Stick with DirecTV or Switch to DirecTV Stream?

A rep asking you to DM on an issue that has no privacy concerns (and is off topic) is irritating (but par for the course with the @DIRECTVhelp reps, who seem to love taking things private - no one knows why).  DM'ing you directly is worse.  But actually phoning you is over the line - they shouldn't have access to your phone number and certainly should never call you unsolicited.  That's seems worth reporting.

As far as being wordy - you may have noticed that some of us (blush) are also guilty of that.  As you note, better too many words than not enough.

WRT the limit of 30 episode: yes, that is generally not a problem with "normal" series.  For non-broadcast net shows, there are never that many episodes in a season, and for broadcast net shows, there probably aren't either (and if there are, it would take longer than 90 days to get them, so they'd start expiring before the end of the season if you tried getting all of them before watching them).  However, for shows that air frequently (daily late night shows, news shows, etc.) it can be an issue - though I've never seen the need to record things for more than a few days.  Most things of interest are available on demand (with the exception of news shows and sports, but in both cases, if I don't catch it when it happens, I'll live - there are many ways to get recaps and highlights).

The DTV Stream DVR is pretty much what you described.  It doesn't offer additional ways to sort recordings or to manage series recordings, which often matters to people who have a lot of either.  And it doesn't provide ways to extent recordings or a number of other things that many would consider more basic.

Most people using Android TV devices have apparently had good results with the sideloading.  (I don't have an Android TV device other than one of the DirecTV devices - well, AT&T devices when I got it - so I don't have personal experience.)  However, DTV Stream is not in its early days (at least the service isn't - it's about 5 1/2 years since launch).  But it is true that ownership/management separate from AT&T is fairly recent, and improvements have come much faster since the spin off.  So it is possible they will add a supported Android TV app at some point.  However, for all intents and purposes they have one (between the existing Android and FireTV apps and the app running on their own box, which runs Android TV) and they haven't released one.  No one out here knows why, but my suspicion is that there is a business/contractual reason rather than a technical one.

As far as the "extend recording" signal - my understanding (from reports/speculation here rather than anything "official") is that it was used by the originating provider to tell other carriers that had rights to carry the game but not the originating provider's other content (like post game shows) when to stop carriage.  So I'm not sure that there is an incentive to make it fancier...

I've seen the quality of the "support" here and also on the AT&T side.  Clearly many of them have a reading comprehension problem.  I still have to SMH over them trying so hard to come up with a fix for rain fade, something that probably affected about .000001% of all of the hours of DTV programming we've watched over 19 yrs.  

I did sideload the app on the Chromecast just so we could start using the stream while waiting for the two AT&T boxes.  It works fine but I'm already glad I ordered the boxes because the Chromecast remote really cripples the experience because it doesn't have enough buttons.

So far I've already discovered that:

The auto-extend is apparently brain-dead and I'm going to have to just add later recordings by hand.

The "new episodes" series recording option works just as poorly as it does on the DiirecTV DVRs because I set up a recording for NASCAR Cup races and a few minutes later it started recording a replay of last weekend's race (a replay that's been telecast at least three times before today).  I guess it's probably related to guide data problems like I think it was on the DVR.

So far the picture quality is.....different.  Not sure it's noticeably better than the satellite as far as clarity, but the color saturation is definitely boosted.  Again, we'll wait until the boxes arrive to make a final decision as to PQ.

Watching a hockey game I'd recorded showed some very minor motion jitter.  Even my wife noticed it and she doesn't usually pay attention to things like it.  Our Wifi signal is super strong (about -39dB) so it's not that.  I plan to hook the boxes up with Ethernet and maybe there's a processor issue with the Chromecast on fast moving action, so again, withholding judgement for now.

Probably the most annoying thing is the lack of any indication on the Guide that a show is either being recorded or will be recorded.

You will be glad that you got the boxes. It will make the change as transparent as possible. The channels will align with Directv Satellite. They did a very good job on the remote and general operation of the box. You will find much more control over FF,RR,Pause everything is just better with the boxes. The Red Record button is there push once to record single episode and twice to record series.

We do not have any regrets changing over. I hope it is the same for you. 

The "refurb" boxes showed up today and they look brand new.

Yes, night and day difference between remote and Chromecast remote, it is a joy to use these and I urge anyone considering using the Chromecast to rethink that idea.

Interesting that I kept waiting for the setup to ask for my Stream login info while it was doing the initial setup and that never happened.  Turns out that they pre-load  that info before shipping.  I know they now do that for replacement Internet gateways, copying over your custom settings.

Re: no indicator in the guide for recording/to be recorded shows.  I do see now that there is a little dot up in the show's description when you highlight it in the guide but I really prefer having that marker in the guide grid itself so you don't have to highlight a show to know.

Yes they need to fix that. It needs a marker in the guide to indicate if show is recording or not.  Just like you said the only way to tell now without jumping thru hoops,  is to highlight show in guide and then look up top in description.

Back just to tie this up and point out the pros and cons (for ME) of making the switch after I have had Stream for 5 days.

PROS:

• Slightly better picture quality than Satellite
• No more super laggy DVR response (HR24 I am looking at you here!)
• Cleaner Guide, no more distracting ads
• No more super annoying "Hit the Red button" popups
• Significantly reduced monthly costs

CONS:

• No manual recording time padding (auto-extend does not work well enough or meet my needs)
• No "frame-by-frame" playback (very useful when watching sports)
• No ability to customize favorite channels on the remote
• No Series Manager (the alternative "solution" provided is convoluted)
• No easy way to see what is or will be recording from the Guide view
• Regional sports channel handling in guide and recordings is confusing

Despite some of the cons, I am still glad we made the switch and would recommend  Stream to friends and family.  Hopefully the development of the software will correct  the cons issues I have listed in an expedient manner.

I do "bookmark series"  on every show I have set to "record this series" They are under "my library"--2nd row down. That's my workaround for no series manager.

Thanks!  For me, the Series Manager was where I went to see all the upcoming episodes/recordings and prioritize (something I just realized I no longer need to do because there are no "tuners" so no conflicts).

I see Bookmarks and I am not sure of their advantage.  As far as seeing upcoming recordings,  I can do the same thing by doing View Episodes without a Bookmark.

WRT the "cons" you list:

• Manual padding of recordings is something that has been asked for since the DVR was added (4+ years ago).  It doesn't seem like it should be hard to do (since external clues imply they actually generate a separate instance for each user's recording of an item, or at least pretend they do), but so far nothing (other than reps saying "we're always adding new features - keep checking").
• Frame by frame would likely be difficult to add.  The data formats used by streaming don't store frames individually - they use deltas - so recreating an arbitrary individual frame is somewhat involved, and navigating them is worse, since the video protocols aren't designed for that and they have no dedicated controls to indicate that is what the user is doing.  It might be easier if it was done in the app (at the client end), but coordinating it would be difficult (since there is very little storage available in the clients, it would have to access segments remotely) and the control problem still exists.  All in all, I don't think I'd hold my breath on that one.
• I'm not sure what you mean by "customize favorite channels on the remote".  What I personally would like related to channel customization are profiles (individual user setups), with the ability to edit the channel list (which channels are included and in which order) on a per profile basis.  These would track the user, not the device.  Profiles were promised (to the extend a brief mention in a marketing presentation counts as a "promise") over 4 years ago, though no details.
• They've also been asked for a (better/actual) mechanism to manage series recordings for a long time.  Again, it doesn't seem like it should be that hard, since the obviously have the needed info, so it would seem to only require a GUI editor/manager for it.
• Showing active and upcoming recordings in the guide has been a (lower volume) request.  It seems like it should be fairly readily doable since they already need per-user guide customization (for locals/RSNs and package/add-on subscriptions)
• Not sure what specifically your issue with RSNs in the guide and DVR is.

Under AT&T, very little in the way of enhancement seemed to take place.  The pace seems to be been much better under the independent DTV.  Whether (and when) any of the specific items in your list above (and the many items in other people's lists) happen is anyone's guess - they don't indicate in advance what might be coming.  We can hope.

Bookmarking series was helpful to me a couple of months ago--for some reason--none of my series recordings were happening. So I had a list of shows and it made it easier to re-schedule them.

@Jrandomuser   

• Padding does not seem difficult to me either.  But I am not a programmer and one thing I have learned over the years dealing with them is that things are often the opposite of what I think.  Things that seem difficult were usually met with a "hey, no problem, I'll be back to you in a day or so with new code" and simple things took weeks or months.
• I see the issue you bring up about frame by frame.  I suppose it does not need to be that granular, even just a good slow motion would suffice for most instances.  Heh, maybe this is one of those deals where what seems complicated is simple. 😁  Ok ok, won't hold my breath.
• The remote thing is like what DTV satellite has, where you can program which channels the remote will change to when you use the Up/Down channel flipper.  Essentially it would mimic what Favorites do to the Guide listing.
• The Series Manager is not a hill I would die on, just one of those things that I added that was different for me.
• It does seem odd that more thought did not go into how to display recording status in the Guide.  As with some of these other things, perhaps the noise level is lower because Stream users may not have Satellite experience, maybe they came from some other platform that set their expectations lower.
• RSN....here we have NBC Sports CA and NBC Sports Bay Area.  The channels on Satellite were listed as 696, 696-1, 698, 698-1 and 698-2.  The Stream Guide lists them as 696, 696, 698, 698, 698.  But when you channel surf using the remote it picks just one of each channel, 696 and 698.  Right now, there is programming on 698 and 698-1 and 698-2 are signed off.  But the remote picks 698-2 when you use the CH button and you get a "Current Programming Not Available".  You can't even punch in 698 and get the live feed, it still puts you on 698-2.  The only way to get to the correct channel is from the Guide.  Also, because of oddities in the actual guide data (not DTV's fault, this has been a problem on DTV Sat too) picking a game to record is equally a mess.  Right now Tuesday's Sharks game shows in the Guide as being on the first and second 698 and a Giants' game on the third 698.  But the Sharks "team recording" is showing it's going to record NSCAalt2 which is the one the Giants' game is on.  Now I'll have to babysit it to see what it actually records.  What a mess!

I know that the history of changing things was not encouraging but I am hoping that with the big push and the increased focus for Stream to probably be the future of DTV things will change.

@Ludwick577   Thanks, I will start adding Bookmarks going forward as that seems like a good "backup".  There were times over the 19yrs on Sat where I had to rebuild my Series Manager and only had my poor memory to rely on. 

@GTyz   NASCAR,  F1, IndyCar, NHRA, NHL and NBA. This weekend the NASCAR and F1 events were over before the scheduled broadcast end so no problem there.  But none of the NBA recordings I have made this week got to the end of the game so the additional recordings came in handy.  The Sharks hockey game also ran out before the end of the game.  So it seems to be an issue with both major networks and regional sports channels.  

Padding with more recordings is a gigantic mess.  On Saturday F1 had two broadcasts. I added 2 hours of additional recordings for each.  But because the way the List sorts and groups, the two main events were grouped into one entry and that was way down at the bottom of the recorded program lists.  But the padding programs were scattered all over the list, making it impossible to figure out which program went with which of the two events.