JonCellini.com

A while ago I wrote about various usability annoyances with my DishPVR satellite box. Over the time I have had the unit Dish Network has done a great job of improving the usability of the product via software upgrades. One feature that was added (and needed!) was the ability to resolve conflicts for overlapping event timers. Now when two event timers conflict a menu will popup allowing you to decide which one to keep and which to delete. This is a good thing; however, there is no way to delete only a single instance of a reoccurring event timer that is in conflict. From a usability point of view this is a pain if there is a one-time event that I want to record in lieu of some reoccurring event that I have scheduled. I keep hoping that a future software upgrade will make this work more intelligently.

Even with this little annoyance being able to time shift TV is great. The simple convenience of having the functionality built into the satellite tuner beats trying to MacGyver my own solution. A dual tuner HD capable unit would be nice but I can’t see investing the money that Dish Network is asking for their only HD capable DVR unit.

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