The HR20-100 and HR21-700 both have coaxial digital audio outputs, which the HR20-700 does not have.
But the HR20-100 Has Optical Audio and thats the only way to go . I guess If they stick me with a HR21 when one of my HR20 dies, I'll have to get a Tivo Series III to do the OTA.

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2 - HR20-700's
2 - Series II Tivo's
Loyal Member since 1997.

Coax and optical digital audio outputs are pretty much identical -- an oscilloscope might detect the difference.

All three have optical digital audio. The HR20-100 and HR21-700 have both that and coaxial.

Which sucks for me. I only have two optical inputs on my receiver (and it's not new enough to take HDMI) which are being used by my PS3 and my HD-DVD player, so I had to go back to 2-channel RCA inputs for audio from the HR-20.... just had to pick one, and that's the one I use the least with the home theater (mostly only use it for movies). I do have a Coax input on my receiver, but none of my three components has a Coax output.

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Samsung 50" 1080p DLP - ViP 722k - PlayStation 3 - HD-A2 - Wii
Samsung 32" 720p LCD - ViP 612

The whole thing stinks. I'm about to make that call as a "fed up" customer.

I am new to the "recording" game, and the HR21 is my first recorder.

I am noticing that MANY programs I record, have multiple audio drop-outs in playback. Or, it's a "stutter/sputter". Or, like last night, I was re-watching "2010:The The Year We Make Contact" and the last 5 minutes was unwatchable. The entire picture was shaking and vibrating. Not normal. I have NOT noticed this on programs that I watch while recording. Only in playback, as far as I know. I'm in the middle of watching non-HD to see if that also "sputters" and drops out. I've noticed it on almost everything I've recorded from MGMHD.

Anyone else going through this? What could be happening? Whats the fix, new reciever? Do I have to call D* again and hope they replace it? I spent $5 on the protection plan.

My HR21-700 was installed on 11/14. The first one failed during installation, so he installed another. That one worked...until last night. The picture froze (not a DVR recording, just regular viewing). Nothing could get it to power down. Finally I pulled the power cable, waited a minute, and plugged it back in. It started to reboot, then I got nothing. The blue dial in the middle spins constantly and output is stuck at 480p. I called my installer. He said "hard drive failure" and is bringing another today (11/21). The installer (who has been doing this for over a decade) said he was experiencing a very high failure rate on the H21-700. He said he install the replacement today...and that he'd bring a 2nd just in case. My HR10-250 never had a problem.

Sorry to hear you are having bad luck w/ the new HR21. Ironically, I'm on my 4th HR10-250 DVR in 3 years. Guess the saying "your mileage may vary" applies to cars and D* DVRs too!

Next time you see this happen, recorded or otherwise, hit the back 8 sec button and then play it forward and see it the drop outs are still there.

Jimbo

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Go Detroit Tigers !!!

2 HR20-700's
1 H20-100
AU-9 Slimline dish

Thanks, Jimbo....yup....still there when it's recorded. Just like an old 8-track tape thats going bad.

I'll try the live tv rewind too but I'm sure it will be the same thing.

Last night my wife said I slammed my fist into my pillow a few times in my sleep. I hate these types of problems. It makes everything, HD or not, un-enjoyable.

Just to follow up, my installer came out yesterday on short notice to replace the HD21-700. He brought two "just in case". Believe it or not, both of those units were bad as well! It appears the hard drives have failed. Snce my installer is an independent, he likely received a bad 'batch' of 21's from his distributor. He has 3 more in stock and will bench test each before making any more housecalls. I'll ask him to order a new batch and hope for the best.

THIS is the perfect example of 'Why' D-TV needs and same 'back-up' to an external hard drive capability that Dish has. I'd have my recordings on the back-up and could either play from that external drive or copy those recordings to the internal.