# HR44 vs HR24



## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

Aside from the obvious difference between the 2 units (number of tuners, genie vs not) how do the 2 units compare as far as basic functionality is concerned? Is the HR44 faster for things like channel changing, deleting recordings, etc?


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## damondlt (Feb 27, 2006)

My HR24 works and function extremely well.
I'm told HR44 is way faster. But with my brief use of my sisters HR44 it's not that much faster , everyone told me the HR24 was lightning fast, and it's not. But it's decent.
H25 is the fastest directv receiver to date.

So between HR24 and 44 it's kind of a no brainer to go with the 44, since they are the same price monthly.


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## damondlt (Feb 27, 2006)

Also HR 24 will only stream 1 remote location at a time.
HR44 will do 3.


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## dpeters11 (May 30, 2007)

damondlt said:


> My HR24 works and function extremely well.
> I'm told HR44 is way faster. But with my brief use of my sisters HR44 it's not that much faster , everyone told me the HR24 was lightning fast, and it's not. But it's decent.
> H25 is the fastest directv receiver to date.
> 
> So between HR24 and 44 it's kind of a no brainer to go with the 44, since they are the same price monthly.


But there would be a price increase if Whole Home currently isn't on the account.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

My HR44 is certainly faster than my HR24. But whether or not the difference is enough to upgrade from a 24 to a 44 is another question. Unless there are other specific reasons you want to upgrade, I probably wouldn't just for speed.


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

carl6 said:


> My HR44 is certainly faster than my HR24. But whether or not the difference is enough to upgrade from a 24 to a 44 is another question. Unless there are other specific reasons you want to upgrade, I probably wouldn't just for speed.


Thanks, That's what I was wondering about. I have more than enough recording capacity with 5 other DVRs around the house and whole home so this would just be to boost the speed of the unit in my main room.


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## damondlt (Feb 27, 2006)

HR 24 is by far faster than Any HR20,21,22,23

Even HR34 is faster than the 24 when Directv gets the right software , which anymore seems rare.
My HR 24, and H25 is the most stable receivers in my collection.
Even my C31 hooked to my HR34 is faster than my HR23.


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

I have 3 HR20s and they are faster than any HR21, 22 or 23, but not the 24.

One of my HR24s has recently slowed down. No clue why.


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## damondlt (Feb 27, 2006)

dminches said:


> I have 3 HR20s and they are faster than any HR21, 22 or 23, but not the 24.
> 
> One of my HR24s has recently slowed down. No clue why.


My guess new software?

It seems to me Directv has a habit of getting a good solid software version , and then the very next one, takes it back 2 steps. 
Then it takes 4 steps to get back to where it was.


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

Only Genies have PIP


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

And just in case it matters, the Genie is SWM only while and HR24 can be used in both DirecTV® systems (legacy and SWM)


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

I do have a SWM system so I can use both. Thanks for the reply.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

dminches said:


> Thanks, That's what I was wondering about. I have more than enough recording capacity with 5 other DVRs around the house and whole home so this would just be to boost the speed of the unit in my main room.


Get an hr44 and a genie mini and toss two dvrs. That will also save money because of the smaller electricity use. And Id toss your two slowest dvrs, and use your hr24 in another room, unless you have all hr24s. You only gain doing this.


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

inkahauts said:


> Get an hr44 and a genie mini and toss two dvrs. That will also save money because of the smaller electricity use. And Id toss your two slowest dvrs, and use your hr24 in another room, unless you have all hr24s. You only gain doing this.


Agree.


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

inkahauts said:


> Get an hr44 and a genie mini and toss two dvrs. That will also save money because of the smaller electricity use. And Id toss your two slowest dvrs, and use your hr24 in another room, unless you have all hr24s. You only gain doing this.


My only hesitancy in doing that is that I hate losing so many recordings when the HD goes. That's why I have maintained the multiple DVR instead of Genie approach. I have my recordings spread out over the various DVRs. Generally, I record each show on 2 DVRs as a backup. With the Genie setup, if you lose a genie HD you lose a lot.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

dminches said:


> My only hesitancy in doing that is that I hate losing so many recordings when the HD goes.


Agree


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

My HR44 is definitely faster than my HR24, so is my HR34. 

I'm also in the group where I record shows that are important to me on multiple DVR's. I record some even via OTA in case I lose satellite signal.


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## Bill Van (Feb 12, 2008)

dminches said:


> My only hesitancy in doing that is that I hate losing so many recordings when the HD goes. That's why I have maintained the multiple DVR instead of Genie approach. I have my recordings spread out over the various DVRs. Generally, I record each show on 2 DVRs as a backup. With the Genie setup, if you lose a genie HD you lose a lot.


I want you to know there are some software differences when you upgrade to a Genie. For example you get 5 "Search and Browse" options vs 3. You get "Sports" and "TV Shows" search options not found in non Genies. There is a notable speed differences as you move up from HR24 to HR34 and then HR44. When using the new RC71 remote on an HR44 it is lightning fast and this makes the HR24's feel definitely noticeably slower most of the time. You would definitely regret not keeping your HR 24's. My ideal setup for the last 2 1/2 years is one Genie and 2 HR24's. The extra terabyte of storage is actually huge and having 9 tuners not so much. Make the move, you wont regret it, trust me.


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## lyradd (Mar 20, 2006)

Another difference I've noticed is with Pandora. With the HR24 you can listen to Pandora while doing other things like check your To Do List, etc. With the HR44 you can't.


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

Thanks for everyone's comments and suggestions. I just bought an HR44. I assume I can hang an external 2 or 3 TB drive? Does it need to be prepped or will it format like they do in the HR24s?


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

dminches said:


> Thanks for everyone's comments and suggestions. I just bought an HR44. I assume I can hang an external 2 or 3 TB drive? Does it need to be prepped or will it format like they do in the HR24s?


There are some HR44's that will not format a brand new drive. Best bet is to hook it up to any machine and do a quick initialization/format. That way when you add it to any HR44 it will see the drive and re-format it correctly for you.


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

RunnerFL said:


> There are some HR44's that will not format a brand new drive. Best bet is to hook it up to any machine and do a quick initialization/format. That way when you add it to any HR44 it will see the drive and re-format it correctly for you.


That sounds easy enough. I do think that 3 TB is large enough given I have a bunch of other DVRs.


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

RunnerFL said:


> My HR44 is definitely faster than my HR24, so is my HR34.
> 
> I'm also in the group where I record shows that are important to me on multiple DVR's. I record some even via OTA in case I lose satellite signal.


I follow the exact same strategy. OTA when possible, redundant recordings as well spread between HR44 and HR24. Both my HR44-700 and HR24-200 have AM21N OTA boxes on them.

...and the 44 is considerably faster, quite noticeable. than the 24. Now...if I never had a 44 and went from HR20 to HR24, I would see a nice speed jump and not be aware of the even higher speed of the 44.


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## inkahauts (Nov 13, 2006)

dminches said:


> That sounds easy enough. I do think that 3 TB is large enough given I have a bunch of other DVRs.


It depends on if price is an issue, if not, I'd go 4tb myself.

And if you have a hard drive that is starting to fail and use externals, the nice thing is, there is a way to copy that external to a new drive and then you don't lose anything, since you are not changing DVRs. I have done that a couple times and its worked perfect. you can usually tell when a DVR drive is failing pretty easy before it does completely.

Or really go for broke and use a raid system for the external you plug into it. . I'd run a raid 10 with 4 4tb drives if I could afford it, just because I could. :lol:


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

inkahauts said:


> It depends on if price is an issue, if not, I'd go 4tb myself.
> 
> And if you have a hard drive that is starting to fail and use externals, the nice thing is, there is a way to copy that external to a new drive and then you don't lose anything, since you are not changing DVRs. I have done that a couple times and its worked perfect. you can usually tell when a DVR drive is failing pretty easy before it does completely.
> 
> Or really go for broke and use a raid system for the external you plug into it. . I'd run a raid 10 with 4 4tb drives if I could afford it, just because I could. :lol:


Will any raid array work? I guess the fact that there is no capacity limit is a change from the HR2X DVRs. I would much prefer to use that so drive failures won't kill recordings.


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

dminches said:


> Will any raid array work? I guess the fact that there is no capacity limit is a change from the HR2X DVRs. I would much prefer to use that so drive failures won't kill recordings.


I've tested 2 drive enclosure using RAID0 and RAID1. I've also tested a 4 drive enclosure using RAID5 and RAID10. No issues as long as the RAID "card" is built into the enclosure.


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

It seems like you have successfully used SANS DIGITAL MobileSTOR MS4UT+B. I will have to figure out how many discs to use and what size. I could go with 2 4 TB drives under raid 5 which would just give me 4 TB of storage.


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

dminches said:


> It seems like you have successfully used SANS DIGITAL MobileSTOR MS4UT+B. I will have to figure out how many discs to use and what size. I could go with 2 4 TB drives under raid 5 which would just give me 4 TB of storage.


You can't do RAID5 with only 2 drives. RAID requires 4 drives. Right now I'm running that same unit on my HR44 using 4x 2TB drives in RAID5 to give me 6TB. I'm also using that enclosure on my HR34 with 4x 3TB drives in RAID5 to give me 9TB's.

With 2 drives you're limited to RAID1 or RAID0 and RAID0 gives you no backup.


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## acostapimps (Nov 6, 2011)

RunnerFL said:


> You can't do RAID5 with only 2 drives. RAID requires 4 drives. Right now I'm running that same unit on my HR44 using 4x 2TB drives in RAID5 to give me 6TB. I'm also using that enclosure on my HR34 with 4x 3TB drives in RAID5 to give me 9TB's.
> 
> With 2 drives you're limited to RAID1 or RAID0 and RAID0 gives you no backup.


And then the receivers fail and guess where those recordings end up, then start from scratch from a replacement, But at least you'll have plenty of space you don't have to worry about :biggrin:


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## acostapimps (Nov 6, 2011)

Directv should really consider the recordings transfer per account, So many can do replacements with confidence, and not have to worry about watching unviewed recordings before returning DVR's back, But this has fallen on deaf ears for years.


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

acostapimps said:


> And then the receivers fail and guess where those recordings end up, then start from scratch from a replacement, But at least you'll have plenty of space you don't have to worry about :biggrin:


Wow, it never fails. I bring up how much space I have and someone bashes me for it and has to interject that if the unit fails I lose my recordings.... Guess what? I KNOW!


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

RunnerFL said:


> Wow, it never fails. I bring up how much space I have and someone bashes me for it and has to interject that if the unit fails I lose my recordings.... Guess what? I KNOW!


Don't fret. Some people see the glass as half empty.


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## Richard L Bray (Aug 19, 2006)

Another difference. My 24-500 output RGB. My 44-500 outputs YCbCr. My prior TV, Panasonic VT25, did not play nice with RGB. I had to use a video processor to change input to YCbCr.


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

Richard L Bray said:


> Another difference. My 24-500 output RGB. My 44-500 outputs YCbCr. My prior TV, Panasonic VT25, did not play nice with RGB. I had to use a video processor to change input to YCbCr.


True, but I believe RGB is the HR24-500 only.


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

I received my HR44 yesterday, hooked it up and activated it as owned so I am good to go. I am still waiting for my external raid enclosure.

RunnerFL, I got the enclosure you recommended. Should I set everything up via my PC and then attach it to the HR44? Is that your recommendation?


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

dminches said:


> I received my HR44 yesterday, hooked it up and activated it as owned so I am good to go. I am still waiting for my external raid enclosure.
> 
> RunnerFL, I got the enclosure you recommended. Should I set everything up via my PC and then attach it to the HR44? Is that your recommendation?


Setup of the enclosure itself doesn't require a PC. You only need the PC to initialize the "drive".


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## dminches (Oct 1, 2006)

I have had the Genie for over a week now and, as several said, it is noticeably faster than an HR24 for menu and guide movement.

I hope they come out with non-Genie replacements for the 24 that have the same speed at the HR44. Maybe it is software-related or hardware-related, but it is nice to have a "faster" machine. 

And thanks to RunnerFL for assistance with the Sans Digital external. I have 4 2 TB drives in a raid 5 array which gives me 5.6 TB of recording space.


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## Jason Whiddon (Aug 17, 2006)

RunnerFL said:


> True, but I believe RGB is the HR24-500 only.


You are correct.

I recently sent my client back and got an HR24 in the bedroom to use for backup recordings. I added a 2TB EHD to it and it records everything the genie does, granted some are at a later date because of all the conflicts 2 tuners creates. Regardless, if one craps out I will be covered on the other 

To the OP, the speed difference between the HR44 and HR24 is very noticeable. I would not want to go back to an HR24 as the primary.


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