Many thanks. This is the user guide manual which perhaps should have been given out in addition to the little quick-reference brochure. On page 37 of the manual (actually page 39 of the PDF) there are the instructions regarding setting manual timers which do, indeed, indicate that there is a first "confirm step" at the end of the first page of the dialog (though not strongly reinforced in the wording as only confirming this first page of date/times and not the entire manual timer dialog itself), preliminary to getting to the next steps which begins with channel selection.
Yes, had I been given this manual to read (as I had been given the little glossy brochure) I might have been able to answer my own questions about this apparent mystery but which in retrospect isn't a problem after all. But normally, well designed user interfaces should be intuitive... at least to technically savvy and highly experienced users such as ourselves. The manual is a last resort and if the interfece is misleading or confusing or non-intuitive, I'd say something is wrong there.
My point now simply regards the design of the user interface for this setting of a manual timer. Up until now, I've not seen a machine VCR or any other onscreen guide for setting a manual timer that did not put everything on one page... including date and start/end times, along with channel and recording frequency (and recording speed, for VCRs). Not that I'm complaining about secondary dialogs (friendly and complete as they might be, as they are) to set channel and special DVR recording options, I'm just complaining that I had no idea how to get to them and no idea they even existed from that first page of the manual timer dialog. And I shouldn't have needed to read a manual to know that there was a "second level" to the dialog, only reached by pushing the "confirm" button on the first page. Why not at least have some additional text on the screen advising me that this is what I should do to continue on and that "confirm" is not the very end?
Or, I see no reason why the manual timer dialog for the 6412 could not have provided additional links directly off of the first page to the very complete and friendly secondary channel and recording options dialogs, which at the end would perhaps have returned you back to the first dialog page (with your secondary choices displayed). And then you'd have "confirm" at the bottom of that first page with wording clearly suggesting you were now actually going to set the manual timer you had just fully constructed.
Or, maybe at the end of the last dialog page you'd have that final "confirm" with well worded text indicating that this was, truly, the end.
My point about the existing interface is that the wording of the "confirm" question and everything else on the first page does not intuitively suggest that there is much more to do that is not on this page. It clearly intimates that by pushing the "confirm" you are done and are now setting the timer, despite the fact that this was clearly not the case.
Else why would so many of us have missed the key breakthrough, which you have now provided us (and for which I am truly quite grateful)?
Anyway, manual timers were only my first thought as a solution to the current "record series" iGuide functional deficiencies in light of the less-than-adequate guide data regarding reruns and secondary weekly showings of a first-run weekly series on the same channel (e.g. HBO original series and movies, ABC hit shows, NBC hit shows, CBS hit shows,). Actually, given a powerful and accurate onscreen guide I would not normally think to set a manual timer. I much prefer to use the one-click setting of a timer and then perhaps come back in afterwards to edit or modify special settings as appropriate.
