[doofoo]

I just re-signed up with DirecTV after being with Comcast for a little over a year.

I got the Home Media Center w/ 3 HD Receivers. The question I had with regards to the HD Receivers is:

1) On the HD Receiver, will I be able to browse, choose/watch any live TV channel as long as a tuner is available on the HMC?
2) Will I be able to pause/rewind, etc on the HD Receivers (I'm guessing it remote buffers similar to my XBOX/Windows Media Center) does?

My biggest concern is the above. Will that work?

 

[dettxw]

1) The HD receivers use their own tuner, not one of the HR34's as an RVU client would do. The only RVU clients currently available are new Samsung Smart TVs.

2) An HD receiver cannot use trickplay (pause/rewind etc.) on live TV as they are using their own tuner. The work-around is to start a recording on the HR34 then play back the recording through a receiver; trickplay is available on recording playback from the HR34. You'll need a separate DVR in place of a receiver to use trickplay on live TV (without the previously-mention workaround).

 

[Stuart Sweet]

The HD receivers have tuners of their own. The client functionality that allows remote locations to use tuners from the HR34 is only available on 2011 Samsung 6000-series smart TVs, although we suspect an external box is in development. So you can watch any live TV channel on any receiver.

However, you can not pause live TV from the receivers, only from the HR34. You can pause and rewind recorded programming, and the trick is, if you are watching something like a sporting event that you would want to pause... record it on the HR34 and you can watch the recording in progress from any receiver with full pause capability.

 

[doofoo]

1) The HD receivers use their own tuner, not one of the HR34's as an RVU client would do. The only RVU clients currently available are new Samsung Smart TVs.

2) An HD receiver cannot use trickplay (pause/rewind etc.) as they are using their own tuner. The work-around is to start a recording on the HR34 then play back the recording through a receiver; trickplay is available on recording playback from the HR34. You'll need a separate DVR in place of a receiver to use trickplay on live TV (without the previously-mention workaround).

If I call DTV and have them replace maybe 1 or 2 of my HD Receivers with HD DVR Receivers, will that put me in a bind since I'll be over the SWM limit of 8 tuners (5 in the HMC, 1 each for the 3 HD Receivers?) 8 Total already. If I replace even 1 HD Receiver w/ HD DVR I'll be at 9, right?

 

[Old_School]

I just re-signed up with DirecTV after being with Comcast for a little over a year.

I got the Home Media Center w/ 3 HD Receivers. The question I had with regards to the HD Receivers is:

1) On the HD Receiver, will I be able to browse, choose/watch any live TV channel as long as a tuner is available on the HMC?
2) Will I be able to pause/rewind, etc on the HD Receivers (I'm guessing it remote buffers similar to my XBOX/Windows Media Center) does?

My biggest concern is the above. Will that work?

1) your HMC has 5 tuners, each HD Receivers have one tuner independently each so, on your HD Receivers you should be able to watch one recording though whole home or one live show.

2) You can only rewind/pause etc on recording, live TV you will need a DVR to do so.

HTH

 

[Old_School]

If I call DTV and have them replace maybe 1 or 2 of my HD Receivers with HD DVR Receivers, will that put me in a bind since I'll be over the SWM limit of 8 tuners (5 in the HMC, 1 each for the 3 HD Receivers?) 8 Total already. If I replace even 1 HD Receiver w/ HD DVR I'll be at 9, right?

correct, but if you call to add equipment now you will then be charged but, they should hook you up with a SWM-16 to make it work. That will give you 16 tuners to use...

 

[doofoo]

correct, but if you call to add equipment now you will then be charged but, they should hook you up with a SWM-16 to make it work. That will give you 16 tuners to use...

Guess the issue I have is that all my cables are pre-run by me (one from the dish area) when I built my house. Now there is drywall up everywhere. So it's not possible to get any more lines from the dish to the central location in my house where I split everything up.

When you need more than 8 tuners, is there still only 1 line from the dish, or does there need to be 2?

 

[dettxw]

A SWM16 (which is essentially two SWM8s with an MRV crossover) handles 16 tuners, 8 on each output. Four lines are required from a non-SWM dish, but you can mount the SWM16 outside (running power through one of the output coax lines from an internal power inserter) then just run the two output lines into the house. Of course you'll want to use green label splitters everywhere. You don't have any internal/hidden non-green label splitters do you?

 

[doofoo]

A SWM16 (which is essentially two SWM8s with an MRV crossover) handles 16 tuners, 8 on each output. Four lines are required from a non-SWM dish, but you can mount the SWM16 outside (running power through one of the output coax lines from an internal power inserter) then just run the two output lines into the house. Of course you'll want to use green label splitters everywhere. You don't have any internal/hidden non-green label splitters do you?

Here's the layout of my house and wiring:

* Roof SWM Dish -> (1 Cable) running into the back of the house, it then is inside the wall running into my garage (main input cable)
* Besides that one input cable from the roof, I then have 5 (Downstairs, Living Room, Bedroom 1, Bedroom 2, Bedroom 3) home run cables to each room.

The issue I see is that I have finished my back room w/ drywall so there is no easy way to run a new cable from the roof (or outside) to the front of the house where my telco breakout and main home run point is.

Disappointing.. Guess I'm kind of stuck with the HMC + 3 HD Receivers maximum w/ no ability to pause/rwd/ff, or I could have HMC + 1 HD Receiver + 1 HD DVR but then I wouldn't have enough units to cover all the rooms I wanted DTV in.

One last question I had - Will I be able to access VOD/other content (HBO, etc) from the HD Receivers (pause, rwd, ff, etc) from those just the same as on the HMC?

Thanks for all the replies!

 

[Old_School]

One last question I had - Will I be able to access VOD/other content (HBO, etc) from the HD Receivers (pause, rwd, ff, etc) from those just the same as on the HMC?

Thanks for all the replies!

Yes, as long as your watching a recorded program from the HR-34

 

[doofoo]

Yes, as long as your watching a recorded program from the HR-34

It's been a while since I had DirecTV but I assume the process would work like this:

From a HD Receiver (One of the bedrooms) I would click to go into VOD
I would download a show from VOD (This would download to the HR-34, not the HD Receiver) Right?
Once the show has downloaded enough that I can start watching, I would start the show from any HD Receiver and be able to start/stop, rewind, etc?

Is that correct?

 

[dettxw]

Yeppers, but can be "live" TV, doesn't have to be a VOD recording.

You know cable fishing isn't too hard. Or even run a cable externally and then through a wall as is typically done for a "standard" installation. You can do yourself or stimulate the economy and pay someone.

Why can't DirecTV do this install? They would probably charge something extra for a wall fish but can't be that much.