Whole House DVR with more than 1 DVR

[t.salerno58]

Contemplating a switch to D* and have some questions about DirecTV DVRs. If you have the Whole House DVR service, can you have more than 1 DVR? If you do, can you view recorded events from any TV in the system? I am considering a setup with 2 HD DVRs and 1 or 2 more HD receivers. Is this a setup that would work? Can you view events from DVR1 on DVR2? View events from either DVR1 or DVR2 on one of the regular HD receivers?

one other question, I currently have 2 DVRs that support external hard drives. In this case the EHDs are add on drives (they do not replace the internal drive) and I can take the EHDs from receiver to . If I read other posts on EHDs correctly, this is not the case with D* DVRs. In this case, the EHD replaces the internal drive and, if you take the EHD to another receiver, it will get reformatted. I think I can live with that but here is one more little twist, I use a SATA Drive dock that support both USB and eSATA. Using this, I can swap out drives as I want. Can I do this with a D* DVR? That is, Have a drive in, record to it, Take it out of the dock, put a new drive in then later put the other drive back in an view it?

A lot of questions I know. I really like the hardware I have been using but other issues are making me seriously consider a switch.
thanks

 

[charper1]

Contemplating a switch to D* and have some questions about DirecTV DVRs. If you have the Whole House DVR service, can you have more than 1 DVR? YES If you do, can you view recorded events from any TV in the system? Assuming its MRV compatible; YES I am considering a setup with 2 HD DVRs and 1 or 2 more HD receivers. Is this a setup that would work? YES Can you view events from DVR1 on DVR2? View events from either DVR1 or DVR2 on one of the regular HD receivers? YES and YES

one other question, I currently have 2 DVRs that support external hard drives. In this case the EHDs are add on drives (they do not replace the internal drive) and I can take the EHDs from receiver to . If I read other posts on EHDs correctly, this is not the case with D* DVRs. In this case, the EHD replaces the internal drive and, if you take the EHD to another receiver, it will get reformatted. I think I can live with that but here is one more little twist, I use a SATA Drive dock that support both USB and eSATA. Using this, I can swap out drives as I want. Can I do this with a D* DVR? That is, Have a drive in, record to it, Take it out of the dock, put a new drive in then later put the other drive back in an view it? Not 100% sure

A lot of questions I know. I really like the hardware I have been using but other issues are making me seriously consider a switch.
thanks

Replies in red above.

 

[BobStokesbary]

Tony,
I have 2 DVRs on my whole house DVR and they work just fine. Just be aware that you need a HD or HDR receiver to see the content from other HDRs on your system. On your HDR you can only record content via your remote on your local HDR. You have to physically move to your other DVR to record on that DVR. With an HD receiver you are supposed to be able to record on any of your whole home DVRs. And you have the option of recording programs on any of your HDR receivers using D*'s online program guide to schedule recordings. (I use this option a lot.)

I don't have personal experience with external storage but have done some research on this since I plan to add one soon. From what I can determine, the drives are tightly coupled with the receiver that originated the content. If the receiver does not recognize the drive it will prompt for a reformat and will only use it if you do the reformat (which removes all other content from the drive). If it does recognize the drive it will use that drive in place of the internal drive (it is not an extension to your internal). You are supposed to be able to detach and reattach a drive to play content on either, but it is hard to find posts that directly address this functionality. All this applies to a direct eSATA connection to your receiver. Whether or not your docking station works with this is just something you would have to test on your system. Just know that D* gives you instructions on their website for the connection, but it is a non-supported feature which means you are on your own here.
Bob

 

[harshness]

In this case, the EHD replaces the internal drive and, if you take the EHD to another receiver, it will get reformatted.

This is an accurate representation of how it works.

I think I can live with that but here is one more little twist, I use a SATA Drive dock that support both USB and eSATA. Using this, I can swap out drives as I want. Can I do this with a D* DVR? That is, Have a drive in, record to it, Take it out of the dock, put a new drive in then later put the other drive back in an view it?

That depends on the dock. The DIRECTV eSATA implementation is relatively cranky about what works.

Another gotcha to remember is that your programming preferences go with the active drive so if you swap drives, you'll have to update all of your recording preferences.

 

[t.salerno58]

Wow, Thanks guys for the responses. Really good information. It looks like I am going to make the switch.

Harshness, Thanks for that last "Gotcha". I wouldn't have thought of that. Makes sense though given it replaces the internal drive. I have to say, that is one thing I really like about E*'s 722/722k receivers. I have the drive dock attached and I can pop additional drives in and out. They add storage on top of the internal drive and you can move things back and forth. the down side is it's USB and therefore much slower to transfer than and eSATA implementation would be. Here you have and eSATA implementation but it is at the moment unsupported and is not add on storage. Oh well, It will be interesting to play with and see where it goes.

Thanks again for the responses.

 

[harshness]

the down side is it's USB and therefore much slower to transfer than and eSATA implementation would be.

Alas, it doesn't matter what speed it is because files are never transferred between drives (and nobody is talking like it ever will be -- other than possibly on the forthcoming DIRECTV media server). I'm not sure what it would take (or if it is even possible within the DVR hardware) to hot swap eSATA drives. As it is, you have to go through a carefully prescribed boot sequence to swap drives. At this point, eSATA represents lots of trial and error as well as added expense and not much has changed for several years.

If archiving or moving of files was implemented, I would imagine that it would happen in the background so transfer rates would still not be a major concern.

A minor caution: remember that none of the current DIRECTV receivers support OTA natively. Even with the external OTA device (AM21) you can still only record two channels at once so don't assume you can get away with a single DVR without some serious planning.