|
Sadly, this service doesn' live up to the hype. The service sounded great on the homepage, but the end product was dissapointing. Some nice 'premium' channels, and not the worst TV player software, but on the whole there's better out there for your money.
|
PRODUCT SCORE
58% |
| Date reviewed: | 9th Jan 2007 |
| Product Name & Link | Direct TV Networks |
| Price | Subscription based.
1 Year's Access: $27 2 Years Access: $43.00 Lifetime access: $47.40 |
| Number of channels | 2500+ |
| What does this software do? | Direct TV Networks is a membership based service that allows you to watch TV on your PC. You get to download a software that enables you to watch TV on your PC. There's also some similar bonus software and access to a number of what they term 'premium' stations. |
| Buying notes | I was really excited to try this product out. The homepage made it sound really good. I've also had a lot of emails from visitors to my website asking me to review this product.
Buying the product wasn't difficult at all. The usual web affair of whipping out the credit card and typing in my details. After that I was given a username and a password and allowed to log in to the service. The next order of the day was to download the Direct TV Networks software. You also need to download something called the Microsoft .NET Framework - a package that's completely free, which a number of Windows programs need in order to run. It's takes a while to download, but not a problem today as I already had it on my system. |
| First impressions |
After you install the software, you get a very simple, clean interface with a list of channel options down the right of the screen, and the main TV video player window in the left side. It looks pretty good and it's not difficult to use.
The Options you have to browse your channels are: By Country By Genre By language Once you've found a station you want to watch, you simply double click it and it will start playing in the video window. |
| What I liked | Great genre lists
The list of channel genres feels very intuitive and makes it easy to find the kind of things you're interested in. Stations are categorized logically into a wide range of topics such as sports, travel, weather and movie news. And there's a lot of them too. There's categories that will likely have something for every taste. Good sized player window There's no need to make the movie window go full screen here, unless you want to. That's because the channel selection panel doesn't fill much of the screen. The built in player window is huge. I thought this was a good idea. Add favorites easily You can also add 'Favorites' - which means if you find a station you like, you can right click on it and 'Add it to Favorites'. You can then click on the favorites button and have a list of all the channels you've bookmarked, giving you fast access to them. The Premium Channels are excellent As well as downloading and installing the main software, there's also a list of stations in the member's area which you can simply click and watch online. I really liked these. They include the Animal Planet, MTV Overdrive, HBO, and some other 'big name' stations. You just click on these and they start playing. |
| What I didn't like |
Not all station 'Genres' have stations in them
This was a bit of a disappointment. For example, I'm into wild life programs and I was pleased to see a Genre in the list for Nature. So I clicked on it only to find there were no channels in that genre. I was kind of left wondering 'so why have it there?'. And there's a lot more empty categories like this. The only way to find out how many or how few stations a genre has is to click on it. Some of the channels are very low quality Some stations are obviously broadcast for slower modems and would look OK in a small window. In these cases, the video is very compressed and looks awful when played at a decent size. So although there are 2500 or so stations to choose from, a lot of them I'd class as un-watchable. Poor quality videos appear blocky and are a bit like watching TV after a night on the town. An un-inspiring design When you fire up OnlineTV, there's really nothing here that blows you away. Although it's easy to use, it's uninspiring. You get a black player window and a rather ordinary list of stations. I just didn't think the end product lived up to what was promised on the homepage. And it's nothing different to what has been around for a long time with the likes of Satellite TV For PC Pro Pay extra for station updates If you visit the join page for this product, you'll notice that you have to pay extra (quite a bit) for additional station updates. The other programs and services I've tested do not charge for this. Here's what it says on the join page about this: "I want one year FREE unlimited updates (program + channels) and FREE unlimited technical support (toll-free phone and email) for only $0.99/month" So I get free updates for .99 a month? Sorry, but that doesn't make sense. And surely if you're subscribing to a service, that should cover your updates? Pause & rewind? Don't think so The homepage also promised that you could pause, rewind and record stations. I could have missed this but the simple player that comes with this service doesn't seem to be able to do this. |
| Strengths |
|
| Weaknesses |
|
| The verdict | I can't help feeling disappointed with Direct TV Networks. The homepage made it sound like a real killer sevice. In reality, when you get into it there's nothing here that hasn't been done before. And it's certainly not the best product on the market. (Although there's much worse!)
The premium station section has some good stuff in there, and some of the stations in the main software are very good. But I wasn't blown away here and there's better on the market for the same money (or less, compared to the price of a lifetime membership). |
| Refund details | This product comes with a 30 day money back guarantee. |
Click Here To Order Direct TV Networks
Where next?
 |
Visit this product's homepage |
|
Read other reviews |
|
Compare related products |
