So I am two weeks into my DirecTiVo upgrade, where I swapped two old and worn out Hughes HDVR2's for two new THR22's. I thought I was adjusting to the new hardware just fine, after a few hiccups....
Then this past week the Viacom/DirecTV dispute happens, and DirecTV overwrote my carefully edited channel listing, adding a bunch of "alert" channels - and also adding back dozens of channels that I had manually deleted.
I totally understand the underlying dispute. There were in fact a couple of shows I watched on Spike and Comedy Central upon occasion. Nothing that I particularly care about, although I understand that some of you with kids will miss the Nickelodeon programming.
But DirecTV deliberately chose to overwrite my channel listing, in the process putting back all the non-English-speaking channels, the annoying shopping channels, the kids programming, the pay-per-view / enhanced content channels, and all the other stuff I had already thoughtfully excluded from my program guide. Of course, this also happened to the wife's primary DirecTiVo in the back room, about two days after I had carefully reviewed her own channels and deleted the junk she didn't care about - which took several times as long as my own main DVR, since she had to make the actual decisions.
A big raspberry for DirecTV, who could have dealt with this in a quiet manner but who chose to rub our noses in the dispute.
Message to DirecTV: My channel guide settings are MINE. I don't want you messing with them, changing them, or adding "alert" channels. If you add a channel that might interest me to your lineup, then send me a message and I will consider adding it myself. DON'T DO THIS AGAIN.
