No longer with DirecTV anymore, Dish was installed today.

[mdram]

HS17 has 7 usable tuners equal to 3.5 HR2X's, so unless you have more then three HR2X's you don't lose anything on the tuner front. IMHO the biggest issue is the single point of failure of the Genie 2 system.

i said a had a genie and an hr24, thats the same 7
once you hit 3 tvs it would be 9, still 7 with an hs17
many people have a genie and a dvr
cant do that with the hs17, the 7 tuner hard limit with 1 subtracted for each mini in use is what cripples it
if you have 1tv it would be fine.
2 its borderline depending on needed tuners
3 and its not even a choice

 

[slice1900]

Got to wonder why some folks say the HS17 is a big POS and others like me have no problems? I have two C61K's, two C41's and a C61W and all are working just fine. And no I'm not running CE code on any of them.

I don't think anyone has any specific problems with the HS17 - generally they have problems with the clients (i.e. the 4K clients cutting for a second or two now and then) and since the HS17 only works with clients they blame the client problems on the HS17. I think most of the dislike against the HS17 is because if you get one you can't have any other equipment on your account, and they currently only allow one per account. That's a big lack of flexibility compared to what came before since you can't take it tailgating for example without leaving your home without TV, if it doesn't support enough TVs / recordings / seasons passes for your needs then you can't add to your system with additional DVRs/receivers like you can with older Genies. If they allowed more than one per account I think most objections would be taken care of - people wouldn't like bringing two boxes instead of one when tailgating but other than that...

I personally believe Directv will eventually allow that - but I don't have any evidence or inside info, just a gut feeling. I mean why change how the clients associate with the HS17 compared to older Genies otherwise? And why would they abandon the higher end of the market when they've spend years chasing it (and their $128 ASP shows that's basically who their customer is these days even the ones who don't have a bunch of TVs or a large family) But unless/until they do allow more than one, the HS17 is going to a sh!tty solution for a people who don't fit the "average customer" mold - which includes a LOT of the people who read satellite forums.

 

[rad]

Agree with the artificial limit on Genie 2's. During testing I had the HS17 on a SWiM8 and a HR44 and HR54 on a SWiM16, all connected via Ethernet to my network to allow recording sharing and it all worked fine. The only issue was the clients connecting to a different Genie then the one that it should during reboots, something that they could have fixed in the client code but didn't.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I'm with Scott Greczkowski , although my cap is 1TB, which I never come close to hitting. That said, OD is a last resort.

I have two teens. They are always almost going over.


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[navychop]

FORCE them to watch OTA live, WITH commercials!

Uphill! BOTH ways!

That'll larn 'me!


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[rad]

FORCE them to watch OTA live, WITH commercials!

Uphill! BOTH ways!

That'll larn 'me!


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

With the color turned off so they have to watch B&W.

 

[Jimbo]

With the color turned off so they have to watch B&W.

And No Volume ....

 

[RandallA]

And no remote so they'll have to get up to change the channel.

 

[TheRatPatrol]

Think the new Genie, whatever that'll be (HS27?) will have more tuners in it?

 

[slice1900]

Think the new Genie, whatever that'll be (HS27?) will have more tuners in it?

I would bet against it. It'll have 16 hardware tuners the same as the HS17, but I'd bet good money it will be limited to 7 "user visible" tuners the same as the HS17. It may support more simultaneous 4K streams (I'm not really sure why the HS17 is limited to two, there doesn't seem to be a reason for it as far as I can tell...) but that's the only improvement on that front I'd expect.

But as always, I should add a disclaimer that I have zero inside information so don't take this as gospel. I just don't think it makes sense that they would increase them based on how they're implementing things. What you should hope for (and IMHO expect...but again 'disclaimer') is that eventually they'll allow more than one per account.

 

[Jimbo]

I would bet against it. It'll have 16 hardware tuners the same as the HS17, but I'd bet good money it will be limited to 7 "user visible" tuners the same as the HS17. It may support more simultaneous 4K streams (I'm not really sure why the HS17 is limited to two, there doesn't seem to be a reason for it as far as I can tell...) but that's the only improvement on that front I'd expect.

But as always, I should add a disclaimer that I have zero inside information so don't take this as gospel. I just don't think it makes sense that they would increase them based on how they're implementing things. What you should hope for (and IMHO expect...but again 'disclaimer') is that eventually they'll allow more than one per account.

I would really like the idea of more than on per account, however, I doubt we;ll see that ... they wouldn't allow more than one of the older Genies on an account ...
Now as you mentioned, the Smart thing to do would be to allow all the HRxx boxes to work with the HS17.

 

[slice1900]

I would really like the idea of more than on per account, however, I doubt we;ll see that ... they wouldn't allow more than one of the older Genies on an account ...
Now as you mentioned, the Smart thing to do would be to allow all the HRxx boxes to work with the HS17.

The Genie 2 uses a different method to associate clients with the server, that avoids the problems of Genies "fighting" over clients that were experienced by those (employees, CE testers) who had more than one of the HRx4 Genies on their account. Maybe they had other reasons for making that change, but one of the outcomes is that it avoids the need for software changes to handle multiple Genies if they are all Genie 2.

Even if they hadn't made the decision to not allow older hardware on an account with a Genie 2, adding a bunch of H2x/HR2x to service larger accounts is simply not feasible since that hardware is getting older and will become obsolete when real 4K channels finally begin to appear.

Some people think Directv will simply abandon those higher end customers since they're a small portion of all Directv users, but that doesn't make sense since they've pursued a strategy for years of going after high end customers. That's why their average customer spends $128/month, which is quite a bit higher than any other cable/satellite providers. That number would drop a lot if they basically told every customer who had more than 4 or 5 TVs, or more than one 4K TV, to take a hike which they'd effectively be doing if they limited everyone to 7 tuners or made them choose an HR54 limited to a single 4K TV and pay to lease obsolete HR24s. People are willing to do that for now because there isn't much 4K to watch and those old HR24s are still working OK, but if that's still the situation at the end of next year those people will begin looking elsewhere unless they're locked in by NFLST.

 

[TheRatPatrol]

It'll have 16 hardware tuners the same as the HS17, but I'd bet good money it will be limited to 7 "user visible" tuners the same as the HS17.

So you're saying the HS17 HAS 16 tuners right now, but they're not all activated? What's the point of putting all those tuners in it if they're not going to utilize them?

 

[mdram]

tuners dont count if they are not usable. its how many tvs/recordings can be active at one time

 

[slice1900]

So you're saying the HS17 HAS 16 tuners right now, but they're not all activated? What's the point of putting all those tuners in it if they're not going to utilize them?

No clue why some are idle, but the source of the limitation to 7 usable tuners is pretty obvious. That's the maximum number of 4K channels they'd be able to handle once they start using transponder bonding for 4K, and they don't want to have some fine print explaining the difference in the number of tuners you get depending on how many 4K channels you are watching/recording.

 

[Andrew Sullivan]

Well, theres a productive post.

Ooh ooh, let me count your positive posts in this thread. Hmm, none.

 

[Jimbo]

Ooh ooh, let me count your positive posts in this thread. Hmm, none.

Please do Rookie .... jk.

Oh,theres one now !

 

[raoul5788]

Now now boys, play nice.

 

[IcEWoLF]

Directv no longer competes, they got the programming and they see no reason to upgrade their receivers, they are focused in providing content these days. After the Att merger they kinda gave up on their dvrs and the headless receiver shows what a crappy effort they put on.
Overall the only reason that is keeping me on the directv side is the pricing since I get discounts and the programming they offer.

 

[slice1900]

What's wrong with a headless server? IMHO that's a better way to do things since it reduces the number of variables in support - only one type of device will have to interface with a TV.

Directv's actual implementation falls short of Dish's for various reasons - the way they plan to do 4K limits the number of tuners they present etc. but that's not the fault of the headless server. Had Directv done a 15 tuner headless server and allowed more than one per account it is hard to see why one should see it as inferior to the Hopper 3 - certainly it wouldn't be based on that fact it is headless. One could quibble with it for other reasons, but it is ridiculous to prefer a server that outputs HDMI over one that does not, since that's a difference that affects only one TV.