Interactive feature for on-demand

[anitapat]

The new interactive feature for on-demand recordings is so much slower and provides less information than the old listings. I tried to contact U-verse TV, but they make is near impossible to make comments. Is anyone out the from AT&T U-verse listening? This new feature is not as useful or user friendly.

[aviewer ACE - Master]

anitapat - How do you get to the interactive version? Press Go interactive? Never press go interactive unless it is nap time.

Maybe when processing power is increased ten fold it might work. When you are used to instant response from browser activity or channel changing, the time interactive takes is unacceptable.

Why are you using this method instead of the "standard" method?

[BeeBeeSA ACE - Professor]

aviewer.......the on demand has changed from the way it used to be.  It looks more like a GUI interface.  It does this even if you select the "premium" selection to get to HBO, Cinamax, Showtime, etc.

The minute you select the "premium" selction you get the dredded spinning circle in the lower right hand corner.  Then you have to arrow over to get to HBO and twice to get to HBO HD.  Then if you selct HBO HD it will bring up "tiles" of the front cover of each movie the you have to arrow over to the movie and press "ok" and then the discription comes up after the spinning circle quits.

I did find a way to speed things up a bit by selecting the ABC icon.  This goes back to a list type presentation rather than the tiles for each individual movie.

[dhascall ACE - Master]

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BeeBeeSA wrote:

aviewer.......the on demand has changed from the way it used to be.  It looks more like a GUI interface.  It does this even if you select the "premium" selection to get to HBO, Cinamax, Showtime, etc.

The minute you select the "premium" selction you get the dredded spinning circle in the lower right hand corner.  Then you have to arrow over to get to HBO and twice to get to HBO HD.  Then if you selct HBO HD it will bring up "tiles" of the front cover of each movie the you have to arrow over to the movie and press "ok" and then the discription comes up after the spinning circle quits.

I did find a way to speed things up a bit by selecting the ABC icon.  This goes back to a list type presentation rather than the tiles for each individual movie.

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It almost makes me wonder why U-Verse doesn't ask subscribers to test out features, side by side before implementing.  I have beta tested before and I'm sure that willing subscribers (both Aces and non) would love to help.  Often major companies will spring new features on a few "unwittings" and play it by ear to see if there are any issues while other big companies just trust their developers and in house testing crew.  Lastly some companies do public and private betas.  i wish ythat AT&T did the latter.

[aviewer ACE - Master]

I guess I did not get that update yet in New Haven CT. I do not get a spinning circle - just getting videos.

[anitapat]

Ace-wizard- Unfortunately when I press the video on demand button on my remote, which is the way I have always accessed the on demand options, it now starts up this interactive feature. I wish there was some way to get to the old listings of the videos on demand. I just recently began having this show up when I was looking for movies on demand, like since the 1st of February. I live in Austin, Tx-so maybe AT&T U-verse is trying out this feature in certain market areas. Your lucky if if don't have to deal with this slowed down process.

[BeeBeeSA ACE - Professor · Accepted solution]

anitapat....Once you get to the on demand and arrow down to premium press ok.  Then on the bar on the left you will see something that looks like a tic-tac-toe with arrows in a circle with abc.  See the 3rd pic down.  Arrow down to that and once it's highlighted press ok.  Now you will be back to a list view.  Not exactly the same as it used ot be but it operates, or better resembles, the way it used to be.  Much faster to find what you want.  Once you see the name of the movie highlight it press ok and the discription of the move comes up.  It's much faster than the tile view that is the default.

Here are some pics for those who have not seen the new format:

[BeeBeeSA ACE - Professor · Accepted solution]

Here are some pics from the list view:

[oufanindallas]

Looks like netflix or amazon prime on my roku. I just checked through my slingbox I don't have that update yet.

[BeeBeeSA ACE - Professor]

OU..maybe a DVR and STB re-boot?  That's when I noticed it.  I reset all mine to get the memory allocation change and and now have this for on demand.

[oufanindallas]

I'll try that tonight when I get home

[anitapat]

Bee-Bee SA- Thanks for the info on getting to the list version of the on demand movies. That helps some-but you still have to wait forever for the interactive thing to load everytime you click on something. Wish AT&T U-verse TV would listen to customer feedback. Thanks again!

[dhascall ACE - Master]

I will say that it looks like AT&T is trying to make U-Verse VoD look like Netflix.

[oufanindallas]

Rebooted DVR and still have the old menu for On Demand.  I guess I'll get it when I get it.

[BeeBeeSA ACE - Professor]

I did receive a survey from AT&T asking about the "New On-Demand" and expressed my displeasure at the slowness of the overall operation.  Don't know what good it will do but I told them!!

[Tigcat]

Just had to say this is a real downgrade to AT&T service. I left Comcast as AT&T was faster and easy to use, this is worse than Comcast ever way. I see a lot less use for AT&T on Demand going forward.

[dhascall ACE - Master]

I still have the old look VoD, GUI.

[oufanindallas]

As do I.

[kgraham182]

Anyone using a Xbox 360, have you been able to use OnDemand with the new UI. I keep getting "This video is currently unavailable or has been removed from U-Verse On Demand. Please try again later." error. OnDemand was working before the new UI, and works on the other set-top boxes.

[prpplague]

indeed it is a downgrade... got three more months on my contract and ATT just gave me a massive reason to drop them...

[oufanindallas]

I got the new GUI on Thursday.  It's not nearly as bad as everyone says it is.  It does remind me of Netflix which gets used quite a bit around our house.

[dczyz]

Is there a way to turn this off and go back to the old version?   I always laughed at how bad the FIOS on demand interface was when I went to visit my Dad, and now Uverse is just as bad.

[tem62]

Ditto here. I don't use On-Demand very much but, I will certainly use it less now. I hope they don't put the same disgusting, and disgustingly slow, interface on Recorded TV. If they do, I'll be off uVerse TV within a week.

[woodrim]

Solved?  Not for me it isn't. I find it very irritating that AT&T would change the menu system to something more cumbersome and time consuming. Changing it to the list view does not solve the delays. The delays are excessive. CHANGE IT BACK and fix the issues offline before introducing to your customer community.  This is a serious problem for me as I don't have the patience to sit there waiting for screens to appear.

[dhascall ACE - Master]

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oufanindallas wrote:

I got the new GUI on Thursday.  It's not nearly as bad as everyone says it is.  It does remind me of Netflix which gets used quite a bit around our house.

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The biggest issue for me is the slowness of the Search function and the "More showtimes" feature either not working or inconsistent.  That part blows.

[docbombay]

Speaking as someone who used a slide rule in college, the extra few seconds to find and choose a movie don't bother me so much.  But I am in complete agreement with DH that the "Search" and "More Showtimes" functions are more cumbersome and irritating.  The corollary to "don't fix it if it ain't broke" is "fix it until it's broke."  

docbombay

[jcaparula]

Finally got this in Madison WI . . . was dreading it based on all the negative posts, but if you switch to list view, it's really not bad at all. In fact, it makes it more TiVo-ish, which is a good thing.

[RCSMG ACE - Expert]

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jcaparula wrote:

Finally got this in Madison WI . . . was dreading it based on all the negative posts, but if you switch to list view, it's really not bad at all. In fact, it makes it more TiVo-ish, which is a good thing.

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I will have to try switching the view, because the current incarnation is way too slow for me.  I liked the old OD setup.

[LSmaven]

I am in the Detroit area and we just converted to the new On-Demand format.  I hate it!  It is painfully slow and has less offerings. For example; Lifetime has all of 4 shows listed as being available now. Whenver friends as me my opinion of ATT Uverse, I have sung the praises of this option - no more. I have been debating on switching over to Brighthouse for some time - tomorrow I begin shopping.

Also, I tried to find some option to share my opion with the company - some type of customer feedback option.  If it exists, it is too hard to find.  Obviously they don't care.

[marcindublin]

Having now played with the new On-Demand UI, I'm at a loss to answer the simple question:

Why?

The new UI  is slower than the old one and doesn't appear to offer new functionality. Poster  mode is unusable because it is slow, and I can't read the tiny little poster  icons anyway. The old UI was perfectly functional.

If AT*T wanted to improve the on-demand offerings, they need to improve the content offerings which are anemic and always have been.

It's a little frustrating because there are usability issues up and down the UI. A look at these boards over the years would have provided suggestions for meaningful changes.  Closed Captions, additional options for series recordings and easier ways to hide channels and define favorites come to mind. To spend development dollars fixing something that arguably was working just fine seems silly to me.