I've never been so disappointed in a product. I have had direct TV from 1996 to present. I installed my old DTV dish and receiver at my Grandparents so they could enjoy the luxury of satellite TV in 2007. That's when I got a Dish Network account with a DVR. It had reliability issues, but the Dish DVR has way better picture, sound, and features. I let the Dish Network account go 2 months ago and got a DTV DVR. I have never been so disappointed in all my life. There's never a week that goes by that I don't miss at least 1 scheduled recording because this thing either skips the recording inadvertently or it crashes or it looses the signal or all of the above. Then there's the issue with programming the events. DTV's DVR will only record a series on one channel. If a program comes on different channels you have to set up the DVR to record each channel separately. With Dish Network, you tell it you want to record every episode of something and it does exactly that no matter what channel it's on. The menu on the DTV DVR sucks really bad as well. When you tell it you want to record every event it highlights those events on the TV Guide. You assume those programs are going to get recorded because there is a big "R" in front of it.NOT!!! If this event was already recorded before it will skip it and leave you hanging. You go somewhere and come back thinking your program recorded and it didn't. There is nothing on there to let you know this ahead of time. IT REALLY SUCKS!! I can't come up with enough adjectives to put in perspective how lousy of a piece of equipment this is. For example:There is no SLOW MOTION PLAY BACK!!!! How can anyone design a DVR that does not play in SLOW MOTION?? This is a requirement if you are watching sports!! Dish Network's DVR not only plays back in slow motion, it does it in multiple speeds!!!! Get your head out of your 3rd point of contact DTV!!! Example #2: There is no instant commercial skip. Dish Network has a 30sec skip button that instantaneously skips 30 sec every time you hit the button. you can go forward or backwards 30 sec. Not with DTV....they only have a 10sec reverse skip. What good does that do anyone? To skip forward you have to do a 30 second fast forward. It fast forwards 30sec of recording in about 5 sec. So a 5 minute commercial takes almost a full minute to skip. THAT'S TOTALLY RIDICULOUS!!! Then there's the loss of signal every time a cloud blows over. It shows I have 97% signal strength. My old 1999 DTV receiver that I still have hooked up at my grandparents house only looses signal when there is ice forming in the clouds (hail storm, snow storm, etc...)so it only looses signal 2 or 3 times a year (I live in the South). I installed that satellite myself and it only has an 89% signal strength.Now I'm stuck with this lousy DVR from a company that obviously has changed from one of putting the customer 1st and quality #1 to one that now only cares about doubling their profits. I have to pay $400.00 just to cancel this 2 year contract. $400.00!!!!! The receiver only cost $99.00 on Amazon.com. How can DTV charge me $400.00? This is ridiculous! I've asked DTV several times to give me a list of manufacturers and their model numbers of DTV DVR's that I can purchase separately and they tell me there are none. What a crock!! I know better than that. I see them for sale on EBAY....brand names like Samsung, Sony, etc..... I will never do business with DTV again. I'm seriously considering paying the $400.00 penalty to get out of this contract. I will simply do without a satellite for 4 months and that will cover the $400.00. Who knows, after 4 months of abstinence, I may decide to never have satellite TV again.
This DVR and the DVR service DTV provides truly sucks. This is coming from a loyal DTV customer. I have 2 DTV accounts!!! I plan to cancel both accounts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well all of us Direct TV users can sigh a bit of relief we finally have an improvement over the old DVR R15 which was a nightmare for all of its owners. In fact, (the previous model DIRECTV R15 Receiver/Digital Video Recorder--Up to 100 Hours) was so poor that it forced me to go to Ebay and buy an older Tivo model. The older R15 model had serious issues with its ease of use it was nearly impossible to fast forward or rewind with any kind of accuracy. It was a very frustrating experience. See the old reviews ...it was universally despised!
The new R16 has fixed many of the bugs, and is a truly functioning unit. In fact, I would compare it to my 2003 model Tivo. I guess that is both good news and bad... while it matches the 2003 edition Tivo (which was way ahead of it time) you would hope that 5 years could have added a few more features.
The pros -
100 hours of storage or roughly 50 movies.
Pause live tv for 90 minutes (60 minutes longer than my old Tivo)
Ease of use...rewinding and fast forwarding is a snap.
Direct Tv has built in features that allows the reote control to be used for gaming (using channel 110 I think). It is an additional charge but some find it worth the cost.
Areas for improvement -
This is 2008 WHY would Direct Tv introduce a new product that does NOT include Wifi access?
If you lose power the unit takes up to 10 minutes to reset. This is a major annoyance if your power "flickers" while watching your favorite show or sporting evenet.
Since there is no WiFi access you do not have the ability to rent or buy movies on Amazon.com and have them send it directly to the unit (like it does with a Tivo).
I wish there was a choice of colors Black is the only color.
FInal verdict, the Direct TV DVR R16 is strictly a functional unit that lacks the pizzaz of many the competing products. However, this is MAJOR improvement over the R15 model. In short, the R16 should not scare you... but there isn't much to excite you either.
0 Stars caused me to cancel my service with Direct TV
Buy Direct TV Directv R16 black DVR Receiver Now
My complaints with this receiver are:1. When recording it cuts about 5 seconds off the end of the recording. Your only alternative is to adjust the recording to add 1 minute to it to get the last 5 seconds. Really, Who Programmed this? Does it take that much to test the programming before you put it in the equipment? Why cut 5 seconds off?
2. FF and rewind are hit and miss. I often overshoot and have to go back and spend just as long finding the spot I wanted to get to.
3. The guide is slow and you can forget using the Active button which gives you the weather and the most popular movies. It is SLOW SLOW SLOW.
4. Even though it is an improvement over the R-15 model it is LEASE ONLY. I was able to get the R-15's off of EBay and avoid the lease, but this model cannot be purchased reasonably. I was hoping to find a used one and avoid the lease but had no luck locating one so I ended up leasing one.
5. As warranties go this one is terrible. 1 year parts and labor. When you are forced to sign a 24 month contract it doesn't make sense. If you lease a car it normally comes with a 3-5 year warranty so what's up with DIRECTV?
In the end you may be better off buying a digital antenna to get over the air stations that are free.
Read Best Reviews of Direct TV Directv R16 black DVR Receiver Here
Poor quality ,sluggish ,difficult to operate ,does not buffer on both tuners. Directv needs to go back to tivo based dvrs. Absolutely awfulWant Direct TV Directv R16 black DVR Receiver Discount?
BEWARE OF DTV Shell Game. When you purchase a DTV box from anywhere the box is the property of DTV. Along with this your contract will be extened for 1 to 2 years. Once again if you buy a DTV box from best buy, online retailer, amazon, your parents or your next door neighbor it is the property of DTV and must be returned to them when you cancel your service or you must pay a fee to DTV. RIP-OFF BEWARE
No comments:
Post a Comment