The DIRECTV DVRs have had a long history full of features that have come and gone. Beginning with the R15 DVR in 2005, DIRECTV’s own engineering staff have packed the DVRs with features that appealed to every conceivable niche. Within the last several years they have been taking out features, though, and the goal is simple: provide an easy-to-use, friendly experience for mainstream users that keeps the hardware stable and fast.
In past years they took out MediaShare, which was a simple system for sharing content from other sources that never worked right. They took out YouTube support when it started to require a whole new decoding scheme. They took out the rarely-used bookmarks feature which let you set a custom point in a recording and jump to it with one button press.
And cards on the table, they’ve taken out picture-in-picture and they’re not bringing it back, period.
Picture-in-picture debuted with the DIRECTV HR34 Genie DVR in late 2011. That was sort of the heyday of PIP, where it was being built into many TVs as well. The only issue from day one was, PIP worked with the Genie DVR but none of the clients. If I had to guess why, it was the vastly underpowered HR34 processor.
Keep in mind that unless you’ve opted out of DIRECTV’s tracking, they know every button you press and how often. It was very obvious from day one that PIP wasn’t going to be a solid performer and therefore the cost to code it into the clients didn’t make sense.
With the release of the Genie 2, which is now DIRECTV’s default choice for new installs, it looks like picture-in-picture is permanently gone, since the Genie 2 itself does not output video — only the clients do. While there were some cases that I used it, I have to admit it was no more than a few times per year and I probably won’t miss it. If I want to watch two sources at the same time I can always pop one of them up on my tablet since the DIRECTV app streams pretty much every channel anyway.
Yet Dish Network gives us Sports Bar mode, quad PIP, four channels at once on the same screen. Great for sports, great for March Madness. Would have loved to have had this on DIRECTV.
You mentioned them tracking our key presses. Well let’s be honest here, since day one PIP was a PITA to use. Some people didn’t even know it was there. Had DIRECTV put dedicated PIP buttons on the remote control from the beginning, more people would have known it was there and probably used it. Once set up and on, its great to use. The problem is turning it on and off. Even if they had just added an easy to use one button on/off toggle later on with a software update (I’ve always voted for the SELECT or DASH buttons) and let everyone know it was added, it would be easier to use, and more people probably would have used it.
Now I’m not an expert here (you are Stuart ?) but I would think adding it to the clients wouldn’t be that hard, not sure if that’s a software or a hardware issue. And I wouldn’t think keeping the code added would cost that much, if anything. If the ESPN app can do multiple screens on an Apple TV I don’t see why a client couldn’t?
I still use PIP on my HR44 a lot, its great for keeping track of sports, especially during the playoffs. I will miss it if I ever upgrade to a Genie 2.
However, I will agree with you that with todays technology there are other ways to do PIP. There are products that can do PIP on any TV, of course you have to add additional receivers depending on how many screens you want to watch at the same time. There’s also using your tablet or laptop to watch multiple things at once.
With that being said, RIP PIP ?
“They took out the rarely-used bookmarks feature which let you set a
custom point in a recording and jump to it with one button press.” – Stuart Sweet
The one feature DirecTV DVRs offered that TiVo didn’t, that I actually enjoyed. RIP Bookmarks, RIP!!!
Agreed. I miss the concept having PIP available, but I only used it a few times a year.
Well, here it is World Cup time, and I want to watch 2 games at the same time and can’t do it. At least not in 4k since I only have one 4k client. Television has to be the only industry where technology seems to be moving backwards. 3D – gone. PIP – gone. I’ve had an 8K TV for a year now, but 8K content is still pretty much non-existent, and even 4K content is scarce.