My Top Five Improvements to Dish DVR software

[PHXHoward]

I've got a VIP722 and would like to see the following improvements to the Dish DVR software.

1. A button to do directly to "My Recordings". 99% of the time when I press the DVR button, I want to view my recorded shows but I have to push it twice to get there. There really is nothing on the Dish on Demand screen for me but I have to pass it each time.

2. If I see a show coming up in the program guide and hit record, it lets me set my recording options such as "once". Only then does it tell me that there is a timer conflict. The only options that I have are to resolve by priority meaning the new recording will be stuck at the bottom of the timers list and not get recorded, or the other option to change the priority of this timer.

There is no cancel option to cancel out of scheduling the recording so this means that I have to see it in my timers list until it passes. This just makes the list longer and I have to pass it and other timers each time I want to adjust priorities. A solution would be a way to search for later showings and pick one of those instead. If a later showing is upcoming then I would schedule that instead. If there are no up coming showings then I might choose to record this show instead of another timer. If I push record for an upcoming show then find out I won't be able to record it, why can't I back out? I can go into timers and delete it but that is a lot of steps for something I just thought I would record on a whim then decided it was not important enough to cancel something else.

3. The program guide/Search does not list the full name of programs. For instance, I keep seeing "Harry Potter and..." listed but I have no idea which of the movies this is. Even hitting INFO does not display any more of the title. How can I find out which Harry Potter movie this is?

4. When searching, a show will come up three of four times at the same timeslot because the channel is in the program guide several times for example as a 9000s channel. Why are the same channels listed more than once? I just want to see them once.

5. When I put the DVR into standby, it stops recording the channel it was on. If this is the case and the DVR is not actually recording anything, it should go into a low power mode just like a PC where the fan stops running and the hard drive spins down. This DVR just runs all day and night making heat and using electricity when nothing is being recorded.

These are my biggest issues right now. I hope they are addressed in an update.

 

[srbCARROLLTON]

Everything you said are valid issues and I will print your comments and submit them to engineering (though they will likely not be addressed) exept for one thing... When you search for a program and the name is displayed like "Life Today with..." if you hit the info button it does come up with the info screen with the entire name...

 

[PHXHoward]

Everything you said are valid issues and I will print your comments and submit them to engineering (though they will likely not be addressed) exept for one thing... When you search for a program and the name is displayed like "Life Today with..." if you hit the info button it does come up with the info screen with the entire name...

For me it does not come up with the full name. Wednesday night on HBO is Harry Potter... Hitting INFO does not give the full title. Maybe that is the extent of the program guide data given to Dish but I see this often enough.

 

[Foxbat]

#3 is the fault of TV Guide/Tribune, not a failing of the DVR software. The DVR can't show what isn't there...

 

[PHXHoward]

Oh they are not in order of importance. Just tried to think of five things that I think could be improved.

 

[TheKrell]

Agree with your #1, but the rest are IMHO lower down than these:

#2 Make it so that the TV2 remote can view the full guide w/OTA channels and set up recordings thereon. Better yet, give it full control of the OTA tuner just like TV1. Contention between holders of remotes is far far less important than having TV2 access to that tuner.

#3 Enable IR control of TV2, just like TV1. This is for Slingbox and Hava owners, as well as those with fancy IR remotes.

#4 Have an option that turns off the damnable standby-mode screen-saver. This half-baked idea messes up operation of automatic video switches.

#5 Make it so that canceling the playback of a recording goes back to your last list of programs with the current program highlighted, not all the way back out to the root of the program file system! (This may occur only when you have grouped your recordings. But doesn't everybody group their recorded programs?) This "return to the root" is so annoying and time consuming, and you can very easily lose your place in long lists. It's very difficult to play grouped recordings sequentially because of this brain-dead feature.

 

[bebop]

3. How can I find out which Harry Potter movie this is?

Go online or check the paper.

4. When searching, a show will come up three of four times at the same timeslot because the channel is in the program guide several times.... Why are the same channels listed more than once?

Go to your locks and change the settings to not show locked channels (hide) and then lock all the channels you have duplicates of that you don't ever tune to.

5. When I put the DVR into standby, it stops recording the channel it was on.

Huh? If mine is recording it keeps recording even when I put it into standby (power off) mode. Did you word that right, or just have an odd-ball receiver?

 

[JEFFinINDY]

I'd add:

* A one-click delete. It takes way too many button presses to delete a show, and having to confirm every deletion has annoyed me since day 1 with Dish.

* A Deleted Items folder like TiVO has, where you can recover a deleted show, and which is automatically emptied as DVR space is needed.

* Better interface and more organization to the On Demand content.

 

[PHXHoward]

Huh? If mine is recording it keeps recording even when I put it into standby (power off) mode. Did you word that right, or just have an odd-ball receiver?

Mine does too. What I mean is if there is no scheduled recording and I hit power, it stops recording whatever channel it was on. ie the back buffer.

So if there is no recording going on, why can't the thing actually go into a standby mode? It stays on and is hot and noisy when it does not need to be.

EDIT: also thanks for the locks tip. I'm going to go ahead and lock and hide the duplicates and also lock and hide the SD versions of each channel.

 

[PHXHoward]

I'd add:

* A one-click delete. It takes way too many button presses to delete a show, and having to confirm every deletion has annoyed me since day 1 with Dish.

* A Deleted Items folder like TiVO has, where you can recover a deleted show, and which is automatically emptied as DVR space is needed.

* Better interface and more organization to the On Demand content.

I agree with all of these. I would love to be able to view on demand content by channel.

 

[papalittle]

#4 Have an option that turns off the damnable standby-mode screen-saver. This half-baked idea messes up operation of automatic video switches.

Is that not under "preferences/inactivity" menu?

 

[Lt Disher]

I would put in a vote for a deleted items folder. Sometimes you delete something and immediately wish you hadn't. This is a really cool feature. It works great on TIVO.

 

[PHXHoward]

#3 is the fault of TV Guide/Tribune, not a failing of the DVR software. The DVR can't show what isn't there...

Good to know thanks. I guess that I would amend #3 to just be better program guide data in general. I watch "Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles" on Fox Friday nights and the program guide has it listed as "Connor Chronicles" so I had a hard time searching for it as "term" comes up with nothing. Not sure why thy shorten the titles. I see some really long titles that don't get shortened.


Thanks everyone for adding all the additional suggestions. I hope Dish can implement some of these great ideas.

 

[Pepper]

#1 will never happen. It used to be that way, before they came up with all that CRAP they want us to wade thru to get to our recordings.

Be thankful that pressing DVR a second time actually does what you want.

 

[n0qcu]

I'd add:

* A one-click delete. It takes way too many button presses to delete a show, and having to confirm every deletion has annoyed me since day 1 with Dish.

When DISH came out with their first DVR (the 501) it was this way no confirmation needed to delete. They got too many complaints (also the satellite message boards were also full of complaints) because it was too easy to accidentally delete recordings. So the confirmation requirement was added.

* A Deleted Items folder like TiVO has, where you can recover a deleted show, and which is automatically emptied as DVR space is needed.

This would be nice to have.

 

[bf3000]

I would love it if they could make back-to-back recordings on the same channel have some overlap. If I have a show set to record from 8:00-9:00 with a 3 minute extension, and another show on the same channel set to record from 9:00-10:00 set to start 1 minute early, the DVR will not record the extension or the early start - it will create 1 recording from 8:00-9:00, and one recording from 9:00-10:00. Since the shows are on the same channel, and the data is already being written to the hard drive, I don't know why one tuner couldn't be used to have a recording from 8:00-9:03 and from 8:59-10:00 with a 4-minute overlap that is being written to both recordings.

 

[KKlare]

A caution about using locks: say you have recorded a channel 94xx and now have decided to use the more organized map downs to the 100-499 numbers, then you move it to an external. Now if you lock the 94xx channel and you try to view the EHD you will have to unlock the show to even see the name--what a pain. Need a hide not a lock option and only for searches....

I've gotten use to 2 DVR clicks for recordings and 3 for the timer log but then to get to timers you still have to use some downs and a click. I usually go there to check how close I am to the 96 limit--change that up a lot. How about a shorter way? I do like that Cancel takes you back through these DVR clicks.

I keep some show to be found in the search list but it is very short, say 36. It is very easy to lose some from the search list by adding too many with no indication of how many are stored.

A general complaint about lists: you should be able to enter the item number or as (sometimes) in the recordings list, you can enter 1 to 9 to skip to (#-1)/8 of the list. Be consistent and allow this for all lists, especially the recordings on the EHD which may be in the hundreds of unique names. BTW, 1 and 9 always work in the recordings, why not the other? For example, the timers and searches--every list.

The EHD recordings list will hold its position if you press play but do not actually play it. On return from playing you end up at the top of a long list. After one actual play, you always end up at the top even if you only look at the description. Only way back to initial holding is to Cancel out and re-enter the EHD list. Why not use info? Because you do not get the record date, time, and channel in info only in the play option. This makes it hard to check out your inventory. I keep most of my 1000+ on 6 large disks listed in an Excel sheet.

I hope my recorder that dropped closed captions (CC) continues to work with a recent update. It didn't before.

I agree it would be nice to be warned about conflicts before committing a recording.

Using Dish Pass you may get too many possibilities. So many that the timers limit (576?) may overflow. A warning here would help.

We need a de-fragger for the EHD. If you move a lot in and out and create a lot of little gaps between the recordings the size left can be far off from what you can move there.

-Ken

 

[brian_tr]

When deleting a program after watching it returns to the top of the list unless you click done, select program again and then delete. It would be nice if it just returned to where you left off on the list.

 

[david_jr]

One button delete and a deleted items folder would be high on my list of wishes.

 

[Hall]

Why do people want it easier to delete a program but then also want a "recycle bin" ? Dish already "makes it hard" to delete a program and hopefully negates the need for a recycle bin...