I recently had my D* gear turned back on as I wean myself off of having both services. Been using the Hopper/SJ with Dish for quite a few months. Here's some observations, warts and all!
1. The first thing I noted was how much of a step backward the UI is on D*! I've said before that D* missed an ideal opportunity to make a really good UI when they brought out the Genie. Unfortunately they chose not to. The HD GUI is nothing more or less than the old text UI gussied up a little. And also so much wasted space on the screen while in the UI. The day of small screen, non-HD TVs is long gone. This needs a lot of work in the look and feel department.
2. Channels-I-Get - what a mess! It should be 'channels I can get if I want to pay more', because that is much more descriptive of what it actually is. And if all it did was make a fairly meaningless listing, it would be not so much of an issue. But it affects series links and such. I'm seeing lots of recordings of boxing shows on channels I do not get, which is just clutter that has no value. A couple years ago it was noted that D* was 'embarassed' about it, but it seems not enough to actually fix it!
3. 1.5 guide width - again, waste of space for no really good reason
4. EHD support = just a poor way to do it. No archiving, no using what is on it if you have to change out a DVR for any reason. This should have been changed years ago.
Now some good...
1. PQ is noticeably better on fast actions sports, not so much to my eyes otherwise. I like that.
2. Chronological listing of what's on a channel, I really like that, comes in very handy at times.
3. Show info - always did like that D* has the cast and info about them, like upcoming shows or which shows/movies a particular actor is in.
4. The Genie mini remote - I've learned to love it. Once you figger out the quirks it has, it is a really nice remote. Would be nice if it was really programmable, or at least allow for turning on/off an AVR but that's not a big deal to me.
I'd like to see a complete change in the UI's look and feel, but with AT&T buying D*, I'm not sure we'll ever see that. Currently the UI is very old and looks ancient compared to almost any other UI on a cable/sat box, or at least the ones I've seen.
Overall I'm OK with either service, and they both have the channels I watch in HD with the exception of Showtime Extreme being HD on Direct and only SD on Dish.
1. The first thing I noted was how much of a step backward the UI is on D*! I've said before that D* missed an ideal opportunity to make a really good UI when they brought out the Genie. Unfortunately they chose not to. The HD GUI is nothing more or less than the old text UI gussied up a little. And also so much wasted space on the screen while in the UI. The day of small screen, non-HD TVs is long gone. This needs a lot of work in the look and feel department.
2. Channels-I-Get - what a mess! It should be 'channels I can get if I want to pay more', because that is much more descriptive of what it actually is. And if all it did was make a fairly meaningless listing, it would be not so much of an issue. But it affects series links and such. I'm seeing lots of recordings of boxing shows on channels I do not get, which is just clutter that has no value. A couple years ago it was noted that D* was 'embarassed' about it, but it seems not enough to actually fix it!
3. 1.5 guide width - again, waste of space for no really good reason
4. EHD support = just a poor way to do it. No archiving, no using what is on it if you have to change out a DVR for any reason. This should have been changed years ago.
Now some good...
1. PQ is noticeably better on fast actions sports, not so much to my eyes otherwise. I like that.
2. Chronological listing of what's on a channel, I really like that, comes in very handy at times.
3. Show info - always did like that D* has the cast and info about them, like upcoming shows or which shows/movies a particular actor is in.
4. The Genie mini remote - I've learned to love it. Once you figger out the quirks it has, it is a really nice remote. Would be nice if it was really programmable, or at least allow for turning on/off an AVR but that's not a big deal to me.
I'd like to see a complete change in the UI's look and feel, but with AT&T buying D*, I'm not sure we'll ever see that. Currently the UI is very old and looks ancient compared to almost any other UI on a cable/sat box, or at least the ones I've seen.
Overall I'm OK with either service, and they both have the channels I watch in HD with the exception of Showtime Extreme being HD on Direct and only SD on Dish.
