*** DirecTV HR20-700S Information ***

[Steelthumb]

Hey all,

I just had the HR20-700S and 5LNB installed yesterday. I was suppose to receive the HR10-250 but the installer said that the HR20-700S box is the one now be installed and they have officially taken the place of the HR10 box. Pic quality is tremendous. I am not familiar with the workings of the HR10 so I'm not sure if some of the info is new to the HR20. You can set the resolution on the HR20 to native which will allow the unit to cycle through 480i/P, 720P, 1080i as the program that you are watching is broadcasting. There is a USB port on the front (assuming for downloading to a PC, etc.), S-ATA port, HDMI, toslink, and the other basic connections found on previous units. I was use to TIVO (4 years of one companies ways) and the Directv DVR is a little different so I'm still trying to figure it out (season pass option, and general tasks that do not exist or are done in some other manner). I will keep updating as i figure more out or as questions are asked.

[Scott]

Thanks! I know that I'm going to have a couple of questions soon, so I'm stickying the thread.

[jpdublin]

So how has the experience been thus far? I am hesitant to switch out my HR-10 unit for the fact that I like Tivo. Have there been any glitches?

[bucks17]

The biggest differences that I can tell between the HR20 and a Tivo are the lack of dual buffers and the suggested recordings.

It does pretty much everything else that my tivo did (I have the r10 in my bedroom now). It picks up season passes - i haven't had any trouble with it missing yet. I also have it record anything ohio state and it does a good job picking up all kinds of sporting events...even on channels that i don't get (cstv).

[rlw]

I just got an HR20-700S today. I'm blown away between the visual difference between OTA 1080i and digital satellite 480x content. Years ago, when I got Dish Network, I was impressed with the clarity. Little did I know that they compress the bejeezus out of the image.

Installation finished at 8:30 PM, at 9PM recorded both 24 and Heroes OTA, simultaneously. Watched 24 in realtime, Heroes after.

The dual ATSC tuners run rings around my Samsung SIR-TS160. WOSU had been dropping out on the Samsung, solid as a rock on the HD20.

I'll post more info as I learn more about the box.

RLW

[captenblack]

My DirecTV commitment is almost up and I'm thinking about switching to cable. On the other hand I'm also thinking of locking in a new commitment by getting an HR20. I have an HR10-250 which I upgraded and works decent. HD locals never have come in great and I would get those locals in MPEG4 + the future HD channels.

I'm in no big rush. If I did leave, I would consider Time Warner and maybe get a Series 3 Tivo. But with what I've read about switched digital and series 3 I don't know if that would be a good idea.

On the DirecTV website it looks like CW and PBS are not available in MPEG4. Is this true? For those who get MPEG4 locals, how is the quality? Overall how do you like the unit?

Any comments would be appreciated.

[Gimpy McFarlan]

My DirecTV commitment is almost up and I'm thinking about switching to cable. On the other hand I'm also thinking of locking in a new commitment by getting an HR20. I have an HR10-250 which I upgraded and works decent. HD locals never have come in great and I would get those locals in MPEG4 + the future HD channels.

I'm in no big rush. If I did leave, I would consider Time Warner and maybe get a Series 3 Tivo. But with what I've read about switched digital and series 3 I don't know if that would be a good idea.

On the DirecTV website it looks like CW and PBS are not available in MPEG4. Is this true? For those who get MPEG4 locals, how is the quality? Overall how do you like the unit?

Any comments would be appreciated.
I currently have the HR10-250 too. I'm bringing in local HD via an OTA antenna and overall I'm satisfied. Although I have frequent drops on the OTA HD antenna during storms or when there is heavy wind. My location seems to suffer heavily from multipath when the trees start swaying.

I'm planning to upgrade to the HR20 in Sept/Oct once DirecTV starts broadcasting the additional HD channels (Discovery, History, etc) they announced earlier this year. In my mind it will make the most sense to upgrade hardware once this additional HD content comes online.

[rlw]

It's been 2 months since I posted here about the HR20-700, so I've got more experience under my belt with it.

The HD quality seems to be very good, but the SD leaves something to be desired. HBO (non-HD), and most other 480x resolution shows exhibit lots of red push -- almost to the point of over driving.

The guide is also an annoyance -- evidently, DirecTV constantly wants us to add (and pay for) new channels. "Channels I Get" in the favorites submenu means "any channel I could possibly get", not "channels I currently get and pay for". This means you have to scroll through all of the channels just to find the one you're looking for. There's a "search by name", but it's rather unwieldy using the remote. You can set up favorites, which reduces the size of the guide, but the way they subdivide the guide is odd. For example, the History Channel and NASA TV should logically be (to me) under an "Educational" subdivision, but there isn't such a subdivision (I'm not sure where it is).

The recording function works well. We've recorded 2 shows simultaneously, and fast-forwarded and rewound the show we're watching, without a glitch. But, I have a bit of a problem with the "record entire season" function. Not having had cable or satellite for the past 5 or so years, we had never seen Star Trek: Enterprise, so we wanted to check it out. The SciFi channel reruns the series in 480, but HDNet runs it in HD. After recording about 7 episodes, we found out that HDNet carries it. It would have been nice if the recording function let you select a show by name, not by channel.

One other annoyance is the ring of laser-blue LEDs on the front panel of the box. I'd like to find the idiot-engineer who designed that... when he/she dies and goes to hell, he/she will have to sit in a darkened room for eternity and stare at it. There is a way to dim it and get rid of it altogether -- you simultaneously press the left/right navigation buttons up to 3 times to turn it off. The only problem is that after a power failure or a software update, it's back on again.

Having never had a TiVo, I probably don't know what I'm missing. Not having anything more than the 5 off-air channels (10 or so, once I got an ATSC tuner), I also didn't know what I was missing.

One reason we dumped the satellite 5 years ago was because it seemed that there was more "commercial" than "show" on the sat channels - why pay for 50 channels of crap when you could get 5 channels of crap for free? The biggest advantage of the HR20 is the ability to time-shift AND skip commercials. That even has a downside -- skipping 30 seconds at a pop doesn't really "skip", it fast-forwards. You can hit the skip button 5 times, but it's really 4x fast forward 5 times. You still have to see the commercials, albeit pretty quickly.

There's a guide for undocumented HR20 stuff (like turning off the annoying light-ring) at www.dbstalk.com.

Hope this helps...

RLW