DIRECTV Plus R15 - DVR / Satellite TV receiver price and reviews

OMG. I can't believe how bad this DVR is! If it weren't free from DirecTV (with programming commitment and rebate) I would NEVER have bought OR kept it. To be fair, the R15 has gotten SLIGHTLY better with a couple firmware upgrades, but overall, it's a disgusting excuse for a DVR. Picture a TiVo mating with a toaster oven and begetting this hunk of crud.

Ok, so it does what it says: It records live TV, lets you rewind or pause what's onscreen and you can record two shows at once (so long as you're watching one of them or a pre-recorded show). Other than that, the R15 is AWFUL! The remote is the clunkiest most un-ergonomic thing ever. It has WAY too many buttons, most of which are in bad locations or could have been eliminated altogether by giving double-duty to other buttons. For example, when pressing the numbers keys to change the channel, the 'enter' button used to confirm your channel choice is a small unmarked button in the farthest bottom right corner of the remote beneath the number pads, which is nearly impossible for a right-handed person to reach. However, the large, bright-yellow 'select' button is right in the middle and easy to get to, but it won't confirm your channel choice - only 'enter' will! That's just the tip of the iceberg for how badly designed the remote is...

The remote will perform reasonably well as a universal remote for DVD players, stereos, TVs, etc, but the switch used to change between each 'mode' is nearly impossible to use. No matter how hard I try, I can't get it to stop in the correct detent for whichever component I'm trying to control. Also, whenever you change the 'mode' switch, instead of simply controlling the device you've chosen, the first single out of the remote goes EXCLUSIVELY to the R15 INSTEAD of the component you want to control and pops up a message that reads "The remote is in AV1 mode." I KNOW THAT!!! I CHANGED IT ON PURPOSE TO TURN ON MY STEREO!!! Why DirecTV did this is beyond me. If I'm watching TV and want to turn on the stereo, I have to CAREFULLY change the switch on the remote to AV1, then cover the IR transmitter on the front with my hand and push 'power' once (to avoid the annoying message from popping onscreen) and then point it at the stereo and push 'power' again. All this just to turn on the stereo without interrupting the program... it sounds like I'm being OCD here, but the pop-up message stays on the bottom 1/4 of the screen PERMANENTLY until you switch the remote back to DVR mode and then press 'exit.' With a remote so BADLY designed, I'm starting to eye something like the Harmony 880 from Logitech which should help with some of my complaints, but why couldn't DirecTV just make a better remote in the first place?

The actual tuner and menus in the R15 are HORRIBLY slow. No matter what button you push on the remote, there can be anywhere from a 3 to 8 second delay before the DVR responds. Most times you won't know if the unit received the command or not and end up pushing the button again only to get some undesired result 15 seconds later. The program guide is terribly slow and difficult to navigate. Plus, instead of the 'guide' button on the remote going straight to the program guide, it first takes you to a sub-menu asking to filter your guide (which can already be pre-filtered to your favorite channels with other setup options) by categories like All, Movies, News, etc. This is the worst feature ever! When I press 'guide' on my remote I just want to see the program guide, not a 'filter by' menu!!!

Lastly, the actual recorder is spotty at best. I've set it to record an entire season of a show only to find a handful of episodes were 'blank' when I went to play them back... the R15 recorded 30 minutes of black screen with no sound. I was so MAD when this happened the three times I called DirecTV to complain but all they could do was apologize. Rewinding live TV (to replay a goal being scored or someone getting punched in the face) RARELY works... that is, I'll press the 'rewind' button to go back 10 or so seconds while watching live TV and then press 'play' hoping to relive that great moment for all my friends and pets to see only to have the R15 stop altogether, think for a few seconds, then jump right back to 'realtime' - completely ignoring the fact I wanted to rewind 15 seconds. This happens EVERY time!!! The only thing I've found that works for rewinding live TV is rewinding the R15 a MINIMUM of 30 seconds before you try and press play. Any shorter period of rewind time and the R15 will simply skip back to where you were last watching.

To be fair, I have to list some good qualities... It IS free. That's good. Umm... the R15 lets you record DirecTV pay-per-views and only pay for them if you decide to watch them later. The video can be sent to a TV with an S-Video connection for higher clarity over RCA, while audio can be sent to a stereo over Digital fiber-optic (TOSLINK). There have been some upgrades to the firmware (automatically sent over the satellite feed) in the last six months that have improved some of the problems I originally had. One nice feature that DirecTV added was a 'skip 30 seconds ahead' button that helps skip quickly through commercial breaks during playback. There are two USB ports on the R15 which are non-functional (but do provide 5 volts DC current!), and I can only hope that sometime in the future, DirecTV activates them to allow you to move your favorite shows to some other medium or share them over a home network. I'm sure this will cost another $8 a month and require a 5-year programming commitment, but why not? It's only money!!!

In a note about the firmware, DirecTV seems to have gone to great lengths to prevent their R15's from getting hacked, going so far as to have the software written in Israel (not joking - I did research). This means owners cannot activate the USB ports to transfer recordings nor can they upgrade their R15 with a larger HDD. While this secretive nature protects DirecTV's profits, it makes it nearly impossible to give them suggestions on the R15. I've called DirecTV's customer line several times with what I think would be helpful changes to the interface, but none of the operators had any idea how to get comments to anyone in charge of the R15's development. I write software for a living and cannot believe how poorly built the GUI is for this DVR or that DirecTV is completely unprepared/unwilling to take customer suggestions on making it better.

Overall... it's free. It records your favorite shows (most of the time) and performs basically well. But it's NOT a TiVo. It doesn't always record scheduled shows, it has a terribly slow response time and the remote and user interface are some of the worst designs I've ever seen in my life. DirecTV may be canceling their contract with TiVo in a couple years, but trust me - you're better off paying a little for a real TiVo until then.

DirecTV really dropped the ball on this one. I'm not sure why they released the product, but it appears they did so way too soon.

I received my 1st R15 on 8/2/06.

THE GOOD:

I was impressed on the size of the item being it was so much smaller than my DirecTV TiVo. Very lightweight and easily moved from room-to-room. It has neat lighting displays on the front as well. The lights are in a circle and will spin forward if you're skipping ahead and backwards when rewinding. Nice visual effect.

The Search feature works well and seems to pull your requested information quickly.

Also, it has a meter that lets you know what percentage of space you have left on your hard drive. A very simple, yet important feature. Basically, an hour represents one percent.

Whenever you're in the Menu, you'll always have Live TV or a recorded show in a small window in the upper right hand corner, so you never have to be without your shows even when setting up Series Links (or Season Passes for you TiVo fans).

The interactive TV is pretty nice. Being able to go to the Active Channel and view local weather, horoscopes, lottery numbers, etc. are just a sign of good things to come. They also have previews of certain must-see shows.

THE BAD:

Hmmm, where do I start? Uh, it doesn't work? The first R15 I received seemed to perform well for the first few hours. After that, it froze on a music station. The music still played, but I couldn't change the channel or even go back to the menu.

I noticed a red Reset button on the right side of the console. Little did I know that I would use that button probably (and I kid you not) around 25 to 30 times before sending the receiver back to DirecTV on 8/25.

I hit Reset and it took about five to eight minutes, but the system started back up again good as new.

My second problem was the receiver powering off whenever it felt like it. It would not only turn itself off, it would not allow me to turn it back on without unplugging the device. And of course, it doesn't record anything when it powers down on its own.

Third problem, say you have something scheduled in the To Do List for 8 PM. You come home and realize your R15 has powered down and you unplug it and plug it back up at 810 PM.

Guess what? Your show will not start recording in progress. Once the start time passes, you can hang that program up. It'll never record.

Fourth problem is there are going to be times when you record a show, start watching it and the video will disappear. You'll have audio, but not video.

Fifth problem is when you Autorecord a show, you run into a problem. Example, I set my R15 to Autorecord all NFL Preseason games. The problem I ran into is that it tried to record games on channels that I didn't have. How stupid is that?

The result is me going into a program and getting a blank screen. Regardless if you set up all of your receivable channels in Setup, your R15 will try to record/search for channels in which do not even subscribe. Even after setting preferences.

Problem number six: the remote control is the biggest remote I've ever seen in my life. You should be able to control traffic with that thing it's so big. It's not user friendly and requires both hands to perform a lot of tasks.

Number seven is sometimes when you try to change the channel, the channel banner will change, but the actual channel will not.

Hmmmm, what's next? Oh, the DirecTV customer service will drive you crazy telling you that they've sent an update for your receiver to download and that it will fix all of your problems. Well, I've been told that by at least 10 different representatives and it hasn't happened yet. They always want me to wait for tomorrow and "give it a chance". Three weeks is way too long to me.

But, I gave in, sent that one back and received R15 number two. As soon as I went through the setup, the video went out on it and the screen started flickering. It was pathetic. I knew I had a piece of junk when I tried to hook up my audio input cables and the hole I tried to put it into wasn't even big enough to fit.

Are you kidding me? The plug isn't even a standard size for me to hook up audio cables. Did a baby make this product?

Needless to say, it was only out of the box five minutes before I packed it back up and called DirecTV to let them know I was shipping it back.

Now, for those who just think I'm a disgruntled, non-electronic saavy customer, don't be mistakened. I've dealt with DVR's since the days of UltimateTV. I've been with DirecTV since 1994 and I love their service. I really think the R15 has potential to be a very powerful machine, but I'm very disappointed that they released this device so soon.

A representative told me that the device was tested thoroughly, but "unfortunately, they can't find every error".

That may be true, but if you missed any of the simple things I listed in "The Bad" section, then you're falling asleep during testing.

There are some other things I'm sure I'm forgetting, but you have the gist of it now.

This, one day, could be a superior product, but for now, stick with the TiVo!

I realize the rating is as low as it can get, but believe me, this device is 60% complete at best. It never should've been released and the problems they are having are probably the same issues that have kept the HD R20 from being released.

It was due out this summer and now appears to be hard-pressed to be out before Thanksgiving.

Again, this product can be great one day, but as of now, I only give it a one because I can't go any lower. Why rate something higher than a one if it flat-out doesn't work?