Bought the RCA DVR80 dual tunerand want to use it for 2 rooms

[jrod9707]

I was talking to guys that install dishnetwork dual channel receivers and they say that with their dual channel DVR's they can have 2 rooms hooked up with one receiver and the channels will be independent of each other. They say its because they use one remote IR and the other is RF. That makes sense but I want to know can you do that with the RCA DVR80(DIRECTV UNIT)? The problem I foresee is how will the unit know which remote is changing which channel(what ouputs do you put the TV's on) if its even possible? If somebody can help me out that would be great.

[Greg Bimson]

Not possible. Although there are two tuners on the DVR80 (I just bought one), the receiver only ever outputs one tuner at once.

Dish Network has a couple dual-tuner DVR's: the 721, which acts like the DirecTV DVR's with only one output, minus TiVo's Season Passes and Wishlists; and the 522, which is a dual-tuner, dual-output model, minus TiVo's Season Passes and Wishlists. Keep in mind the 522 is only available on a lease plan.

[beejaycee]

The DishNetwork 522 has two tuners as does the DirecTiVo. However, the 522 also has 2 decoders while the DTiVo only has 1. The decoder is the hardware/software part of the box which takes the satellite stream that has been stored to the harddrive and converts it into a signal that is recognizable by your TV. So, while you can use the DTiVo on 2 different TVs, both TVs will see the same picture at the same time. You can't watch Tuner 1 on TV 1 in the den and Tuner 2 on TV 2 in the bedroom. Both TVs will see the output of the DTiVo's single decoder.
Also, one of the 522's 2 remotes uses radio frequencies so will control the box from a distance, through walls. The DTiVo's single remote uses IR so it is strictly line-of-sight. You would need to buy an RF repeater to use it from a distance.

[jrod9707]

Thankyou for your knowledgeable reply and explaining how the decoders work.

[jrod9707]

Thankyou.

[Steve Mehs]

Threads merged and moved to DirecTV SD DVR Forum.