, I'm going to be disappointed. I know it's only TV, but many of us (especially we older folks who are not as active as we once were) really enjoy the entertainment provided by TV.

 

[texasbrit]

As I said, I have never seen a program disappear from the series manager, and it's not a known bug with the DVRs.
I have never seen a local channel show "to be announced" when the AM21 does not have the same missing data either, my DirecTV "insider" says it's basically not possible since the data for the DirecTv local and the AM21 is exactly the same. Unless of course the two sets of data were the same, but because they are updated on different cycles an update got to one set and not the other.

 

[Jimbo]

My point, and I think the point of others in this thread, is that if DirecTV and Dish both use guide data from Tribune Media Services, then why does Dish get it right and DirecTV get it wrong?

Also, faulty guide data doesn't explain a program disappearing from my Series Manager; this indicates a bug in DirecTV's software, and they can't pass the buck to someone else. This is especially troubling because if I go away for a few days and then come home expecting to watch programs recorded while I was away, and then discover that my scheduled recordings mysteriously disappeared from Series Manager, I'm going to be disappointed. I know it's only TV, but many of us (especially we older folks who are not as active as we once were) really enjoy the entertainment provided by TV.

I find this interesting ....
IF this had happened, why would it ONLY happen on YOUR DVR, wouldn't it have happened on others as well ?


In all the years I have been using D*, this is the 1st time I have ever heard of anyone posting that they had a show disappear from the Series Manager list.
IF it were a BUG as you said, it would happen on all the DVR's at least the ones of the same model.

IF its a bug, you can usually duplicate the issue, let us know when you can replicate the trouble and we will try and see if we can as well.

 

[ejb1980]

As I said before, I had never seen the local/AM21 fluke before. If it happens again, I will be sure to photograph it for the "insider."

Let's not dwell on that. It happened once. It was an example of something not recording. The REAL issue is the main topic - Guide info and why Directv can't properly supply the proper information when Time Warner, Comcast, Dish, Titan TV, etc all have the COMPLETE information and therefore do not have the strange behavior with DVRs.