[FTLOSM]

Always wondered who actually is doing the upgrading of my directv box, I own the mitsu srhd400 and I see the current software says 5099.0 with no future upgrades slated yet, are the upgrades issued/designed by directv or are they issued/designed by mitsubishi? & are these coming thru the dish or phone line?


Guess it doens't make a huge difference I just wondered who makes the decision when its time to upgrade as to what changes are made, and who & how is the upgrade actually sent to us users, on this last upgrade I lost some abilities I am bummed about (allowing me to choose black bars vs grey bars for viewing for instance is now not an option) this happened overnight on me when this thing upgraded apparently...


Also wondering where if anywhere we could report bugs and or wants on these future upgrades?


I would REALLLLY like the ability to have the channel display thing be turned off alot faster, (you know when you change channels the display thing stays up for like 8-10 seconds showing the channel and the name of the program) I usually hit some other button (cant recall at the moment) to clear it but it would be nice to choose to turn it off faster as a general option, its sorta like the whole logo issue (I cant STAND static logos) but in relation to the channel banner thingy from directv, I know what channel i am on and what the show is about from viewing the guide beforehand, I dont need to see it plastered up there for 10 seconds everytime I change the channel.


and I would like the ability to put the black bars back on (an option recently removed apparently) for occasional 4:3 viewing of directv programing. Yeah I know some here will talk about burnin issues but I know by the time that happens (i dont watch alot of 4:3 directv) I will want a newer better tv and will probably buy one for 1/3 the cost of what this one ran me - so im not too worried on that. That's like saying don't overclock that pc you'll wear it out faster, heck by the time I wear out that overclocked pc I am ready for a new one,


nuff said.....


Bill

 

[Dave McWilliams]

Quote:

Originally posted by FTLOSM Always wondered who actually is doing the upgrading of my directv box, I own the mitsu srhd400 and I see the current software says 5099.0 with no future upgrades slated yet, but are these coming thru the phone line from directv (issued from mitsubishi) or are these coming thru the dish?

The updates come over the satellite dish. I don't know who writes the software, I just know that D* and the equipment manufacturers blame each other whenever something goes wrong.

 

[R. Aster]

As we used to say in the software business, "The upgrade is transparent to the user ... they'll never see it coming!" Applies to most of the recent DTV software upgrades that either broke things that were working or deleted features, all with no user option to decline the upgrade, no readme files, no useful end-user support, and no effective means of user feedback.


The software in my Mits/Hughes STB (and in my Mits TV itself) is clearly poorly designed and debugged. Seems like these guys are re-learning lessons in software design learned by others over the last 30 years or so.


And nope, don't know what languages or tools they have available, and yes, maybe there are memory or other constraints on this software due to the hardware, but really! DTV has been building / specifying STBs for what, 8 years? Time enough to build software tools and learn how to do this right.


Gee, can you tell I don't think much of this software? Sorry for the rant...

 

[Ken Erickson]

From what little I remember when I worked at Samsung in San Jose, there at least 2 parts to the system. The first part is designed and controlled by DirecTV. It's the part that deals with the access card and is like a black box the other half of the system and GUI which is controled by the STB manufacture. That part deals with the display. The display system "asks" the black box if the user has access to a channel. If it does then you see the decoded signal on your display. If it doesn't have access rights then you see the "call 721" message. I don't know if the access system software is part of the STB software or not, I wouldn't think so - that would open the access system to inside hackers.

 

[greywolf]

Quote:

Originally posted by FTLOSM I would REALLLLY like the ability to have the channel display thing be turned off alot faster, (you know when you change channels the display thing stays up for like 8-10 seconds showing the channel and the name of the program)

The Exit button on the remote will quickly clear the screen.

 

[FTLOSM]

yeah as I stated above just after the section you quoted


"I usually hit some other button (cant recall at the moment) to clear it"



hitting exit is not so bad but


"it would be nice to choose to turn it off faster as a general option"


if they monkey around with software upgrades all the time and change are preferences and choices this is one I would like to see (so we don't have to keep using that exit button).



Bill

 

[Steve13]

Bill-

If you're using a remote that allows you to build macro's, just add an exit at the end of each channel icon, and the banner will disappear almost instantly. That's what I do with my Pronto and Panny STB.

 

[FTLOSM]

thats an awesome idea, altho my mx500's channel up and down cant be programed that way, but I never even thought of something like that very cool to remember if I ever switch to a pronto or something.


Thanks again

Bill