Bar and restaurant owners, let me lay some truth on you. Sports programming isn’t an expense– it’s a profit generator. Over and over again, it’s been proven that when you have a strong sports package on multiple TVs, patrons stay longer. When they stay longer, they drink more. They eat more. They bring friends over. They even spend more on bar trivia and playing than antique “class of 1981” tabletop video game you still have in the corner.
That’s why DIRECTV fought so hard on behalf of business owners to keep NFL Sunday Ticket available on satellite, and that’s why they’ve partnered with Amazon to bring Thursday Night Football to bars. Your bar probably doesn’t have the bandwidth to stream all that stuff, and it’s not legal to stream...
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Maybe you’ve seen one of these in the club stores under the Vizio brand. There are other companies as well, that sell what they call “tunerless tv’s.” It would seem to be part of a trend to keep prices low. But really, what’s the deal?
A TV without a tuner…
As I explained in an earlier article, technically there’s no such thing as a tunerless TV. In order to be called a television, it must have a tuner. That’s the FCC rule. Then again the FCC rules have been… a little flexible lately. A while back I reported that since 2017, broadcasters now have the right to broadcast signals that today’s TVs can’t receive. (It’s true that during the digital transition older TVs couldn’t receive newer broadcasts, but you could get a $50 coupon for a...
Pretty much every DIRECTV satellite box made in the last 15 years runs off the power supply you see above you, the DIRECTV EPS10. That one power supply runs everything from network adapters to the latest Gemini client for satellite. The only exception is the Genie DVRs themselves which need a meatier power supply.
Knowing all this, there’s an interesting question that came across my desk the other day. It was pointed out that the DECA adapter will run off an EPS10 or a MicroUSB cable connected to pretty much any phone charger. If that’s true, I was asked, can you run any other devices off a phone charger?
Simple answer: you can’t.
Even if you frankenstein a USB cable so it has the right plug end on it, you can’t do it. It doesn’t...
This week for FUN FRIDAY, I give you a simple link. Wikipedia has a shortcut which takes you to a list of weird and unusual pages. I will warn you now that some of the content is slightly “not safe for work.” On the other hand, some of the content is harmless and simply strange. Here’s an example from that page:
Keep in mind, someone had to do something like this on purpose. It’s not like at some point a statue of a cow collided with some antlers on the way up to sitting on a telephone pole. No, someone spent a decent amount of time planning and executing that.
That’s only one of the many pages you’ll find that will make you wonder what people were thinking.
M-185… the highway that isn’t
Of course, my favorite link on that page...
In a couple of weeks, spring will be here. Sure, the first day of spring is here today, but the real “spring” we expect might take a little longer. It’s been a mild winter for much of the country. No matter, though — there is still work to once the remaining snows thaw and it’s safe to be up on a ladder again. Here are some things you should be thinking about as you move into the spring season:
Antenna maintenance
If you have an over-the-air antenna, make sure all the connections are tight and that the antenna itself hasn’t suffered from the winter storms. If it’s starting to look bent and beat up, you might want to consider a new one from the great selection at Solid Signal. Even indoor antennas deserve a little love! Dusty and dry...
It’s boat show season! If you’re looking for an amazing experience and you’re already in South Florida, you’re definitely going to want to head over to the Palm Beach International Boat Show. This year’s show, the 42nd, starts today, March 21, along Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach, directly across the Intracoastal from Palm Beach itself. It continues on through March 24.
The world’s most luxurious yachts
You can see the world’s best yachts at the Superyacht show this year. It’s located at Safe Harbor Rybovich. Whether you’re in the market for something amazing or just want to see how the other half lives, you’ll want to see this display. There’s just nowhere else that you can experience this level of luxury on the water. It’s worth...
Ask anyone to name a few tall buildings in the USA, and you’ll probably get a lot of the same answers. Despite being nowhere near the tallest, New York’s Empire State Building seems to be the most memorable. Some might mention One World Trade Center, sitting at the site where the twin towers were from about 1973-2001. Another common one to think about is the Willis Tower, known by most people by it’s previous name, the Sears Tower. And yet, just a few miles away from the Willis Tower sits another building nearly as tall and nowhere near as iconic for whatever reason.
Chicago’s John Hancock Center
This two-pointed obelisk was originally known as the John Hancock Center. It was, for a very short time, the second tallest building in the...
All in all, the cellular network in the US is pretty strong. Major carriers like to say that 99% of the populated areas of the country have cell signal from at least one of AT&T, Verizon, or T-Mobile. And, that’s probably true. But that doesn’t take into account two things. The first, as people who read this blog a lot know, is that energy-efficient building materials can block 80% or more of the cell signal that’s outside. The other is that there are still pockets here and there that have poor signal or no signal at all.
For folks with decent signal outside and practically no signal inside, there’s a great solution: a cell phone signal booster. This system takes signals from outside, massively amplifies them, and blankets your entire...
If you read a lot of random web pages (including this one) you’ll get the overall impression that homes are less affordable for the average person than in any time since the early 1980s. In other words, if you’re the average age for a new homeowner, homes are less affordable than any time in your life. But then, you probably didn’t need me to tell you that. You don’t even need a chart to tell you that. You’ve lived it.
That’s why you’re probably in an apartment, or thinking about going to an apartment. Rents are no thrill either, but they do carry the benefit of not needing a down payment in the high five figures. Apartment life has its benefits. You don’t have to worry about doing your own repairs, and lots of times there’s...
July 16-22, 1994
He was one of the very last in person guests pre-COVID, and this time he’s back via satellite, please welcome writer of his second graphic novel, Youth Group (out 7/16/24 from First Second Books! Available for pre-order NOW!) , comic, and podcaster Jordan Morris back to the show.
Ken and Jordan discuss NASA, Dave Thomas (Wendy’s), Popeyes, KFC, In and Out Burger, when all cartoons became babies, Yo Yogi!, Jellystone, the most obscure Hanna Barbara characters, Ken’s love of Frankenstein Jr., the impossible Impossibles, Sex with Cindy Crawford, the moon landing, Summer Shows, Sex in the 90s, House of Style, Steven Banks Show, paddy whacks, what Alec Baldwin watches, PBS Sitcoms, Yank Yucks, the “YouTube Thumbnail...
There’s a funny thing that happens as we get older. The younger generation starts to tell us that things we’ve counted on our whole lives are obsolete or downright wrong. Sometimes, the younger generation is right. If you’re old enough to remember when “everybody” smoked in their cars, you’re probably just as glad as I am that no one does that anymore.
On the other hand, the younger folks sometimes like to tell us things are obsolete when they’re just out of fashion. Part your hair on the side? Someone will tell you that’s old-school. Land Line Phones? Out, supposedly. And if you listen to a lot of people, they’ll tell you that it’s time to give up live television from a cable or satellite provider.
I’ll give up the side part if I...
For the first ever guest on the Solid Signal Podcast, we welcome Dr. Nilay Shah, noted early adopter and tech enthusiast. Watch, listen, and remember to shop at https://www.solidsignal.com and call 888-233-7563 for the best in customer service.
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Way back in the early days of TV, there were 13 channels. They were, in fact, channels 1 through 13. Channel 1 left the picture early on, and that’s an interesting story. While you’d think 12 channels of live TV would have been enough for those folks back then, the truth was a little more complex. Broadcasting was pretty rough back then, so the rule was you couldn’t have adjacent channels in adjacent cities. In other words, if New York City had channel 2, Hartford couldn’t have channel 2 or channel 3. This meant a confusing jigsaw puzzle of channel allocations. In densely populated areas like the Northeast, it meant there was only room for about 5 channels of live TV per city.
This is the reason that channels 14-83, collectively known...
An EDID is supposed to be the way that component makers control you. And yet, it’s pretty easy to fake with the right equipment. So what’s this all about? Read on to find out.
A little bit about HDMI
A few years back, I spent some time explaining why it is that HDMI cables came to be so popular. The real reason has a lot more to do with paranoia from major media companies than it does with your convenience. You see, there are a few large companies that still honestly believe that you’ll make digital copies of their stuff and sell it on streetcorners. That’s why they put a little bit of technology into the HDMI spec that’s supposed to stop you from doing that. It’s called HDCP and it’s been with us for close to 20 years at this point...
It may still seem gray and cold today, but warm weather’s right around the corner! It won’t be long before you’ll be taking those trips on the water again, and while it’s great to enjoy the fresh air, I know you won’t really want to leave your tech behind on land. The simple fact of life in the 2020s is that “getting away from it all” doesn’t mean “getting disconnected.”
That’s why a lot of people choose to get some sort of satellite system for their boats. In past years, that almost always meant satellite television, but these days it can also mean satellite internet. Today’s satellite internet systems are generations ahead of where they used to be. They offer speeds similar to what you get on land, and that means you can shop and...
Not that long ago, I had the opportunity to review the WolfPack line of matrix switches. This is a new line of switches that compete with established names like Crestron. You can watch my review here:
I’ll cut out the suspense: I was very impressed by these new switches. They offer everything you need without a lot of complex setup. If you want basic functionality, you can use the front panel. But, if you want more, you can set up scenes and saved setups, and you can even control the switch using any device without even having to install an app. Overall it’s one of the most interesting pieces of commercial equipment I’ve seen here at Solid Signal.
That’s why I was even more excited when I heard that there’s a companion device that...
The post Prevent Water Damage, Save Money appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.
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Well that’s unfortunate.
Recently I was visiting with a friend and he showed me a brand new antenna with a broken reflector. It didn’t look as bad as the picture above, but I had to wince as he tried to bend one of the reflector elements back into place. It… kinda worked.
If a single metal rod on your antenna breaks or bends, it’s probably not too big a deal, honestly. The antenna will always work better if it’s completely intact but in most cases the antenna will still work as designed if one bit of it gets bent.
Real quick: what a reflector does and why you need one
You’ll find that on a lot of modern antennas, there are two vertical panels, angled inward toward the center. These are the reflectors. They take the signals coming at...
Friends, this is another question that came through our award-winning tech support lines and I thought it would be perfect for an article. There’s a lot to talk about when we talk about amplifiers, and if you want to read some of the many articles I’ve written about them, use the search box at the top of this blog to search for “amplifier.”
How amplifiers work with digital signals
An amplifier is really a pretty simple device. Amplifiers today are very much like the first ones created in the 19th century. The principle is very basic. If you apply a lot of electricity to a signal, that electricity takes on the characteristics of that signal. Amplification is a basic part of not only broadcasting but every single electronic device we...
Recently, a customer came to us with a question. They have their RV pre-wired with coaxial cable and so they wanted to be able to use that wire. When they’re at one of their homes they get cable TV. At the other, and while they’re on the road, they get satellite TV. And, because they travel outside their home area, they also use a TV antenna to get local channels wherever they go.
So, the question was simple, or so they thought:
Unfortunately the answer isn’t so simple, and it’s also not really what the customer wanted to hear. There’s a lot to explain, so I thought it would make for a great article on this blog.
First of all: don’t run satellite TV through “pre-wired” RVs unless you know for sure it works
If your RV is pre-wired...
Well friends, usually if you read this column you’ll see me railing on one of my favorite love-to-hate streaming services. This column’s a little different and I hope that it gets some traction out there because it’s a story that needs to be told.
Here’s the real question
Let’s say you use one of those live TV streaming services. I mean like DIRECTV Stream, Sling, YouTube TV, that sort of thing. When you’re at home you’ll get local channels. But what happens when you travel outside your local area? Can you still get local channels from home if you are away from your home city?
Most of the time, the answer is no. The major streaming services will either give you local channels from where you are, or if you’re away from your home city...
You hear the hard drive in your DVR make funny noises. You might have gotten a message on the screen. What to do? Maybe you’ve replaced hard drives on computers before. You just know that it would be easy to replace this hard drive. I hear you, and I’ve been there.
Or, you think the hard drive is good but the rest of the DVR seems a bit dodgy. Maybe the HDMI connection keeps dropping out. Maybe it won’t connect to the internet. It could be that it’s just old and slow.
Either way, you’re looking at some changes. But, what are your options for keeping the programming you have?
A few things you should know
First of all, you’re not allowed to open the case. Your customer agreement prohibits tampering with any leased equipment. So if you...
Wireless charging has been around since 2010, but it seems like all of a sudden it’s everywhere. While premium Androids have had wireless charging for several years, it’s only with the advent of the iPhone 8 and iPhone X that everyone seems to be talking about it. But no one is asking an important question that we’re all thinking…
How can wireless charging be safe?
Wireless charging is basically taking a bunch of electricity and beaming it out into the open air so your phone can receive it and charge. That happens to also be the definition of lightning, if you think about it. Clearly no one wants their phone to be struck by lightning. Yes, most of us agree that wireless charging is safe. So how can that be?
Obviously, it’s a matter...
Admit it. When you’re cruising YouTube you sometimes get into some very weird things. Now, I’m not going to judge anyone and I’m not going to talk about some of the outright disturbing things you can find on the most popular video sharing site in the world. I’m just going to tell you about a particular rabbit hole I found myself going down, how it made me feel, and what I learned about the technological history we all share.
Start here.
YouTuber “TronixFix” has a whole channel where they buy old tech for super cheap and try to figure out if it can be restored to its previous life. You can find a lot of this sort of video if you look. Generally someone picks up some popular piece of tech from the late 20th century, takes it apart and...
It’s boat show season! If you’re looking for an amazing experience and you’re already in South Florida, you’re definitely going to want to head over to the Palm Beach International Boat Show. This year’s show, the 41st, starts March 21 along Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach, directly across the Intracoastal from Palm Beach itself. It continues on through March 26.
The world’s most luxurious yachts
You can see the world’s best yachts at the Superyacht show this year. It’s located at Safe Harbor Rybovich. Whether you’re in the market for something amazing or just want to see how the other half lives, you’ll want to see this display. There’s just nowhere else that you can experience this level of luxury on the water. It’s worth the time...
Sometimes, things in life don’t make sense. Sometimes you get the exact opposite result that you think you’re going to get. But hey, in 2024 who thinks that everything’s going to make sense? When you’re faced with something that just doesn’t seem like it should add up, you should be skeptical. But, when the data is there, you have to go where it takes you.
Here’s one of those times.
Live TV in business actually increases productivity.
If you own a business, you’ve probably been paranoid ever since 2020 about productivity. Sending all your employees home and trusting them to do their jobs was pretty stressful for business owners. Watching your people come back didn’t get rid of stress. All it did was make you worry that bad habits...
We all dream of stunning kitchens that meet all our cooking and entertainment needs while making our daily tasks easier. However, making kitchen renovation decisions can be an uphill task for homeowners especially with all the options available today. This article showcases real kitchens that were beautifully transformed from dated, barely functional, limited storage and lack of personality among other limitations that dampened the look and feel of the spaces to stunning and highly functional rooms. Regardless of your kitchen’s limitation and challenges, these real-life remodel success stories will get you inspired with ideas to transform your space into a cooking and entertainment haven that you have always dreamed of:
Dampened to a...
Let me start by saying this: I am always incredibly amazed by marine satellite technology. Whether it’s for television or internet, it simply boggles my mind. I mean, think about it for a second. Satellite dishes are designed to be put in place and not move more than 1/32″ in any direction. On a boat, you have these devices that are constantly moving in three dimensions and they can stay locked onto a satellite 22,000 miles away. They make these tiny changes so quickly that there’s no way a human could even perceive them.
Here’s another thing that really impresses me: marine satellite technology has been around for about 20 years. When you think of all the innovations that have happened over that time, it’s amazing to think that all...
You can do it for TV antennas. Is there any benefit to doing it for cellular antennas? Can you get double the reception if you create an array of antennas? If you’re looking to get better cell service indoors, you might think this is a really valid option.
Why antenna combining works
An antenna really is a very simple thing. Let’s not talk about how antennas actually receive signals, because that’s a little more complex. When it comes to the real-world way antennas are used, an antenna is sort of like a net. If you hold up a net, you’re going to catch something in it. If the thing is smaller than the holes in the net, you won’t catch it. By putting up two nets, you’re likely to catch twice as many things. There isn’t much more to than...
Let me tell you a little bit about computers in 1966. They weren’t anything like they are today. They were giant behemoths owned only by the largest companies, and they were run by qualified operators in large, air-conditioned rooms. This was a typical one:
Everything you see in that image is part of one computer, and I’d be willing to bet the computer went on far beyond that. In 1966 there was no internet, no cell phones, no digital anything really. There weren’t even calculators. Wikipedia says the first pocketable calculators weren’t even made until 1970. Think about that for a minute.
A warning from back then
That’s why this text is so chilling:
That text appeared in the Sandusky Register, an Ohio newspaper, back in 1966...
One of our customer service reps asked me a question the other day. “Is there one multiswitch that would let a customer run DISH and DIRECTV on the same line?
Unfortunately, the answer is no.
This is actually a variation of a question that we get at Solid Signal quite a bit. Some of our most important customers run RV parks and campgrounds. Because of what are referred to as “bulk agreements,” they can offer DIRECTV and DISH satellite service to their customers. These RV parks and campgrounds would love to run one wire and allow their customers to choose DIRECTV or DISH and have that signal go automatically to the right place. This would be a benefit to the visitor, because they wouldn’t have to aim their own dish. It would also be...
February 1-7, 1997
This week Ken welcomes author of the excellent new novel Mother Doll (signed copies can be purchased here: https://www.skylightbooks.com/pre-order-signed-copies-mother-doll-katya-apekina), Katya Apekina.
Ken and Katya discuss living in LA, raining in LA, snow in New England, the nature of our stories, how technology can make us more isolated, displacement, Russia, speaking your native tongue, raising your kids bi-lingual, translating literature, having a strong Moscow accent, only knowing 70s slang, Cheburashka, accordion playing crocodiles, not being allowed to watch TV, Party of Five, reading War and Peace as a kid, WBCN, cool music, being cool by middle school, only watching one show a week, dating shows...
All DIRECTV receivers for home use are leased. Don’t believe those people who crow on the internet about owning their stuff. There might be a few people who got their equipment through testing, but it’s not many, that’s for sure. Regular folks are always going to have leased equipment. Since you don’t own it, DIRECTV has a right to ask for it back.
Why are all receivers leased?
DIRECTV and DISH both moved to a lease model in the mid-2000s. This helped everyone actually. Leased equipment can be depreciated which makes the company’s bottom line look better. Customers can easily turn in leased equipment and get an upgrade, too. The only people who really suffer in a lease model are hobbyists who would want to customize the box. The...
This could potentially be a very short article. No, they are not waterproof. They’re somewhat spillproof, meaning that they won’t fry themselves if a bit of water or soda drops on them. But try to use one in a swimming pool, and you’ll be buying a new remote.
That’s not the end of the story.
(Good thing, too — I have column-inches to fill.) The good news is that it’s fairly easy to waterproof a DIRECTV remote, thanks to the technology inside it. All it takes is a zipper-close bag or one of those dive bags people use for their phones, if you’re really serious. Your average DIRECTV remote will work as well in a bag like that as it works outside it, and it may even work just fine totally submerged. In bathtub tests, mine did.
Why worry...
Your business is focused on the future, so why am I talking about satellite TV? Because it’s the right choice for 2024 and beyond! Listen, and you’ll be convinced. Shop at https://www.solidsignal.com for everything you need to live you best digital life, and call 888-233-7563 for a level of customer service you didn’t realize was possible.
Listen to the podcast your way!
Just choose one of the following:
Option 1: Click on the image above to stream the podcast in your browser. If you use the YouTube player above, be sure to subscribe to get future videos delivered to you!
Option 2: The Solid Signal Podcast is available on several podcast aggregators. Search for us, or tap on the links below on your mobile device. If you want us to add...
Congratulations! You just moved into your new home. Well, it’s new to you. Rather than a new build, you chose for a home that someone else lived in. When you get there, you find a surprise: A lot of wiring’s already been done. There are a pair of wires running to the roof, plus a bunch of Ethernet cables run throughout the house. You’re thinking you scored bigtime… but did you?
Old coaxial cable isn’t always a good value.
If you’re planning to use satellite TV, you never want to reuse coaxial cable. At the very least it’s getting old and you don’t know the condition of the splices in the wall. When you see two lines — and only two — run up to the roof the best guess is that there was a satellite dish there but it was an older one...
Last month, DIRECTV suffered its most public and possibly longest satellite outage in a decade. It’s a tribute to the hard work of its engineering and broadcast teams that most channels were restored in about 12 hours. Full service was restored in a little more than 24 hours. That’s pretty amazing when you consider how satellites work. It’s not like they can go up there and press the red button to reset it. When something happens, they have to take very specific steps and slowly bring the satellite back to life. The satellite with the issue was DIRECTV11, which went into service in 2008. It’s been quietly doing its job for about 16 years and it’s quite possible we’ll see it keep functioning for ten more.
When something like this...
I know how the minds of some of our Solid Signal fans work. You want to be futureproof. You want to get your install nailed down and you don’t want to change it if you don’t have to. The one thing you don’t want to do… put in a temporary fix and then have to change it again in a year or so.
That’s why I know that some of you have already put in DIRECTV C61K 4K Genie clients when you don’t have to. You’ll get the occasional nag message saying “This TV doesn’t support DIRECTV 4K Service” and you’re ok with that. But then… you run into another issue.
There’s like, no RCA outputs.
Older DIRECTV equipment was really full of analog outputs. Take a look at this HR22 DVR from years past:
There are two sets of standard-definition composite...
If you’re putting up a cellular signal booster, you’re doing it because you want better signal inside. There are a lot of reasons that you might have bad cell signals indoors. Honestly most homes are really not very good at letting cell signals in. They’re almost designed to keep them out. Here’s what I mean.
Metal, stucco, and energy-efficient windows
These three things actually repel cell signals. Metal, whether it’s aluminum studs, flex conduit, ducting or just electrical wires, causes cell signals to bounce back. Stucco is placed over a metal mesh that’s very effective at blocking cell signals. Believe it or not the worst culprit is low-E glass. I’ve recently learned that as much as 99.9% of a cell signal is blocked by...
The post Receive Long-Distance TV Channels! appeared first on The Solid Signal Blog.
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It’s not a coincidence that both DIRECTV and DISH have satellite antennas that are about 36″ wide. There’s a FCC rule called OTARD that says an HOA can’t stop you from putting up an antenna if it’s smaller than one meter (39.37″) in any direction. Both US satellite providers have kept this rule in mind when designing their equipment. After all, it wouldn’t help business if HOA’s around the country didn’t allow people to put up satellite dishes, right?
But, is it possible that today’s satellite dishes could get smaller? Technology has advanced a lot since the late 2000s when today’s satellite dishes were first released to the public. You would think that today it would be possible to make much smaller devices, right? In order to...
The meter you see above is Toner Cable’s latest signal meter. It’s one of the least expensive and most capable devices for measuring ATSC 3.0 signals. It’s also significantly more expensive than our SignalScout ATSC 1.0 meter. Yes, Toner’s device brings more to the table, but we’re asked frequently why there isn’t a lower-priced ATSC 3.0 meter available. After all the technology for measuring ATSC 3.0 signals isn’t incredibly special. If you actually want to get a live picture, you have to pay for licenses for several patents, but even that probably isn’t too expensive.
In order to understand why ATSC 3.0 signal meters are so expensive in 2024, you have to look at the way these devices are made.
The fact: manufacturing costs aren’t...
Sometimes, you have to improvise.
Cord-cutting is a massive phenomenon and shows no sign of stopping. The first wave of cord-cutters were happy to ditch high cable costs and get their content from antenna and streaming. In the last few years, streaming has gotten just as expensive as cable and it’s driving a whole new generation of cord-cutting. Today’s cord-cutters rely on free services like Pluto for national content, while getting local content from a TV antenna.
Unfortunately, not everyone can mount an antenna on the roof. Not everyone can make do with a small indoor antenna. What can you do if you need to improvise? I’ve recently been asked if it’s ok to put an antenna inside a garage.
Of course you can mount an antenna in the...
Clients rule the world. At least, they rule the world of satellite. Since 2012, the leaders in satellite TV have both used clients instead of receivers in their top-end devices. That means for the last six years, pretty much every new customer has gotten a server-client system instead of a receiver-based system. But, what does this mean? Let’s take a deeper look.
First, a little history.
Few people expected that this box from DIRECTV would rock the world. Originally called by the boring name of “HR34” it quickly became renamed as “Genie.” It became the basis for all DIRECTV installations after it, as it begat the HR44 and HR54 Genies, as well as the Genie 2.
On the DISH side of the street, we saw the Hopper come out not long after...
What you see above is a truly old receiver. If I recall correctly, I took that picture back in 2008, of the then-new HR23 DVR. DIRECTV hardware made in the 2000s has proved incredibly reliable, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of you out there have this very DVR in your home theater today.
But let’s say you get new hardware for one reason or another. Can you just take the access card from the old receiver and put it in the new one? The short answer is that you can’t. Before I unpack that, I need to explain why this is even something to think about.
Unfortunately a DVR isn’t forever.
Honestly these things are incredibly reliable. I know people who are still using DVRs from 2006 and they still work, slowly. But the point is they...
If you’ve happened onto Max during the last month, you’ve probably heard of The Regime. This limited series stars Max darling Kate Winslet and features a laundry list of production staff from top shows like Succession. Not only does it seem like a slam dunk for every possible award, it also seems like a really decent, high quality show in its own right.
Since the first episode aired last week, its reviews have been very poor, to put it charitably. According to ScreenRant, the Rotten Tomatoes score went from 89% to 57% practically overnight. The show itself didn’t change, of course. It was just seen by a much larger cross-section of reviewers. Folks with mid-size blogs like this one don’t get the same early access to shows that big...
You’re probably getting this news from every possible source right now, but Daylight Saving Time starts again this weekend, unless you’re in one of the few states that doesn’t observe it. Good news: it’s going to be light after dinner. Bad news: if you’re a person who’s always believed in “early to bed, early to rise,” it’s going to be dark when you get up again.
There was a time when Daylight Saving Time required an hour’s worth of wandering from room to room setting clocks on devices large and small. That’s still true but to a much smaller degree now, thanks of course to the internet. For example:
Home theater equipment should set clocks automatically.
Your phones should have the right time when you get up.
Smart home devices will...
Believe it or not it was about 14 years ago that DIRECTV released its last standalone DVR. I was working for another blog at the time and I reviewed the product prior to launch. When it launched, the DIRECTV HR24 was a speed demon, small and sleek. It revolutionized the way DIRECTV products looked and felt for a decade.
Shortly after the launch of the HR24, DIRECTV pivoted all its efforts to launching its Genie DVR products. Genie is a great product for homes — it’s more energy efficient and gives every room in the house the same functions. It’s also a great product for DIRECTV, because the small Genie clients are inexpensive to make and last seemingly forever.
Still, not everyone wants or needs a Genie system. With the Genie system...
Cutting the cord is all the rage. It seems like no matter who you talk to, they’re into kicking the old cable company to the curb. However, cord-cutting isn’t what most people think. When people think of cord-cutting, they automatically think of streaming. But, as we’ve all learned painfully in the last year, cord-cutting can be as expensive as traditional cable. It seems like we all need to ask ourselves…
Are we REALLY saving money?
Around the time cable bills started going over $100 a month, people started looking for alternatives. They said, “let’s bundle Netflix and Hulu and that’s most of my TV anyway.” It started out great but before you know it you’re paying Netflix, Hulu, Paramount+, Prime Video, Max, and a few other services...
If you’ve had a rough week, you’ll probably revel in the videos you’ll find at the Hydraulic Press Channel. For no particular reason, the owners of this channel love smashing things large and small in a hydraulic press. There’s nothing more to it than that but the results are strangely satisfying.
In this case they smashed a ball-bearing and the result was terrifying, deadly, and pretty darn fun to watch in slow motion. Don’t believe me? Check this out.
They surrounded the press with a blast shield and several cylinders of ballistics gel to show how you would basically have been ripped to shreds if you’d been anywhere near this thing when it all went down.
A hydraulic press uses a heavy ram and relies on the principle that some...
