With my Directv Tivo DVR there are two main forums I frequent when I have questions: the Tivo Community Forum provides general information and the DealDatabase.com forum which is more geared to provide software solutions. Both of these sites have forum areas for the HR20, however DBSTalk.com seems to be emerging as the forum of choice.
It seems that the DBSTalk.com forum is being used by Directv to help with debugging the HR20 software. From what I have read, I feel lucky that my HR20 experience is starting with version 0x145 of the DVR software. It looks like previous versions were not up to par, almost akin to my experience with the Comcast Scientific Atlanta 8300HD. Once they understood that the number of unhappy HR20 owners was growing and at the prodding of the DBSTalk.com forum moderator, they seem to have reacted very quickly to provide fixes. This is just another example how forums can be extremely important to Customer Service organizations (take note Comcast). Yes there are a lot of inane comments posted and there are the folks who think beta = production quality, however once you filter those posts out there always seem to be extremely valuable information from individuals who seem to know what they are talking about. In my experience with forums, I have probably solved 90% of configuration related issues without using a company's customer service. Companies are realizing this and starting their own forums, however I think independent forums provide a better source of open product discussion. The caveat is for those forums to keep their independence and for companies to provide measured responses when forums cross the line into what might be considered proprietary. In the end it will benefits both sides.
Anyway if you have a Directv HR20, I highly recommend visiting the site...It has already helped me immensely to find Tivo like functionality in my HR20.
Comments