Mild first impressions of the HR10-250 [Archive]

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dswallow

04-24-04, 01:44 PM

I received my HR10-250 on Thursday 4/22 and promptly set it up and activated it with a phone call to DirecTV.

I really haven't spent a lot of time with it yet. I'm hoping to do that this weekend. But as I'm sitting here, the most obvious first impression I'm having of it is that "it's just like my previous SAT-T60."

It works the same. It generally looks the same within the UI. Of course it handles HD and OTA ATSC channels, too, but otherwise, it's just a DirecTV TiVo.

And that's probably the best thing about it. (Well, HD too!)

For me the most important step was getting my season passes back in there, which I was able to do Friday night after enough guide data had downloaded and the system indexed it.

I still find one time I have a conflict with 3 programs needing to be recorded at the same time. So I have to either settle for letting my SD DVR grab one of them, or watch one of them live using a different receiver. I also subscribe to ExpressVu which gives me east/west HD networks, so I do have the ability to watch one of them live at a different time, too.

My real problem right now, is for the last 2 nights none of the shows I watch have had new episodes, so there's really justnot been anything I care about watching. So I've left the unit on some OTA stations while I've been on the computer or doing other things, just so I can twiddle with pausing and rewinding and all that. But I haven't.

HD in and of itself isn't fascinating anymore, since I've had HD receivers for over a year. What's going to make this unit great for me is when some programming comes on that I watch regularly and I can just not worry about rushing home or rushing to the TV if I want to see it in HD. How it helps me get back to real life is going to be the important aspect of this unit; something I've had to sacrifice on occasion to watch HD live for more than a year. In fact for the last month as shipment seemed imminent, I started caring less and less about watching my shows in HD, because I wanted to get back into depending upon the TiVo to catch them. Admittedly after 3 weeks of delays, I was starting to want my HD back a lot, so I found I was beginning to care about getting home in time to watch certain shows live.

The only bug I can see so far is that the channel logos have not populated. I'm not really sure why that is. For we've seen some beta system screenshots where the logos exist. Perhaps there's just different logos and it'll be a while before they're sent to the units. Seems strange, though. Even the manual doesn't show channel logos -- but the space for them on the "Now Playing List" is still there. Maybe that's not really a "bug" though.

With the DVR's, new and replacement channel logos only show up after a reboot; I guess they're downloaded with phone call updates, though they might be service data download now. But for whatever reason they only reload on a reboot. So I'll reboot every few days and keep checking.

But otherwise, the guide works; the OTA stations are all there; the tuners seem at least as good as my Zenith HD-SAT520 receiver; the picture looks great; all the pause/ff/rew fuinctions work as expected, just like the SD counterpart.

What I hate to say is that it's kind of boring in a way. :) But I guess that's also why that's good.

My only disappointment comes from not having native rate output format options, where the output format changes to match the source format of the program. I prefer this since it'd let me tune to SD channels and get a 480p signal to my display, which then let's me non-linearly stretch the image to fill the 16:9 area. Some purists hate stretching. I hate stretching linearly. But I really like the non-linear stretch on my Fujitsu P50. I rarely find cases where something looks odd because of it; it's almost strange, because even off to the sides, I'd expect people to look fat like they do on a linear stretch, but it's so rare they actually do.

I'm told though that there's good hope for native rate support to be added to the unit in the near future. But in the meantime, it's really not too big a deal to push a few buttons on the remote to switch the output format as required.

It's a small price to pay for the added TiVo functionaility on HD programming.

Now I have one OTA channel that's occasionally difficult to get good reception on, and I'm anxious to see how my luck holds when a program is on I want recorded. The primary issue here is the station is broadcasting using a temporary transmitter at extremely low power (0.125kW). I should be amazed I get it at all from 30 miles away. But come June or so it should move to it's real channel location and be transmitting much closer to full power.

The only hiccup I had was my own fault. I forgot to put the access card in before calling for activation, so I had to insert it and reboot while on the phone. And it's while staring at the screen and holding on the phone that you realize the bootup process on the unit is a bit longer than typical on the SD counterpart. :)

Otherwise, so far, everything's functioning exactly as advertised.

Now one thing I know I'm concerned about I realized when entering my season passes; almost everything had an HD counterpart, so now I'm facing the ~30 hour HD recording limitation of a 250GB drive. So I know I'm wanting to add more space when it becomes evident that is easily done, and probably only when the 400GB drives are easily obtained.

I had 240GB on my SD DVR, and it's a pleasure to let shows sit for weeks or months and watch them when opportunity arises with zero concern anything will get lost because space is needed.

Dan L.

04-24-04, 03:15 PM

Doug

Does the OTA guide go out 14 days and is it complete and accurate?

Are there any problems what so ever in recording OTA?

Thanks Dan

dswallow

04-24-04, 04:33 PM

Does the OTA guide go out 14 days and is it complete and accurate?

Are there any problems what so ever in recording OTA?The only aberration I've seen so far is one I know I've read about somewhere recently. Last night on CBS, the OTA station was showing Joan of Arcadia in the schedule, but the DirecTV-delivered SD channel was showin some sports thing or another. Unfortunately I forgot to go look at the guide data for the CBS HD channel, so I don't know if it was equally wrong or if it was correct.

I haven't really looked into the why of it more, but it's one thing on my list because obviously that sort of erroneous guide data can become a problem, especially in markets that love to pre-empt network shows. At least in NYC that's kept to a minimum, except for these local sports things.

According to the unit it's only got guide data through May 6 so far; I looked at a few OTA channels and I see stuff into May 7, and it's still trickling new guide data, so we'll see if it get sup to the full 2 weeks.

BrettStah

04-24-04, 05:26 PM

Thanks for the review. It's basically what I expected... it's a DirecTivo that can record HD stuff. Those expecting anything else may be disappointed, but if it's relatively stable, and can record HD stuff, it'll be a welcome box to have once we jump into the HDTV market later this year. I plan on probably keeping at least 2 of my existing 3 DirecTivos to record SD stuff. If the prices on these things drop enough I'll wind up probably getting 2 HD-Tivos so that I can split the 4 main networks between them.

John Corn

04-24-04, 06:38 PM

Doug, nice review.

Has there been any talk of when D* might offer a new customer promo for the HR10-250? I'm ready for a change.

dswallow

04-24-04, 06:44 PM

Doug, nice review.

Has there been any talk of when D* might offer a new customer promo for the HR10-250? I'm ready for a change.
I've heard nothing. I wouldn't expect them to do a big new-customer push until there's sufficient product in the channel, though. Nothing like pissing off a new customer with non-availability of what you're enticing them with, right? :)

Rumor is this thing costs about $650 to manufacture.

I doubt a new customer deal could possibly be offered below $500 without some major assurances of programming income. I could see, however, one day DirecTV offering it cheaper tied into Total Choice Premier and one or more of the sports packages. Those types of customers tend to be valued highly by DirecTV and probably warrant more incentive spending to get them.

I don't think there'll be easy availability of this thing till around July/August.

Curiously just what season(s) is that just in time for? :)

John Corn

04-24-04, 06:52 PM

Thanx Doug, I'm in no hurry, but I will probably jump at the first promotion D* TV offers. :) It's killing me because I wanted MLB EI so bad when I was with Dish, now they added it and I didn't get it cause I figured I would probably change providers when the opportunity arose.

Steve Mehs

04-24-04, 08:18 PM

First off, excellent review Doug! The HD DirecTiVo sounds just like the SD one which is good and doesn't surprise me at all, hopefully it will continue to remain solid as a rock. Have you tried any of the codes, specifically the 30 sec skip code, if so do they work? I don't have an HD set, but I've never been so excited about any piece of HD hardware before like this.

Enjoy the HD DVR Doug!

bonscott87

04-24-04, 11:43 PM

And reports off the Tivo forum are that an extra hard drive *can* be added and that dealers are already working on mounting brackets to sell.

Also it was reported that it will do it's call to Tivo over PPP, just like a SD-DirecTivo.

Basically it's just an SD-DirecTivo that can record HD. Which is perfect. I'll be waiting until fall at least for the price to drop, but it's on my Christmas list for sure. :D

dswallow

04-24-04, 11:51 PM

Have you tried any of the codes, specifically the 30 sec skip code, if so do they work? I haven't tried it myself, but a friend who went to Value Electronics to play with the unit they'd gotten as a gift from DirecTV before ours got shipped tried it and it worked. I'm gonna go watch my first recorded season pass program now, so will try the 30 second skip. I actually have never used that before over the 3 years I had my SAT-T60. ;)

WayneB

04-25-04, 06:23 AM

How quick/slow is the guide ? The series 1 D*Tivo is painfully slow scrolling through the guide. Is the HD*Tivo any quicker ????

Steve Mehs

04-25-04, 10:12 AM

That's good news! Wayne beat me to my next question about the EPG. Is it any faster when it fills, compared to the SD units?

dswallow

04-25-04, 12:00 PM

No it's not any quicker; but my unit is still getting guide data, so until it's done filling up that and dealing with indexing it, I'll withhold final judgement that it isn't going to be faster than this right now.

CAL7

04-26-04, 11:12 AM

What can you tell us about its idle state? If it is "off", do the HDD or fan appear to run? Does it idle down on its own? (Forgive the 921-paranoid questions :) )

dswallow

04-26-04, 04:27 PM

What can you tell us about its idle state? If it is "off", do the HDD or fan appear to run? Does it idle down on its own? (Forgive the 921-paranoid questions :) )
There's really no such thing as idle with a TiVo. The standby mode shuts down video output. Supposedly the standby mode on the DirecTV TiVo units stops recording the 30-minute buffer of whatever 2 active tuners are on (but I've not confirmed this myself -- I never put my unit in standby).

The fan is always on if the unit has power. The CPU is always running, of course. The satellite tuners always have to be active to receive guide data that's trickling in. So there would be heat generated, hence why the fan is always on.

I will try to check out standby and recording tonight; I've never had a hard drive power down into a sleep mode on a TiVo and really wouldn't expect they'd have any reason to do that on this unit, either.

The unit never enters a standby mode unless you tell it to.

hongcho

04-26-04, 04:41 PM

The 30-second skip "secret handshake" thingy works. :p I am using it.

I gave up on the DirecTV guide and sticking with the TiVo guide ("List Guide").

I am just surprised that more of the indexing and scheduling aren't done in the background.

Hong.

Throwbot

04-26-04, 06:33 PM

There's really no such thing as idle with a TiVo. The standby mode shuts down video output. Supposedly the standby mode on the DirecTV TiVo units stops recording the 30-minute buffer of whatever 2 active tuners are on (but I've not confirmed this myself -- I never put my unit in standby).

The fan is always on if the unit has power. The CPU is always running, of course. The satellite tuners always have to be active to receive guide data that's trickling in. So there would be heat generated, hence why the fan is always on.

I will try to check out standby and recording tonight; I've never had a hard drive power down into a sleep mode on a TiVo and really wouldn't expect they'd have any reason to do that on this unit, either.

The unit never enters a standby mode unless you tell it to.
Could you give us an indication of the fan / harddrive noise?

JLucPicard

04-27-04, 01:07 AM

dswallow

04-27-04, 01:34 AM

I currently have two of the Phillips DirecTV DVRs. The remote has the functionality of controlling either box without affecting the other. As I watch way too much TV, I do not plan on removing either once I get the HD version.

My question to dswallow (or anyone else for that matter) is, will the Hughes remote not affect the Phillips boxes, or will I most likely have problems with the remotes affecting the other boxes without blocking the signal at the front of them?

Sorry, its late, so I hope I'm making sense.

I'm getting so pumped reading about this stuff, but I'm also afraid I'm too late to get one of the new boxes any time soon. I really want one in time for football season, though I don't know if the Sunday Ticket package will be broadcast in HD - anyone know?

The HR10-250 remotes have 9 possible addresses just like all DirecTV DVR's (and standalone TiVo's, I believe). Out of the box, it's set for remote address 0, which is like a "global" setting and it would control any DVR, so you just have to go to the system information screen, set the remote for the address you want (one unused by your current setup) and set the HR10-250 to recognize it.

DirecTV is planning on having 8 HD NFL games a week as part of NFL Sunday Ticket.

dswallow

04-27-04, 01:40 AM

Could you give us an indication of the fan / harddrive noise?
In a completely quiet room, I really don't hear the fan. I do hear hard drive activity, not so much a hum or anything like that, but the movement of the servo/head assembly.

I can't really compare it to the SD DVR, since I replace the drives in my SAT-T60 with Samsung drives that were absolutely silent. Someone has done a casual test with a sound meter: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=171464

dswallow

04-27-04, 01:45 AM

I will try to check out standby and recording tonight; I've never had a hard drive power down into a sleep mode on a TiVo and really wouldn't expect they'd have any reason to do that on this unit, either.
It's still recording the live TV buffers while in standby.

aaronwt

04-27-04, 08:55 PM

It's still recording the live TV buffers while in standby.
This is different than the SD versions. I have several. If they actually record in standby, it's not available for me to see. I can turn it on in the morning and the buffer will show 30 min but if I back up, it shows what I was watching the night before. I know this is the case with my DSR6000 models, I will have to check my DSR704 model since they are new.

Brad

04-27-04, 10:01 PM

dswallow

04-28-04, 12:41 AM

Thanks for the review, Doug, I'm definitely interested. I do have one question. I understand that the box supports both OTA and Satellite HD signals, and that it can record two shows or record one and watch another. Can it support recording 2 HD shows simultaneously, even if both are OTA or both are Satellite? In other words, does it only have one OTA HD tuner and one Sat HD tuner, or can it mix and match?

One other question; what price are we talking about?
It has 4 tuners; 2 satellite and 2 OTA/ATSC. They're arrange logically in pairs to the software, so the software thinks of it generally as 2 tuners each of which can record satellite or OTA. It can record any 2 at the same time, and you can watch a previously recorded program (including either of the 2 programs being recorded) at the same time, too.

$999. A couple dealers were offering up to $100 discounts until DirecTV said no advertised pricing below $999 after 4/4/2004.

dswallow

04-28-04, 12:59 AM

This is different than the SD versions. I have several. If they actually record in standby, it's not available for me to see. I can turn it on in the morning and the buffer will show 30 min but if I back up, it shows what I was watching the night before. I know this is the case with my DSR6000 models, I will have to check my DSR704 model since they are new.
I might need to correct myself it seems. WHen I tried this before I only waited 15 seconds in standby, then came back and everything seemed to be uninterrupted. I just left it in standby again for 10 minutes, and came back to live TV and found neither tuner had any 30-minute buffer recorded at all.

There must be a "standby grace period" or something. ;) But it appears to otherwise not record the live buffers in standby. Of course, it'll record any scheduled recordings or suggestions in standby, so there may still be hard drive activity.

WadeSc

04-28-04, 10:57 AM

WadeSc

04-28-04, 11:14 AM

Doug,
I forgot to ask one more question. I searched in the TIVO Community forum for a comparison of PQ of DVI vs Component. The thread where I thought I might find it has gotten bogged down in the lack of native resolution support argument. I have a Bravo D1 DVD player hooked up to my only DVI input and am wondering if the HDTivo's PQ is significantly better over DVI to justify an expensive DVI switcher, or if I will be just as happy using component inputs.
Thanks,
Wade

DCSholtis

04-28-04, 01:13 PM

$999. A couple dealers were offering up to $100 discounts until DirecTV said no advertised pricing below $999 after 4/4/2004.

Hey Doug,

FYI I got on the email list of weaknees for one of these units and got a return email last night informing me that since I was one of the first to get on their list I could order one for the cool price of $1299.00!!! :eek2: This is just for an out of the box unmodified unit..They're saying that IF I wish to order one closer to the MSRP Id have to wait until the end of June.. :nono2: I think I will wait for Best Buy to get them in since I need some other things done at the same time...I.E. Upgrade to a 3-LNB dish..OTA antenna and this unit. But $1299.00?!! I thought that was unbelieveable.

dswallow

04-28-04, 01:17 PM

Doug,
Thanks for the review. I am a current DISH network subscriber but because of the 921 fiasco, I have preordered a HR10-250 from SolidSignal and will be switching to DirecTV. I've been waiting for months for DISH to come up with a good HD receiver but the 811 has problems also (if you can even get one). DirecTV doesn't carry my locals yet, but that shouldn't be an issue if the HDTivo can bring in my local digital OTA stations.
When you say you "reboot" the unit, do you mean pulling the power cord or just removing and reinserting the "smart" card? Do you lose your season pass programming when you do this?
Since DirecTV doesn't carry my local channels yet, will I have local OTA guide info available on the HDTivo?
I've never had a Tivo unit before so this unit will definitely not be boring to me. I'm looking forward to the switch to DirecTV and rarely watching live TV again.
Rebooting is really just that; pull the power cord and reinsert it or use the menu option buried in there to do the same sort of thing. When these units get software updates, for instance, they schedule a reboot themselves -- usually around 2am-ish. This just lets it run through a script where it loads any software updates that are pending and restarts everything.

Nothing is lost. No season passes, recordings, or any other configuration settings are lost. There's a separate menu function if you want to specifically clear and delete everything to reset it to a more factory-new condition. One you have to really re-confirm if you select. ;)

OTA digital channels are available via the guide data even if DirecTV doesn't retransmit your local channels. You can confirm at www.zap2it.com since that site uses the same source for guide data as DirecTV. The HD receivers are configured using your zip code to identify the primary market area, and later you can add another market area by state/city area. You can also do a traditional scan for channels you can receive, too.

the_tx_dude

04-28-04, 01:20 PM

dswallow

04-28-04, 01:23 PM

I forgot to ask one more question. I searched in the TIVO Community forum for a comparison of PQ of DVI vs Component. The thread where I thought I might find it has gotten bogged down in the lack of native resolution support argument. I have a Bravo D1 DVD player hooked up to my only DVI input and am wondering if the HDTivo's PQ is significantly better over DVI to justify an expensive DVI switcher, or if I will be just as happy using component inputs.
I've not seen anyone really do that sort of thing yet, but I've done that myself with my other DirecTV HD receiver; if there's any differences I really couldn't notice (though at that time HD was totally new to me, so maybe I have a more critical eye now).

I doubt it would matter much unless you have a DLP, LCD or plasma based display, and even then only if it had the native resolution of one of the HD formats 1080i or 720p, otherwise it's going to be reprocessing the signal anyway.

You are always left in the air with content protection and the possibility at some point in the future HD resolutions would be downconverted unless you had a protected digital connection to your display. Nobody's doing that yet, but the capability exists to require it. Hopefully by that time though, if it ever comes around, DVI or HDMI capable equipment that can switch will be more prevalent and much cheaper. I think such devices are in the $250-$350 range now depending on if you also want them to switch digital audio. Even that's not horrible, just high. :)

dswallow

04-28-04, 01:25 PM

FYI I got on the email list of weaknees for one of these units and got a return email last night informing me that since I was one of the first to get on their list I could order one for the cool price of $1299.00!!! :eek2: This is just for an out of the box unmodified unit..They're saying that IF I wish to order one closer to the MSRP Id have to wait until the end of June.. :nono2: I think I will wait for Best Buy to get them in since I need some other things done at the same time...I.E. Upgrade to a 3-LNB dish..OTA antenna and this unit. But $1299.00?!! I thought that was unbelieveable.
Weaknees is creating some bad publicity over their decision. I don't care for their practices myself and it will affect where I buy upgrade product from and where I recommend others go for the same. But it's a free market enconomy. They get to suffer from their decision if that's what ends up happening.

dswallow

04-28-04, 01:33 PM

Does it have a screen saver option?

When will the upgraded hard drive become available?

Any "bugs" found yet?

I have a 921 now but am disgusted with it and ready to make the switch if I can get 1299 for it on Ebay then I can swap it.
No, there is no screen saver. All the menus will time out to live TV, however. Even paused live TV will time out when the ~30-minute buffer is filled. THe onyl time I've found where you can get something on the screen "forever" is when you pause a recorded program. That'll stay displayed until you unpause it or go to live TV.

There are reportedly two things people have found that might be categorized as bugs...

1) Several people have reported some sort of audio issue, primarily with HDNet. I've not followed it too closely myself, but apparently sometimes when changing to HDNet, the audio will stop. Changing the channel to something and back again fixes it. It affects both digital and analog audio outputs. It's unclear if this is a real bug in the HR10-250 or if ti's a bug in the HDNet datastream. Speculation seems to be since it's HDNet-specific, it's something to be fixed in the HDNet data stream, on the other hand, it doesn't seem to affect other DirecTV HD receivers. But it also apparently isn't affecting any other channels.

2) Twice I've experienced a problem where I'll start watching a show that is being recorded, so I'm watching it behind "live" and skipping over commercials and eventually catch up to where it's recording. At thepoint I catch up, it seemed that I was now ahead of the recording point and seeing a black screen. I could rewind just a few seconds and start playing again and all the material is there, so it's not losing the recording, it's just the playback of it when syncing with the recording point. This happened to me twice -- the first time I noticed it, I kept trying again and again on the same recording, then immediately after, did it on another channel that was recording. But then I've not been able to repeat it again. One other person says they experienced the same thing once. It's rare. I can't seem to make it happen when I want to, so there's some circumstance behind it out of my control or not yet identified, but it apparently can happen; though it really doesn't stop you from doing anything since it's still recording properly and you just need to back up a few seconds to correct the issue. And it only affects you at all if you're recording a program and start watching it before it's finished recording.

WadeSc

04-29-04, 11:41 AM

Compare those 2 minor glitches that Doug noted with the long list of serious bugs the 921 was released with.....I wonder how many DISH customers will be jumping ship with me? I find it hard to believe that such a large company (Echostar) released such a flawed product and apparently are about to start shipping them again with several serious unresolved issues. That they can charge $999 plus $5 per month for the 921 with a straight face is baffling.
Wade

DCSholtis

04-29-04, 05:12 PM

Weaknees is creating some bad publicity over their decision. I don't care for their practices myself and it will affect where I buy upgrade product from and where I recommend others go for the same. But it's a free market enconomy. They get to suffer from their decision if that's what ends up happening.

Kinda makes my wonder how much theyre gonna charge once they get around to start selling them modified..... :D

jsanders

04-29-04, 07:24 PM

What I hate to say is that it's kind of boring in a way. :) But I guess that's also why that's good.

Hey man! Boring iis a very good thing! I've had a 921 since January that has never been boring! My first night with it consisted of 3.5 hours of constant reboots and about 20 minutes of watching TV. Didn't even try any DVR features! It is more stable now, but I have to re-scan all of the OTA channels on almost a daily basis. This causes me to loose so many recorded programs because the timers don't fire when the OTA channels are gone! I still don't have any OTA guide data, so I don't know what show I am about to watch until I play that recording. I only have one OTA tuner BTW. Can't imagine the trouble I would have had with two OTA tuners!

So, can anyone tell me what a basic installation with a trible LNB dish, HD package and basic programming will cost? Any idea how hard it will be to get one of these HD Tivos right now? I'm just about ready to call my local TV news consumer advocate to ask him to make Dish buy back my 921. I could get more for it on EBay, but it is the principle that counts.....

John Corn

04-29-04, 08:29 PM

I'm done with Dish, as soon as DirecTV offers new sub pricing for their HD TiVo....maybe sooner, I'm not even sure I'll wait. The 921 is a complete joke, It never will be as stable as the HD TiVo was on it's first day. My wife and kids hate the 921, they have never once mentioned or commented about any receiver I've had, but they have ask me to get a new or different receiver because they hate how buggy the 921 is.

I'm tired of beta testing for Dish. :mad:

HarryD

04-29-04, 08:35 PM

abrass

04-29-04, 10:37 PM

Does anyone know if the HR10-250 will work with the TIVO Home Networking option?

Thanks

A.J. Brass

dswallow

04-29-04, 10:55 PM

Does anyone know if the HR10-250 will work with the TIVO Home Networking option?
No word from DirecTV yet on HMO availability for the HR10-250. There's persistent rumors they'll do something before the end of the year. I wouldn't put too much credit in them myself. It'll happen when it happens, if it ever happens. But I wouldn't suggest buying the unit with any expectation of that as an upcoming option.

dswallow

04-29-04, 11:00 PM

So, can anyone tell me what a basic installation with a trible LNB dish, HD package and basic programming will cost? Any idea how hard it will be to get one of these HD Tivos right now? I'm just about ready to call my local TV news consumer advocate to ask him to make Dish buy back my 921. I could get more for it on EBay, but it is the principle that counts.....
There's no new subscriber deals including the HR10-250 yet. Once they're readily available, there should be some. So expect to pay $999 (or maybe as much as 10% less depending on where you buy them and if they've got some sort of discount coupon you could apply to the purchase).

As a new subscriber, you can get a free installation including a regular receiver, and usually about $20-$30 for the triple-LNB dish (unless your locals require the triple LNB dish, then that's free too). There's new subscriber packages including one SD DVR for about $40-$50, including everything. There is a new subscriber HD package (regular HD receiver). That runs about $380. You could do the regular HD new subscriber package and then sell the HD receiver somewhere when you get the HR10-250. Or you could hold out till maybe June and see what, if any, new subscriber deals may exist that include the HR10-250.

jsanders

04-30-04, 12:41 AM

There's no new subscriber deals including the HR10-250 yet. Once they're readily available, there should be some. So expect to pay $999 (or maybe as much as 10% less depending on where you buy them and if they've got some sort of discount coupon you could apply to the purchase).

As a new subscriber, you can get a free installation including a regular receiver, and usually about $20-$30 for the triple-LNB dish (unless your locals require the triple LNB dish, then that's free too). There's new subscriber packages including one SD DVR for about $40-$50, including everything. There is a new subscriber HD package (regular HD receiver). That runs about $380. You could do the regular HD new subscriber package and then sell the HD receiver somewhere when you get the HR10-250. Or you could hold out till maybe June and see what, if any, new subscriber deals may exist that include the HR10-250.

Thanks! I guess I have to do a bit of homework to figure out the best option.

phaseshift

05-03-04, 09:07 AM

I doubt it would matter much unless you have a DLP, LCD or plasma based display, and even then only if it had the native resolution of one of the HD formats 1080i or 720p, otherwise it's going to be reprocessing the signal anyway.

It does matter with those fixed pixel displays, many of which have better scalers than cable boxes, and probably satellite boxes as well. I have a DLP set that's native 720p. My cable box allows me to switch the output between 720p and 1080i. When watching a 1080i show, I try to have the cable box in 1080i; because my set does a better job of converting it to 720p than does the cable box. The set is a Samsung, with a Faroujda chipset. It looks noticably sharper when the set does the conversion. But when I watch ABC-HD (don't have ESPN HD, and those are the only two using 720p), I set the cable box to match that for great results.

My preference, which as far as I know is not an option on anybody's box, would be for the receiver to always output the native resolution, and let my tv do the scaling. As it is now, I have to manually switch the box for best results.

Peluso

05-03-04, 03:12 PM

I find it hard to believe that such a large company (Echostar) released such a flawed product and apparently are about to start shipping them again with several serious unresolved issues. That they can charge $999 plus $5 per month for the 921 with a straight face is baffling.Wade

If you know the Dish corporate culture and it's priorities then it's understandable why the 921 is the way it is. Simply put their is too much on everyone's plate. The focus is on quantity over quality in every single aspect of the business. I'll go into it more if you want, but email me directly. I don't think everyone in the forum wants to hear my thoughts on Echo's internal issues.

Throwbot

05-03-04, 04:11 PM

astrotrf

05-11-04, 09:35 AM

I was fortunate enough not to have purchased the Dish Network 921 ... but I want my HDTV.

I have a couple of initial questions about the HR10-250:

triple LNB: does that mean I'll need 3 cables from the dish to the receiver?

Do I *need* to have a phone line connected to the receiver? I never order pay-per-view stuff, so I don't have a line connected to my Dish 721.

Thanks - I gotta go read more about this now.

astrotrf

05-11-04, 09:45 AM

OK, I read another thread, and have another question:

I'm getting the impression that I'll definitely need either a phone line or a serial-port Internet connection of some kind for this receiver. Is it possible to get along without *both*?

dswallow

05-11-04, 10:18 AM

The 3-LNB dish has a built-in 4x4 multiswitch; you'll need one cable from the dish feeding each tuner. For the HR10-250, that means 2 cables since there's 2 tuners, though you can use 1 cable if you don't mind having the second tuner disabled.

The antenna signal can be combined with one of those cables with the use of diplexers on each end (or a multiswitch with that capability built in and a diplexer on the receiver end to split the antenna signal out).

You *need* the phone line or serial connection during the initial setup. After that, you can live without it except that you won't get software updates without it, when they're made available. You could just work something out with a neighbor to borrow their phone line (or take your unit over to their house), or hook up the serial connection via your computer whenever you hear a software update is available and want to get it.

astrotrf

05-11-04, 10:37 AM

Thanks for the reply. I just spent a half-hour reading threads in the TiVo Community, so of course I'm an expert now :-).

You *need* the phone line or serial connection during the initial setup. After that, you can live without it except that you won't get software updates without it,

According to a posting in a thread over there, the next big software update will need to be done by phone, but will enable future updates to be done via satellite. That'd be great, if it pans out.

ook up the serial connection via your computer

I'm not a Windows person at all - is this supposed to just work with a Windows computer, or is there some magical piece of Windows software involved? Merely plugging a serial cable into the back of the computer won't connect it to the Internet without considerable software assistance inside the computer.

Thanks again for the info. It sounds as though I'll be switching from E* to D*, although I've heard mention of the guide being horribly slow, which would be frustrating for me, as I use it a lot. So I have to find out how bad that really is. The only unfortunate thing is that I still won't be able to archive programs.

dswallow

05-11-04, 11:13 AM

I'm not a Windows person at all - is this supposed to just work with a Windows computer, or is there some magical piece of Windows software involved? Merely plugging a serial cable into the back of the computer won't connect it to the Internet without considerable software assistance inside the computer.

Thanks again for the info. It sounds as though I'll be switching from E* to D*, although I've heard mention of the guide being horribly slow, which would be frustrating for me, as I use it a lot. So I have to find out how bad that really is. The only unfortunate thing is that I still won't be able to archive programs.

http://www.b-lan.com/otto/tivo3xp/

Give yourself a good 2 or 3 weeks with it before deciding how much you really think you'll continue using the guide. Once you're past the new-toy feeling, I don't think you'll find yourself in the guide all that often. Rarely more often than to find a series and get a season pass, though I do that via search-by-name before the season beings, now. Before getting my HR10-250's, the guide on my SAT-T60 SD DVR had pretty much fallen into non-use over the years.

It's something that happens when you have reliable name-based recording. I would even have hard time telling you when many shows are even on these days were it not for me having been recently watching them live to see them in HD. With the HR10-250's I expect in a month or two I'll forget when shows I watch actually air again. ;)

dswallow

05-11-04, 11:21 AM

Also some first-hand confirmation of PPP over serial working for initial setup:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?threadid=174368

djlong

05-17-04, 11:15 PM

Dumb question here... I have a LAN hooked up to my DSL modem. All my computers get to the net through there. I also have a wireless access point (802.11g) for my laptop to access the DSL line (through the hub that everything else plugs into).

I get the impression that the updates can come via the net (mention of the serial line earlier). Can I plug this thing into my LAN now and get them? (I know the HMO option isn't active and that was supposed to use a LAN connection as I recall)

dswallow

05-18-04, 02:10 AM

There are USB 2.0 ports on the HR10-250 but they are not active; the only way right now to use a network for the TiVo phone call is via serial over PPP, connected to a computer with internet access and running serial over PPP software.

OmarG

05-18-04, 01:15 PM

I did this last night for both my new SD-TIvo and HD-TiVo with a serial/ppp cable from 9th Tee. I wasn't able to get it to work with the online instructions (http://www.b-lan.com/otto/tivo3xp/) until I did some googling and found that for some networks, you have to enable a range of static IP addresses. I did that and it worked, but I also had to make sure that in winXP I enabled lots of options that allow the incoming connection to access HTTP, FTP, etc. through the connection.

Not sure which of those did the trick, but after a few hours of experimenting, I finally got it to get past the "NEGOTIATING" prompt on the TiVo.

Ibgizmo

07-16-04, 04:53 PM

Hi there. Hey...I have had the HR10-250 up and running about a month, had some pixelizing, called DirectTV and they told me to clear all data. Bad move, the unit is locked up. I have tried unplugging to reset. Any ideas?

flogage

07-19-04, 12:26 PM

It has 4 tuners; 2 satellite and 2 OTA/ATSC. They're arrange logically in pairs to the software, so the software thinks of it generally as 2 tuners each of which can record satellite or OTA. It can record any 2 at the same time, and you can watch a previously recorded program (including either of the 2 programs being recorded) at the same time, too.

$999. A couple dealers were offering up to $100 discounts until DirecTV said no advertised pricing below $999 after 4/4/2004.

I currently have HD cable with a box from Comcast. The box has only component out. Would I be able to record HD cable shows from the ANT in?

RAD

07-19-04, 01:16 PM

I currently have HD cable with a box from Comcast. The box has only component out. Would I be able to record HD cable shows from the ANT in?

No the box doesn't do QAM for cable only ATSC over the air standard.