DirecTV HD DVR - HR20/HR21/HR22/HR23 Master Topic - Page 2  

Thanks bish, this helps a lot.
Do you know if what you recorded is mpeg 2 or 4?
-Evangelo2

No.

No.

Mostly just the black color and the lack of OTA on the HR21.

fafner

No OTA tuner on the 21, 21 is black, alomst all 20's are silver.
The HR20-100 has dual digital audio outputs (toslink and coax) just like the HR21, the HR20-700 has only toslink (no coaxial).
The HR20-700 has been around the longest and gets updates first (for now anyway)

The HR20 can handle an eSATA external drive up to 2TB right now. You can't use a USB drive or anything else except eSATA. An external drive will "replace" the internal drive, not add on to it.

The 20 has two OTA tuners

Can anyone out there with an HR20-100 verify that the ethernet prots work as a "pass through"? I want to run a cable from my router to the Hr20, then from the HR20 to my slingbox... will this work? Anyone out there have a setup like this? Does the HR21 do the exact same thing as far as pass through goes?

We needed a drive for the HR20 during our vacation beginning this weekend, but Amazon misdelivered it so it won't be here. It's about $100 more at local stores. Would our current eSATA, already used for computer backups, work with the HR 20 -- without reformatting or losing the computer backup files? Can the drive be connected, back & forth, from computer to the HR20 if necessary?

ALSO: In the closed HR20 forum someone mentioned to be sure to get the "correct" SATA cable. Which is that please? I gather it's eSATA-to-eSATA, but is there a brand? Best Buy's selling PNY.

The HR20 will reformat the eSATA drive. I think the cable needed is an eSATA II type.

I really wish people would do some research before they made bold claims that affect other members.

People, The CW IS offered in HD in some places. Do yourself a favor and call D* yourself and find out.

I have it, as do others. Do yourself a favor and find out for yourself.

It's not with the HR20-100 and is with the HR21-700

So does than mean the bottom port of the HR20-100 is not used for any thing at all?

"One" of them is "dead", with no plans to ever be used.

So, last Sunday, I got the 5 LNB dish upgrade and hooked up my BBCs to my 1 year old HR20. But, it seems that the "new" HD channels are sometimey. Some of them I got, and some I didn't. The ones that don't come in give a "771 Searching for Satellite 1" code. The installer didn't seem to know why and suggested I call DirecTV. When I called, they had me reset the receiver and after the reset, more of the new HD channels started coming in. In fact, all except two of them. Later in the week, even those two came in, so I cancelled a service call. Now, I find that very few of the new HD channels are coming in tonight. Anybody else had this issue. I wonder if it's one of the BBCs is bad, so only one of the tuners is working making it sporadic. Or, is it that one of the coax cables coming down from the dish has the combiner/splitter for my roof antenna in the circuit?

Any suggestions before I call DirecTV again?

Curious if you unplugged the box from the wall of just powered it off. I just picked up an eSATA drive for mine and was going to mess with it tomorrow.

I also just plugged mine into my network switch and it does show up in the router client list.

is there recent new software for the hr20? any way to force an upgrade?

There is a separate thread on the HR20's eSATA feature here: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=66201&page=85

HR20-700 now has VOD available through the net.

We had similar experience but it was the old Mpeg2 channels 70-78 that wouldn't tune in on just one tuner of the HR20. I went to the website(directv.com) and clicked the box to have a new BBC sent(free) and it was here via FedEx in 2 days. It says it will take 8 to 10 days but with the new BBC installed all the channels work again.

If you have your roof antenna diplexed in then THAT is your problem. The new channels come down the coax in the same frequencies as your OTA antenna.

I was already to drop cable and get Direct TV and my dealer told me that I need RG6 cable and I have the old RG59. Has anyone use the old cable with Direct TV. Or is it just not a good idea. I can't really run new wire, so if I need RG6 I am pretty much stuck with Charter cable and no NFL network or Big Ten Network.

It depends on your length of run. RG59 can work for a short run. How long is yours? What is the problem with running new coax?

You're right. I noticed that whenever it was searching for satellite, it was always on Satellite 1, so I switched the two coax cables and now I get that message only on Satellite 2, so it is the coax that is diplexed with the roof antenna that is not working. It would have been nice if the DirecTV installer had known this.

good call OldSchool

It is probably about 30 feet. I can't run new coax because I have a finished basement and ceiling below it. I tried but can't get the wire over there. I am using it now with Cable HD without any problem but the dealer said I needed R6.

i have direct HD TV-love it-is sharper than previous cable. I am wanting a HD DVR unit that will record all newer direct-tv channels. Am i correct in understanding that TIVO does NOT provide a unit for all Direct-TV HD channels. If not, am i left with direct-TVs unit, and if so which one is recommended? thx

It could work. That's pretty short. Only trying it will tell for sure.

No Tivos will receiver the new D* HD.
There are two choices and HR20 [that has an antenna input also] and the black HR21 without the OTA tuners. They basically are the same.

I've had my HR-20 for a few months now. I have two problems with it and wonder if others have seen the same.

1) Audio sync problems on HD channels. The audio seems to always be slightly behind. Some channels are worse than others, but anytime someone's face is showing, their speech is definitely lagging behind their lip movement. This happens both during "live" and recorded shows, though it seems worse on recorded stuff. This is driving me nuts.

2) Box seems to lock up a bunch, where the forward and back buttons just stop working. I've had to reboot it a bunch of times so far to get it back working again, sometimes losing anything recorded recently.

Are there problems that might be solved with a system update? I have version 0x18a right now.

I'm pretty disappointed. I had a DirecTivo for several years before "upgrading" to HD, and while I love the HD content, the HR-20 receiver seems like it has some pretty big problems, at least from what I have seen.

If it doesn't work, will it not work at all or will it just be a crappy picture?

If it doesn't work it will be obvious. A broken up or non existent picture will result, especially when it rains. Signal strength is about resistance to rain fade, not picture quality. If enough signal gets through to provide full error correction, a 60 SS will look exactly like a 100 SS.

I use high quality RG6 cable from the dish to the multi-switch since the distance between the two is at least 75 feet, BUT from there on and since my house was already pre-wired with low quality RG59 cable, I was forced to use it, the RG59, from the multi-switch to my Directv receivers.

I get excellent reception numbers at all of the HR20 receivers, and some of the RG59 runs are at a minimum 50 feet, perhaps more.

I tried an experiment one day where I ran a length of RG6 from my multi-switch to the HR20 in my basement by just running the RG6 across the carpet. There was NO difference in the reception strengths between the existing in-wall RG59 that the house was wired with, and the RG6 that I had just drapped across the basement carpet.

Bottom line is I believe you will be fine with your existing RG59. It's at least worth a shot.

Bish