Wow, this was going to be a happy positive post about how my Mac’s working again, but I guess that will have to come later since now I’m just ticked off.

Actually, I’ve been ticked off for a couple weeks now. DirecTV, after a year and a half of great service, is becoming the crappy cable company (*cough*Cox*cough*) I used to have. Here’s what happened in timeline format since it’s early and I don’t feel like formed paragraphs, transitions or grammar:

* Back story: A few years ago, I got a ReplayTV. It’s like a Tivo, only I think it’s better. One main reason is that it will automagically skip commercials on recorded shows. That’s right, I don’t have to hit a button to skip commercials. Anyway, when we went to DirecTV a little over a year ago, it took some doing to find a box my ReplayTV could control through its low speed data port rather than the ghetto IR Blaster I had been using. When I finally got this working, ReplayTV-ized viewing was a pleasure indeed.

* Fast-forward to May – DirecTV releases a software update for their D10 receiver that broke my channel changing ability. Now, my ReplayTV (and stand-alone Tivos) cannot tune the box to anything below channel 100 or abov channle 900. On top of this, they installed a screensaver, but didn’t install any way to turn it off. No longer can I record new Family Guy episodes, and some of my recordings are nothing but this damn screensaver.

* After some Google research, I called DirecTV and complained. I was given an address where I should send my complaints. I passed this on to the planetreplay.com forums in the hopes that word would get out and people would bug DirecTV into fixing what they broke.

* Yesterday, some dork posts this:

“The story is getting ancient. You don’t have to spread it to avs. It was there weeks/months ago.

DOSMAN (www.patersontech.com) makes a translator that fixes the tuning problems on sa Tivo & Replay. Don’t know if he added a mod to kill the screen saver though.”

* Today, I responded:

“Well, that’s fine if you want to pay $40 per module to fix a problem that shouldn’t be there to begin with. I know about the translator. What about this fall when DTV supposedly introduces their new software update that ‘should’ fix the screensaver problem? What if they make some other changes that break the low speed data port again? I guess we all get to wait for a software update to the translator, pay $10/module for the upgrade and do without local networks for another few weeks while our translators are useless/off being upgraded.

Personally, I think it’s not a bad idea to take 10 minutes out of the day, write a letter and see if it does any good.”

Now, why is DirecTV becoming like Cox? Well, first they screw all of their customers with stand-alone ReplayTV’s and Tivos (TIVOs folks! LOTS of people have Tivos) with this software update. When you call to complain they say it must be a problem with your recorder and you should contact ReplayTV or Tivo. When you call them liars, they acknowledge that the software update did do what you said it did but that they’re not planning on fixing it because they don’t have to and if you want, you can buy OUR DirecTV PVR for $99 and pay $4.99 a month for PVR service that will solve your problem. Unfortunately, they can’t tell you what the $4.99 buys you other than the right to use a PVR on DirecTV – WHICH I WAS ALREADY DOING! $4.99 doesn’t buy you access to the guide – that’s standard. It doesn’t buy a service plan for the PVR, that’s a seperate charge. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t buy me any real extra service. But I can’t use DirecTVs PVR without paying the $4.99/month.

So rather than at least attempting to fight The Man, this dork who replied to my post is content telling people to just take the corporate sodomy with a smile and pay $40 to get around it. What a spineless jackass.