[Bay CIty]

Just a thought, most of the time there seems to be about 500+ viewers here at any one time. Of those about 100-200 are members.

Now Directv must have thousands of hr-20`s in use. So while a few hundred of us complain about the problems of the hr-20 could those other thousands be enjoying crystal clear HD reception and great working dvr funtions?

as I said just a thought.

 

[Tom Robertson]

Just a thought, most of the time there seems to be about 500+ viewers here at any one time. Of those about 100-200 are members.

Now Directv must have thousands of hr-20`s in use. So while a few hundred of us complain about the problems of the hr-20 could those other thousands be enjoying crystal clear HD reception and great working dvr funtions?

as I said just a thought.

And how many of them are so glad that the new "vcr" doesn't blink 12:00 all the time.
And haven't even looked for the slot for the tape...

Cheers,
Tom

 

[krkeeton]

While many like to complain (which is valid since these are supposed to be top of the line boxes), mine has worked well. A few hiccups here and there. I didn't have an HD dvr before, so I have been pleased overall.

However, if complaining and pushing D* to make the box better works, I am all for it.

 

[Meklos]

Just a thought, most of the time there seems to be about 500+ viewers here at any one time. Of those about 100-200 are members.

Now Directv must have thousands of hr-20`s in use. So while a few hundred of us complain about the problems of the hr-20 could those other thousands be enjoying crystal clear HD reception and great working dvr funtions?

as I said just a thought.

It's possible, but since even D* only judges the severity "or even existence" of problems based mostly on their call volume, I would say that not even D* truly knows how many people are experiencing which problem.

And since D* has no way to read logs from any of these units actually in the field (except for those in the hands of people with Super Secret Squirrel-level access to diagnostic menus), I would say that it's pretty hit and miss for them as well.

 

[Mavrick]

My HR20 works flawless had a quite a few lockups with software version 0xF6 as a matter of fact 6 in about a week to be exact but version 0xFA fixed that problem and have had zero issues with mine since.

Since it was installed I have had 0 missed recordings most were set up by series link but I do have about 6 autorecords by search setup and they have all recorded with out a miss also. I have even setup 2 manual records and they worked just as they were supposed to also.

So in my eyes the HR20 is a great box that blows the hard drive right out of my old HR10-250.

 

[hasan]

Count me as 1 of the "thousands"

More to the point. I set up a poll a few weeks ago asking about "relative" satisfaction with the HR20 as it stood right then. It wasn't perfect, as it asked compound questions, but it certainly could give one a rough feel for how the respondents from this forum felt. There were 325 responses in 10 days!

75% were at least "somewhat satisfied" or "very satisfied"

25% were "barely satisfied" or worse. (9% were VERY DISSATISFIED)

Make of it what you will, a strong majority of the respondents here are at least "somewhat" satisfied. (or were).

Obviously, a bunch of people are either having pretty good performance from the HR20, or they have terribly low expectations. I won't speculate as to which, but I'm sure self-appointed representatives from each camp will just have to.

Now, a 25% disapproval rating should be quite concerning to D*, to be sure, so don't take this as a "great job D*" post. The 75% relative approval rating would, however, translate into thousands of satisfied HR20 users, as well.

I'm not advocating for one camp or the other, just trying to be fair-minded. From reading the posts here for a couple months, I would NEVER have predicted that level of satisfaction. I was surprised.

Let's not forget the 25%...there are people having terrible issues, not to mention regular features (like closed captioning) that don't work worth a darn. 25% is a VERY significant minority in my opinion.

The good news is D* is working on these issues, appears to be listening to the posters on this forum, we are getting relatively frequent updates and the updates do fix some things (while breaking some others...for some people), and they have added in some features.

It could be a whole lot worse...the HR20 could work as badly as the CSR communication system often does. Thank God for small favors!

 

[harsh]

So while a few hundred of us complain about the problems of the hr-20 could those other thousands be enjoying crystal clear HD reception and great working dvr funtions?

As an adjoining thought consider this: Perhaps those thousands minus 500 that are represented here are expressing their concerns elsewhere (like the DirecTV sponsored forums) or suffering in silence. There are even a few who are posting observations over at AVSForum.

 

[glennb]

As someone else stated here once the people that have nothing but problems could possibly have some other issue at their site. Bad LNB(S), flaky wiring, intermittant HR20 hardware issue, hard drive flakyness, marginal dish alignment, etc....

 

[Carbon]

I am also a lucky one that has very little in the way of problems.

 

[Tyrod]

My belief is that the vast majority of owners aren't aware this site even exists. Some that do know about the site don't care to contribute or read the site since finding it. While this site is useful to me and apparently to at least some of the people that visit it, I don't believe the users of this site is a very good cross section of the "typical" HR20 owner. I take it somewhat on faith that D* uses this site to analyze some failure modes.

I also find it hard to believe that the vast majority of people aren't experienceing some measure of problems. Some have problems and have no clue about how to go about solving them including calling D*. Some have called D* and have had some of their problems solved. Most have not. Some that don't have any DVR experience aren't even aware they have a problem. Some accept the problems as "that's the way it is". Some problems don't worry some people.

There are alot of people out there that have money to burn on things like this and have no technical savy what so ever.

If I didn't have previous experience with a bullet-proof DVR40, I might have a tendency to believe some of the problems I've had were my fault.

BTW, I'm fairly happy with my HR20 and enjoy it alot. What I don't like are the problems.

 

[CerpinTaxt]

I suspect that most people who are having problems do not frequent this board. I would even go so far as to say that most people probably do not even call D* if they are only having problems every now and then (like me). I lost my locals in HD for 2 days, a red button reset did not fix the problem and then the problem seemed to fix its self...I still don't know what happend.

I can't stand calling tech support and because of this forum, I don't have to.

 

[nocaster]

We are probably a small sample of the HR-20 user base. What we experience is probably the same. Or, we might be the 20% that create 80% of the noise.

 

[Dusty]

Count me as 1 of the "thousands"

More to the point. I set up a poll a few weeks ago asking about "relative" satisfaction with the HR20 as it stood right then. It wasn't perfect, as it asked compound questions, but it certainly could give one a rough feel for how the respondents from this forum felt. There were 325 responses in 10 days!

75% were at least "somewhat satisfied" or "very satisfied"

25% were "barely satisfied" or worse. (9% were VERY DISSATISFIED)

Make of it what you will, a strong majority of the respondents here are at least "somewhat" satisfied. (or were).

Obviously, a bunch of people are either having pretty good performance from the HR20, or they have terribly low expectations. I won't speculate as to which, but I'm sure self-appointed representatives from each camp will just have to.

Now, a 25% disapproval rating should be quite concerning to D*, to be sure, so don't take this as a "great job D*" post. The 75% relative approval rating would, however, translate into thousands of satisfied HR20 users, as well.

I'm not advocating for one camp or the other, just trying to be fair-minded. From reading the posts here for a couple months, I would NEVER have predicted that level of satisfaction. I was surprised.

Let's not forget the 25%...there are people having terrible issues, not to mention regular features (like closed captioning) that don't work worth a darn. 25% is a VERY significant minority in my opinion.

The good news is D* is working on these issues, appears to be listening to the posters on this forum, we are getting relatively frequent updates and the updates do fix some things (while breaking some others...for some people), and they have added in some features.

It could be a whole lot worse...the HR20 could work as badly as the CSR communication system often does. Thank God for small favors!

It is likely that the samples of your poll favor the dissatified as the visitors here probably are more informed and more sophisticated users. Even for the 25%. I also think it is an overstatement to count the barely satisfied people as having terrible issues.

From D*'s perspective, there has to be much lower rate of ssatisfied people.

 

[MEY]

I am getting my HR20 Saturday (hopefully). Was looking forward to it, but the more I read on the forums the more I wonder. I currently have the HR10 and it was fine till the update. So hopefully I will be a lucky one and it work ok.

 

[Mike770]

Call me "Lucky" as well. :grin: I probably jinxed myself though.

 

[hasan]

It is likely that the samples of your poll favor the dissatified as the visitors here probably are more informed and more sophisticated users. Even for the 25%. I also think it is an overstatement to count the barely satisfied people as having terrible issues.

From D*'s perspective, there has to be much lower rate of ssatisfied people.

That's why I said, "Make of it what you will"....the last thing I wanted was to be called a D* shill, so I tried to be VERY conservative in my interpretation of the data.

 

[bidger]

I am also a lucky one that has very little in the way of problems.

Yeah, that sums it up for me. "Flawless" is too strong a word, even for TiVo, so I can't go there because it just wouldn't be accurate, but "very little in the way of problems" fits for me.

I did keep the HR10 for backup, but I find myself using it mostly for Sunday Ticket because of dual buffers. HD OTA isn't a priority for me because there's only one channel available. To be honest, if D* provided the option of HD locals to my area, I'd jump on it, but I can understand how ATSC would be a priority for those in an area with a plethora of HD local stations.

At this point in time, I'm satisfied and looking forward to what may come in the way of positives in the future.

 

[Sharkie_Fan]

Just a thought, most of the time there seems to be about 500+ viewers here at any one time. Of those about 100-200 are members.

Now Directv must have thousands of hr-20`s in use. So while a few hundred of us complain about the problems of the hr-20 could those other thousands be enjoying crystal clear HD reception and great working dvr funtions?

as I said just a thought.

I agree with what many of the responses so far. There are likely people out there who have no idea that this site exists and are suffering in silence. There are also likely a good number of people out there that have had few or no problems with the machine.

I've contended more than once that to base the entire performance of the HR20 on this forum is almost certain to give a flawed view. A fair majority of the new users who have showed up in these forums came here because there were problems with their HR20. Many of the users here who are having no problems now started with problems.

So, in short, the answer to your question is probably yes AND no. Yes, there are probably thousands out there having no problems and experiencing their HR20 in bliss. BUT, there are certainly a fair number out there who ARE having problems and don't know what to do about them.

I'd venture a guess that if 1 out of 4 on these forums are experiencing major problems, then the number across the board is probably 1 out of 8 or 1 out of 10, or 1 out of 7934.7, or who knows. But, it probably isn't 1 in 4 across the board.

 

[PoitNarf]

Yeesh, this subject has been beaten to death dozens upon dozens of times...

 

[cbearnm]

There is a core group of consumers that use forums like this one whether they are having problems or not. Admittedly, we are a small number.

Then there are those that only come to forums like this when there are issues. They will type in the model number of the receiver and stumble upon us. They tend to end up with 10 posts or less. That probably makes up most of the "gawkers" here.

Then there are those consumers that may have intermittent problems and chalk it up to something they have done. They may or may not call DirecTV to complain, but I doubt they would take the effort to research it.

Then there is the mass majority that the HR20 works fine for. They might have problems, but they are like the previous group, but even less motivated. Or they slink off to Dish or cable and repeat the process again and again.

To pat ourselves on the back, we are the early adopters and as such tend to have more issues. We also have this forum to vent our frustrations on. Sure, we'll pound on Earl for a while, but he knows the nature of the beast, and knows it's not personal. (That's one of the hardest traits to master, BTW, distancing himself from the situations, touche', Mr. B)

At the same time, I know that D* does pay attention to forums and this is certainly one of the most influential. We may not get the response time we deserve (or think we do), but I feel that it is a positive for those that participate.

Standalone TiVo customers are just as angry with Series 3 as we are with D*'s shot at PVR. Dish customers are just as angry at their service as we get. Cable is cable, and always will be. Yes, there is a list of things I want improved from D*, but I also realize that the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence, only over the septic tank.

BTW; Other than dual buffers and OTA, most of the other 'issues' for me have been resolved. Certainly nothing that I would consider major at this point. But I was fully expecting to go through it when I pre-ordered.