Program Reminder

Perhaps they have not done it for the same reason there is no longer a place in your refrigerator to place the large block of ice, nor a hand crank on the front of your car.

I'm not a programmer, I don't play one on TV, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but all these folks who claim it's an easy fix need to do the programming for Microsoft CE and see if they can come up with a better solution.

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@oufanindallas wrote:

I'm not a programmer, I don't play one on TV, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but all these folks who claim it's an easy fix need to do the programming for Microsoft CE and see if they can come up with a better solution.

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Good point. If it was an easy fix, wouldn't it have been implemented years ago?

Here's my  thought: A standard box from Time Warner, Dish, Comcast, whoever, has tuner cards in it that "tune" to the channel when the appropriate button is pressed, right? This means that the channels are sent to the box all at once. It's my belief that AT&T works in the exact opposite way, that the channels are "stored" somewhere else and the box sends a signal to "call" for the channel once the buttons are pressed.

As others have said, with four HD streams, just record stuff and watch it via channel 9999 or the "Recorded TV" button 10-15 minutes after it started recording.

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@baseballisback wrote:

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@oufanindallas wrote:

I'm not a programmer, I don't play one on TV, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but all these folks who claim it's an easy fix need to do the programming for Microsoft CE and see if they can come up with a better solution.

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Good point. If it was an easy fix, wouldn't it have been implemented years ago?

 

Here's my  thought: A standard box from Time Warner, Dish, Comcast, whoever, has tuner cards in it that "tune" to the channel when the appropriate button is pressed, right? This means that the channels are sent to the box all at once. It's my belief that AT&T works in the exact opposite way, that the channels are "stored" somewhere else and the box sends a signal to "call" for the channel once the buttons are pressed.

 

 

As others have said, with four HD streams, just record stuff and watch it via channel 9999 or the "Recorded TV" button 10-15 minutes after it started recording.

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That's a pretty good description of how it works.  The box knows what channels are available and when you attempt to tune one it starts a process to have that channel stream sent to the box.  When it no longer wants that channel, it cancels the stream.

However, this is more like a guide feature; the box has the program guide; you'd have to set the reminder on a program in the guide and the box would then have to store an time-based event to trigger when the time arrived.  I'm guessing that, other than the DVR, there's no provision in the box architecture to do anything on a prescribed time.

Added to this, would the event be only for the box that set the request, or all boxes?  If all boxes, would it not annoy other users?  If only one box, what happens if you move to another box after setting the event?

In any case, even the UX design is more complicated than most requesters have thought about.  And, again, is contrary to the freedom from apointment TV that the DVR grants you.

I don't understand the following statement:  "Recording a show is not even a remote solution or acceptable work around" UNLESS you don't have a DVR. 

While I loved the 'reminder' feature of Comcast, it is certainly not a dealbreaker with Uverse.  Setting a recording neither indicates warped thinking or being behind the times (albeit I am old).

Let me offer a scenario:  DH finds that the movie "Bullitt" is on TCM at 3:00pm on a Thursday but he's at work.  It's not available On Demand and you can only watch TCM online live so we're back to square one.  Besides, why watch a movie on a computer moniter if you have a 60" HDTV?  Even if a reminder was an option, it would be useless.  The logical solution is to DVR it.

Reminders have their place and use and I do miss that feature but you can't say recording is useless.  That's crazy talk.

@Marlinmo   Guess you don't get it that if you record something, you can start watching an hour program about 20 mins in and zip thru all commerccials/promos.  You'll end just about the time the show ends that way too.

I abolutely hate watching anything live due to the commercials.  Love my DVR.

Chris
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@mibrnsurg wrote:

@Marlinmo   Guess you don't get it that if you record something, you can start watching an hour program about 20 mins in and zip thru all commerccials/promos.  You'll end just about the time the show ends that way too.

 

I abolutely hate watching anything live due to the commercials.  Love my DVR.

 

Chris
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That too!  It took one football season for DH to become a believer.  He sets the DVR, delays the start of his viewing and FFs thru the commercials. And what if there are 2 games on at the same time?  Reminders would prove useless.

Another perk of using the DVR, if you (or the cat) accidently changes the channel, you don't miss any of the programming.