[wchittenden]

I may have been the luckiest person in Texas on Thursday.

Backstory: I'll apologize in advance for the long message.

I had been hesitant to make the leap to HD given the shortage of DirecTV DVRs. DirecTV has been providing us with our programming for over seven years now and Sunday Ticket is what keeps us with them (I am a huge Bears fan in the middle of Texas). After watching this board, I knew the wait for an HR20 could be months.

This summer we moved into a new house with lots of windows. Our 36" RCA tube television in the family room is basically unwatachable during the day due to the glare and reflection. For the last couple of months, my wife has complained that she cannot watch her one soap opera during the day. "Oh well, I guess we can get a flat screen TV for you." On Thursday my wife and I are window shopping at BestBuy for a TV. I had done some research and had pretty much narrowed the choice down to the Sony KDS-55A2000. I showed her the TV and she loves the picture. There is enough light in the showroom for her to tell the glare won't be too bad. I love the TV, but figure why buy it now and have to wait several months for programming and figure we can wait until the stock of HR20s are back to normal before we buy both.

A salesman comes over and asks if we have any questions and then tells us about the "instant rebates" if we get HD service at the store. He tells us there is a $250 instant rebate if you buy the HR20 and they have the last one in Texas. I had checked BestBuy online earlier in the day and at least none of the stores in Austin or San Antonio had any in stock, so his story was plausable. Anyway, that made the deal for us. We walked out with the HR20 and I can pick the TV up on Tuesday.

I called DirecTV Thursday night to set up installation. I asked what deals they had and was told the new dish and installation would be free. Having read this board and the Tivo Community board for quite some time, I knew there were better deals so I politely asked what else they could do. After a couple of phone transfers, they knocked another $100 off. So the net cost of the HR20 was -$50! ($300 cost at BestBuy - $250 instant rebate - $100 credit). Installation is scheduled for 11/22, just in time for Thanksgiving.

Everything so far has just fallen into place. I'll post an update after the installation on the 22nd.

 

[wchittenden]

Well I knew everything couldn't go perfect. The installer couldn't find the house (a search on Google brings up the exact location!) so the install didn't happen today as planned. Rescheduled for Saturday afternoon. No HD football tomorrow, but at least it should be ready to go by Sunday. DirecTV gave me a $20 credit for the missed install.

 

[HDTVsportsfan]

Welcome to the world of D*'s subcontracted installers.
Some are by far worse than others.

Good Luck.

 

[Ben_jd]

Just a quick note so that others can see that not all is negative with the HR20 and/or the install process.

I had been trying for over a month to have the new 5-LNB dish and HR20 installed without avail. Cancelled appointments and no-shows did hound me initially (low stock of the dish and/or box was the culprit here), but once the DirecTV crew showed up this past Friday, all went swimmingly. They installed the dish with correct supports on my roof (even recommended a better location for the new dish to miss some trees that had been a problem during windy times). They installed the HR20 where my HR10 once stood (moved the HR10 to the bedroom to compliment my new LCD flatscreen in there).

They were courteous, quick and installed the necessary Zinwell multiswitch without prompting. They were respective of their noise-level while in the house (sleeping infant in the other room) and cleaned up their mess as they left.

The HR20, which had scared me a bit due to my obsessive reading of this forum, has worked without incident. My wife is still skeptical of the non-TiVo interface, but I've seen none of the BSODs, missed recordings, audio/video issues (HDMI-only connection works fine). I have a pink fast-forward arrow from time-to-time, but cannot work myself up to be irritated about it.

Just a quick note to let the late-adopters know that some of these boxes seem to work fine. I don't think I have the software download from 11/22 yet (I'm on CST time), but all is well so far.

 

[cabanaboy1977]

a $250 instant rebate if you buy the HR20

Is that for new customers only?

 

[wchittenden]

Is that for new customers only?

Not when I got it. I have been a DirecTV customer for 7 years. On the BestBuy website, it looks like the instant rebate is now $200 ($400 if you get the professional installation. It also looks like the price has come down, so I will be visiting BestBuy with my receipt to get some of the price back.

 

[wchittenden]

Well the installer came on Saturday at noon (an hour early!) The install was pretty easy for him. The HR20 was replacing a DirecTivo unit, so two lines were already run. Other than installing the dish, he just needed to run a second line to the bedroom where the DirecTivo unit was being moved to. He finished up about 2:30 (the last 45 minutes or so was waiting on the phone for DirecTV to activate the HD Locals.) Everything went smoothly. So far, I am happy with the HR20. It is obviously different than the Tivo interface, but not in a bad way. ESPN HD looks amazing. The only disappointment so far is the local NBC affiliate. Yesterday, the HD channel looked awful (massive pixalization on all pictures, almost as if the signal was being broken up.) Today, the picture looked much better, but there sound was very, very low. Anyway, I am a happy camper!