Jeff’s Place

This evening while searching for details on why both of my directv HD DVR’s locked up, yet again, I stumbled across some posts on directv’s tech forum about a new application called DirecTV2PC which is supposed to allow playing programs recorded on a DVR over the net onto a Windows PC. I was all set to start a rant about how DirecTV is completely inept in their constant distribution of flawed software and supposed “transmission glitches” which cause the damn DVR’s to lock up randomly. Well I think, now maybe that’s enough rant and here is a new toy to play with instead.

Guess what… IT DOESN’T WORK. Big surprise

I downloaded the application, gave them my email address and they sent me an activation code. When installing the app it asks for a serial number, which I assume is the activation code, copy and paste that code into the installer and off it goes.

When I first started the app after install completed it found my DVR (wow, I thought this might actually work). Then it asked me to activate the program, I click the “Activate” button and what happens? Error: Invalid activation code. And guess what, there’s no way to re-enter the code, just a “try again” button. How fucking stupid is that? Turns out the only way to enter the code is in the installer. So I tried a couple more times, even downloading the software again so I could get a new code, same problem each time. I tried hacking their config files, sniffing the traffic to see what it’s doing (it turns out it uses https to talk to the registration server so that didn’t help much), and poking around the registry, no luck.

Gee, it must be true, DirecTV is completely inept, they can’t even issue a valid activation code for their software. To be fair this application is from Cyberlink so I guess they must be equally inept. Thankfully they finally gave in to all the complainers and signed a new deal with Tivo so maybe this time next year things will get better.

Somebody wake me up when the morons are no longer running the world….

Fast forward to the next morning…. Now the Directv2PC app manages to get through it’s activation step, the activation servers must have just been down last night or something. It now will connect to one DVR and play content saved on that box using roughly the same menu as shown on the DVR itself. I don’t see a way to tell it to switch to my second DVR, and don’t have time to play with this much more at the moment so I’ll have to fiddle with this and post more later.

You can download the Directv2pc application here.