I've had a R-10 for a couple of years. Last week it started rebooting itself hourly, so we called D*.
For $19.95, they'd send us a reconditioned R-15 for a one year committment. Not great, but given the options, it seemed like the best thing to do.
So, three days later a box arrives - with a D-11 inside. 45 minutes later on the phone with Customer No-Service and a R-15 was on the way.
Two days later, a reconditioned R-15 arrived. I should note that during the time from when the wrong box arrived and now, the R-10 stabilized and stopped rebooting itself. I went ahead and installed the R-15 anyway.
Call to activate. Find out that I need to commit to two years and not one. Bounce up to a higher tier. They won't give in on the two years. Ugh. I hold my nose and agree. Big mistake.
Fire up the R-15 and realize that what everyone on this board has said is true: this is the biggest piece of crap that I've seen since the DVR that we had with Time Warner - except that the Time Warner DVR was easier to understand.
I decided to try programming a season pass like I used to do on the Tivo. Clunky interface note #1: when searching for The Sopranos in the Tivo, you look under S (Sopranos, The). In the R-15, you look under T, for The. After cursing that, I attempted to set up the series link. I couldn't do it from that screen, despite what the book said. Clunky user interface note #2: several times during receiver setup or using the program guide, the unit would not respond or would catch up to my button presses by executing three or four pushes after a 10 second wait. Clunky user interface #3 - as with the D-10, there is no way to hide channels in the program guide that you don't get. The "Channels I Get" will display everything - including all the channels that you don't get - and cannot be edited. If you program a Favorites, it won't stick half the time.
Note to DirecTV: if you have to publish a 16 page "quick start" guide to teach me how to record the friggin Sopranos when I could figure it out by picking up my DirecTivo remote - and I do tech support for a living, don't expect this box to pass the Wife test - especially when you're forcing me to keep your buggy POS for two years.
So, I called D* back, turned off the R-15, reinstalled the R-10, and put the R-15 back in the box. They neglected to include a return label with this POS, so they have to send me a new box so I can get the return label.
Things to take away from my experience:
-- Everything you've read about the R-15 is true. Perhaps if your only exposure to a DVR is one of the Scientific Atlanta cable boxes, this won't be so bad... but moving from the R-10 to a R-15 is like moving from a Lexus to a Yugo.
-- D*'s customer service doesn't handle box exchanges very well. They wasted my time and their money sending the wrong box - and then sending the right box without the proper return authorization. This is no way to run a business
-- If you have a R-10, do what you can to keep it running.
-- If this is what I have to look forward to with moving to HD, I suppose I should start shopping for a used HD Tivo on E-bay, because I don't want to go through the same frustration. I expect new technology to do more, not less.
-- The one thing that the R-15 does better than the R-10 is the startup - it's much faster. On the other hand, the graphics on the R-15 are crude in comparison.
I had read all the complaints on this board and thought that people must be nitpicky - and surely they've fixed the bugs in two years. Nope. They started with a craptacular basic satellite box and added a DVR with craptacular controls and dressed it up with a bunch of blue LED's on the front panel.
FedEx can't take this box off my hands fast enough. Good riddance!
For $19.95, they'd send us a reconditioned R-15 for a one year committment. Not great, but given the options, it seemed like the best thing to do.
So, three days later a box arrives - with a D-11 inside. 45 minutes later on the phone with Customer No-Service and a R-15 was on the way.
Two days later, a reconditioned R-15 arrived. I should note that during the time from when the wrong box arrived and now, the R-10 stabilized and stopped rebooting itself. I went ahead and installed the R-15 anyway.
Call to activate. Find out that I need to commit to two years and not one. Bounce up to a higher tier. They won't give in on the two years. Ugh. I hold my nose and agree. Big mistake.
Fire up the R-15 and realize that what everyone on this board has said is true: this is the biggest piece of crap that I've seen since the DVR that we had with Time Warner - except that the Time Warner DVR was easier to understand.
I decided to try programming a season pass like I used to do on the Tivo. Clunky interface note #1: when searching for The Sopranos in the Tivo, you look under S (Sopranos, The). In the R-15, you look under T, for The. After cursing that, I attempted to set up the series link. I couldn't do it from that screen, despite what the book said. Clunky user interface note #2: several times during receiver setup or using the program guide, the unit would not respond or would catch up to my button presses by executing three or four pushes after a 10 second wait. Clunky user interface #3 - as with the D-10, there is no way to hide channels in the program guide that you don't get. The "Channels I Get" will display everything - including all the channels that you don't get - and cannot be edited. If you program a Favorites, it won't stick half the time.
Note to DirecTV: if you have to publish a 16 page "quick start" guide to teach me how to record the friggin Sopranos when I could figure it out by picking up my DirecTivo remote - and I do tech support for a living, don't expect this box to pass the Wife test - especially when you're forcing me to keep your buggy POS for two years.
So, I called D* back, turned off the R-15, reinstalled the R-10, and put the R-15 back in the box. They neglected to include a return label with this POS, so they have to send me a new box so I can get the return label.
Things to take away from my experience:
-- Everything you've read about the R-15 is true. Perhaps if your only exposure to a DVR is one of the Scientific Atlanta cable boxes, this won't be so bad... but moving from the R-10 to a R-15 is like moving from a Lexus to a Yugo.
-- D*'s customer service doesn't handle box exchanges very well. They wasted my time and their money sending the wrong box - and then sending the right box without the proper return authorization. This is no way to run a business
-- If you have a R-10, do what you can to keep it running.
-- If this is what I have to look forward to with moving to HD, I suppose I should start shopping for a used HD Tivo on E-bay, because I don't want to go through the same frustration. I expect new technology to do more, not less.
-- The one thing that the R-15 does better than the R-10 is the startup - it's much faster. On the other hand, the graphics on the R-15 are crude in comparison.
I had read all the complaints on this board and thought that people must be nitpicky - and surely they've fixed the bugs in two years. Nope. They started with a craptacular basic satellite box and added a DVR with craptacular controls and dressed it up with a bunch of blue LED's on the front panel.
FedEx can't take this box off my hands fast enough. Good riddance!
