Speed kills-- when watching tv.

April 2, 2012 6:11 AM

Comcast vs. Direct TV (or Dish) -- what has the more responsive GUI, DVR and/or channel tuning?
posted by sandmanwv to Technology (15 answers total)

I hated Dish Network's DVR/GUI so much that I switched back to Comcast. Comcast's UI is more attractive.. and although it sometimes requires more button clicks then Dish Network did.. I breathed a sigh of relief when our Comcast system was restored.

Comcast has a lot more customization options for how DVR items are displayed and even the color of the UI itself.
posted by royalsong at 6:17 AM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have DISH - hate the GUI.
posted by COD at 6:30 AM on April 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I have Direct TV. The layout of the GUI is fine, the responsiveness is horrible.

I absolutely understand the channel change issues with highly compressed video - but there is no excuse for a several second wait just to advance to another menu item or to scroll through the channel guide. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough that it is a source of frustration.
posted by NoDef at 6:34 AM on April 2, 2012 [2 favorites]

My response time with directv used to be fine. The redesign has made it ridiculously slow. It's not change-to-Comcast slow, but it's really unbearable.
posted by crankyrogalsky at 7:24 AM on April 2, 2012

From my experience the UI for the DirectTV DRV is better than the one for Comcast.
posted by LittleMy at 7:55 AM on April 2, 2012

I've used them all. I went with Dish because they are a bit cheaper. I greatly regret that decision. The DVR is terrible. Really terrible. Its buggy, locks up, and the GUI is a case study on how not to do things. Its incredible that Tivo came out like 13 years ago, yet very few companies have learned from its excellent interface.

On top of it, I've been with them 2 years and I'm on my third box. They just keep dying.

Uverse is now in my area, so I'm looking to switch soon.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:05 AM on April 2, 2012

damn dirty ape: The UI on the Uverse boxes is fantastic. Very responsive and minimal clutter.

I wonder about the new DirecTV TiVo DVRs. They probably have a much better UI.
posted by zsazsa at 9:15 AM on April 2, 2012

I’ve had Dish network for probably 15 years. I don’t have any problems with the DVR, we use it for everything, rarely watching anything without using it. It’s not as pretty as Tivo, but it works fine. It looks like the late 90’s Linux system it is. I have an older unit though, maybe there’s something people don’t like about the new ones?
posted by bongo_x at 10:03 AM on April 2, 2012

We just switched to Comcast after having DirecTV for almost 9 years (we were happy with it, but our internet and phone was Verizon, and we can't get FIOS, so we reluctantly switched to take advantage of the Xfinity bundling and faster internet)

Both suffer from rather slow response, but I really miss the DirecTV DVR in terms of UI - Maybe I'm just not used to the new one yet, but it seemed much more intuitive in terms of navigating, etc. Overall, they probably both rank a "so-so", but I'd give a slight edge to DirecTV.
posted by jalexei at 10:16 AM on April 2, 2012

It's interesting people are saying the new redesign for DirecTV has made things slow, in my experience the old UI was tortuously, throw the remote across the room type slow and now it's super fast and much better. I hate Comcast's UI--menus are slow, the DVR features make no sense and require a bunch of clicking that just isn't necessary. Search is super slow.

We recently moved to a place that has trees that makes DirecTV impossible (my nearby parents have it though) so we go with a Comcast cable card and use a TiVo.
posted by Kimberly at 10:17 AM on April 2, 2012

I know there is some hate out there for the new TiVo HD interface for lag, but I will say it is light years ahead of the regular cable HD DVR we've been using for the past few years. Kimberly's advice of a TiVo with a CableCard might be worth checking out.
posted by shinynewnick at 10:35 AM on April 2, 2012

One thing that I've found using Direct TV at friends' houses is that they have a LOT of cruft in the middle of the channel guide (Pay Per View, games, and other stuff you'll probably never touch). This makes it a pain to browse.
posted by codacorolla at 10:40 AM on April 2, 2012

The DirecTV with Tivo has an old interface and is generally the suck in usability, if you can believe it. I switched to it as soon as it was released and now regret it.

The ONLY feature it has better than the native DirecTV DVR is the ability to switch between the two live tuners and being able to pause either one.

The new DirecTV GUI is better than the old one, but can be slow if you have an older box. The new boxes have enough horsepower so you don't notice any issues.
posted by Argyle at 1:32 PM on April 2, 2012

I have DirecTV with whole-house DVR (the DVR is in one room, but accessible from multiple TVs).

The main TV with the DVR has a really fast response, but is crowded with the little ads and extra menu choices codacorolla mentioned. The other TV has a slimmed-down menu (since it access the DVR but with fewer options), but the response rate is a bit slower because it is communicating across the house.

But I like both of them better than the old Comcast DVR we had a year ago. That thing was slow and muddled and I really, really disliked it.
posted by tacodave at 3:03 PM on April 2, 2012

The update DirecTV recently did was to improve speed, but it seems like it just made the interface "seem" faster by animating a lot of it, quirky transitions/etc. I believe the new interface (non-Tivo) to be slower than it was pre-update. It's very noticeable.
posted by getawaysticks at 8:44 AM on April 3, 2012