DirecTV HR20 (DirecTV Plus HD DVR)

October 4, 2006 07:15
Spectacular
2.5/5
Well, I've owned this box for three weeks, and already three software updates in the middle of the night. Biggest problem/issue: It will record a show, but when you go to play it, it freezes up at a black screen with the counter along the bottom stuck at 0:00. It's a known issue, along with others (just check out www.dbstalk.com for details). The latest software update, 10/4, release notes say they "black screen of death" isn't even fixed yet, but it should happen less. How can you release a piece of hardware that requires three software updates in three weeks? Didn't someone beta test it? And this is a machine that has been delayed for months during 2005 and 2006. They should have stayed with Tivo for their software, rather than giving the money to NDS, which also is owned by Murdoch.

David, trust me when I say that there are a lot of unhappy Directv customers out there regarding the HR-20 glitches so far. Granted, when it works, it's great. But if a DVR can't record a program and let you watch it 99-100 percent of the time, it's really not a DVR. At least not yet.

- tstarn04

October 4, 2006 01:12
Mediocre
1.0/5
DirecTV brought this HD-DVR Out loaded with software bugs that even Bill Gates would be ashamed of! Now DirecTV subscribers who lease this box are the beta testers for DirecTV. There have been four software updates in the last month. Some day it MAY be a reliable and dependable DVR, but now you will have to put up with a less than reliable product. If you have an H10-250 and can receive your local HD channels OTA, stay away from this DirecTV beta product until things stabilize.

- w6fxj

September 14, 2006 12:39

4.0/5
I've only been using the HR20 for a couple of days so far, but I've easily set up all my season program settings and fully tested all the DVR features. For the most part, it was necessary to do so just to learn how everything works, since it is quite different from the older Tivo interfaces.

The interface is just a plain blue, instead of the nice animated graphic backgrounds used on Tivo's interface. This is kind of a trivial point, since it doesn't affect the use at all. In fact, I think this interface is a little easier to get around in. I guess for the $300 I paid at Best Buy (lease price), a plain interface is just fine. From what I understand, the comparable Tivo unit is more than twice the price.

The documentation needs improvement. There is very little to help you learn how to use all the DVR features and the differences between recording single shows and full seasons, and nothing to explain differences from Tivo, which would be nice since I can see many people changing over because of the value. I found out after speaking to someone at Directv while activating the card, that they now have a channel 1000 which shows how to do many tasks and tricks. This is ok, but it would be nice if they put more of this into the getting started guide.

Setting it up was easy enough. I was up and running in 10 minutes or less. Within 12 hours, the DVR menu had all future programming available, but it does take awhile before many shows become available. Before that point, you may not be able to set up some season show recordings, since it takes awhile for the guide to fully update. A couple of shows I could not find were there the morning after setup.

The storage capacity/recording time is excellent, and I have not run into anything that doesn't meet or exceed expectations other than the visual appearance of the interface. I'd highly recommend this unit to anyone wanting a great HD DVR.

- dcis_steve

January 7, 2007 09:27
Terrible
0.5/5
Ok, 105 of us as of today. You need to email the CEO of the company and tell him about it. I have his email and I have been in touch with him and am still waiting for a replacement for this unit/. It is trouble every single day with something different and the engineers cannot fix it.

So write immediately to
chase.carey@directv.com

Be polite but firm. This is a damn disgrace.

I have had 6 count em units and have had direct tv people at my home on 10 different occasions. they changed the antenna, the wiring and the units every time and still can't figure it out.

They are a public company and I do not yet want to go public with this. But I will if we do not get satisfaction within the next two weeks.

At that time I will have a list of all of the financial people who track the company.

This is inexcusable.

- oursixgrandkids

October 2, 2006 11:28
Good
1.5/5
This has been a frustrating and disappointing expereience.

The first 3 boxes were dead on arrival... the installer spent over a day at our house (bless his heart).

The HDMI output is buggy... sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The HDMI cable and TV have been tested with a DVD player and they are not the cause.

Playback of recorded video is often out of synch with the video.

The thing is not as smart as Tivo, recording all episodes of a show when told only to record new ones.

Overally, I feel like I am a beta-tester on something I paid good $$$ for.

- aross1968

November 14, 2006 07:50
Mediocre
1.0/5
I obtained a DirecTV HR20-700 receiver from Best Buy in early October. If I knew then what I know now about this receiver, I would not have done so. The box should have had "BETA UNIT" printed in large block letters on it.

I talked to DirecTV before I bought the HR20, and they assured me that it was a good, stable unit. Ha! I should have looked here first, but that was almost two months ago, and there would not have been a lot of postings yet. Potential buyers, take heed.

I have called tech support numerous times about problems with this receiver. I was told that DirecTV was aware of the problems, and was working on software upgrades, but was not given a release date.

At one point, I was sent a replacement receiver. That didn't help though, because the HR20's major problems are with its software, not its hardware (I can't help but wonder if DirecTV has their programming done off shore). Luckily, the 90-day "warranty" hadn't expired, so THIS TIME I didn't have to pay shipping charges to replace a bug-ridden receiver that technically belongs to DirecTV.

The BIGGEST (but hardly the only) problem with the HR20 seems to be with the ToDo list. It NEVER accurately shows what is scheduled to record, and often does not record the shows I have scheduled. Sometimes the orange light on the front panel indicates that it's recording something, but I can't figure out WHAT it's recording -- nothing shows in MyVOD or ToDo. The recent time change threw the ENTIRE schedule off by an hour.

I have to RESET the receiver frequently (several times a week), as it becomes unresponsive to commands from the remote and/or front panel. Or the picture goes blank. After resetting, the guide takes 24-48 hours to rebuild completely.

The "Channels I Get" feature has not been implemented yet.

Audio and video get out of sync. Sometimes, the audio starts dropping out every 5-10 seconds. After rewinding or fast forwarding, there is a noticeable delay before the audio kicks in.

On the subject scanning forward and backward, the HR20's definition of "fast" is anything but, even after pressing the buttons three times. And the 30-second "commercial skip" is nothing but a pre-programmed 30-second "fast" forward (not an instant jump like Dish Network's DVR).

In addition to the HR20's bugs, I am also very disappointed in its user interface. Many of this receiver's features are cumbersome to use. You have to press the "Guide" button TWICE before you actually get to the channel guide. The guide only shows 6 rows at a time. There are only TWO Favorites lists, and they are tedious to switch between. There is little, if any, customization available. In some places, the "Exit" key doesn't exit, but works instead like the "Back" key. And so on...

I noticed comments in other postings about the HDMI port going bad. I have not experienced that particular problem (yet), but it might explain something the installer told me when the system was installed. She claimed that connecting the receiver to a high definition TV using the (supplied) component/YPbPr(G,R,B) cables was preferable to using an (unsupplied) HDMI cable, because "those HDMI cables always 'go bad' on me". At the time, I thought that was an odd statement, and I of course used the far superior HDMI cable anyway, but it makes me think it might have been the receivers, not the cables, that had gone bad on her.

This weekend, I got sick and tired of dealing with the HR20's bugs. I deactivated it, and went back to the stability of the TiVo SIR-S4080R that I was using before the HR20 nightmare began. It's great to have the smooth, easy-to-use interface back, and the dual tuner buffers (accessed via the "Live TV" key). The only thing I didn't miss was TiVo's Thumbs Up/Down buttons (does anybody use these?).

Until its numerous bugs are resolved, I consider the HR20 all but unusable.

As a result of my HR20 experience, I am on the verge of terminating my long-standing relationship with DirecTV, and switching to Dish Network. I do plan to check for user reviews of Dish Network's ViP622 receiver first!

DirecTV should be ashamed of themselves for foisting this product on consumers before it had been tested. It would serve them right if thousands of other loyal customers also dumped them as a result.

- yadba

September 11, 2006 12:53

3.5/5
This unit is generally ok, but I prefer the older Tivo-based models. I do like how it tells you how much disk space you have available, which the Tivo didn't.

The huge difference is the lack of dual live buffers, so you cannot flip back and forth between shows that are saving live......huge negative for me.

- baconbeard

October 4, 2006 03:20
Excellent
2.0/5
I have had this DVR for 2 weeks and it has had three software updates since then. The unit has so many problems ( check www.dbstalk.com to see all ) ranging from not recording shows to the HDMI port not working at all to audio sync problems. My local NBC and ABC HD both look soft and choppy at times.When all the software bugs are worked out it will be a good unit but still NOT anywhere near the qty of the H10-220 TVO.

- eric.starwars

November 3, 2006 07:31
Spectacular
2.5/5
This unit looks nice if you buy it you will become a beta tester. The menus are not intuitive. Tivo required very little reference to the manual but the HR20 requires you to read it to figure out how to do things that should be simple.

Recording all episodes (season pass in Tivo) isn't hard, but there is no place to confirm that it will actually record them. When you look up coming episodes they do not show the "R" next to them in the future. For the Tivo user there seems to be too much hoping and praying that shows will be recorded.

After fast fowarding the sound takes a full second to come on after the video starts.

No Off-Air capability. The HR-20 was released without the ability to add an off air antenna. This may be due to the fact that they want you to hire a professional to add a 5LNB antenna to your system to get local channels. Yes, that's right, the 3LNB antenna you bought just last year is not enough. Still not fixed as of 11/3/06.

Flipping back and forth between tuners kills the buffer each time. With Tivo you could flip back and forth between tuners and time shift each one separately so you could back up or pause a show and then watch another without commiting the show to the record list. The HR20 doesn't do this.

The manual is inadequate considering you need it. I read the recording section 5 times and still had to just experiment to figure things out.

This unit has very little usefulness with DirecTV's lame HD offerings. 5 Channels of HD plus your local stations if you have the 5LNB antenna and your area is connected. This is not compelling which is why they are currently providing 4 months free.

Now on the positive side, the universal remote does actually turn the volumn up and down on my Samsung Plasma without having push and let up for every increment/decrement. Also when a program is paused for a while a screen saver pops up to reduce the chance for burn in. There is a mini guide that will let you scroll through the guide one line at a time without blocking the entire screen.

With several bugs still needing to be fixed and little compelling HD channels, I would recommend staying away until DirecTV fully commits to HDTV with both programming and hardware.

- dukemang

September 23, 2007 05:05
Terrible
0.5/5
A little background here: I switched from cable two weeks ago because I moved from my home state and am no longer able to get all the local sports I love. DirecTV offered sports packages that I liked, so I switched.

Enter the HR20. It worked great for about 2 hours. First sign of trouble was an intermittent, high pitched "squeak" emitted from the box. This was followed 30minutes later by a rattling / spinning sound, as if the hard drive was working REALLY hard. The sound grows progressively louder until it resembles that of a penny in an empty soda can. DVR does not respond to remote, picture freezes. Note, power button doesn't even work at this point. So I unplug, disconnect, reset. It reboots and then stays on the searching for satellite screen for the next 4 hours, all the while rattling like a pair of castanettes. At this point, I'm looking for a hidden Spanish dancer in my living room, seriously. Meanwhile, my regular (non-HD) box downstairs is working just fine.

To cut this story short, two techs came and checked all the hook ups. It was the hard drive that had crashed.

Here's the kicker: this has happened to me THREE times in the past two weeks. I am currently awaiting shipment of my FOURTH HR20 in less than two weeks.

It seems that DTV rushed production on these things. They look cheap and they perform like cheap goods. When I looked inside, the gerbils that were supposed to be running the thing had died! Now I realize what the high-pitched squeak was all about.

The HR20 is a piece of trash. I hate it and I hate direcTV. Now I have to pay DirecTV to get out of my contract and go crawling back to Comcast. I'll watch my games at a bar from now on.

DO NOT BUY THIS, and for GOD'S SAKE, DO NOT GET DTV.

extremely disgruntled in atlanta.

- weslindsey