Connecting older DVRs to TVs in my house?

[bellbound]

I want to sign up for DirecTV and have an older DirectTV DVR that I own and a Tivo one that was also used with a previous DirecTV account. I plan to get the new Media Center DirecTV DVR with my new DirecTV account. What will happen if I connect these two older DVRs to TVs in my house?

1. Will they be able to receive a signal so they can watch channels with my DirecTV package?
2. Will they be able to record TV directly on the DVRs independent of the main media center DVR?

Thanks.

 

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

I want to sign up for DirecTV and have an older DirectTV DVR that I own and a Tivo one that was also used with a previous DirecTV account. I plan to get the new Media Center DirecTV DVR with my new DirecTV account. What will happen if I connect these two older DVRs to TVs in my house?

1. Will they be able to receive a signal so they can watch channels with my DirecTV package?
2. Will they be able to record TV directly on the DVRs independent of the main media center DVR?

Thanks.

Welcome to Satelliteguys. The new HR34 Media Center DVR has 5 tuners. I'm guessing that your DVR & Directivo have 2 tuners each. That would add up to 9 tuners & would be one more tuner than the 8 tuner limit of the SWM LNB(you can get around it by having a SWM-16 multiswitch installed). Also,if you wanted whole home DVR,your old DVR & TiVo won't be able to be used to play recording from your HR34. The best thing to do is to just get the HR34 &,depending on how many TV's you want hooked up,get a HD receiver like the H21,H23,H24,or H25. The HD receiver counts as one tuner. This way you'll have whole home DVR & each HD receiver can be used to program a recording to your HR34.

 

[raoul5788]

bellbound, which Directv dvr do you have now? If it's an HR20-24, it will work with the HR34, but the Tivo won't. The Tivo would get sd channels, but who cares about those! Like royrdsjr said, you will need a new multiswitch to use that many tuners.

 

[bellbound]

I do want whole home DVR, though in one room, the guest room, I was thinking of having one of the older DVRs so guests could record their own shows and not interfere with my recordings. I think the older DVRs have 2 tuners each.

1. What is SWM LNB?
2. Where would this switch get installed? Is this something that only DirecTV can do?

Thanks!

Welcome to Satelliteguys. The new HR34 Media Center DVR has 5 tuners. I'm guessing that your DVR & Directivo have 2 tuners each. That would add up to 9 tuners & would be one more tuner than the 8 tuner limit of the SWM LNB(you can get around it by having a SWM-16 multiswitch installed). Also,if you wanted whole home DVR,your old DVR & TiVo won't be able to be used to play recording from your HR34. The best thing to do is to just get the HR34 &,depending on how many TV's you want hooked up,get a HD receiver like the H21,H23,H24,or H25. The HD receiver counts as one tuner. This way you'll have whole home DVR & each HD receiver can be used to program a recording to your HR34.

 

[bobvick]

You would probably be about as well off to get you a HR34, a HR24, and a H25. That would allow you to just use a SWM8, and you would have seven tuners that you would be able to record off of, plus you could access the recordings from either DVR on the H25. For as cheap as DirecTV is offering this equipment, you would be better off to just not use the old SD DVR's. You could get the HR34, the HR24, and a H25 for $198.00. This is a good deal, I paid $399 just for the HR34.