# Sad news .. Earl Bonovich is retiring



## incog-neato (Sep 18, 2007)

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=127930

We've all learned a lot from Earl .... he will be sorely missed in this community as well as DBSTalk.

Thanks Earl .for all the effort and time you've given to us all !!


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## mrpope (Jan 13, 2006)

Thanks for all the help and info Earl. You will be missed.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

wonder why he didnt post over here as well?


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## terpfan1980 (Jan 28, 2002)

Same news, much earlier

(News was already posted in the Happy Hour sub-forum here)


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## jimb726 (Jan 4, 2007)

newsposter said:


> wonder why he didnt post over here as well?


I would assume it was because he has gotten a rather cold reception over here in the recent past.


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## rickmeoff (Aug 25, 2006)

so, it sounds like maybe he got a gig with cable.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

Oh another thread about this....


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

Earl got a new job, presumably a better job, and as a result can no longer post. Not sure why that's sad news. I'm not sure why Earl is keeping the name of his employer a secret. I'm sure a poster will figure it out sooner, rather then later.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

bdowell said:


> (News was already posted in the Happy Hour sub-forum here)


I was NOT!


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## Matt L (Aug 13, 2000)

After reading his long post over at DBS I have a better understanding of who Earl was. It explained a lot. Most of the time his posts were informative and helpful but now knowing he was actually in a way working for D, something I did not know - others here might have- it explains his position on various products. I think he lost some of his objectivity when the ties to D became stronger.

I will miss his updates on software, but since I'm still strongly in the TiVo camp I really don't expect any.

Anyway I wish him luck with whatever he is doing.


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## incog-neato (Sep 18, 2007)

Sorry to have inconvenienced you but I didn't see another thread in this forum which is the only one I have ever read here. I'll match your  and raise you one  


Adam1115 said:


> Oh another thread about this....


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## incog-neato (Sep 18, 2007)

Sorry thread police, this is the only forum I particpate in.  "Happy Hour" doesn't interest me.


bdowell said:


> Same news, much earlier
> 
> (News was already posted in the Happy Hour sub-forum here)


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## incog-neato (Sep 18, 2007)

LMAO ... it's not sad news he got another job, it's sad news he's no longer contributing here or DBSTalk.

Everyone's a critic! 



lew said:


> Earl got a new job, presumably a better job, and as a result can no longer post. Not sure why that's sad news. I'm not sure why Earl is keeping the name of his employer a secret. I'm sure a poster will figure it out sooner, rather then later.


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

incog-neato said:


> Sorry thread police, this is the only forum I particpate in.  "Happy Hour" doesn't interest me.


Yeah, usually Jim's over here pointing out how this thread would fit better in another forum. Gosh, I hope he's feeling okay. Maybe he's on vacation.


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## Jimbo713 (Dec 25, 2001)

Timing is everything in life, eh? It's ironic that I *just *cancelled my D'TV service after YEARS with them - and involvement in the other forum - the CE process I've sent back my leased Hr20-700. and now I'm back with an HDTiVo and cable. And - yes - lovin' it.


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## Jimbo713 (Dec 25, 2001)

I love TiVo!


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## Markman07 (Jul 18, 2001)

News FLASH - EARL a Directv Employee (confirmed!)

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=129051


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## 20TIL6 (Sep 7, 2006)

My impression is that Earl started working for DTV long before now.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

Markman07 said:


> News FLASH - EARL a Directv Employee (confirmed!)
> 
> http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=129051


Yea, big shock.


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## snickerrrrs (Mar 31, 2006)

Matt L said:


> After reading his long post over at DBS I have a better understanding of who Earl was. It explained a lot. Most of the time his posts were informative and helpful but now knowing he was actually in a way working for D, something I did not know - others here might have- it explains his position on various products. I think he lost some of his objectivity when the ties to D became stronger.
> 
> I will miss his updates on software, but since I'm still strongly in the TiVo camp I really don't expect any.
> 
> Anyway I wish him luck with whatever he is doing.


Me too, he seemed very anti-Tivo in most of his posts. Just because Directv isn't releasing any new Tivos doesn't mean you have to stop liking them. His objectivity was out the window. Too bad because some of his early posts were informative.

I mean face it, the other dvr companies have been playing catch with Tivo for a long time and they still don't have it right. Do they work? In varying degrees yes, but a Tivo is smooth as butter.

Goodbye Earl, keep drinking that Directv dvr koolaid.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

i'm just glad to know there is hope for us who hang out on these boards.. a real job is a possibility


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

20TIL6 said:


> My impression is that Earl started working for DTV long before now.


Doubtful unless he was moonlighting. Earl was stalked a couple times to his real place of employment in Chicago when there were crazies that didn't believe him.


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## STL (Feb 10, 2005)

20TIL6 said:


> My impression is that Earl started working for DTV long before now.


Isn't that the truth. They just finally decided to make it official.  Anyone with a lick of sense could see when he started lobbying for DirecTV.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

shibby191 said:


> Doubtful unless he was moonlighting. Earl was stalked a couple times to his real place of employment in Chicago when there were crazies that didn't believe him.


that's why i stay anonymous, in the background, and not a single person on here knows where to find me


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## MamaKAS (Jul 28, 2004)

Matt L said:


> Most of the time his posts were informative and helpful but now knowing he was actually in a way working for D, something I did not know - others here might have- it explains his position on various products.





20TIL6 said:


> My impression is that Earl started working for DTV long before now.





STL said:


> Isn't that the truth. They just finally decided to make it official.  Anyone with a lick of sense could see when he started lobbying for DirecTV.


You people need to remove your tinfoil hats. It's been established (repeatedly) that Earl was never working for D*. He never made a single post while under D*'s employ. The day he was offered (and accepted) the new job, he stopped posting because he didn't want any chance of impropriety. He started working for D* this week.

Many, many people knew what Earl's previous job was and it had nothing to do with D*. Satellite TV was his hobby.


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## 20TIL6 (Sep 7, 2006)

MamaKAS said:


> You people need to remove your tinfoil hats. It's been established (repeatedly) that Earl was never working for D*. He never made a single post while under D*'s employ. The day he was offered (and accepted) the new job, he stopped posting because he didn't want any chance of impropriety. He started working for D* this week.
> 
> Many, many people knew what Earl's previous job was and it had nothing to do with D*. Satellite TV was his hobby.


When I typed working, I should have typed "working". Whether he collected a paycheck or not makes no difference in my opinion.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

can someone tell me (absent him giving out company secrets) what is the true reason you cant post when you are a member of DTV?


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

MamaKAS said:


> You people need to remove your tinfoil hats. It's been established (repeatedly) that Earl was never working for D*. He never made a single post while under D*'s employ. The day he was offered (and accepted) the new job, he stopped posting because he didn't want any chance of impropriety. He started working for D* this week.
> 
> Many, many people knew what Earl's previous job was and it had nothing to do with D*. Satellite TV was his hobby.


Earl may not have been working for D* in the sense of a fiduciary connection, but he has been a fanboy since the first NDS fiascoes of in-house dvrs. While he has provided much valuable information to this and other forums, it's been quite clear that he has been in love with the D* products. I think his mantra has been 'fixed in the next release'.

I strive for excellence and simplicity in working with the client - (an example - develop the interface so they don't need a manual), and I believe that none of Tivo competitors seem to come close to the way they relate to the customer. I felt that D* was a company that cared about the client and was a leader in innovation. The was of particular evidence to me when they developed the relationship with Tivo. But then when Murdoch came along, Direct switched it's focus away from the customer and more to the almighty $.

There's nothing wrong with D* building their own in-house dvr, but why stop the relationship with the company that is bringing them their biggest spending and most reliable consumers? I believe the answer is greed. Especially at a time when the direction in industry is to open up these systems - as we now see even with the wireless industry.

But I don't think Earl saw any problem with any of that, and in fact he seemed to get upset if these kinds of issues were pointed out. As he also got upset when it was pointed out the way that D* was haphazardly implementing the transition. I don't think he for instance saw anything wrong with D* charging the same amount for the HR21 as the HR20 when it first came out, even though it had reduced function, or the fact that many HR10-250 consumers had no OTA solution for months. These are the kind of things that make him a fanboy in my mind.

I think the sad thing is that he appeared to never see anything wrong with the many things D* did that put limitations on the box - i.e. not being able to turn off the live screen while being in the menu, the 50-limit season pass, etc. He never saw the elegance of the simplicity with the Tivo interface -fewer keys on the remote - the fact that it doesn't look like a computer, and you don't need computer experience to run it, etc. I say sad because my guess is those kind of 'usability' issues will not probably be fixed for a long time, if ever because of his influence.


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## incog-neato (Sep 18, 2007)

You can post as long as the info isn't proprietary. Most info states "for Internal use only" in the systems. (I do not work for DirecTV).



newsposter said:


> can someone tell me (absent him giving out company secrets) what is the true reason you cant post when you are a member of DTV?


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## STL (Feb 10, 2005)

20TIL6 said:


> When I typed working, I should have typed "working". Whether he collected a paycheck or not makes no difference in my opinion.


BINGO!


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## snickerrrrs (Mar 31, 2006)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw that Earl had changed his tune ever since the R15 was released. He got more and more anti-tivo then eventually he had " gone his way" whatever that meant. Then he couldn't resist coming back months later and started taking swipes at those of us that remained here at TC. 

The only thing that brought me to D* was the Directv Tivo so I'm thankful for that but now I'm fully in the Tivo camp. Not because I blindly follow Tivo but because they make a superior product. It's all Ford and Chevy to me but in most cases the Tivo dvr is a Cadillac. I don't care if it says Hughes or Directv on the box as long as it says Tivo also. 

Anyways it's sad that EB left Tivo Community but as someone else here said, "He left a long time ago" well before he went to dbstalk. He definitely turned "a blind eye" to any problems the R15 or other Directv dvrs had. It's been a couple years now and the R15 is still a Brick for lack of better word. Unfortunately he isn't the only one who went fanboy when the Directv dvr came on the scene. Just read a couple posts at some of the other forums if you want to see who. Your not help anyone by misleading them, or giving them half the story. Be objective you're entitled to your opinion just stick to the facts. Not what you think Directv wants you to say.


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## gio1269 (Jul 27, 2006)

RS4 said:


> Earl may not have been working for D* in the sense of a fiduciary connection, but he has been a fanboy since the first NDS fiascoes of in-house dvrs. While he has provided much valuable information to this and other forums, it's been quite clear that he has been in love with the D* products. I think his mantra has been 'fixed in the next release'.
> 
> I strive for excellence and simplicity in working with the client - (an example - develop the interface so they don't need a manual), and I believe that none of Tivo competitors seem to come close to the way they relate to the customer. I felt that D* was a company that cared about the client and was a leader in innovation. The was of particular evidence to me when they developed the relationship with Tivo. But then when Murdoch came along, Direct switched it's focus away from the customer and more to the almighty $.
> 
> ...


Wow, are you a bitter shut in or what?


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## Citivas (Oct 12, 2000)

I've not always agreed with Earl and agree with other posters here that in he was something of an apologist for DirecTV. That's probably natural once he got to know some of them personally and put faces behind the faceless engineers and many of us might unconsciously do the same.

And anyone who reads my posts know I have often been very critical of DirecTV. I think they went seriously downhill, particularly on customer service, and were especially bad under the News Corp reign.

All that said, I think hiring Earl is directionally a very positive move. I am making some assumptions, admittedly, but it feels to me like an acknowledgement on DirecTV's part that it would be useful to have someone deeply in touch with the userbase and user opinion directly involved in their product development. Whatever your opinion of Earl, he knows the vibe on these sites about what features we want, what things make us mad, what issues are "holy grail" and what issues have smaller but loyal followings. And whether he posts or not, I think he'll continue to be in touch with that. It gives me hope that DirecTV is getting serious about wanting to develop and deliver a crowd pleasing product. Now that's only one ingredient. But it's a good sign.

I wish him well...


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

Citivas said:


> I've not always agreed with Earl and agree with other posters here that in he was something of an apologist for DirecTV. That's probably natural once he got to know some of them personally and put faces behind the faceless engineers and many of us might unconsciously do the same.
> 
> And anyone who reads my posts know I have often been very critical of DirecTV. I think they went seriously downhill, particularly on customer service, and were especially bad under the News Corp reign.
> 
> ...


I too wish him well... I think he has many excellent qualities - integrity among them, but I disagree with your assessment that he is in touch with the user base.

On several occasions he asked people why they thought the Tivo was so superior to the D* dvrs. Yet when people pointed out why the Tivo was so much more elegant, he seemed not to understand, and that's why I think the D* dvrs will never approach the following that Tivo enjoys.

Earl is a nuts and bolts kind of guy... identify the problem at hand and find a fix for it. DTV needs big picture kinds of people... folks who try to understand why people love the Tivo so much and start down the design path of incorporating those differences. I'm not talking about copying the Tivo design, what I am saying is think about the client for a change. D* appears to me to take the opposite approach which is more typical - they say 'well we need to implement these 10 functions - you take function 1, this group take function 2, etc - oh by the way, time is the crucial element here.' But where is the user in this - i.e. where are the usability police - who's saying - 'hey, this implementation doesn't make sense from a usability point of view'?

An example - Tivo uses the swivel search that allows the user to enter more than once search term for finding shows. The equivalent function on D* requires someone to practically know SQL in order to add the logical connections of AND, NOT, etc. Earl was quite proud when I pointed out that computer users might understand that, but the majority wouldn't. He saw nothing wrong with limiting this function to 'advanced' users. Both functions have a similar purpose, but which one is easier to use?

I believe if D* had worked with someone of Earl's enthusiasm on the design as much as they did on just fixing bugs, D* would have had a much better product over all. The time to point out the design flaws was in the fall of '06. D* was probably so intent on trying to get the bloody thing to work at the time that they could have cared less about the design, but in the end that is why they will always have a second-rated box when it comes to comparison with the Tivo.

So, you are right in that Earl will be aware of the bugs that everyone is reporting, and be diligent at getting them fixed; but I don't think he will ever recognize the design issues, and thus he is not in touch with the end user in my mind.


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## madbeachcat (Jan 31, 2002)

RS4 said:


> I too wish him well... I think he has many excellent qualities - integrity among them, but I disagree with your assessment that he is in touch with the user base.
> 
> On several occasions he asked people why they thought the Tivo was so superior to the D* dvrs. Yet when people pointed out why the Tivo was so much more elegant, he seemed not to understand, and that's why I think the D* dvrs will never approach the following that Tivo enjoys.
> 
> ...


You are probably right for a lot of the people who enjoy Tivo so much. But maybe some of us like the HR2* design and actually prefer it to Tivo.


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## BlackBetty (Nov 6, 2004)

snickerrrrs said:


> I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw that Earl had changed his tune ever since the R15 was released. He got more and more anti-tivo then eventually he had " gone his way" whatever that meant. Then he couldn't resist coming back months later and started taking swipes at those of us that remained here at TC......
> 
> .......Anyways it's sad that EB left Tivo Community but as someone else here said, "He left a long time ago" well before he went to dbstalk. He definitely turned "a blind eye" to any problems the R15 or other Directv dvrs had. It's been a couple years now and the R15 is still a Brick for lack of better word. Unfortunately he isn't the only one who went fanboy when the Directv dvr came on the scene. Just read a couple posts at some of the other forums if you want to see who. Your not help anyone by misleading them, or giving them half the story. Be objective you're entitled to your opinion just stick to the facts. Not what you think Directv wants you to say.


I agree 100% well said.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

I am one who is using both the HR20 and the HR10. I can live with both units. However, as has been mentioned numerous times in various forums, the lack of a true dual live buffer (DLB) on the HR20 frustrates me. Yes, I know of the record one channel work-around, but that is a cumbersome method. For example, during the Master's golf tournament, DirecTV had the multiple interactive channels. This is a fine example where true DLB would have worked better. Tune to the main feed on one channel and the other tuner to the Amen Corner feed. Then switching between the two without losing the buffer is simple. This is also true with the French Open. Possibly more so, because of the multiple matches being shown. And then there is football season. 

I have read that there is something coming for the HR2x boxes that "is better than DLB". I guess we'll have to wait and see what that will be. I'm guessing that Earl may have something to do about it.


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