OK if Microsoft

April 13, 2001 1:18 AM

OK if Microsoft is putting this kind of development effort into the Xbox I don't think Sony has anything to worry about. Sheesh, the world's largest software company can't write a bug-free TV listing program. Have TiVo and ReplayTV had these kind of problems too? (And not received as much press because they aren't MS?)
posted by redleaf (4 comments total)

It's not a bug, it's a feature! If it makes people watch less TV, then there's something good to be said about it.
posted by Loudmax at 2:24 AM on April 13, 2001

It's amazing how people let Microsoft get away with bugs like these all the time. "Oh, it's version 1.0. They'll get it right with version 3.0." In the meantime, other software companies are writing bug-free software in every version (Adobe, for example). In the end, it has to come down to a faulty process of quality control.
posted by timothompson at 8:29 AM on April 13, 2001

In the end, it has to come down to a faulty process of quality control.

Not at all, tim. It's the result of a business plan that allows for a large percentage of dissatisfied customers. After all, Adobe doesn't make web browsers or operating systems.
posted by jpoulos at 8:51 AM on April 13, 2001

Ask some GoLive 5 users just how bug-free Adobe software is. Go on, ask them. I'll wait. Word around here is, never use a .0 release of an Adobe product.

Microsoft's biggest competitor in the personal video recorder war, TiVo, has a couple of really annoying bugs in the 2.0 release of its software. The display of the program grid can be glacial, and sometimes it tries to record programs on channels you don't get (even though you've told the machine you don't get them). Several times I've caught the box trying to record Futurama off the east-coast DirecTV Fox feed instead of my local Fox affiliate. Grr. Oh, the other annoying bug is that the second tuner in the DirecTV combo box doesn't do anything yet.

Yeah, this is an annoying bug in UltimateTV, but frankly, it sounds like one that will be pretty easy to fix now that they know what situations cause it. I doubt UltimateTV users will have to wait until June for the bug to be fixed, as we TiVo users are for the next update to our software.
posted by kindall at 9:04 AM on April 13, 2001