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Sunday, November 22, 2009

DirecTV Mediocre

We've had DirecTv with HD-DVR for a couple of months. The selection of channels, the DVR and the HD are all wonderful (we upgraded from basic cable and no DVR). But I would rate the DirecTV software, and the experience it delivers, to be quite mediocre. Some complaints:
  • Scheduling via web doesn't allow adding extensions (most of what I DVR is sports).
  • I have been struglling to figure out how to get "Channels I Get" custom list to work. I have selected it, but it still keeps presenting me with channels I don't get. I had the supremely irritating experience of missing a football game I had set to tape on Sunday Ticket, because I selected the HD channel, but I don't have the Sunday Ticket Superfan, so I don't get the HD 704-1 HD channel--I just should have used the plain 704 channel.
  • The above brings another complaint--Sunday ticket is a super-premium add-on, but those greedy bastards want to squeeze even more money from you to get HD. Outrageous.
  • Speaking of Channels I Get--why isn ot that the default?? I mean, do they really think the typical user wants to see all the stuff on channels they don't receive? Of course not--DirecTV is showing their contemp for the customer, by forcing them to see all those unvailable channels. Why are they doing that? Because some marketing exec thinks that will drive users to upgrade to more expensive tiers. Never mind the vastly greater impact it has on every user, every day, by annoying them (at best) and sometimes causing them to DVR the wrong channel!
  • The UI in general is just kind of clunky, and response is a bit sluggish.
  • It doesn't all suck. The prompting to add extensions to sporting events is nice. Likewise for the helpful notices when you have scheduling conflicts.
  • Feature suggestion: un-delete.

2 comments:

  1. I agree; can't stand that the 'Channels I get' really means, all the chnnel;s Direct TV has not what 'I' pay for.

    Response is slugish as well but hey, on the bright side, it isn't COMCAST. ;o)

    ReplyDelete
  2. OH, is that what they *intend* it to mean? I thought I was just being stupid. Wow, that's crazy.

    ReplyDelete