Features Needed

[play_it_leo]

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vicviper wrote:

Besides the need for choosing the number of episodes to keep and more robust options for scheduling,  I found some more annoying issues with the DVR....

1. There seems to be no way to start a recording early. I've seen others in this thread mention it too. Seems like a simple thing to address....

2. There is no way to priortize the shows that are scheduled to record, which if available, would automatically resolve any potential conflicts that occur. The way it is now, you have to manually make adjustments for any conflict that arises, and it fails to alert you ahead of time!. 

3. When 2 scheduled-to-record HD shows are back to back on the same channel, and another HD show on a different channel is scheduled to record at the same time as one of these others, a conflict arises!!??. The system is not smart enough to realize that there should be no conflict....It should see that two of the shows are on the same channel, and avoid any overlap recording!!

4. On the subject of conflicts, it would be great if you could set an HD recording to have an "in case of conflict" setting that would record the program on it's standard definition channel if an HD conflict arise.

Why does it take us to figure out all these problems/tweaks/suggestions? Seems like we're doing someone else's job here.....

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I agree with 1, 2 and 4, but have not run across #3. I am a new subscriber, do they ever send software updates, and what if any changes have they already made since the U-Verse launch? 

[vicviper]

Hi texasguy37, thanks for helping me out. Through further investigation, I determined that the conflict was happening due to me setting "The Office" to end the recording 5 minutes after the regularly scheduled ending time. So I switched that, and the conflict went away.

However, I still feel that the software should be smarter and accomodate scenarios such as this, especially if the conflicting program is on the same exact channel and comes on right after the previous show. Or even better, in the case of a conflict, override this setting altogether because I would rather miss the last few minutes of one show instead of missing an entire episode of another show.

Agreed?

Message Edited by vicviper on 10-06-2009 08:35 PM

[vicviper]

play_it_leo

Yes, they have done some software updates since I have been a subscriber, but I have not yet seen any of the fixes or "enhancements" that I really would like to.

I will say that the internet service has been great.

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

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vicviper wrote:

Hi texasguy37, thanks for helping me out. Through further investigation, I determined that the conflict was happening due to me setting "The Office" to end the recording 5 minutes after the regularly scheduled ending time. So I switched that, and the conflict went away.

However, I still feel that the software should be smarter and accomodate scenarios such as this, especially if the conflicting program is on the same exact channel and comes on right after the previous show. Or even better, in the case of a conflict, override this setting altogether because I would rather miss the last few minutes of one show instead of missing an entire episode of another show.

Agreed?

Message Edited by vicviper on 10-06-2009 08:35 PM

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Thanks for the update. You are correct. If you extend the time of one of the recordings, that could create a conflict. 

By default, when you schedule a recording from the Guide without extending the end time, "soft padding" will be added to start the recording 1 minute prior to the scheduled begin time and end the recording 2 mintues after the scheduled end time (i.e. a 7:00-8:00 PM program would be recorded from 6:59-8:02 PM). Thus, you may find that there is no need to extend the recording by 5 minutes. 

The DVR is smart enough to know when to add or eliminate the "soft padding" in order to avoid a conflict.  In the scenario that I mentioned earlier, the 7:00-9:00 PM NBC HD program would record from 6:59-9:02 PM, the 7:00-8:00 PM NBC HD program would record from 6:59-8:00 PM, and the 8:00-9:00 PM program would record from 8:00-9:02 PM.  In this situation, the DVR would eliminate the "soft padding" from the end of the 1st NBC program and the "soft padding" from the beginning of the 2nd NBC program in order to avoid a conflict.

Message Edited by texasguy37 on 10-06-2009 08:05 PM

[wptyree]

As I read the entries on this topic the last one is dated 2009.
It is now February 2012. I had Uverse installed last month after 20+ years with brand X cable company.

Does anyone know whether the Uverse tech folks will provide an update to the DVR software
with a search by genre and subgenre feature? e.g. Sports -> Basketball or Sports -> Baseball etc.

The viewing experience would be so much better with this feature.

Anyone know if search by genre is in the making? 

Many Thanks!

WPT

[Taylarie]

I would like to thank everyone for taking the time to post your comments and opinions related to this topic. This topic has been thoroughly discussed and will now be closed.