Using your iPhone to Record Programs to your DirecTV DVR

I was looking at a TV Guide app in the store the other day and I thought it was pretty cool, but because I am a DirecTV customer, it is often difficult to find TV Guides that are not aligned with zip codes but with Satellite Regions.

I remembered that the DirecTV page posted a great guide. So I tried to navigate to there page with my iPhone. I could see the page, but it wasn’t formatted for the iPhone so it was really difficult to navigate. After a little bit more research I did identify a DirecTV mobile phone page that seems to work well on the iPhone.

This web app doesn’t let you browse the DirecTV Guide, but it does allow you to do something even cooler. You can use this site to search and setup your DirecTV DVR to record shows remotely. You can also sign up to see Pay Per View shows and set up series.  If you have more than one DVR, it lets you pick which ones to use to record a show.

This is a really cool feature because if you are away from home and you hear about a show you want to record you can now use this page and your iPhone to set it up remotely.

If you have a DVR, just go to the DirecTV.com page and create an account. Then navigate to the mobile compatible page and login.

It has a very basic menu, but pretty much lets me do what i wanted. It has “Search For Shows”, and a “Manual Record” feature. No guide, but search is pretty useful.

The Search for Shows feature lets you enter a search string. It display a list of matching shows. Pick one, and it gives you a description and the option to “Record Once”, “Record the Series”, or see more show times. I have multiple receiver, so when i pick “record”, I get a list of receivers. Once i pick the receiver, i can give it a recording priority. Since I can’t see the list of what is already set up, I can say “record if possible” or “Definitely Record this”.

The Manual Record feature lets you pick a channel, date, time, duration to record just like recording on your old faithful VCR. This is usually only useful when the guide data is not accurate, but neat to have.

Also, I had high hopes for the login part, because the sign in form has a “Remember Me” checkbox, but it doesn’t seem to work. Each time I go to the web page, I have to enter it from scratch.