Crave review of HR21-700

[SteveHas]

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9896534-1.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Crave

I am about to start ignoring Crave, and CNET all together after this one.

This reviewer either got beat up as a kid by someone at D*, or he lost his girl friend to a D* installer.
What a freagin' jerk,
Why is he sooooo blatantly biased against D*?

:mad::mad:

[Earl Bonovich]

So in another words....

A long time TiVo user... trying to use it like a TiVo...
DLB missing shouldn't have been a shock to him, since he knows about our site here... and it is no hidden secret that DLB isn't there.

I would have like to know what show he had an audio problem with...

And a list of other recoding issues... since he only listed one issue with recording. He did note some issues with playback though.

Pretty fair "review" in general... He points out the flaws and benefits of both units he was comparing.

I would like to see him do the review again in 3 months, once he gets used to the different menu struture.

[SteveHas]

this struck me as a knee jerk review, fom someone who hasn't spent enough time with the equipment.

For example, there is no mention that for most users an internal OTA tuner is not needed.
He does raise some legimate differences from Tivo - negative ones, but he does not detail the positive differences.
Given that this is part of his ongoing series I would not categorize this as a fair review, or a complete one at that, (which he does admit to).
First impresions are most important, and to a prospective customer of D* and this device, this review is very misleading, and unfarly negative.

[Sirshagg]

Looks pretty fair to me. Big gripes: no DLB, no OTA - Gee, havn't heard anybody mention thise here. Also discusses the menu structure which was recently changed so he probably had the pre-change firmware. I've also seem many people here complain about unreliable recordings (myself included) however I don't recall seeing any involving video but no audio. He also does praise the HR21 where it deserves it - such as easier recording setup.

What must be kept in mind is that the review is from the viewpoint of upgrading eqipment so as to receive the new HD. This essentially means upgrading the HR10 to the HR20/21. Granted we all know very well that they are completley different receivers made by different companies. However this probably isn;t the case for everyone and generally when people upgrade to the new and improved "x" they expect it to have all the same features of the old "x". In the case of the HR20/21 this is clearly not the case and you can;t fault people for being a bit upset about that.

[Stuart Sweet]

Actually I think it's a pretty fair review. It doesn't reflect my experience with the HR21 as far as reliability or video/audio issues, but it probably affects his. I note that he doesn't try to pretend that his HR10 was perfect --- he says it spontaneously reboots.

It's not the review I would have written but I think it's fair.

[Doug Brott]

From the article ..
First, the "-700" in the model number is pretty much irrelevant. As I understand it, these numbers distinguish units made for DirecTV by different contract manufacturers. On the HR10-250, the "-250" part referred to the size of the hard disk. That certainly isn't true on the HR21-700, so don't be misled.

Absolutely correct .. For all DIRECTV branded models, the -x00 is the manufacturer information .. except for the HR10-250 which was shoehorned into the database. What is actually misleading is that the 250 is supposedly a "manufacturer" yet it is really not that info.

[Doug Brott]

The article takes a pessimistic view of the HR21, but it's mostly accurate (TiVo does not have Patent for DLB as suggested). I would have no problem pointing folks to that article (among others) if they were trying to make decisions .. As we all know, the AM21 is closer not to availability than ever before. The AM21 will make a significant viewing improvement for some folks.

[dsm]

I think there are more good things he could have called out (DOD, Remote booking, media server support), but for the basic functionality I think he nailed it.

He called out some legitimate problem areas in the system: lack of DLB, annoying Trick Play behavior, and audio problems. You can tell he really used it for a while which is more than some product reviewers do.

To DirecTV's credit he actually saw the unit as more stable than his HR10 because it didn't need to reboot. We've come a long way, no?

steve

[jaguar325]

At first, I hated the D*TiVo interface and slowness of 1st generation DVRs. My wife kept using her old standard-def D*TiVo while I tried other things, including one of the first R15s to ship -- that (bad) experience was enough to send me back to D*TiVo (and the R15 to a storage shelf). The Sammy HD receiver wasn't bad but I couldn't record on it and the darn thing rebooted itself a lot. I got an HR10-250 in Aug. of '06 - right about the time they started improving navigation speed and adding features like folders. It sounds rediculous now but we actually had a thread devoted to keeping track of which parts of the country were getting this all-important SW update. After all that settled down, I really came to like that old workhorse.. peanut remote and all.

My R15 nightmares caused me to delay and be a late adopter of the HR20/21 line.. didn't get an HR20 until last October which, coincidentally, wasn't too long after all the new channels came on-line. I was pleasantly surprised that their menus had gotten a lot better, nav speed was actually better than my HR10-250, and it was doing a good job of managing recordings (R15 recorded what I didn't want and missed a lot of what I did want). I liked it well enough to get an HR21 a month later and since I already had OTA capability, it wasn't too bad to have one DVR without OTA. My wife, a true die-hard D*TiVo lover, actually agreed to have me stick her HR10-250 in a seldom-used home theater and allow the HR20 to be her main box. So far, no complaints at all. One thing that helped us quite a bit is sticking all the remotes (that come with the DVRs) in a drawer and buying RC64RB remotes. Not only do they offer larger, back-lit print, but I find that they have much better range and accuracy with plain-old IR than the RC24/34/34R.

The issue of OTA vs. not is obviously highly dependent on the user. From all the posts I have read here, I don't think it's accurate to portray this as a "must have" for everyone, nor is it useless for everyone. I think it's fair to say that it's important enough the DTV needs to have a solution - either continue to sell either an HR20 or HR21-like device to those that do/don't need OTA (and enable a customer to actually know for sure which is coming), or implement a separate OTA tuner, which appears to be the path forward. As an OTA user, I prefer that the capability be built into the DVR but if that isn't going to be possible in the future, I doubt I will drop service over it.

In reference to menus and navigation, I think most people that have had extensive use of both systems (D*TiVo and HR2x) see pro's and con's for both platforms. A year ago (still an HR10-250 hold-out), I thought Earl had lost his marbles when he started posting positively about the HR20. Now, I see the light and prefer to stick with the HR2x platform and look to DTV to keep perfecting it.. either by implementing updates they have control over or working out arrangements with TiVo for the patented stuff.

[dyker]

Actually I found it to be a very fair review. The audiot dropouts and problems are the second most popular reported problem in the HR20-700 thread (http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=1486240&postcount=267). In my particular case with that problem, when watching via HDMI, the audio stream would just *stop*. The screen would display "Unsupported Audio Signal". My guess is he is watching HDMI and his TV has similar issues.

just deliver the bottom line: the HR21 has some nice features, but the key features it's missing, and the unreliability of basic functions like recording and playback that I've observed on my brand-new model, make it a less than satisfactory product.
Blank/Black/Empty/Gray Recordings (http://www.dbstalk.com/showpost.php?p=1486240&postcount=267) were the most popular complaint of the 0x1FE software. I'm guessing he must have had some of the blank recordings for him to say "unreliability of...recording".

I think he's being fair in echoing his opinion of disappointment which I share at this point but even in the couple months I've had my HRXX it has gotten more stable and better and if that trend continues (if) it'll move out the more dependable DVRs I depend on.

He said he'll re-review in a few months. All in all it seemed very balanced. D* owns Replay patents now which have license to Tivo patents. So my guess (which is probably as off as yours might be) is good things are coming.

[Bergthold]

I also think it was a fair review. If I didn't already have two HRs, and I read that review, I'd probably hold off for awhile.

[Doug Brott]

I also think it was a fair review. If I didn't already have two HRs, and I read that review, I'd probably hold off for awhile.

So are you saying that you'd give the ones back that you have now if it were possible? I think it's a well written review but a bit pessimistic .. It should be balanced, IMHO, with another review that is equally optimistic.

[Stuart Sweet]

Seriously, though,

if Mr. Glaskowsky, the author of this article, is around, I encourage him to post more about his problems so we can help. He clearly knows about us and may already be a member. Mr. Glaskowsky, you're also free to private-message any moderator and we'll do our best to help.

So let's keep that in mind, and treat everyone with respect, please.