DISH, Please Use Us to Test Software
- Thread starter JSheridan
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One example, of which there are many more, it took me about 5 minutes to see that Multi-Swap wasn't working right through the last 2 updates. It works the same for everybody and apparently they missed it.
I got to be honest... I still haven't figured out the Multiview feature yet.
Wow, you are fast at responding!
It works good except it doesn't stay paused and goes to live TV when you swap between more than 2 tuners.
I don't even know how to access it, let alone use it !I got to be honest... I still haven't figured out the Multiview feature yet.
For all the valid points of not having users here do beta testing, or that it would be a limited improvement, none outweigh what some here would contribute overall. I get that some "bugs" might not hold up a release, or some might not even be considered a bug. But over the years how many times have we shook our heads wondering how a particular widespread problem didn't get weeded out that was found within hours of a release. (Sometimes minutes)
Scott did hit it on the head however, I can think of many times people reported a "bug" or problem that I never saw or in the end even though some had it, the vast majority did not. Right now the artifacts on what seems to be for a few channels seems to be showing for a handful of people on the boards on the same receivers I have, I see no problem.
But with all that said, JSheridan is correct, where are there better beta testers than here?
Scott did hit it on the head however, I can think of many times people reported a "bug" or problem that I never saw or in the end even though some had it, the vast majority did not. Right now the artifacts on what seems to be for a few channels seems to be showing for a handful of people on the boards on the same receivers I have, I see no problem.
But with all that said, JSheridan is correct, where are there better beta testers than here?
Resources are limited, and priorities must be set. Not everything will be fixed "soon" or possibly even ever.
As others have pointed out before, if they waited until everything was fixed, or believed fixed, the product would never ship.
As others have pointed out before, if they waited until everything was fixed, or believed fixed, the product would never ship.
Maybe you missed Scott's post that said that there are beta testers from here...
Post 29.
While it may be fun to play, I don't believe that DIRECTV's CE program is nearly as valuable to squashing bugs as many seem to think. There's pretty much no way that the current delete on exit bug could have made it through even a haphazard testing program. You have to wonder if the CE code was much at all like the NR code if the problem didn't manifest until after the NR went into the stream.
Let's face it; modern programmers are extremely dependent on third parties in their development efforts. Code generated by cross complers and API libraries are the order of the day when you have to cover multiple architectures, so you're going to be leaning pretty heavily on translations of your ideas that may or may not be particularly faithful depending on what the development tools choose to do with it.
If the programmers aren't willing to get down and dirty with what they're trying to do, it is next to impossible to thoroughly test it. All the "under the hood" and "bugfixes" comments are pretty useless if the challenge is to find fault with what was done.
There are other times when software has to be released and to you it might appear it fixed nothing... and in fact for many of the issues it might have fixed nothing... that you can see.
Those are under the hood updates which could be things like updates to the security stream or updates for contractual reasons such as enabling HDCP for the HBO channels.
A lot of the code used by the Hopper was not written by DISH / ECHOSTAR and instead is provided by their chipset vendor. Many times waiting for a fix is waiting for a vendor to give them a update.
Trust me when I tell you that they are watching, making notes and working on fixing the issues you are finding.
As for the CE program, its not the same CE program it was. Now its just more a pacifier for people to think they are helping DIRECTV and or is there when DIRECTV needs some extra testing done on something. But now most of the testing is done by private testers outside of the CE program. When is the last time you see a real new feature come to the CE program? Ultimately the issue with the CE program was people calling DIRECTV upset they were having issues with CE software and the CSR's not having any way to help these folks as they were not trained on the new software in testing yet.
Who knows when DISH will ask us to help pick more testers again but if they do we will be here to help them as we want to help them make their products better for all.
Those are under the hood updates which could be things like updates to the security stream or updates for contractual reasons such as enabling HDCP for the HBO channels.
A lot of the code used by the Hopper was not written by DISH / ECHOSTAR and instead is provided by their chipset vendor. Many times waiting for a fix is waiting for a vendor to give them a update.
Trust me when I tell you that they are watching, making notes and working on fixing the issues you are finding.
As for the CE program, its not the same CE program it was. Now its just more a pacifier for people to think they are helping DIRECTV and or is there when DIRECTV needs some extra testing done on something. But now most of the testing is done by private testers outside of the CE program. When is the last time you see a real new feature come to the CE program? Ultimately the issue with the CE program was people calling DIRECTV upset they were having issues with CE software and the CSR's not having any way to help these folks as they were not trained on the new software in testing yet.
Who knows when DISH will ask us to help pick more testers again but if they do we will be here to help them as we want to help them make their products better for all.
Are the testers informed as to what is supposed to be fixed and what new features have been added? Or, are they just given the new release with no knowledge about what has changed, like us?
That I couldn't answer. I don't think any tester could either as they are bound by NDA's.
If they're not informed, it makes perfect sense as to why many seemingly obvious bugs make it through.
Nobody said they weren't informed. I just said they can't tell what they are and are not told.
