Wish List of DVR Features - Next SW Upgrade

[Karri]

I would really love for the VIP series DVR's to be able to stream recordings via LAN from one box to another.

ie. Use the VIP DVR(connected to my home LAN) in my bedroom to play a recorded show from the VIP DVR(connected to my home LAN) in my living room.

Possible, but will probably be a long time in coming.

*edit* or looking at this another way, viewing another VIP DVR's recordings similar to EHD, but via the network instead of a USB cable.

Ditto, I would love this feature.

I would also love to have a favorites list where I could exclude channels rather than adding them. So whenever dish got around to adding a new channel, the person using the favorites list would realize there is a new channel. As it currently is, the favorites list only shows the channels you add to it so if anything new is added and you mainly use a favorites list, then you would never know that you have new options.

 

[claytonboen]

I would like to see a REAL use of the constant record feature. I'll explain what I mean.

Right now, if I am watching a show and press pause, that she is recorded for up to an hour, once that hour is up, it automatically plays...

Now, lets say I begin recording "Terminator" on FOX, and I start watching it 25 minutes in. I watch the whole show, but the last few seconds are cut off. I figure, no problem, I'll just go to live TV and rewind back to terminator, as the last half hour of the show should be there, as the turner did not change channels.

That's the way it works with Tivo, that's the way it works with my old cable DVR, but that isn't the way it works with the 722.

Does that make sense?

 

[nyvram]

claytonboen..see my response at the bottom of page 2. ;-)

 

[eddieras]

I would like to see a REAL use of the constant record feature. I'll explain what I mean.

Right now, if I am watching a show and press pause, that she is recorded for up to an hour, once that hour is up, it automatically plays...

Now, lets say I begin recording "Terminator" on FOX, and I start watching it 25 minutes in. I watch the whole show, but the last few seconds are cut off. I figure, no problem, I'll just go to live TV and rewind back to terminator, as the last half hour of the show should be there, as the turner did not change channels.

That's the way it works with Tivo, that's the way it works with my old cable DVR, but that isn't the way it works with the 722.

Does that make sense?

makes perfect sense! very annoying we can't do that

 

[Hall]

Buffering-all-the-time used to occur on my 522 but they took it away with a s/w update. It never worked on my 622 as I suspect it got the same s/w engineering change the 522 did. When we had Time Warner with a 8000-series HD DVR and Passport software, it used to buffer constantly. When TW switched to their home-grown software, they removed this feature. I believe this is related to hard-drive life and that constant buffering was (statistically) causing excessive drive failures.

 

[snissen]

How about the ability to "clip" shows. I sometimes record an hour+ of HD for a 10 minute segment. It would be nice to say "delete everything before/after this point"

ditto, in one specific circumstance: I record a sports event, and the timer grabs an extra hour at the end, in case it runs late. I watch the event and see that it ran only 10 minutes late, so mu recording is 50 minutes too long. I'd like to chop off that 50 minutes before I move it to my external hard drive.

(Which is a Seagate FreeAgent Desktop, BTW, and works great.)

 

[AdamGott]

I concur about the adult stuff. I would take it one step further and wish AO programming could be hidden on the guide itself. I have all the CINEMAX and HBO channels right now during the 'free 3 months' and my kids often tune the tv looking for stuff to record. I don't want to block the whole channel; there are appropriate shows on the CINEMAX channels during the day but not at night. If it would just put a gray area/no description for those events (yes, they're already locked) that way my kid won't have to see "kinky cheerleaders from mars" in the channel guide and wonder what that is.

I would like to see them go one step further and make a new classification for things that are unrated (like a digital subchannel on one of my locals) other than 'adults only/unrated' because I have to either get rid of my locks or enter a password every time I go to one of these things that shouldn't be password protected.

 

[AdamGott]

ditto for watching sports delayed-- even when you select Start Over -there's a wee bit of time where it shows live ! i've learned to mute and squint

Ha! The good old 'mute and squint' method... I thought I was the only one that did this.

Now I have to figure out how to not look at tv's when I go out to public places. It never seems to fail that I somehow manage to glance at a tv at just the right time and see the score on the ticker to a hockey game that I was planning on watching later.

 

[AdamGott]

yeah, i've gotten pretty good at that.

I always try to hit PAUSE-SELECT-SELECT before I turn the tv on and then hopefully it is at the DVR listings menu with no audio. You still have to squint or you will see the score in the top right corner window.

 

[ctjr]

Don't know if this works and I just don't know how, but back in my Tivo days, if I was watching a show and decided to go ahead and record it well into it, Tivo recorded the ENTIRE show (so long as it wasn't out of the buffer).

I hate having partial recordings with the beginning missing) when that happens!

 

[jbenn]

I would like to see them go one step further and make a new classification for things that are unrated (like a digital subchannel on one of my locals) other than 'adults only/unrated' because I have to either get rid of my locks or enter a password every time I go to one of these things that shouldn't be password protected.

Great point on this.

I once used the system locks to lock out Adult stuff, only to find out that the filter was so restrictive that it would block out anything at all that simply had not been rated. Stuff that was entirely legitimate and appropriate for my kids was being blocked, and I would have to drop what I was doing to go punch in the code so that they could watch the show. And of course, they like to flip around channels, so I was doing this more often than once every half hour.

The experiment only lasted a couple of days and I removed the block.

In a similar vein, I tried to block content that had sexual content. This stuff has the code "SC" in the description block if you use the Info button on the remote. Somewhere, the legend in the menu says that SC = Strong Sexual Content, but in practice many, many shows get tagged with the SC code (even really innocuous kids' shows, that I don't consider to have anything sexual in them, get tagged with the SC code). Anyway, it blocked out so much content that the filter was unusable.

I ended up taking that on off too.

 

[aperry]

Don't know if this works and I just don't know how, but back in my Tivo days, if I was watching a show and decided to go ahead and record it well into it, Tivo recorded the ENTIRE show (so long as it wasn't out of the buffer).

I hate having partial recordings with the beginning missing) when that happens!

This can be done on the 622 and 722 as well. Hit the record option, then go to options and select "record entire event". Like Tivo, this only works if the entire show is in the current buffer.

 

[huskerpat]

I would really love for the VIP series DVR's to be able to stream recordings via LAN from one box to another.

ie. Use the VIP DVR(connected to my home LAN) in my bedroom to play a recorded show from the VIP DVR(connected to my home LAN) in my living room.

Possible, but will probably be a long time in coming.

*edit* or looking at this another way, viewing another VIP DVR's recordings similar to EHD, but via the network instead of a USB cable.

This is my number one wish.

 

[eddieras]

Ha! The good old 'mute and squint' method... I thought I was the only one that did this.

Now I have to figure out how to not look at tv's when I go out to public places. It never seems to fail that I somehow manage to glance at a tv at just the right time and see the score on the ticker to a hockey game that I was planning on watching later.

oh man! i can identify with that - it's like seeing those wet paint signs - how can you not touch it??

 

[patmurphey]

This can be fixed. If you connect the FreeAgent drive to a PC with the Seagate software, and you can turn off the timeout. Worked fine for me, but if I remember correctly, this requires a reformat of the drive. My EHD is a 750GB FreeAgent, and once I did this, I have never had timeout issues.

The Seagate software will do this timeout setting with the drive already formatted by Dish.

 

[jrfuda]

I agree with all of these feature requests and have one to add:

- A REAL screen saver that kicks in after a user-defined amount of time to help prevent image retention on plasma TVs. This can be turned-off completely, of course - and would have to be a real screen saver, with a bit more motion to it than the standby screen saver (which returns the static dish logo to the same spot waaay too often).

 

[BobMurdoch]

My wish list.....

Move all Adult content to a separate menu item so Leather Goddesses of Phobos doesn't wind up next to Let's Watch Hannah Montana..... Locked Event shows up if the device is locked, but I'd prefer if it wasn't there....

For the love of all that's holy, PLEASE make it so that when I am looking at recordings on the USB drive, it doesn't send me all the way back to the top every time I stop watching a show, but to the same point on the list that I was when I first started watching archived content..... When I have a bunch of shows recorded (Ie. Smallville), it sends me back to the top and I have to scroll way down to get to the next one on the list.... Repeat ad nauseum..... aargh.

Oh, and make the archived content hidden under a separate menu choice when you have the group by folders choice selected.... It is easier to scan through this way, but I keep most of the R Rated and Adult content on the other drive to keep the kiddies out

 

[eddieras]

agreed- i'm new to the EHD - had to replace my 722 - i watch a show and then can't tell which one it is to delete from the EHD! can't they have delete as a choice when done watching it like the regular HD?

also, i notice on my original 722 i had a folder under My Recordings labeled MY Media. but on my newly installed 722 there is no folder there - i have to access the EHD shows via the My Media under the main menu -

 

[jrfuda]

For the love of all that\'s holy, PLEASE make it so that when I am looking at recordings on the USB drive, it doesn\'t send me all the way back to the top every time I stop watching a show, but to the same point on the list that I was when I first started watching archived content..... When I have a bunch of shows recorded (Ie. Smallville), it sends me back to the top and I have to scroll way down to get to the next one on the list.... Repeat ad nauseum..... aargh.

I agree 110%. I do not understand why the interface for the EHD has to be different. We have over 350 episodes of kids shows (Blue Clues, Dora, Diego, Thomas...) and it is a royal pain to navigate, especially when you\'re playig a show from the end of the list - and once it\'s over - want to play the episode right after it... lot\'s of paging down...

 

[shrefler]

This is my number one wish.

I agree with distributing media. I'd like a way to be able to send HD Content to any DVR in my house. Also, along those lines, it would be great if I could choose mulitple receivers to record to. For example, I've got a 722 in my living room and a 722 in my basement. I'm watching both 722 tuners in my living room, and I don't want to bother going downstairs to set a recording for a 3rd show. It would be great to say, record this event on Downstairs-Tuner-1....

Make sense?