[liquidsense]

Note: I called customer service with this question and they, inexplicably, could not get me an answer.

I am brand new to DirecTV. I recently had installed an HR34 and two H25s. The H25s are great. They are very compact, show the full HD channel set, communicate with the HR34, and can access my DVR list. They do not have On Demand access nor are they capable of pausing and rewinding live TV.

Question: What is the cheapest receiver that I can use that will also give me the capability of pausing and rewinding live TV? How much does that typically cost? (I think the H25 is costing me $6 per unit per month.)

 

[nike5580]

At this time no receiver can pause or rewind live tv. That is a feature that only DVR's can do. When the C30/C31 (which ever it is called now) is released, you will be able to pause an rewind live tv at tv's that are connected to them. The C30/C31 are RVU clients and will work with you HR34. However they would use one tuner from the HR34 while they are in use.

 

[dpeters11]

You would need a DVR, or an RVU TV (really certain Samsungs) and have DirecTV activate that service. A DVR generally is $200 without any special pricing. The monthly fee is $6 regardless. The DVR fee is per account, so you would not pay more for that. On a month to month basis, there is no price difference from a DVR or a regular receiver.

It doesn't much matter, but if you get a DVR, your two year contract restarts when you activate. It does not add it on at the end, but it may be a few months longer than before, depending on when your install was.

Keep in mind, you can set something to record from the H25 to the HR34, which can help work around pausing, but not necessarily rewinding. If you got a second DVR, you cannot have it record something to the 34.

At this time, I don't think anyone knows when the C31 will be released.

 

[liquidsense]

Damn, that's very informative. Thank you much for the info -- it would have taken me an hour to get the info from CS, if even at all.

 

[mrdobolina]

Keep in mind, you can set something to record from the H25 to the HR34, which can help work around pausing, but not necessarily rewinding.

Since I am thinking about adding an H25 to my mix (currently 3 HDDVRs on Whole Home), I read this and wanted some clarification: Am I right in saying that you CAN do full trick play from an H25 on recordings? I know you CAN'T do it on live TV, but I always assumed you could pause/rewind/FF recordings from an H25. The workaround for doing so for "live" tv being that you would just have to start recording the channel you wanted to watch on the H25's tuner on a DVR, then watch that recording from the list.

 

[nike5580]

Am I right in saying that you CAN do full trick play from an H25 on recordings?

Yes, you are right.

 

[dpeters11]

Right, on recordings, you have full trick play. I haven't actually tried it for live, but if your DVR happens to be tuned to the right channel, and you set it to record from a H25, you could get the previous time on the recording as well. But it would require things to be just right, so I wouldn't count on it.

 

[mrdobolina]

Thanks, guys. That's what I thought.

I'm thinking of adding the H25 to our bedroom to eliminate the drive noise from the DVR while we sleep. We don't do much trickplay on the HR22 that is in there now, anyway. Maybe for Seinfeld that airs at 11 PM each night, but I'll just set up a recording for it and be done worrying about it.

 

[Laxguy]

I have an H25 in my BR, and love it. If I see something by chance and think there's even a possibility I will want to see it, I just record it on a DVR. I do a lot of housekeeping on it, too, deleting from either or both DVRs.

 

[dpeters11]

I agree, the H25 is perfect for a bedroom setting.

 

[Vin]

Thanks, guys. That's what I thought.

I'm thinking of adding the H25 to our bedroom to eliminate the drive noise from the DVR while we sleep. We don't do much trickplay on the HR22 that is in there now, anyway. Maybe for Seinfeld that airs at 11 PM each night, but I'll just set up a recording for it and be done worrying about it.

I considered the H25 for the same reason but finally decided on another HD DVR (HR24-500). It's located in my basement HT and I control it remotely with the Actiontec Wirless HDMI kit http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Wir...ZZ32/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338573486&sr=8-1 which I got for considerably less on ebay. I just thought I'd mention this as another option...it has worked quite well for me.

 

[Laxguy]

Yes, or use an iPad, or a browser using Waltz49's app.

Nice setup you have!

 

[RACJ2]

I considered the H25 for the same reason but finally decided on another HD DVR (HR24-500). It's located in my basement HT and I control it remotely with the Actiontec Wirless HDMI kit http://www.amazon.com/Actiontec-Wir...ZZ32/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1338573486&sr=8-1 which I got for considerably less on ebay. I just thought I'd mention this as another option...it has worked quite well for me.

So that WiFi device does work as billed. Some of the reviews mention needing line of site to make it work. Which would pretty much make it useless.

 

[TomCat]

At this time no receiver can pause or rewind live tv. That is a feature that only DVR's can do. When the C30/C31 (which ever it is called now) is released, you will be able to pause an rewind live tv at tv's that are connected to them. The C30/C31 are RVU clients and will work with you HR34. However they would use one tuner from the HR34 while they are in use.

Pausing live TV and playing it back delayed is actually one of the most logistically-difficult things that the HDD is asked to do.

When a recording is written to the user partition, it is usually written to contiguous space, so the actuator doesn't have to move much. Same thing with playback. When two programs are recorded at the same time, the actuator has to jump back and forth between the two locations where the programs are written (which are usually fairly close together if possible). If you watch a third recording at the same time, it has to juggle all of that mentioned before plus read from another area, so the actuator is a little busy jumping around.

Live TV delayed and played back is both a read and write situation, so the actuator is moving between read and write a lot, just for that task alone. Combine that with other tasks (a recording in the background, indexing of database content) and its even busier. But if the amount that the signal is delayed is just so, the actuator will have to move a lot, because the physical space where the recording happens and the playback happens may be far apart, or may be very close together. So there are some worst-case situations for handling delayed playback of live TV, at least as far as how far the actuator has to travel, that can and will happen statistically often.

Add to that that the partition where live TV happens is usually comparatively far away physically from where the recordings on the user partition are, and there is a lot of ground to cover for the actuator, more typically than even dual record with single playback. This is one of the reasons that DoublePlay must be invoked and times out after a while (otherwise it could prevent background indexing tasks from finishing fast enough to keep from getting snowed under by new indexing tasks).

So I guess it is not too surprising that it is difficult to push DVR trick play features to client receivers. Faster DVRs, maybe faster HDDs with larger caches, possibly even a "flash cache" built into client receivers, may improve this as time goes by.

 

[Laxguy]

Doesn't live TV also pass through the HDD?

[So it's not really live; it's delayed by a few nanoseconds....:nono: ]

I've been wondering recently how that dang head can do so many tasks at once. Are there disks with multiple heads?

 

[inkahauts]

Doesn't live TV also pass through the HDD?

[So it's not really live; it's delayed by a few nanoseconds....:nono: ]

I've been wondering recently how that dang head can do so many tasks at once. Are there disks with multiple heads?

On DIRECTV DVRs no. Only if you hit pause or rewind into the buffer. Otherwise, they actually show a true live feed when you are watching live. That's not the norm foremost DVRs but it is for DIRECTV.

 

[Vin]

So that WiFi device does work as billed. Some of the reviews mention needing line of site to make it work. Which would pretty much make it useless.

No line of sight required. I have an HR24, an HR21 and a Roku box connected to 4x2 HDMI matrix switch located in the basement with one output of the switch connected to the Actiontec HDMI transmitter...the Actiontec HDMI receiver is in a bedroom 1 floor above. I use a NextGen remote extender to control it all, works perfectly.