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[DarienA]

The missus hates our DirecTV receivers, because she feels the program guide is hard to read, doesn't show much at once, etc... she was over her moms house and her mom has a different brand receiver and she swears her guide looks much different than ours... different categories of shows are color coded, sports a certain color, etc.... she thinks its because her mom has a different brand receiver than we do.

Is it that or is her mom just using a different style guide?

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Yeah, they can be very different. We've had several over the years. There are differences in color, font size (and thus how much of a title can be shown in the guide), how much programming is displayed at once (I've seen 2 hours and 1.5 hours), whether there's a small picture showing while browsing the guide, basic menu setup; all sorts of things.

 

[Richiban]

You could try checking the menu options of your reciever.

A lot of companies nowadays allow for customizable guides.

The cable provider I am with allows color changes as well as text size changes, font and how many boxes are on the on-screen guide at once.

Typically, the recievers make no difference to what guide you see when you're using your television.

 

[TheDuce22]

Are you sure her mom has direct tv and not dish network. I think dish network does that. Actually dish network is better in just about every category. If they had sunday ticket I would be all over it.

 

[Vlad]

Well, I know that the DirecTivo units have a lot better guides (and remotes, and interfaces, etc) than their standard RCA receiver. While the guide doesn't have as much info as you're looking for, it does look a lot nicer than the one from the RCA unit, and is a lot easier to read.

Of course, if you're not looking into Tivo for that room, then it's moot.

 

[Stuggernaut]

I have DirectTV Tivo in one room and the regular in another. Both guides are quite a bit different (the original one is color coded, the Tivo one is not) BUT both are customizable in one way or another to get a different look for the guide.

Personally, I liked the old one better. I liked being able to cycle through channels in the menu bar at the top of the screen without covering up what I was watching. Can't do that on my Tivo unit.

 

[Loki]

Yeah, it makes a difference. My friend has a Sony receiver, and the layout of his programming guide is terrible (imo) compared to mine, which is a Hughes unit.

 

[DarienA]

Yeah, it makes a difference. My friend has a Sony receiver, and the layout of his programming guide is terrible (imo) compared to mine, which is a Hughes unit.

Thanks Loki... this is the answer I was looking for, not sure why we got off on the TIVO or the or cable provider tangent.

 

[tedtropy]

Yeah, it makes a difference. My friend has a Sony receiver, and the layout of his programming guide is terrible (imo) compared to mine, which is a Hughes unit.

Yeah, the Hughes units have a GREAT interface - good guide, it's really easy to setup program schedules, easy to search for stuff, etc. When I want to see what games are on, I hit Guide, the filter option, sports, then Baseball. Bam, all the games. And there's genres for everything...

 

[Loki]

Yeah, the Hughes units have a GREAT interface - good guide, it's really easy to setup program schedules, easy to search for stuff, etc. When I want to see what games are on, I hit Guide, the filter option, sports, then Baseball. Bam, all the games. And there's genres for everything...

Yeah, the interface and options on the Hughes unit are ace. Still, it pales in comparison to what Primestar used to offer; their interface and stuff was even BETTER than that offered by the Hughes units. They even had a cool remote control that they sent you for free that had color-coded hot buttons so you could jump to the beginning of the sports, variety, movie channel etc. programming blocks with the press of a button. They also sent you a GREAT TV guide every month for free that had articles and features and movie reviews-- it was excellent. Ever since DirecTV took over from Primestar, all those bells and whistles took a hike. Primestar also had MUCH better customer service and technical support. I honestly can't even fathom how they went under and got bought out by DirecTV when nearly EVERYTHING about their service was better-- who knows, maybe their business model was unsound and they were hemorrhaging money; that seems unlikely, though, since rates have been pretty steady even after the takeover. I guess DirecTV just made them an offer they couldn't refuse, a'la the Godfather. Weird.