Special One-Night CE for 9/15 -- No Weekend CE's

[Jimbo]

Has anyone else lost most of their On demand channels? I am missing channels like ESPN, Disney, ABC Family, HGTV, Discovery channels, Sony. I don't see them when I select the all channels favorite list? Is there something I am missing to get these channels to show up? They have not showed up all weekend since I updated the software.

Mine are there, but they take a long time to load.... about 6-7 seconds.
For example, I went to SyFy, 1244 and it does bring up all the programming, but like I said, it takes awhile to load the page ... not sure why that is, but at least they are there.

 

[rlavinder]

I have some of them but I would like to have Disney back because my son loves some of the shows on there so I can download them for him to see.

 

[cypherstream]

I like Comcast's 2.0 guide grid the best IMO.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I like the colors of the Comcast Gude, but the text is too small for the eyes. 6 or 7 channels per page is good enough for me... they have 11.

 

[dfergie]

Just a few thoughts... the lack of ad's and the shortness of the guide may be why this gui is so zippy...

 

[cypherstream]

Well that Comcast guide is an early build as well. Anything can change between then and the release date. Who knows when that will be. Aparently it will go on Cisco RNG spec boxes first. Then Motorola/Pace/Samsung spec RNG boxes second... followed by Motorola DCX series.

I like the DirecTV's new GUI. It's very easy to read. I wouldn't mind an option however to see more at once. But if that's never going to happen... oh well, I have the iPad app.

 

[cypherstream]

hmm, Cox trio looks interesting... Cox Rigs 'Trio' Big-Screen Guide - 2010-05-10 04:05:00 | Multichannel News
But I like DirecTV's choice of the traditional grid guide.
Not to say a list style guide wouldn't be bad... I know you can push Info when you highlight a channel though.

 

[dfergie]

Threw together a quick (not that great) photoshop of what a 2 hour guide could look like...

 

[cypherstream]

Nice job. I like it. It looks more wide screen.

Of course I don't think this would work on an SDTV. Perhaps it could tell by your settings (480i/480p, or 4:3 Aspect Ratio selected).
Then you run into inconsistencies if you run Native and your on an SD channel. I disabled my 480 resolutions since the HD-GUI came out. I think it displays SD at 720p now... but not everyone may want to do that.

I can see why they made it the way it is. It's simpler and an easier transition from the old grid guide. Options are nice to have, but I understand there's a lot of things going on just to get this working and stable. Maybe down the road or something.

As far as getting into the guide or menu, I'd like to see the Merge transition like Aptiv (now Rovi) Passport does on SA/Cisco set top boxes. Sort of makes the transition softer and plesent between screens.

Merge on page 6 of this Broadcom STB Graphics reference document:
http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/wp/STB_3DGraphx-WP00-R.pdf

 

[MikeFr]

All day yesterday was my first day without any issues on this software. Unfortunately today the aspect ratio issue has returned again. It looks like they added review info from Rotten Tomatoes on some of the movie listings.

The My Directv page is useless to me and seems to be a big reason why the system runs slower today than it did on Friday before most of the extras came into place.

I haven't done the count but it just feels like it takes more clicks to get to the Series Manager and To Do list.

Most of the times when pulling up the DVR list it shows an older version of the list, and you see it catch up with the current live recordings.

 

[DodgerKing]

My timers are off by about a minute. Each recording starts a minute early and ends a minute late

Sent from my iPad using SatelliteGuys

 

[Mr Tony]

I didnt now if I should post it here or a new thread

So the NASCAR race was in the guide from 11-2:30 CDT. I padded it 30 minutes so it should have recorded 4 hours. I came home and it recorded 3:13 (???). Here is the freaky part. 2 minutes after the race was done and they "signed off" and the NFL show thing started is when it ended

Does this new guide understand sports programming and when its done the receiver cuts off? What if its runs long?

 

[Jimbo]

Hey guys,
Do you think the HD Gui will be part of the CE's from this point forward, or not till it goes NR ?

 

[dfergie]

Depends on the feedback I would think... I noticed if you have a tuner on a SD channel you get a SD GUI ... I have watched more with my HR20 than my HR24 and it is still pretty speedy compared to before the CE,

 

[Jimbo]

Depends on the feedback I would think... I noticed if you have a tuner on a SD channel you get a SD GUI ... I have watched more with my HR20 than my HR24 and it is still pretty speedy compared to before the CE,

My HR20's have been REALLY slow of late bringing up the channel guide ...
Enough that I have considered buying HR24's and AM21's to take thier place ...
I would hope that D* would compensate me for the AM21's seeing I'm losing the OTA feature by upgrading, but somehow I don't think they will, I've asked about that before with no luck.

 

[Jimbo]

This has been a pretty stable CE on my HR24's, I've been really happy with it.

 

[dfergie]

Still looks like the NR for the HD GUI is next month or so from the conference call ...

 

[cypherstream]

I noticed if you have a tuner on a SD channel you get a SD GUI ...

I disabled 480p so now it looks like SD channels display in 720p, so the GUI is still technically HD.

My TV doesn't accept 480i over HDMI anyway. DirecTV SD is so overcompressed I figured it will look bad no matter what, so might as well just keep the 720/1080 resolutions checked.

If they didn't compress the SD as much, I could see the argument of trying to leave it the way it is. Who wants to 'touch' the signal yet again... but that isn't the case... garbage in is garbage out!

With 0x559 I just left my two boxes on 24/7. No more black screens. Just don't try mediashare or it freezes up (at least on an H24).
With 0x552 I am able to turn all my graphics white (affecting any full screen menu). Just do it by going to VOD Ch 1000, select Browse by Channel, then jump around a bunch of VOD channels. You eventually get to a VOD channel that is pure white background (perhaps they didn't make the HD graphics for it yet?). But this white background sticks throughout the entire UI. The only fix seems to do a RBR.

With 0x552 and 0x559, I can't get MR-DVR to work in this combination. Perhaps this will work again once I am able to get everything on the same version. Otherwise for now it always says "No audio/video packets from server".

 

[cypherstream]

Still looks like the NR for the HD GUI is next month or so from the conference call ...

Was there a new conference call? Q3 2011 perhaps? It's a little early for that I think... were still in Q3.

 

[dfergie]

It was the Goldman Sachs presentation, basic highlights from my rough notes...

DIRECTV is disciplined in how we operate.
Content price is the problem for VOD, don’t want to undermine syndication market etc …
More VOD, Movies etc 4th quarter.
Don’t undermine syndication market.
Consumers want to see more things on the go , TV on the go is what we are working on…

Charlie / Dish has a different approach from what we have, DIRECTV needs to be a different place from your cable company etc… differentiated product to make it compelling product.

We have 97% of country covered with telcos , Whether dsl or fiber.
expand on this.
Longterm – aquire spectrum build out a network, look for ways to partner, partnering with Verizon in Pennsylvania as a test.
Not much spectrum for sell, had to get into that like the cellphone providers.
We will partner with anyone if there is a business model.

Churn rate tied in to economy.
Pleased with progress, highest arpa in industry.
3rd qtr is excellent, good ST response.
Tough environment for consumer products, DIRECTV has performed well.
We have historically had 2 million ST subs, marketed it free to new consumers gives us a bigger pool for next year, and get them hooked on it. Offered stuff to present subs also…

DIRECTV has HDGUI coming in 4th quarter,
Arpa Should be up for 4th quarter, some softness In ads, ppv on ipad etc looking good.
Will be more careful on discounting.
Advanced product sales are high for 3rd qtr. Media home center launch in 4th qtr.
Have historically had low programming costs, programming costs are rising over the inflation rates etc.
Growth & content costs will be up next year also, no one is immune to this.
TV Everywhere digital rights are complex, ST, HBO GO etc own their own content, we are working on more content.

Launch of Media Center 4th quarter will drive up connected home costs.
We need to get better on the upscale consumer and lower end consumer services, make things a la carte for the low end etc.

Then went on to Latin America information …