# How I solved (I hope) my DVR problems



## leetaylor (Nov 2, 2006)

I had a good old HDVR2 that I was completely happy with. It never dropped a show, it worked as advertised since the day I bought it. Then the hard drive croaked.

So I called DirecTV, and they said they'd send me their wonderful new R-15. They let me keep my dead DTivo. The R-15 worked fine for about 3 weeks, and there were even some things about it that I liked (like Caller ID). Then it started dropping recordings. Sometimes it records, sometimes it doesn't. The best you can hope for is that "maybe" your program will record.

Called DirecTV back, and I was going to go ahead and get a HR-20. Retention nicely credited me almost the whole cost, but I got stuck on the fact that they wanted a year committment to the HD package. I don't give a whit about the HD package. All I wanted was HD HBO and HD locals, and I don't even really care that much about them. I just wanted the "latest" DVR. So I said forget it.

I went back and dug out my dead DTivo. Bought a new 160 M drive on sale for about $50 and downloaded InstantCake for $20. Voila. I now have a functioning 147+ hour Tivo again. I moved the R-15 to the bedroom in place of the old Hughes non-DVR receiver. That way it can serve as a pausable, rewindable, etc. receiver, and maybe occasionally record something my wife wants to watch in bed. 

It took a bit of CSR angst on the phone trying to get both receivers working with two different types of DVR service, and having to swith the old non-DVR access card to my "new" Tivo, but eventually I got a second level support gal from OK who knew what she was doing and fixed me right up.

IMHO, the R-15 software is just not ready for prime time as a dependable DVR. Likely it never will be, since it's probably intended as a stopgap device anyway.

Lee


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## walters (Nov 18, 2005)

leetaylor said:


> I moved the R-15 to the bedroom in place of the old Hughes non-DVR receiver. That way it can serve as a pausable, rewindable, etc. receiver, and maybe occasionally record something my wife wants to watch in bed.


Good plan, since that appears to be the designed purpose for the R15.


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## Blitz68 (Apr 19, 2006)

walters said:


> Good plan, since that appears to be the *designed purpose for the R15*.


LOL.. :lol:


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

leetaylor said:


> ...Bought a new 160 M drive on sale for about $50 and downloaded InstantCake for $20. Voila. I now have a functioning 147+ hour Tivo again.


That would be a 160 Gig drive, right?


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## leetaylor (Nov 2, 2006)

qwerty said:


> That would be a 160 Gig drive, right?


Yeah. Hell, I'm old. I can remember buying a 160 Mb drive.

In fact, I can remember buying a 10 Mb drive...

Lee


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## DustyTrail (Nov 13, 2006)

leetaylor said:


> Yeah. Hell, I'm old. I can remember buying a 160 Mb drive.
> 
> In fact, I can remember buying a 10 Mb drive...
> 
> Lee


My first had drive was a 10 mb; I remember thinking _I'll never fill this up!_:lol:


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## Coffey77 (Nov 12, 2006)

I can remember spending a couple hundred bucks on a 1 mb memory board for the Apple IIgs. It was almost as big as the computer itself.


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## dnelms (Nov 20, 2006)

The first computer I built (hell I had a computer from Radio Shack that used cassette player & tape for storage earlier than that) had a 20MB drive. I now create files bigger than that in AutoCAD at work.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

I remember paying $250 for an 8K (8 KILObyte of 8 bit) memory board, and lusting over but not being able to afford a $2000 5meg hard drive.

Carl


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## wohlfie (Dec 28, 2005)

Coffey77 said:


> I can remember spending a couple hundred bucks on a 1 mb memory board for the Apple IIgs. It was almost as big as the computer itself.


I remember hours spent convincing my dad that we should spend the extra $300 (or something like that) for a 16k card to bring our new Apple II+ from 48k to 64k of memory!!!


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Ahhh...we've drifted into a war story thread. Well, they're fun once in a while.  

I worked at Cheyenne Mountain (NORAD) in the late 80's. Our computers had 8K memory cards. They were about 12" square with core memory. A lot of little donut shaped magnets in a grid with wires going through them.


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## Nosey (Mar 12, 2006)

ok, how about running a dial up service (BBS for you old timers) on a TRS-80 model 1 with 4k of memory on a 300 baud modem, mine was the 3rd in the Raleigh, NC area in 1980 and the first to be the fastest in the area at 1200!!! and yes, at first it was just a tape drive, took 15 minutes to load the software for the system, and all messages were lost if it crashed!!!

but then, after $2500 I got a 5meg hard drive that the powersupply/case it went into was the size of the current tower cases, with 2 capaciters(??> the size of a 20oz bottle!!!


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