Rumor: DirecTV considering buying Tivo

[cfb]

Yeah Jim, I know you're a much, much less demanding user than I am. IIRC you only have a dozen or so series links, watch a lot of live tv, dont have a lot of overlapping recordings, and you dont have a 5 year old in your house whose shows record 3-5 times a day, which pretty much means my dvr's are recording on both tuners all day long.

The directv product is tuned to people who watch a lot of live tv, arent demanding dvr users like I am, havent come from a long experience with a fairly stable and reliable product, arent into ppv's and instant on screen pop up info based on a live tv viewing experience, have a long and familiar experience with the directv user interface, etc.

Its a wonderful product compared to a vcr, and I imagine for someone coming from a couple of regular non dvr receivers that isnt a big tv watcher, its as revolutionary and exciting as when I plugged a tivo in between my directv receiver and my tv in 1999.

The directv product would really fit my bill if they'd allow more than 50 series links, do some stuff when I'm not using the box instead of doing all sorts of stuff in real time, and fix a few bugs in their recording logic that would cut down on the number of unnecessary recordings the box does all day long, along with making searches only give me results for the channels I get and not 400 pages of pay-per-views that I'll never buy.

But this isnt stuff that they want to do, or that the majority of their customers really care about.

 

[Jimbo]

Yeah Jim, I know you're a much, much less demanding user than I am. IIRC you only have a dozen or so series links, watch a lot of live tv, dont have a lot of overlapping recordings, and you dont have a 5 year old in your house whose shows record 3-5 times a day, which pretty much means my dvr's are recording on both tuners all day long.

The directv product is tuned to people who watch a lot of live tv, arent demanding dvr users like I am, havent come from a long experience with a fairly stable and reliable product, arent into ppv's and instant on screen pop up info based on a live tv viewing experience, have a long and familiar experience with the directv user interface, etc.

Its a wonderful product compared to a vcr, and I imagine for someone coming from a couple of regular non dvr receivers that isnt a big tv watcher, its as revolutionary and exciting as when I plugged a tivo in between my directv receiver and my tv in 1999.

The directv product would really fit my bill if they'd allow more than 50 series links, do some stuff when I'm not using the box instead of doing all sorts of stuff in real time, and fix a few bugs in their recording logic that would cut down on the number of unnecessary recordings the box does all day long, along with making searches only give me results for the channels I get and not 400 pages of pay-per-views that I'll never buy.

But this isnt stuff that they want to do, or that the majority of their customers really care about.

Your smart enough, why don't you go out and get yourself a team of developers and build your own so it does EVERYTHING YOU want and need it to do.
Then market it as yours and put a nice price tag on it so you can make a million or two and hope someone buys it at that cost.

Seems there's WAY better things to do that complain with the unit not handling the 51-150 RECORDED shows that you can't get that you have to have every episode of.

Of course the box has other things it does in the back ground, for which I don't have a problem with neither do the majority of us.

You don't want to PAY for any of this and expect them to stop by your place and GIVE it to you while changing a lot of thier programming to fit YOUR needs while they are at it.

The majority of us use a HD DVR as a normal family would, not to record EVERY show available ....

I still have NO IDEA how you find time to watch anything.

As for watching nothing "Live" thats fine, it would drive me nuts to know that I have to watch everything a week later.
I prefer to watch "Live " programming and if I can't be there, because I have better things to do at the time, my HD DVR will take care of it for me and I'll catch up later in the day or week.
I would guess that thats how at least 75% of the world works it.

I would REALLY feel bad for you if the hard drive your using would go bad , and they do from time to time, particularly if they are running at higher heat than whats required.
For you to lose all that programming from the last 3 months, unless of course you decide to move all that on to disc.

Ya know, it's TV, not life and death surgery.

 

[stonecold]

I keep my HRs busy with both tuners and dont have his problems until I start to try to download ondemand plus record two shows .

I am not saying that I would call the hr2x perfect or great but are alot better then standard cable hddvrs I seen.

 

[Araxen]

The only things I watch live is sports and premium channel shows. Any other shows I watch are at least on a minimum 20 minute delay so I can fast-forward through all the commercials.

 

[cfb]

Wow Jim, what a bucket of vinegar! I usually dont bother with these multipart diatribes but I'm strangely compelled to respond to your gross over exaggerations. All I was trying to get across is that for heavy dvr users and people afflicted by some of the shortcomings in the product, its not that great. And that I dont think its fair that I have to fork over more money and tie myself down to it for 2 years just to resolve that.

After all, its all you 'majority' of people who like the product just fine that are crowing about how much less it sucks when you buy HR24's, and this all came from your urging that I go out and buy all new hardware to make the software run right, wasnt it?

Seems there's WAY better things to do that complain with the unit not handling the 51-150 RECORDED shows that you can't get that you have to have every episode of.

I'm listening.

Of course the box has other things it does in the back ground, for which I don't have a problem with neither do the majority of us.

Yet it doesnt have to do them in real time, nor does it need to disturb my user interface response time. Thats just a problem with the design. And if you dont have a problem with it and neither do the majority of whoever 'us' is, why are you all buying HR24's or wanting to buy them to fix the problems your claiming you dont have?

You don't want to PAY for any of this and expect them to stop by your place and GIVE it to you while changing a lot of thier programming to fit YOUR needs while they are at it.

I did pay for it, and I pay for it every month. As I said, with the exception of MRV I'm not asking the product to do anything that directv wasnt advertising that it can do when I bought them. Plus I dont believe I asked anyone to change any programming to fit my needs.

The majority of us use a HD DVR as a normal family would, not to record EVERY show available ....

Ah, so something doesnt work for me when I have different needs from you, and now my family is abnormal. Very nice. I also have no interest at all in recording every show available. Just the ones I ask it to.

I still have NO IDEA how you find time to watch anything.

Thats easy. We all watch a couple of shows a day, just like 97% of the rest of the people in the united states. I have shows I like, my wife has shows she likes, my son has shows he likes. We have some overlap shows we all like. Some are on in the summer, some are on in the winter, some are short run specials or miniseries.

I could spend hours and hours every year adding and removing seasonal shows, but I got used to using a product for 7 years that didnt require that I do that.

Part of the problem is a bug in the directv product. If I tell it to record 5 shows and then keep them until I delete them, it ignores the latter instruction and deletes and records more shows. We have about 25 series links for cooking shows and kids animations where we only want 5 episodes, any 5 episodes. Tivo and Mythtv and Replay and everything else I've used honors both the KAM and KUID instructions. Directv's product doesnt.

So the box is almost constantly recording shows that are of no value to me. Since its always trying to record a bunch of stuff, I cant even watch live tv because its constantly forcing me to cancel shows that are about to record.

As for watching nothing "Live" thats fine, it would drive me nuts to know that I have to watch everything a week later.

Man, you are the master of over-the-top strawman building, arent you?

I almost never watch anything thats a live event a week later. I usually watch it while its being recorded, but offset for my convenience and so I dont have to watch commercials. Just like 97% of the rest of dvr users. We do have some series that we record in their entirety during the winter months and watch later in the spring or summer.

I would guess that thats how at least 75% of the world works it.

And as I work it. But do keep trying to push me into some abnormal alien box where people expect their products to work well without being told they have to go back to the well and spend another wad of cash to really make it work right.

I would REALLY feel bad for you if the hard drive your using would go bad , and they do from time to time, particularly if they are running at higher heat than whats required.
For you to lose all that programming from the last 3 months, unless of course you decide to move all that on to disc.

And that does happen. But most of the time we can watch stuff thats important to us before the drive craps out, or get it off the internet, or rent the dvd. The amount of stuff we have thats three months old is fairly rare.

Ya know, it's TV, not life and death surgery.

So unless something rises to the level of life and death surgery, we shouldnt point out how it impacts us? We shouldnt make constructive criticism of where the product could be better? Its funny because this 'Hey its just tv!' or 'Its not life and death!' comment seems to come up a lot when you mention directv's shortcomings, but usually its the dbstalk fanboys that roll that gem out.

Hell, I'll bet there are life and death surgery discussion forums where nobody has 21,000 posts.