hide channels?

The Uverse guide is pitiful.  It is difficult to hide channels.  The original question is around functionality that is missing that Comcast and Directv have.  The answer is that Uverse's guide is not user friendly, and does not allow you to do the simple things you have mentioned.

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@tdubnicka wrote:

The Uverse guide is pitiful.  It is difficult to hide channels.  The original question is around functionality that is missing that Comcast and Directv have.  The answer is that Uverse's guide is not user friendly, and does not allow you to do the simple things you have mentioned.

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Wow...  You registered just to post that Comcast/DTV advertisement?  Nice first/last post and very helpful (not).

And you think Comcast has a better guide? Are you kiddning me!?! I have Comcast and wish our guide was like U-Verse.

sbraind,  his response was extremely valid and, if you were reading, useful.  He said the product has serious issues.

I just got Uverse today - switching from DTV just to see... and the guide is absolutely awful.  The only way it could be worse is... well... I can't really think of anything.  What is worse is that the problems with it are all pointed out in posts from 2010!!! U-verse has had 2 1/2 years to make simple improvements and has done NOTHING.  (Yes, I wish I had read all these posts before I got this installed).

Among the issues I ran into 1st day:

Setup:

• I have 303 SD channels to hide.  Down-Enter for every one.  That is over 600 (SIX HUNDERED) presses of buttons on the remote before I can even start to customize the HD channels I will watch.
• The favorites & hide options let you check all but not uncheck all.  Hundreds of more button presses.
• 1 set of favorites - and it isn't even the default you get from pressing GUIDE.  So I have to customize 2 things (guide and favorites - hundreds of more button presses - I'll stop saying that - pretty much anything having to do with channel setup adds hundreds of ... you get the idea)
• No way to jump around in the hide/favorites lists by direct number entry... you guessed it... more buttons to press and more time to wait (sorry - I said I'd stop with the buttons)
• No way to exclude whole categories - I should be able to just block all at once shopping, superstition, kids, sports or whatever channels.
• No way to automatically exclude channels I don't get (I suspect this is the result of customer-abusive management policies)
• No way to see all channels without unhiding - I can't just try channels I've excluded without modifying my selections and suffering all the pain that entails
• No way to see what is checked (or is not checked) - the tools have one option but not the other.
• No channel description with the channels
• No way to watch a single channel while doing all this painful button pushing and waiting.  Like in the guide (see below), they force a picture-in-picture of the channels and blot out what I am watching.

Usage:

• The guide blots out the show you are watching and shows a picture-in-picture of the show highlighted in the guide. This is a total interruption of the show I'm watching so I can't see what's coming up and watch a show at the same time. Very unfriendly. Its like turning off the TV and going to get the newspaper to see what's on.  Terrible experience.
• Navigation has lots of multi-step nonsense (like menu>live>favorites or menu>live>channel shortcuts>[more pain]) but they are too much work and assume you want to spend your time pressing buttons instead of watching TV.
• No interface for using a PC as a remote control.   Yes, I wrote my own for DirecTV but at least I could do it.
• No simple API to the DVR so I could write my own controls and skip the trashy guide. There is an SDK for iOS but they require massive authorization instead of a simple http interface.

Customer service:

• I had been told by everyone during my purchase experience that there is a PC based remote control where I could see what is on and tune the channel to that station from the PC.  That was not true.
• I called customer service and asked about this and was met with the question "what do you mean by remote control?"  When I explained as above, I was asked to clarify.  Clueless customer service is worse than no customer service.

So yes, it is likely I will cancel Uverse within the first week and go back to DTV.  That isn't an "ad" for DTV as you say, it is a simple statement that Uverse is not keeping up with the competition in even the most basic ways.  I switched because I hoped a newer service would have even better facilities and beter usability.  If I'd known they (apparently) stopped developing a primitive on-screen guide in 2010 I would not have switched.

And those channels PAY to be put on UVerse and they can add 100 / day and it wouldn't bother me. 

Thanks aviewer.

The onscreen guide is nice and its good from a PC. Too bad it can't act as a remote but the scheduling is easy. 

I really like BuddyTV.  It is similar to the one I wrote for myself for DTV. BuddyTV is slicker & more sophisticated but requiries a little more navigation.   Definitely worthwhile tradeoffs since it is targeted at a broader audience.  Thanks again for that. Fortunately it looks like it might work w/ DTV too. 

I am utterly livid about AT&T customer service right now since 2 seperate reps wouldn't even talk to me about an obvious problem with their email systems' authentication unless I forked over $49 so I probably won't stay with AT&T long enough to try the Favorites options.  Maybe... I'll sleep on it. 

(FWIW, like the TV support rep not knowing the term "remote control", the internet support reps didn't know basic terminology like "email client".  I finally found the problem... a bug in their authentication mechanisms: google "AT&T DOC-1307".)

Thanks again.  I hope the guide problems will be fixed because the guide presents a very unpleasant face on an otherwise fast, robust, feature rich service.

Not sure why this post ended up in here ... it was supposed to be a new topic.  Will repost later

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@Waltz49 wrote:

 

Not sure why this post ended up in here ... it was supposed to be a new topic.  Will repost later

 

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I imagine because you were repeating the same complaints about the UI as in your previous post in this thread.  Also, according to your earlier post, you were canceling U-verse within the week, so I guess the discussion is moot.

There are things I do not like about Uverse but it is much better than the Time Warner Cable I had for years because there was no other player where I lived. I did try Direct TV and I loved everything about it but one. It does not work when it rains or snows hard, which is at least 30 plus days a year. It was so bad it reminded me of the old rabbit ears.

I suppose in AZ or FLA is is great but not in WI