[Carl Spock]

I used Double Play with my HR34 this evening and discovered something cool.

When you switch back and forth between the two channels, you don't get the big banner across the top of the screen. You just get the small progress bar on the bottom of the screen for a few seconds.

With all the HR2x DVRs I've used (I don't have a HR24 so I can't speak to it), the top banner appears each time you switch. This always seemed unnecessary to me. You basically know which channels you are watching. The program information on the progress bar is enough to tell you which show you are watching, which is all you need to know.

Nice little tweak in the software, DirecTV!

 

[Carl Spock]

That makes sense. It's still cool. That banner at the top of the screen is big enough to contain the entire Declaration of Independence. Making it go away is a good thing.

This reason also explains something else I discovered tonight.

When you select Double Play, the second channel is determined seemingly at random. Tonight my HR34 called up the same station I was already on for the second channel. If a HR2x DVR had done this, the progress bar would show the time I'd been on the first station for both channels. In other words, if the first channel was CNN and I'd been on it for 15 minutes, and the second channel was also CNN, the progress bar would read 15 minutes for both channels.

Not with the HR34. When it launched the same station on the second channel, the progress bar read two different times. The first channel read the time I'd been watching that network. The second channel read only the time I'd been in Double Play, even though it was the same station.

With a HR2x DVR, if the two channels in Double Play are tuned into the same channel, they will share a buffer. With a HR34, they use two separate buffers.