Hr21

[311Man]

Wish I could get them to send me an HR20. I "upgraded" my HD Tivo last week and got the HR21. I tried several CSRs and customer retention a couple of times. The only thing I was told was you get what you get, we have no way of ordering a specific model for you. If it don't met your needs tough luck.

I spent all of my day off waiting for the upgrade and I'm no better off than before. I moved the Tivo back to my projector and have the HR21 on a secondary TV. DirecTV doesn't have my HD locals yet. And there's too much stuff on the major networks I don't want to miss in the mean time. If I had known I would have been trading the major networks for the new mpeg4 channels I wouldn't have bothered.

When the installer was there I had called D* and they initially told me the same thing. "You get what you get". I told them if I would have known that I would have a Dishnetwork tech in my living room and not Directv. I was then forwarded to Supervisor who told me the same thing. I told them I have been customer for 10 years and this is unacceptable. I told her that then the tech can remove everything he just installed cause I didnt want it. She put me on hold came back and said she would call logistics to see what they could do but it would be several hours. She did call back said they had an HR20 and it would be shipped via FEDEX.

As I mentioned in previous posts that was good thing because the HR21 failed for me miserably. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that the HR20 keeps running because I know when it goes there is no shot of getting anything but HR21 and no OTA.

 

[mdbrad]

I just got my HR21 installed on Tuesday. I'm about 30 miles north of Los Angeles (in South Orange County) so I have no need for OTA. At this point, I love my HR21......everything works.....even the "active" button and.....other than being a little slow in changing channels......it's fairly quick.

I'm not very "techy", but if anybody wants me to try something out on it........let me know and I'll give it a shot.

 

[cebbigh]

My 10/23 install included 2 hr2x receivers. When he brought the boxes into the house they included a hr20-100 and a hr21. The installer was totally convinced that DTV was already providing CW as HD over the Sat. He had to place a call to become convinced it wasn't the case.

I'm ok with the hr21 (mainly my wife uses it and she doesn't care about OTA) as long as i have the hr20. I do remember when I signed up on line one of the questions they asked was if I already have an OTA antenna set up. I suspect that is why they provided me with at least 1 hr20.

I will say the hr21 is a right purty shiny black box. And mine is working fine. But I really think they would have been wiser to wait until after d11 is up and working to start on deliveries. Maybe they didn't anticipate how many new subs they'd actually be getting.

 

[Montezuma58]

I will say the hr21 is a right purty shiny black box. And mine is working fine. But I really think they would have been wiser to wait until after d11 is up and working to start on deliveries. Maybe they didn't anticipate how many new subs they'd actually be getting.

To play devils advocate, DTV probably wasn't betting on Sea Launch blowing up a rocket earlier this year. But on the other hand that was long enough ago they should have been able to adjust supplies of appropriate boxes depending on the sub's needs.

 

[rich644]

No OTA = No Sale!

DirecTV will never be able to carry every single HD channel in every single market. (there are over 1600 TV stations!) So an OTA antenna will insure all your locals will be integrated seamlessly in the program guide.

Plus there is always the possibility of carriage disputes cropping up in various markets. Remember, local broadcasters want to get some payback on their significant investments in DTV, an OTA option gives DirectTV a little more leverage just in case.

Most importantly, OTA is generally free of compression. The picture quality of OTA HD will almost always be better than local into local satellite.

Hopefully this is just an ill advised experiment for DirecTV and they'll wise up and return OTA capabilities in their future models.

 

[daddywags]

GO DISH No issues there.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

GO DISH No issues there.

Except for those who can't receive all of their locals OTA. Directv has many more HD LILs.

 

[OneBigJedi]

What are the other differences?

So I here everyone complaining about no OTA, so what is the other differences between the HR20 and HR21? Does is have a bigger hard drive, etc? I live in white area, so OTA is a non-issue for me any. I have two HR20's and two H20's & I was thing about upgrading them.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

The HR20-700 has a 300 GB hard drive, while the HR21-700 and HR20-100 have a 320 GB drive.

The HR20-100 and HR21-700 both have coaxial digital audio outputs, which the HR20-700 does not have.

The HR21 is black, while the HR20 is silver (there were a limited number of black HR20-100s.

The HR20-700 has a single ethernet port while the HR20-100 and HR21-700 have two (I believe the extra port on the HR20-100 is inactive; the second port on the HR21 can be used to share the connection with another device).

The HR20-700 and HR21-700 have a built-in antenna for an RF remote. This appears to be more sensitive than the external antenna on the HR20-100.

 

[OneBigJedi]

Thanks!

That is some info! Thanks!

 

[Plywodstatebum]

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.

 

[dlm10541]

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

 

[Bob Nielsen]

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.

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

 

[ONUOsFan]

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.

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.

 

[gutwrencher]

about to explode...

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.

 

[HawaiiJohn]

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.

 

[Gimpy McFarlan]

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!

 

[Jimbo]

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.

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

 

[gutwrencher]

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.

 

[HawaiiJohn]

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!

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.