Whole house DVR

[cparker]

I've waited years. No whole house DVR. Sorry, but Sling just ain't it. I have a pair of VIP 6xx receivers and all my TVs are HD TVs. Both receivers are connected to my network. And for some reason Dish apparently can't or doesn't CARE to figure out how to link them together.

DirecTV apparently has this now. It's funny. I've been with Dish since before they even had installers. They sent you everything in a box and you self installed.

But this ONE THING could be what pushes me over to the other side. My wife has been asking about whole house DVR for years. Every time I've looked at DirecTV it looked like it would cost me a LOT to get started and the monthly charge was considerably more. Now.... not so much. Might be time to have another look at D*

 

[hawker152]

Yep, you are exactly right. Might as well jump ship so you can have someone come out and totally reside your house to D* standards. And then get there DECA stuff working, that's going to be a whole different monster

 

[cparker]

I sense some sarcasm there.
reside my house?

And are you implying that the whole house DVR doesn't work? I haven't seen it yet so I am really asking this seriously.

 

[kellerpaulsdad]

Whole home dvr is ok it works but not like you are expecting, you must have hd recievers at any location you want to share viewing. then you can only use at 2 locations at once so its almost the same as a 622/ 625 on dish.

 

[NotMe546]

Whole home dvr is ok it works but not like you are expecting, you must have hd recievers at any location you want to share viewing. then you can only use at 2 locations at once so its almost the same as a 622/ 625 on dish.

 

[cparker]

I was envisioning an HD DVR in the living room and also one in the bedroom. If it will work reliably to allow us to watch stuff that was recorded on the living rooom DVR in the bedroom and vice versa, then it meets the need.

However, if I'm dreaming and it really doesn't work as advertised, then I may as well stay with Dish, where I don't need an AM21 to record OTA stuff.

I'm just frustrated I think.

Although I did just go stomp through D*'s web site and over the course of a year I'd save about $400 and then my monthly bill would go up.... to just a few dollars less than I'm currently paying E*.

It really is a hassle to change though

 

[am7crew]

thats how it works and if you dont want to go the DECA way you can always hard wire your DVR's with ethernet connections which I did and it works fine. No problems so far at all with all 4 of my DVR's networked.

 

[harshness]

If you can find the content you want, jump. I don't think DISH has much interest in MRV.

On the other hand, if you like the DISH EHD feature, you'll hate DIRECTV's eSATA misfeature.

I much prefer the usable EHD feature myself and it remains one of the biggest reasons that I'm not likely to switch. I enjoy my archives too much to give them up every time I change equipment.

 

[scottbakertemp]

I have a similar situation where I want to be able to watch recordings at the main TV and in the office. I was also hoping the 922 would be the answer, but it's so horribly unreliable as a slingbox.

My proposed solution is to purchase a 4x2 HDMI switch and a HDMI over cat6 extender from monoprice.com. I'm hoping to get this approved through the finance committee in the next few weeks.

 

[navychop]

I think there's been enough hints dropped recently that we can expect something along these lines from Dish, possibly before CES. Gotta be more than Google TV coming.

 

[kcaudiofx]

First off dtv's mrv (multi-room viewing) is NOTHING like dish's. The quote of having an hd receiver in any location you want to view dvr IS correct, yes.. I am going to use this as an example though.. A customer has 2 HD's and ONE HDDVR... the HDDVR can be recording one show while watching another, the 1st HD can pull up something off of the HDDVR and watch it, and so can the 2nd HD receiver all at the same time.. the ONLY downfall of a new user getting this is the out of pocket.. the promotion NOW gives you a HDDVR and one HD receiver free, any HD or HDDVR passed that amount there is the upfront fee.. other than that the MRV is very very nice and is flawless in my opinion.. Starting Oct 7th the Internet Connection Kit (which is NOT required for MRV) comes FREE with the install, as of NOW, it costs $25.00

 

[Liquidforce88]

Whole Home Skinny

You can network all MRV capable receivers together. That means all HD equipment. If you want more than 1 DVR it's an extra 200. Want more than 1 HD it's an extra 100. You can get 1 HD & 1 HDVR free on the initial order. Any other HDDVR's or HD and you will pay 200 and 100 for them.

So you can network several MRV receivers. The thing is only the DVR's can DVR....thats right I don't agree with them calling it Whole Home DVR, because it's not. All those HD receivers can not pause live TV. That is a major feature for me. Yes you can watch what is on the DVR's at the locations with the HD receivers, but only 1 receiver at a time can access what is on a DVR, unless they have changed it recently because every time I have tried it only one could work at a time.

So if you want to pause at multiple locations you are going to need more than 1 DVR, and you want more than 2 HD locations, be ready to pony up some cash to get them.

 

[mike123abc]

It would be good for Dish to get a whole house DVR system out. One that could record/playback 6-8 streams at once. But, of course, there will be issues. One is home networking. It would require gigabit or multiple 100mbit lines out of the box to deliver. If they do multimedia over coax MoCA 2.0 would be required. Then of course they have to decide what they are going to use at the end nodes. DNLA? Sling?

 

[whitewolf8214]

I have a similar situation where I want to be able to watch recordings at the main TV and in the office. I was also hoping the 922 would be the answer, but it's so horribly unreliable as a slingbox.

My proposed solution is to purchase a 4x2 HDMI switch and a HDMI over cat6 extender from monoprice.com. I'm hoping to get this approved through the finance committee in the next few weeks.

i have great success with my 922 as a slingbox

 

[cparker]

I already have my receivers on hard wired ethernet so that's no problem. I've never activated the EHD so that's not an issue. And I was just on D*'s site and the promo running for the next 9 days would give me one HD DVR free and instead of just an HD receiver I could get a second HD DVR for $99.

What D*'s site does NOT show me is how much it would cost to add an AM21 to the main HD DVR or the other HD DVR. Why is that such a secret?

And if I add the AM21 to both receivers, does that then allow me to record 3 things at a time or are you still limited to recording only 2 things at a time? And come to think of it.... if you add an AM21 for OTA, can you record from the AM21 (OTA) and one satellite tuner while watching the other satellite tuner in real time? 'Cause that's how we'd want to use it. Otherwise I'd just go OTA direct to the TV if we can only record off 2 tuners at a time.

Wife's reaction to all of this is "We already HAVE satellite service", to which I reply, "Yeah, but we don't have whole house DVR AND we could save $400 this year on service."

I'm not sure she's on board with changing. I thought if nothing else she'd go for saving $400.

 

[nsafreak]

Some wives don't like the idea of going to something new if what they already have works fine even if it does save them money.

 

[DishSubLA]

Whole home dvr is ok it works but not like you are expecting, you must have hd recievers at any location you want to share viewing. then you can only use at 2 locations at once so its almost the same as a 622/ 625 on dish.

Thanks for the clarification. I have been trying to find out how it really worked. It certainly isn't what I had hoped. It is certainly far from "whole home" DVR solution. I don't think any provider out there has a true "whole home" DVR solution. They all seem to be variants of DirecTV's.

 

[SpaethCo]

And if I add the AM21 to both receivers, does that then allow me to record 3 things at a time or are you still limited to recording only 2 things at a time?

The HR2x series only has 2 tuners -- unlike the Dish receivers, the AM21 requires the resources of one of those tuners when it is being used. So you can add the AM21, but you will still only be able to record 2 things at once.

As for the whole home DVR, the implementation on DirecTV still feels half-baked, but can work quite well if you can live with the negatives.

The Good
- Same-as-local video quality when streaming over the network. (Digital is digital)
- When you pull up your list of recorded programs, you're presented with a sorted list of all of the programs on every DVR on the network in one common menu. The user selection and playback interface is well integrated as a whole-home unit.
- User AI for viewing and management is seamless. You can navigate (ff/rewind/etc), stop on one unit play from the same point on another unit, and delete programs out of the central list regardless of DVR.

The Bad
- Each DVR can only stream one program over the network at a time, so don't plan on getting a DVR and a bunch of HD receivers and expect to be happy with the outcome.
- Each program can only be accessed by one DVR at a time. 2 people can't watch the same recording at a time, and you can't pause in one room and resume in another like the DirecTV commercials show. You have to hit stop to free up the program on one DVR, then you can select it for playback on another DVR.

The Ugly
- There is no central timer management. Even though the DVRs are networked together to share recorded content, you need to setup timers for recording on each DVR independently. There is no central to-do list, and the boxes cannot push a recording onto another DVR in the event of a conflict, so a good portion of your recording conflict management needs to be handled manually.
- The HD non-DVR receivers can schedule a new recording and have it sent to a DVR (similar to submitting a recording via the on-line tool), but that is the extent of their integration. Still no common To-Do, and the receivers cannot delete timers from the DVRs.

 

[sonylcd]

With the rumored drastic price reduction in HDTV's for this holiday season, I believe that a lot of people are going to have their entire house swapped out with HD screens soon. DISH really needs to recognize the attractiveness of the DirecTV Whole House DVR system...and get the sling extender out to customers. A SD out on TV2 just isn't cutting it any more. It is an amazing competitive advantage for DirecTV right now.

 

[NotMe546]

With the rumored drastic price reduction in HDTV's for this holiday season, I believe that a lot of people are going to have their entire house swapped out with HD screens soon. DISH really needs to recognize the attractiveness of the DirecTV Whole House DVR system...and get the sling extender out to customers. A SD out on TV2 just isn't cutting it any more. It is an amazing competitive advantage for DirecTV right now.

If you say so.