DIRECTV Users? Do you hate the fade?

If you’re one of those folks who is using the latest user interface for Genie and Genie 2, you’ve noticed something new when you pause live TV, when you fast forward or rewind. There’s a “fade-to-black” effect on the bottom of the screen that goes from edge to edge. You can see it in the image above.

A lot of people have complained that this makes it hard to see sports scores or news tickers as they go by, because they become so dim. Unfortunately, it’s not dim enough to hide the scores altogether, so they’re still visible.

Interestingly this is not the first time DIRECTV has put in a feature like this. Take a look at this image from 2012 when DIRECTV first rolled out the last new user interface:

Last time they had an even “fadier” fade and people complained just as much. Interestingly, the fade went away about three months later and people completely forgot about it.

Except, now it’s back.

Personally, I’m not terribly bothered by it because I don’t tend to use fast forward or rewind too much during sports, and as for news tickers I don’t have a lot of use for them anyway. The only thing I’ll say is that it’s not a very strong visual element and it tends to look grey and cloudy where it should probably look more like it did in 2012.But I do know a lot of folks who are really kind of incensed about it.

Overall, there has been a lot of dissatisfaction about the new user interface, with some people saying that the elements are too small and too hard to read, and the text is too thin. I do see where people are going there, if you look at it on a 40″ TV or something even smaller than that. But for the most part I watch TV to watch TV, not to watch menus. As long as I can do that I’m fine.

What do you all think? Leave a comment below and let’s get the conversation started!

 

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.