If it was directed at D, I would think that you would be a little more precise with your statements and have given a report number. As we all know, a CE release is not meant to be perfect, so to assume so is just nieve. If you just meant to rant to the boys at Sat Guys, I do apologize.
Since directv doesnt read this site for CE purposes, its definitely not to them. I dont produce reports anymore because I dont think directv looks at them unless they see a CE post that describes what problem is occurring so they know what to look for. Since I dont think they read here...
You're right, the CE is not meant to be perfect, but it is a sounding board to try things out and a lot of the things that are tried are rescinded or changed as a result of the feedback people get. While I dont believe that directv will read anything that I write here, I have many other ways to give them feedback, including directly to the senior developers and marketing folks.
I do have to admit to a number of pet peeves. One is fixing things that arent broken. One is changing user interface look and feel without really producing a significant functional benefit to both the new user and the existing customer base, because change is usually awkward and annoying to the latter. Another is spending time and money on things that might be 'nice to have' while things that are giant major pains in the butt or really attractive features seem to get limited resources.
In the directv world, some pet peeves include making the product arbitrarily look or work differently from other dvrs. This can be a big impediment to people migrating from a tivo or dish network box (or PC based pvr's) to directv.
I see what they're doing here. It started as "Hey, we can make this look a lot like google!" and for someone who has used computers and not used a dvr before, that might be intuitive. For anyone who has used a dvr before, its unfamiliar. I see from the searches that since the search loops in far more stuff than the old title/category type search it DOES give you more information (if more was what you were looking for), but it also shows me a ton of premium channels I dont get and ppv content I dont want. That problem is why the 'search' and autorecord functions of the directv dvr are 110% useless to me. I have to wade through so much stuff that I dont want that it just takes too long. And I cant turn off the channels I dont get or dont want, and that is something I've been told will never be an option because directv wants me to look at all this stuff I could buy, that I wont buy and dont want.
I would much rather see directv hone the mrv feature, fix 'channels I get" to really be channels I get, fix the keyword autorecord to not record things I'm not subscribed to, improve the response time of the box and remote control, add media player/netflix/youtube type functionality directly to the box, roll out and officially support large external disk storage, a high definition user interface, etc, etc.
Instead this cycle has included a return of many mrv bugs that were previously fixed, lots of effort to remove tabs from the UI, playing about with font sizes and other cosmetic stuff.
Okay, ranting and raving is over...:rant:
