# What started as a joke....



## mikewolf13 (Jan 31, 2006)

Several months ago, I joked/wondered aloud if the R15 would be fixed prior to the 2 year committment it came with expired.

Well as many of us hit month 14 (ignoring subsequent committments for this thread), I wonder whether you believe the R15 software will be systemically fixed before your two year committment ends.

By that I mean the software issues that are 'known bugs". So even if yours works perfectly, or even satisfactorly. what is your level of confidence issues will no longer be in the general software and be considered user/box specific.

If you feel that is the case now then vote as such. 

FYI -For this purpose please do not count DLB or 50 SL limit as bugs as those are design "choices".
FYI - by debugged I mean "successfully and completely debugged" as Chase said.. I understand some of ou will say it can never be 100% debugged...but i think you get my jist


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

I would say this latest update will be the last serious effort put into the product. Since it already is showing many of the same problems of the previous versions, I will venture to say the R15 will never be 'trouble-free'.
Furthermore, with D* pretty much abandoning the SD subscriber base and funneling all resources to the HD market, there is no real need for further development of it. Sorry to say, it's as good as it's ever gonna get.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

I consider the First Run/Repeats problem a bug which will never be resolved.


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## ISWIZ (Nov 18, 2005)

I said no but I don't know of any software that does not continue to have bugs and as such continues to receive updates until the next release. A better word choice may have been "reliable". The R15 is closer than a year ago but the goal line is still out of range of the DTV kicker.


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## VaJim (Jul 27, 2006)

I agree the R-15 has been painful. Sometimes I think DTV would have been better off to take a TIVO, put a DTV label on say..."see what we just built." :lol: With what is already out there, the R-15 design can't be that hard. You would think they were re-inventing the wheel.


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

VaJim said:


> I agree the R-15 has been painful. Sometimes I think DTV would have been better off to take a TIVO, put a DTV label on say..."see what we just built." :lol: With what is already out there, the R-15 design can't be that hard. You would think they were re-inventing the wheel.


Go build us all a mass produced DVR with say even 3/4 the functionality that the R15 has and then come back and let me know how easy it was.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

Clint Lamor said:


> Go build us all a mass produced DVR with say even 3/4 the functionality that the R15 has and then come back and let me know how easy it was.


I wouldn't build it...I'd find a company that's done the job before and talk to them about putting their software on my hardware. Why ever would one want to reinvent the wheel?


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## TigersFanJJ (Feb 17, 2006)

Clint Lamor said:


> Go build us all a mass produced DVR with say even 3/4 the functionality that the R15 has and then come back and let me know how easy it was.


Give me the same budget that Dtv has spent on the R15 and I think I could come up with something.


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## cybok0 (Jan 5, 2006)

Wolffpack said:


> I wouldn't build it...I'd find a company that's done the job before and talk to them about putting their software on my hardware. Why ever would one want to reinvent the wheel?


Which is what they did before with the DTIVOs, maybe they should of looked at there past accomplices instead of there ego and wallet(they probably spent more on the R15 and HR20 than they probably ever payed TIVO ).


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## ISWIZ (Nov 18, 2005)

cybok0 said:


> Which is what they did before with the DTIVOs, maybe they should of looked at there past accomplices instead of there ego and wallet(they probably spent more on the R15 and HR20 than they probably ever payed TIVO ).


Given their relative positons in the market, it may have been TIVO whose ego got in the way. They are still ripe for a buy out. DTV may have just forced their bluff.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

ISWIZ said:


> Given their relative positons in the market, it may have been TIVO whose ego got in the way. They are still ripe for a buy out. DTV may have just forced their bluff.


Well, Malone is getting a hunk of cash in the Liberty/DTV deal.


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

ISWIZ said:


> Given their relative positons in the market, it may have been TIVO whose ego got in the way. They are still ripe for a buy out. DTV may have just forced their bluff.


I have read that the head of Tivo's ego cost them other business which is why they hired the new guy a while back. Sad when ego hurts good products.


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Clint Lamor said:


> Go build us all a mass produced DVR with say even 3/4 the functionality that the R15 has and then come back and let me know how easy it was.


DirecTV did not build the device or write the software. The HW device is a purpose built PC with 2 integrated SAT tuners and a hard disk. 
The R15 hardware is fine, it is the Software that is inferior. DirecTv did not write the software and likely does little if any of the maintenance on it. NDS provides the DVR code for it.

What DTV is doing is adding the revenue generating pieces to it like DTV2Go and the emerging premium services that will use the 'Interactive' ability. This is where the wedge was driven between TiVo and DTV.

http://www.nds.com/pdfs/XTV.pdf


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

DirecTV is pretty much solely responsible for marketing the R15 and supporting R15 customers. Except for DirecTV's errors and omissions in these areas, the R15 would be just another bad product. But, compounding the technical problems, DirecTV has made but not honored promises and has published mis- and disinformation. It's hard to sympathize with DirecTV without condoning, and even furthering, the company's unethical behavior. At this point, I no longer even attempt to do so.

More on topic, software quality isn't about tediously removing defects from products. It's about avoiding them in the first place. We don't know much about processes such as software engineering. But, among the few things we know is that troubleshooting and debugging are enormously costly and wasteful of human resources. There's also a tendency to introduce new defects while attempting to remove old ones. The result is that there's a tipping point in software quality, beyond which you can exchange serious defects for less serious defects but you can't really make the software good. 

Barring radical change to the way in which R15 software development is performed, the R15 will always be a turkey. And radical change at this point in the R15 life cycle would be prohibitively expensive. I expressed this opinion when I first got my R15, April of 2005. Most of those who commented on my opinion rejected it. Generally, they exhibited a poor understanding of software engineering, which was the subject of my PhD dissertation. While I may not be right in my opinion, I have yet to see a rebuttal that takes good account of the software engineering principles that bear on the issue at hand. So, I remain convinced that the R15's future is dark. And, as months go by, I anticipate that the opinions of members will continue to converge toward my opinion. The experiences related to recent major releases seem to have had a significant negative influence on opinions. But, an ever smaller number of zealots continues to hold out for the next release, which is promised to fix many serious problems. At this point it should be obvious that such hopes are rooted in human optimism and goodwill rather than the facts.


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## Mark20 (Dec 25, 2006)

Clint Lamor said:


> Go build us all a mass produced DVR with say even 3/4 the functionality that the R15 has and then come back and let me know how easy it was.


I used to work for a company that developed a couple of D* boxes and heavily worked on one of them. *IT AIN"T EASY!* Their specifications are enormous with tons of "corner cases" you have to handle. We were one of the first companies to implement the Advanced Program Guide and found numerous issues with the spec's.

What is D*'s business model for producing these boxes? There are at least 3 manufacturers making identical looking boxes. Bot are they the same under the hood? I think not, since the S/W updates are separate.


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## Mark20 (Dec 25, 2006)

wbmccarty said:


> More on topic, software quality isn't about tediously removing defects from products. It's about avoiding them in the first place. We don't know much about processes such as software engineering. But, among the few things we know is that troubleshooting and debugging are enormously costly and wasteful of human resources. There's also a tendency to introduce new defects while attempting to remove old ones. The result is that there's a tipping point in software quality, beyond which you can exchange serious defects for less serious defects but you can't really make the software good.
> 
> Barring radical change to the way in which R15 software development is performed, the R15 will always be a turkey. And radical change at this point in the R15 life cycle would be prohibitively expensive. I expressed this opinion when I first got my R15, April of 2005. Most of those who commented on my opinion rejected it. Generally, they exhibited a poor understanding of software engineering, which was the subject of my PhD dissertation. While I may not be right in my opinion, I have yet to see a rebuttal that takes good account of the software engineering principles that bear on the issue at hand. So, I remain convinced that the R15's future is dark. And, as months go by, I anticipate that the opinions of members will continue to converge toward my opinion. The experiences related to recent major releases seem to have had a significant negative influence on opinions. But, an ever smaller number of zealots continues to hold out for the next release, which is promised to fix many serious problems. At this point it should be obvious that such hopes are rooted in human optimism and goodwill rather than the facts.


With 20 years of embedded S/W development I completely agree with the S/W Engineering aspects here. If the manufacturers and D* can get their hands around the development process it would be possible to rein it in. Unfortunetely the activity of coding like he** (but going nowhere fast) usually wins to management compared to the apparent inactivity of following a process and getting the job done right. Pump out lots of releases where you break things you previously fixed or just a handfull where everything does what's its supposed to. In my experieince the apparent inactivity usually gets the job done quicker.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

wbmccarty said:


> Barring radical change to the way in which R15 software development is performed, the R15 will always be a turkey. And radical change at this point in the R15 life cycle would be prohibitively expensive.


The only shred of hope is that DirecTV is no longer part of the same corporate structure as NDS, which is where the R15 software was developed, and I think is still an NDS project. We can hope that DirecTV under Liberty will move away from NDS, and either rebuild or replace the R15. My guess is that down the road the HR20 will be the standard DVR for both SD and HD installations. The R15 will end up like the DirecTivo is today - still in use by many but not supported with further software upgrades.

Carl


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## VaJim (Jul 27, 2006)

BattleScott said:


> The R15 hardware is fine, it is the Software that is inferior. DirecTv did not write the software and likely does little if any of the maintenance on it. NDS provides the DVR code for it.


...so fire the software guy!!!:eek2:


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## wbmccarty (Apr 28, 2006)

carl6 said:


> The only shred of hope is that DirecTV is no longer part of the same corporate structure as NDS, which is where the R15 software was developed, and I think is still an NDS project. Carl


I agree that's a factor for the better. But, I also admit that if I were in the shoes of the new owner, I'd write the R15 off and try to build something better. Probably, DTV had already made exactly that decision, notwithstanding facts to the contrary that are regularly cited here. There's not much money to be made in perfecting yesterday's product. The best hope is that DirecTV will return to their roots of good customer service and somehow treat R15 owners well with respect to whatever new technology they introduce. But, that's a pretty thin hope in the what-have-you-done-for-me-today world of corporate decision making.


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