Features Needed

[nicechiguy]

1. Pair bonding - AT&T is selling a service with features it apparently cannot deliver, despite stating that my address qualified for Uverse.  As a practical matter, AT&T is going to have problems once cable companies migrate to Docsis 3.0.

2. Media Share - I want to share VIDEO with my computers and iPhone, not MP3s and photos from my computer with my TV.

3. iPhone App - Not only to facilitate sharing of media, but to facilitate the use of the DVR.

4. Tell me what program(s)/Receiver(s)/stream(s) I will be interrupting if I chose to interrupt another stream with my channel selection.

5.  Give us the ability to block audible tests of the EAS/EBS.  Also, if possible, do not have the EBS/EAS appear on the programs being recorded by the DVR.

6.  Show me the percentage of free space left or the percentage used on my DVR control screen.  Currently it is buried in a different menu system, completely separate from recorded TV.

7.  Increase the amount of free Video on Demand content.

8.  Increase the accuracy of the guide.  Not only is the new vs. rerun flag incorrect, but the name of the show is wrong.

Message Edited by nicechiguy on 12-03-2008 12:23 PM

[FuzioN_1]

What if U-Verse uses this type of device?

http://www.2wire.com/

Would it be nicer to have this instead of the RG that we have now?

[nicechiguy]

It does.  I have a 2wire 3800HGV at my place.

Message Edited by nicechiguy on 12-04-2008 06:49 AM

[FuzioN_1]

What I mean is the mediapoint from 2wire. They also have this little device they call shifter which will enable us to watch live or recorded tv on a mobile phone.

[wxbrad]

#5 is a federal regulation and AT&T would be breaking the law to remove EAS/EBS singals and interupts. So ain't going to happen could you imagine the liabile if there was a civil or weather emergency and AT&T blocked the info?

[Computer-Joe ACE - Master]

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wxbrad wrote:
#5 is a federal regulation and AT&T would be breaking the law to remove EAS/EBS singals and interupts. So ain't going to happen could you imagine the liabile if there was a civil or weather emergency and AT&T blocked the info?

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They should be able to strip it from the program stream going to the hard drive though.

[tiggerfan]

It would also be nice if the online 'change/add tv features' function actually worked.

[llhanley]

I have a list of things I'd like to see as well. And before someone says it, I liked my Dish service although it was more expensive than the Uverse package. I'd go back to Dish tomorrow if I could. Unfortunately, Hurricane Ike kind of screwed that up for me. That said, my biggest gripes with the way things work have to do with usability and leave me wondering where the human factors engineers are hiding over at ATT.

Favorites

1. Give me an interface on the Guide to update my channel Favorites. By the time I navigate to the menu and find the Channel Options, I forgot what channel I wanted to add/delete.  
2. When I'm editing channel favorites in the Channel Options menu, we should be able to loop through the channel list forward and backward. Most of the channels I watch are in the HD section (starting at 1000), which is about 12 pages down the listing. It would be nice if I could navigate to the channel list and scroll backward through the channels. And/Or... be able to punch in a channel number there and go right to that channel for editing.

Other Settings

1. Closed Captioning could be more user-friendly. I've read through a couple of other online forums regarding the CC issues. Supposedly, the CC will use your TVs settings. For whatever reason, mine's not, and I'd like to have the CC on when the TV is muted. It would be nice, too, if I could set the size and where on the screen I want it to display. Testing the various settings was cumbersome, too. You have to navigate about 4 levels down to get to the settings and then back out to see what it does. Two of the four settings worked - one was in Spanish. I couldn't find ANY documentation anywhere on how CC works for this DVR.

Remote

1. There should be a Favorites button on my remote. Dish had a nice feature where the Guide changed between 3 different modes if you pushed the button more than once. I usually left it on the HD setting. It wasn't quite the same, but it was a one-click solution.
2. The channel and volume controls are backwards - at least backwards from the various remotes I have and have used in the past. The volume should be on the right side and the channel selector on the left.
3. The mute button's hard to find. I was a little surprised by this because on most remotes it's bigger and in an area that's commonly used. Also because the DVR receiver I received is in the same family as the DVR receiver I had from Dish.

Guide

1. Don't show me channels I don't subscribe to on my Guide. Using this setup as a Marketing tool sucks. If I wanted a higher package I'd have ordered it.
2. I don't know if it's that the font and block size are too big or what, but I find navigating the Guide very cumbersome both on the TV and online. It's slow and I think not being able to use Page Down to go across the time are part of my disgust with it.
3. Hide Channels isn't working as advertised. I have all the shopping channels "hidden" and they're still showing up in my Guide, along with all the other channels. At least it's consistent.

Recording

1. I wish someone would find an interface that will allow me to record a few minutes after one program is done (so I can ensure I get next week's previews) without screwing up the recording for the program in the next time slot. I don't care if I get the same 5 minutes of content twice. The same two programs don't ALWAYS follow each other every week. While we're on the topic, Dish allowed me to change the amount of time before or after a program started that I wanted to record. I don't like being locked into 5 minutes after.
2. I also would like to see some kind of interface on the Recorded Content area that tells you how much space is left. Dish showed it in hours - that would be more helpful to me than MB or GB.
3. More recording options would be nice, too. Dish had the option to record All, New, Once, Weekly, Daily, Mon-Fri. This was great - I could record the repeats of the Sopranos on A&E Mon-Fri to get the "new" content without getting all the repeats of those episodes on the weekends. I don't know when I'd use a Daily recording option, but Weekly is useful, too.
4. I know I've seen others complain about this as well, so I'll add another vote to the ring to straighten out the feeds so that I can record on one channel and watch on another. Watching and recording aren't the same thing. I know this has more to do with limiting bandwidth than it does with the capability of the receiver to write multiple streams to the hard drive, but really... the service is just not as advertised.   
5. Under "Recorded TV | Add a Recording," it would be nice to have an option there to go to Favorites rather than just Guide and Search.

Interactive Features

1. I agree with nicechiguy about Media Sharing, and I feel even more strongly about it since ATT changed its agreement to not include a Flickr Pro account with my bundled service. If you can contact the DVR remotely to change the recorded information, you should be able to watch content on it remotely as well.
2. Flickr Photos - I also disliked the fact that it wasn't really all that interactive. All you get is a view of your photo sets. You can't go out to the homepage to view any of the current photos that may not be in one of the displayed sets. Having the defaulted setting for viewing photo sets to be to view a slideshow or not isn't all that interesting, either. I'd like to navigate to a picture and look at it in all its HD glory without it disappearing after 3 seconds in a slideshow. Oh, and there isn't any way to set the time between slides. A nice idea, but not worth the added real estate and frustration.
3. Yellow Pages - I haven't been able to find a way to page through the entries in the Yellow Pages application. When you use the Page Down, it changes channels - not what I'd expect it to do in this interface. Sure, it makes *some* sense, but c'mon, really? I have to go through those entries one by one? I'd rather just call Free-411.

One more - but related to programming - Urge is awful. Dish's music interface wasn't really much better, but at least the selections came out of Sirius and had been vetted through some group that actually listened to the programming.

Message Edited by llhanley on 12-07-2008 03:09 AM

Message Edited by llhanley on 12-07-2008 01:18 PM

[Steve_2]

I would love to see #3.  And seriously....?  AT&T can't make an app for their exclusive DVR on the exclusive phone with their wireless service???

[llhanley]

It would certainly make sense. But then again, that would mean mixing Apple with Microsoft, which doesn't get you apple pie, unfortunately.

[oz_1 ACE - Master]

1 & 3 would work for me.

[SFReverse]

1.  THDVR trick features on our STB's

2.  Caller ID on the TV

3.  3rd Stream of HD

4.  Media Share

5.  Bigger DVR HD

[CGI_1]

A stb/dvr that allows pass through as it is received, be it 480i, 480p, 720p, or 1080i and let our HDTV's do the conversion.

Message Edited by CGI on 12-10-2008 01:22 AM

[bri_man_65]

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5.  Give us the ability to block audible tests of the EAS/EBS.  Also, if possible, do not have the EBS/EAS appear on the programs being recorded by the DVR.

Message Edited by nicechiguy on 12-03-2008 12:23 PM

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As others said - AT&T has to broadcast the alerts.   My understanding was the alerts are not part of the video stream, but an IP Msg separate from the video. So my understanding was it would not record the alert with the video broadcast.   But I have not had an alert happen during a recording - so I can not confirm it. 

[Pip_2]

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bri_man_65 wrote:

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5.  Give us the ability to block audible tests of the EAS/EBS.  Also, if possible, do not have the EBS/EAS appear on the programs being recorded by the DVR.

Message Edited by nicechiguy on 12-03-2008 12:23 PM

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As others said - AT&T has to broadcast the alerts.   My understanding was the alerts are not part of the video stream, but an IP Msg separate from the video. So my understanding was it would not record the alert with the video broadcast.   But I have not had an alert happen during a recording - so I can not confirm it. 

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Unfortuantely, it does show up on a recording. I have had it happen to me before. Thankfully, not too often, but I have seen it show up.

[llhanley]

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SFReverse wrote:

1.  THDVR trick features on our STB's

2.  Caller ID on the TV

3.  3rd Stream of HD

4.  Media Share

5.  Bigger DVR HD

---

I knew I was forgetting something... 

[Computer-Joe ACE - Master]

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Pip wrote:
Unfortuantely, it does show up on a recording. I have had it happen to me before. Thankfully, not too often, but I have seen it show up.

---

Hey Pip, when it shows up in the recording can you still "OK" out of it (like live TV) or is it stuck for the standard duration?

Just wondering if it just happened to come on while you were watching a recording or if it happened during the recording and is actually embedded in the file on the HD. I have never had it show up in a recording.

A couple other things I've noticed is that UVERSE seems to have a lot fewer tests than Dish or Comcast had, and with Dish, if I used the digital audio ouput on the STB, even when the Dish STB was turned off, I would here the test if I left my speakers on.

[RCSMG ACE - Expert]

I have seen the aes when watching a recorded program and I hit exit and the test ended.  I just figured it could be seen whether watching live tv or a recorded program.  I am not saying that Pip's experience didn't happen, just speaking from my own.

[djmegahertz_1]

To add to the list:

+ Allow record scheduling from a non-DVR receiver.

+ When multiple sets are watching the same HD channel, allow DVR to multicast instead of eating up all the BW from the VRAD to the term.

+ On-line record web portal needs to have search by keywords and or actors. The title only search option is very weak.

+ Please Please!! Less compression on the HD channels. It is the only way to compete with the rest. (Hopefully this is something in the works)

+ Sleep mode needs to be controlled! I use the TV to wake me up in the morning via TV on times. Well guess what happened this morning?  TV came on, box was asleep and I overslept. NOT GOOD! (Hint allow for at least HDMI  port to sense activity / handshake and wakeup the box! or do not go to sleep so soon. Allowing 12 hours for example will ensure that the box will be heard when the TV is turned on.

[oz_1 ACE - Master]

If their chip has the ability to accept all the cec commands the wake from sleep function would be possible now with a firmware upgrade or at least

thats my take on it. That is through the HDMI connection only.

Message Edited by oz on 12-10-2008 06:46 AM

[Computer-Joe ACE - Master]

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oz wrote:

If their chip has the ability to accept all the cec commands the wake from sleep function would be possible now with a firmware upgrade or at least

thats my take on it. That is through the HDMI connection only.

Message Edited by oz on 12-10-2008 06:46 AM

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They're only worried about the HDCP portion of the HDMI standard. I don't think they give a crap about interoperability or compatibility with other consumer devices.

[Pip_2]

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Computer-Joe wrote:

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Pip wrote:
Unfortuantely, it does show up on a recording. I have had it happen to me before. Thankfully, not too often, but I have seen it show up.

---

Hey Pip, when it shows up in the recording can you still "OK" out of it (like live TV) or is it stuck for the standard duration?

Just wondering if it just happened to come on while you were watching a recording or if it happened during the recording and is actually embedded in the file on the HD. I have never had it show up in a recording.

A couple other things I've noticed is that UVERSE seems to have a lot fewer tests than Dish or Comcast had, and with Dish, if I used the digital audio ouput on the STB, even when the Dish STB was turned off, I would here the test if I left my speakers on.

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As luck would have it Joe, when I went to play back a recording I made yesterday, the EAS alert was on there. I was able to hit exit and get it off the screen but the sound was still on there for a few seconds longer.

Now, let me say this........it could have been an actual alert that just came on as I started playing the program back. Or it could have been recorded on there from yesterday during a time when the TV was off, so we didn't get to hear/see the actual alert.

I do know that I have been recording one thing while watching live TV and have gotten the alert and yes I do know for sure it did show up in the recording, but cannot recall, at that time, exactly what I did to get rid of it or if I just let it play out.

I tried the exit today because I remembered this thread. I just wish I had saved the recording and tried it again to be able to tell for sure.

One good thing....the sound didn't blow me into the next apartment like it used to!

[Computer-Joe ACE - Master]

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Pip wrote:

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Computer-Joe wrote:

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Pip wrote:
Unfortuantely, it does show up on a recording. I have had it happen to me before. Thankfully, not too often, but I have seen it show up.

---

Hey Pip, when it shows up in the recording can you still "OK" out of it (like live TV) or is it stuck for the standard duration?

Just wondering if it just happened to come on while you were watching a recording or if it happened during the recording and is actually embedded in the file on the HD. I have never had it show up in a recording.

A couple other things I've noticed is that UVERSE seems to have a lot fewer tests than Dish or Comcast had, and with Dish, if I used the digital audio ouput on the STB, even when the Dish STB was turned off, I would here the test if I left my speakers on.

---

As luck would have it Joe, when I went to play back a recording I made yesterday, the EAS alert was on there. I was able to hit exit and get it off the screen but the sound was still on there for a few seconds longer.

Now, let me say this........it could have been an actual alert that just came on as I started playing the program back. Or it could have been recorded on there from yesterday during a time when the TV was off, so we didn't get to hear/see the actual alert.

I do know that I have been recording one thing while watching live TV and have gotten the alert and yes I do know for sure it did show up in the recording, but cannot recall, at that time, exactly what I did to get rid of it or if I just let it play out.

I tried the exit today because I remembered this thread. I just wish I had saved the recording and tried it again to be able to tell for sure.

One good thing....the sound didn't blow me into the next apartment like it used to!

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You have to hit the "OK" button twice. Once to aknowledge the alert and again to make it go away. Works right away on mine.

[nicechiguy]

 

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djmegahertz wrote:

To add to the list:

+ Allow record scheduling from a non-DVR receiver.

+ When multiple sets are watching the same HD channel, allow DVR to multicast instead of eating up all the BW from the VRAD to the term.

+ On-line record web portal needs to have search by keywords and or actors. The title only search option is very weak.

+ Please Please!! Less compression on the HD channels. It is the only way to compete with the rest. (Hopefully this is something in the works)

+ Sleep mode needs to be controlled! I use the TV to wake me up in the morning via TV on times. Well guess what happened this morning?  TV came on, box was asleep and I overslept. NOT GOOD! (Hint allow for at least HDMI  port to sense activity / handshake and wakeup the box! or do not go to sleep so soon. Allowing 12 hours for example will ensure that the box will be heard when the TV is turned on.

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I had the multicast issue, but after calling tech support, they were able to correct the configuration so that multicasting within my home was occuring.

It is not that we need less compression, we need better compression.  Less compression means fewer HD streams and less room left for Internet connection.

Finally, with respect to EAS/EBS tests, in the last two days I have suffered two EAS/EBS messages within the same one hour program on two different channels. Having been with Comcast (and its predecessors since 1985) I cannot remember ever having EAS/EBS tests with such frequency. I think the difference may not be in the number of tests, but that Comcast never broadcast Amber alerts and AT&T does.

[djmegahertz_1]

nicechiguy ,

Thanks for the tip. I spoke to someone in Tier II support who understood the issue.

I simply needed my RG to be correctly pointed to the correct provisioning URL and the problem was solved.

Interesting enought, I did find that only 2 TV's can view the same HD prerecorded program. I found this to be odd as the recording is local and the LAN can support up to 100 mpbs or even higher if the receivers were gigabit speeds.

I think the issue might be with the horsepower in the DVR that is unable to stream more than 2 TV's with the same program, but here is the wierd part. If the third TV picks another recorded program, it works. Go figure!

Message Edited by djmegahertz on 12-13-2008 08:24 AM

[Computer-Joe ACE - Master]

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djmegahertz wrote:

nicechiguy ,

Thanks for the tip. I spoke to someone in Tier II support who understood the issue.

I simply needed my RG to be correctly pointed to the correct provisioning URL and the problem was solved.

Interesting enought, I did find that only 2 TV's can view the same HD prerecorded program. I wound this to be odd as the recording is local and the LAN can support up to 100 mpbs or even higher if the receivers were gigabit speeds.

I think the issue might be with the horsepower in the DVR that is unable to stream more than 2 TV's with the same program, but here is the wierd part. If the third TV picks another recorded program, it works. Go figure!

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I don't think it can multicast, because to do that, you would have to start watching the recorded program at the same time on ech STB and the STBs would have to storage space to spool the multicast if you wanted to pause it on one of the STBs. So it has to do individual streams. Now, IMHO, when it tries to do the individual streams from the same recording, it will start thrashing that part of the hard drive (where the recorded program is located) when you pause one of the STBs playing the recording, so maybe they limit the number of streams from the same recording (more STBs, more thrashing). Just a shot in the dark.

[djmegahertz_1]

Yes, that is what I was thinking as well.

Speaking of which, have you heard of any plans to allow the use of the USB port or attach via IP to a network drive to be able to watch your own MPG2 files?

For example, I have encoded files that I would love to be able to watch with any receiver in any room all from a networked drive.

This would be a selling point for one of my neighbors who is currently looking for a way to do this.

DJ

[rocketman74]

This is a huge assumption on my part, but I would guess that with IPTV technology, adding interesting/cool things would be easier than a traditional cable system. 

I was at my parents' place last night who have DirecTV and I saw two really neat features.  One was the sports mix channel.  Now, they've had the dish for years but I honestly don't watch a lot of tv there so I've never explored what DTV has to offer.  I love that the selection of 8 sports options and you get audio from the one you've highlighted.  Another was a "previously viewed channels" button.  There was a list of four channels I had watched and could go directly to them with a push of a button.

I'd love to see U-verse eventually add these two.

[djmegahertz_1]

That is a nice feature for sure. I am sure that it is just a matter time that more features like these and other more Powerfull ones will be available.

If you think about it, interactivity is not available on satellite at least not at this time.

[SFReverse]

I found a use for that USB port (nothing to write home about but blog worthy).  Looks like a new U-verse remote that chirps if you lose it.  It has a docking station but can also be chagred via USB.  See the info and link below.

The AT&T U-verse Advanced Series remote control puts you in charge of your entertainment experience.The A10 remote control has features that allow you to quickly locate your misplaced remote with the touch of a single button, reduce the coffee table clutter with the ability to program up to 3 other devices and is environmentally friendly with it's rechargeable battery, that lasts up to 3 months on a single charge.

http://store.att.com/catalog/productdetails.asp?ProductId=559661-001-00&CategoryId=catUTVRemotes&sho...