DirecTV update breaks stand-alone PVRs

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DirecTV update breaks stand-alone PVRs

Wired is reporting that an update to the DirecTV D10 receiver is causing problems for TiVo and ReplayTV owners. Apparently it's not always accepting commands sent over the serial port, causing some missed shows. The solution listed is to use the IR blaster, which can have the same problem as the one reported.

The conspiratorially minded think that this update is just an effort on DirecTV's part to get them to buy receivers with PVRs built in. A DirecTV representative responds "I can absolutely say this is not a tactic to get people to switch over to another receiver," which is just the sort of thing you'd expect them to say if there were a conspiracy.

by George Hotelling June 13, 2005 in DirecTV, ReplayTV, TiVo

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Never attribute to malice that which you can attribute to incompetance or stupidity. :-)

Somehow I suspect this is just an 'oops'...

Posted by: MegaZone at Jun 13, 2005 6:40:30 PM

I gotta say - I can't really think of a good reason to use an SA Tivo with DirecTV anyway. Just get a DirecTV box with TiVo built-in. You get dual tuners and MUCH better recording fidelity. You can still get HMO via hacking, or simply use another option for media serving.

Posted by: AJRitz at Jun 14, 2005 12:24:23 PM

Emailed DirecTV with my complaint, and they sent a message back telling me to call them up.

I did, and after getting transferred to tech support, and having her talk to her supervisor... she basically told me that TiVo needs to update their software to be compatible with theirs now. They don't seem to worried about it at all, and don't seem to interested in fixing it on their end.

Nice. And I've been a DirecTV customer for all of... 2 weeks.

Posted by: Drew Bomard at Jun 22, 2005 7:37:47 AM

Had ReplayTV for all of three years, had DirecTV D10 for all of three minutes and I'm already disgusted in having to try to figure out what I'm going to do to get my daughters precious "Barney" to record daily for her, no less get this set to switch between the two in the mean time so she can still watch the shows we had recorded. Shame on both companys. DirecTV doesnt even have a link in its FAQ about this! I should have stayed with Cable.

Posted by: IamWired at Jun 24, 2005 2:13:00 PM

I have a D10-100 box and my replaytvs (I have 2) have worked fine for 2 years. Now all of the sudden you can't change channels to any thing below 100. DTV acknowledges the recent firmware update but doesn't seem to care that their upgrade broke customer's equipment.

Posted by: Eric Paul at Jul 5, 2005 7:58:23 PM

Jade Ekstedt
DIRECTV, Inc.
(310) 964-3429

Here is the phone number for Jade--she's the talking head at DirecTV assigned to respond to the problem.

Posted by: Eric Paul at Jul 5, 2005 9:22:18 PM

Here's her e-mail address too: jlekstedt@directv.com

Posted by: Eric Paul at Jul 5, 2005 11:18:31 PM

DirecTV update breaks stand-alone PVRs

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