[thiscopy]

I have a question for DTV. What is the purpose of having a HR20 HD-DVR if DTV's constant "fixing" of this piece of equipment deletes some of your recordings? Isn't the whole purpose of having a DVR is so that you can record your shows now for viewing later? Confidentally?

Can anyone on this board honestly say that they are confident that the shows they record today will be there tomorrow?

Case in point: I recorded all eight episodes of Sleeper Cell. In DTV's great wisdom they seem to have implemented an option to "Save" a certain number of episodes in a series or save "All". Mine defaulted to "Keep 5 Episodes" when my "piece" of hardware received the latest 0x10b update. Basically the HR20 took it upon itself to delete the first three episodes.

This is ridiculous. Now I am sure many of you will say that this happens and it's a part of buying new technology. But the HR20 has been out for almost four months if not longer in beta testing. We are in the Early Majority phase of this products release and it appears to be far from "complete". Not to mention that the DVR function of this product should have been proven stable before the first one went out the door. It says DVR on the box. That's why the majority of us bought it. Not for OTA or dual buffers or whatever "extra" feature is implemented.

I guess this has become more of a rant. But up until now all of the problems with the HR20 have been bearable. But now I am faced the loss of media I depended on DTV to secure. My first mistake I guess.

DTV needs competition.

 

[Earl Bonovich]

Yes... I can.


Did you play those first three episodes? ARe you sure they record.
Reason being... if they where corrupted recordings (due to another issue), the reboot would cause them to be deleted.

As for competition:
Dish Network, Time Warner, Comcast, Cox, Verizon-FIOS, AT&T's offereing...

What other competition are you looking for?

 

[hasan]

I have a question for DTV. What is the purpose of having a HR20 HD-DVR if DTV's constant "fixing" of this piece of equipment deletes some of your recordings? Isn't the whole purpose of having a DVR is so that you can record your shows now for viewing later? Confidentally?

Can anyone on this board honestly say that they are confident that the shows they record today will be there tomorrow?

Case in point: I recorded all eight episodes of Sleeper Cell. In DTV's great wisdom they seem to have implemented an option to "Save" a certain number of episodes in a series or save "All". Mine defaulted to "Keep 5 Episodes" when my "piece" of hardware received the latest 0x10b update. Basically the HR20 took it upon itself to delete the first three episodes.

This is ridiculous. Now I am sure many of you will say that this happens and it's a part of buying new technology. But the HR20 has been out for almost four months if not longer in beta testing. We are in the Early Majority phase of this products release and it appears to be far from "complete". Not to mention that the DVR function of this product should have been proven stable before the first one went out the door. It says DVR on the box. That's why the majority of us bought it. Not for OTA or dual buffers or whatever "extra" feature is implemented.

I guess this has become more of a rant. But up until now all of the problems with the HR20 have been bearable. But now I am faced the loss of media I depended on DTV to secure. My first mistake I guess.

DTV needs competition.

I'm confident in my recordings. In 14 weeks I have lost a total of 2, both of which I know the specific cause for and have not been repeated. I have never lost a recording due to an update.

If someone asked me based on my experience I would say the HR20 is pretty darn stable...the problem is, not everyone is having the same results. The majority of people are doing very well, while a significant minority are having major problems of one kind or another.

You really have two choices: hang in there and help isolate and report issues, or hang it up and find your "better provider"....I wouldn't hold my breath on that one...all providers appear to have HD-DVR issues of one sort or another.

 

[hdtvfan0001]

Can anyone on this board honestly say that they are confident that the shows they record today will be there tomorrow?

Yes. I have over 100 recordings over the past 3 1/2 months extending over numerous firmware updates, including 10B.

All recorded fine, all play back fine (still as of today).

 

[psubill78]

I have a question for DTV. What is the purpose of having a HR20 HD-DVR if DTV's constant "fixing" of this piece of equipment deletes some of your recordings? Isn't the whole purpose of having a DVR is so that you can record your shows now for viewing later? Confidentally?

Can anyone on this board honestly say that they are confident that the shows they record today will be there tomorrow?

Case in point: I recorded all eight episodes of Sleeper Cell. In DTV's great wisdom they seem to have implemented an option to "Save" a certain number of episodes in a series or save "All". Mine defaulted to "Keep 5 Episodes" when my "piece" of hardware received the latest 0x10b update. Basically the HR20 took it upon itself to delete the first three episodes.

This is ridiculous. Now I am sure many of you will say that this happens and it's a part of buying new technology. But the HR20 has been out for almost four months if not longer in beta testing. We are in the Early Majority phase of this products release and it appears to be far from "complete". Not to mention that the DVR function of this product should have been proven stable before the first one went out the door. It says DVR on the box. That's why the majority of us bought it. Not for OTA or dual buffers or whatever "extra" feature is implemented.

I guess this has become more of a rant. But up until now all of the problems with the HR20 have been bearable. But now I am faced the loss of media I depended on DTV to secure. My first mistake I guess.

DTV needs competition.

I've got all 8 sleeper cell's recorded, and got the 10b update last night at 3:45a, all recordings are still there and playable...

 

[btmoore]

I'll give you some love, I don't trust the HR20. I have been burned too much by this box.

 

[thiscopy]

Yes... I can.

Did you play those first three episodes? ARe you sure they record.
Reason being... if they where corrupted recordings (due to another issue), the reboot would cause them to be deleted.

As for competition:
Dish Network, Time Warner, Comcast, Cox, Verizon-FIOS, AT&T's offereing...

What other competition are you looking for?

Yes, I even verified that they were viewable after the 0x108 update.

Satellite competition. There is only one, Dish. I've tasted that flavor and it was the same. Vanilla. Neither pushes the other to improve much. They seem to like status quo. The one thing they agree upon is raising fees. Competition was not my focus so please do not turn this into a debate over competition.

No offense Earl, I know you're a great resource and I appreciate what you're doing for all of us on this board, but you're opinion is a little biased. No disrespect intended.

 

[thiscopy]

I've got all 8 sleeper cell's recorded, and got the 10b update last night at 3:45a, all recordings are still there and playable...

Could you email me Episode 2 and 3? :lol:

 

[thiscopy]

I'll give you some love, I don't trust the HR20. I have been burned too much by this box.

I appreciate the love. Though I expect to get beat up a little.

My focus is on the DVR portion of this box. IT HAS TO RECORD AND SECURE THE MEDIA. If it can't do that then it's a failure. All the other problems such as HDMI incompatibilities, late OTA implementation, one buffer two buffer three, inconsistent HD quality, etc. is secondary to it's actual purpose. Recording media.

 

[lguvenoz]

Case in point: I recorded all eight episodes of Sleeper Cell. In DTV's great wisdom they seem to have implemented an option to "Save" a certain number of episodes in a series or save "All". Mine defaulted to "Keep 5 Episodes" when my "piece" of hardware received the latest 0x10b update. Basically the HR20 took it upon itself to delete the first three episodes.

Just a couple of observations. Every DVR I have ever used (ReplayTV, Tivo, UltimateTV, DirecTivo, and now DirecTV) has always implemented this option, and it has always defaults to keep a limited number of episodes. I'm not exactly sure how the problem you are describing came to be the fault of D*.

Here's my only thing that I would find unacceptable:
1. I setup a Series Link with the option to Keep All episodes that it records.
2. The DVR records all episodes.
3. The software update resets my Series Link to Keep 5 episodes.
4. The system then decides to do housekeeping and deletes 3 of my episodes.

Is this what happened to your box?? If so, I feel your pain and think it is totally lame. Please provide more details on what happened as I have never had anything other than unplayable recordings ever drop off from my HR20 as a result of an update.

 

[TomF]

Case in point: I recorded all eight episodes of Sleeper Cell. In DTV's great wisdom they seem to have implemented an option to "Save" a certain number of episodes in a series or save "All". Mine defaulted to "Keep 5 Episodes" when my "piece" of hardware received the latest 0x10b update. Basically the HR20 took it upon itself to delete the first three episodes.

I agree with lguvenoz, if this is the scenario. However, if this is not the scenario, I really don't know how you can fault the HR20 for this particular problem. While this option defaults to Keep 5 Episodes, you are able to change this setting to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or All. If you didn't know this it's either because you didn't read the manual or you haven't explored all of the options that can be set.

If the HR20 deleted the first three after receiving 0x1b, then the problem is that it didn't start deleting the first episode when it started recording the sixth episode, not that it deleted all three after a reboot. Unless, of course, you had already set it to record All and the HR20 deleted three episodes because it changed the recording option.

On second thought, maybe the default option should be All, so someone who is not that familiar with the HR20 doesn't inadvertently have recordings deleted.

 

[mtnagel]

I'm getting more and more confident in mine. I still have an R10 as a backup and I was religious about checked to make sure they were recording the same things, but many times I don't do that anymore.

 

[gsand]

Go buy a $800 tivo. goodnight now.

 

[sportrac]

I also lost 3 recordings the night that 10b was downloaded. History show that they were recorded, and there is nothing in history about them being deleted, but they do not show up in the List.

 

[baimo]

its not perfect yet

 

[bobsloop]

Yes, I even verified that they were viewable after the 0x108 update.

Satellite competition. There is only one, Dish. I've tasted that flavor and it was the same. Vanilla. Neither pushes the other to improve much. They seem to like status quo. The one thing they agree upon is raising fees. Competition was not my focus so please do not turn this into a debate over competition.

No offense Earl, I know you're a great resource and I appreciate what you're doing for all of us on this board, but you're opinion is a little biased. No disrespect intended.

You cannot disregard cable when you talk competition unless you are in the middle of nowhere with no other options. Most people have cable and OTA as competition for DirecTV along with Dish. Phone companies are slowly moving into this space as well. Unfortunately, the government sees DirecTV competition the same as you do, and I rarely feel comfortable when I agree with the government.

If your HR20 is not working for you then who is worse, DirecTV for making the thing or you for continuing to use it? Mine has worked fine for a month now, although I am probably giving it the kiss of death with that comment. Anyway, if you don't like it, get something else.

 

[RunnerFL]

I've missed maybe 3 recordings since I got my HR20 in early Sept. Yes, the box has been replaced twice but not for software or function issues. First time was for a noisy drive and second was because it wouldn't power up one day. But even on those I didn't miss a single recording after doing a full format on the first box. Out of habbit I did a full format on the other 2 boxes before I even started recording anything and neither missed a single recording and my last replacement keeps performing like it should recording everything I want it to.

 

[thiscopy]

I agree with lguvenoz, if this is the scenario. However, if this is not the scenario, I really don't know how you can fault the HR20 for this particular problem. While this option defaults to Keep 5 Episodes, you are able to change this setting to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or All. If you didn't know this it's either because you didn't read the manual or you haven't explored all of the options that can be set.

If the HR20 deleted the first three after receiving 0x1b, then the problem is that it didn't start deleting the first episode when it started recording the sixth episode, not that it deleted all three after a reboot. Unless, of course, you had already set it to record All and the HR20 deleted three episodes because it changed the recording option.

On second thought, maybe the default option should be All, so someone who is not that familiar with the HR20 doesn't inadvertently have recordings deleted.

I had it setup correctly prior to recording, hence the recording of all 8 episodes. The 0x10b update seems to have caused the default to 5. I have recorded at least half a dozen different series with no problems.

 

[thiscopy]

You cannot disregard cable when you talk competition unless you are in the middle of nowhere with no other options. Most people have cable and OTA as competition for DirecTV along with Dish. Phone companies are slowly moving into this space as well. Unfortunately, the government sees DirecTV competition the same as you do, and I rarely feel comfortable when I agree with the government.

If your HR20 is not working for you then who is worse, DirecTV for making the thing or you for continuing to use it? Mine has worked fine for a month now, although I am probably giving it the kiss of death with that comment. Anyway, if you don't like it, get something else.

I did not elaborate on this because I did not mean for it to become an issue. I have a motorhome and the only service available with that is satellite. The government is a whole other arguement that we would probably agree on. The government does not like monopolies of any kind becuase they do not like to compete with them.

 

[thiscopy]

I've missed maybe 3 recordings since I got my HR20 in early Sept. Yes, the box has been replaced twice but not for software or function issues. First time was for a noisy drive and second was because it wouldn't power up one day. But even on those I didn't miss a single recording after doing a full format on the first box. Out of habbit I did a full format on the other 2 boxes before I even started recording anything and neither missed a single recording and my last replacement keeps performing like it should recording everything I want it to.

I don't know Runner, but I think you're on my side. Though not intentionally.