# Noobie Questions



## burl (Dec 3, 2006)

I have just switched to Direct TV from Dish because of good Direct offers. My installation will be in a week+, DTV DVR R15. After reading reviews elsewhere and R15 questions/comments on this forum am I wise to have chosen the R15? There seem to be many problems, e.g., freezing, not recording, playlist problems, etc. I was considring upgrading w/Dish to their dvr 625, then came the loss of my distant channel feed and Direct's promos. Any comments would be appreciated while I have time to rethink/change my order. Thanks.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

burl said:


> After reading reviews elsewhere and R15 questions/comments on this forum am I wise to have chosen the R15?


If it makes you feel any better, you didn't really have much choice. Some have been able to press for other SD DVRs, but DirecTV really wants new subscribers to go with the R15.


> There seem to be many problems, e.g., freezing, not recording, playlist problems, etc. I was considring upgrading w/Dish to their dvr 625, then came the loss of my distant channel feed and Direct's promos. Any comments would be appreciated while I have time to rethink/change my order.


That depends largely on whether or not you qualify through NPS to regain your DNS. While the promotional offers appear to be quite attractive, remember that they come with an industry leading 24 month programming commitment.

If you feel that you fully understand the terms of the DirecTV deal, you might want to bargain for a refurbished DirecTiVo unit (R10). It has a much better hit rate on recording what you want and lacks only a couple of possibly useful features that the R15 claims.


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## mfreeman73 (May 3, 2006)

If you go with the R15, make sure you get at least two of them. Since the R15 is pretty much a piece of crap and will either not record your program, or poop out while recording it, if you try to record your program on two R15's, you will have a better chance of getting to see your program. I had to get a spare R15 for the other tv for this purpose.


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## Clint Lamor (Nov 15, 2005)

mfreeman73 said:


> If you go with the R15, make sure you get at least two of them. Since the R15 is pretty much a piece of crap and will either not record your program, or poop out while recording it, if you try to record your program on two R15's, you will have a better chance of getting to see your program. I had to get a spare R15 for the other tv for this purpose.


I only have one of them and pretty much never worry about it not recording the shows I ask it to. Milage seems to vary from user to user.


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## Car1181 (Mar 30, 2006)

burl said:


> After reading reviews elsewhere and R15 questions/comments on this forum am I wise to have chosen the R15? There seem to be many problems, e.g., freezing, not recording, playlist problems, etc.


From reading this forum it is obvious that there are serious problems with some R15's. But not all. I have two R15's and no real problems with them. Never missed a recording on either one. Lost caller ID on one unit for a couple of days and had an issue with the MyVOD list on the other but that was months ago and both issues are gone. From my experience I would say go for it.


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## Radio Enginerd (Oct 5, 2006)

Clint Lamor said:


> I only have one of them and pretty much never worry about it not recording the shows I ask it to. Milage seems to vary from user to user.


My experience seems to match Clint. I haven't had a problem with the R15 since I got it in late September.

I'm slightly annoyed with the First Run bug. Records EVERYTHING, even if you set it to only record First Runs.


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## Snopple (Apr 21, 2002)

I've been with DirecTV since 1997. I've always felt that *D's programing and receivers are vastly superior to anything Dish has to offer. Plus I never liked the way Dish did business. I wouldn't even worry about the two year programing commitment. There's no way you're ever going to want to get rid of DirecTV. Any problems you may encounter can be addressed here or at http://www.dbsforums.com

For almost five years, my DirecTV receivers consisted of duel tuner DirecTV DVR's with Tivo. One made by Philips. The other by Samsung.

A few months ago my daughter asked if she could have a DVR for her room. I said fine. As long as she paid for it. But DirecTV said we were eligible for a free upgrade. So they came out and installed an R-15 in her room for free. Then my five year old Philips died. So DirectTV replaced it with another R-15. Also for free.

At first I hated the things. The Tivo based units are much easier to use. But I think it was just a case of having to get used to a different interface. For example, my wife was flipping because one of her "Dancing with the Stars" didn't record. But that was probably because we didn't fully understand how to use the Series Link and the prioritizer.

Then my daughters unit wouldn't record anything. So I called DirecTV and explained the problem. A very knowledge young lady talked me through a master reset. Within 10 minutes everything was working. And she hasn't had any trouble since.

Other than that, the only real gripe I have with the R-15 is the small buttons on the remote. The manual leaves a lot to be desired, and sometimes the unit is slow to respond to commands from the remote.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

Snopple said:


> Then my daughters unit wouldn't record anything. So I called DirecTV and explained the problem. A very knowledge young lady talked me through a master reset. Within 10 minutes everything was working. And she hasn't had any trouble since.


There ya go, that's the key to a properly working R15. Do a Red Button RESET once a week and every few months do the reformat....loosing all of your SLs and recordings. That's the sure fire way of keeping a R15 working close to how a Tivo works. Or, buy a used Tivo.


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## jwd45244 (Aug 18, 2006)

I have had a properly working R-15 since I got it in August. I have never done a reset. I have had only 1 minor issue in that the box recorded an SL episode and then recorded the show right after it. Not much of a problem.

I think that the right answer is "that your mileage may vary".


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## Snopple (Apr 21, 2002)

Wolffpack said:


> There ya go, that's the key to a properly working R15. Do a Red Button RESET once a week and every few months do the reformat....loosing all of your SLs and recordings. That's the sure fire way of keeping a R15 working close to how a Tivo works. Or, buy a used Tivo.


Hopefully, the Master Reset or reformat we had to do on my daughters R-15 was just a glitch that occurs with electronics. If we have to do it again any time soon, then I'll be ticked.

Other than that, both our R-15's have performed flawlessly. Any other problems we've had are largely been do to our not being familiar with R-15's interface. Which is a bit different that the Tivo based machines.

Over at http://www.dbsforums.com, a gentlemen known as carl6 posted the following:

<the R15 tends to exhibit instability or problems under the following conditions:

1) having a LOT of series links (more than 20 to 25).

2) doing a lot of searches, and/or setting up recordings via searches instead of using the guide.

3) making a lot of changes in the prioritizer. The more basic you keep your usage of it, the more reliable it will tend to be.>


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## qwerty (Feb 19, 2006)

Snopple said:


> Over at http://www.dbsforums.com, a gentlemen known as carl6 posted the following:
> 
> <the R15 tends to exhibit instability or problems under the following conditions:
> 
> ...


That gentleman is a regular here. How old was that post? I believe the stability cited has improved with updates back in Aug.


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## Wolffpack (Jul 29, 2003)

Snopple said:


> Hopefully, the Master Reset or reformat we had to do on my daughters R-15 was just a glitch that occurs with electronics. If we have to do it again any time soon, then I'll be ticked.
> 
> Other than that, both our R-15's have performed flawlessly. Any other problems we've had are largely been do to our not being familiar with R-15's interface. Which is a bit different that the Tivo based machines.
> 
> ...


I've been running my R15 with 50 SLs for over a week now and I haven't run into any problems other than it's been recording alot of partials given the schedule I have setup. Moving around entries in the prioritizer is SLOOOOOOW but I still haven't had any lockups or failed recordings. It still doesn't do a good job at telling between First Run/Repeats but I understand that's been addressed in a new update due out...."any time", "soon", "shortly" but not "very soon" in Earl-speak.

Then again, I do a RBR once a week.


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## carl6 (Nov 16, 2005)

Yep, I am here too. Those comments are kind of generic - based on lots of posts mostly on this forum. As a generalization people who are heavier users tend to have more problems.

Carl


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## cabanaboy1977 (Nov 16, 2005)

Yeah, mine have been working ok up untill last week. I had to RBR 2 of mine on different days. They locked up and wouldn't turn on at all. It does still seem to hold what Carl wrote before. It definately has gotten better but those three things still seem to cause issues.


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## IndyColts (Nov 28, 2006)

Radio Enginerd said:


> My experience seems to match Clint. I haven't had a problem with the R15 since I got it in late September.
> 
> I'm slightly annoyed with the First Run bug. Records EVERYTHING, even if you set it to only record First Runs.


Good to know it's not just me then, I was going nuts trying to figure that out! :grin:

I've only had my R15 for 2-3 weeks and I've already noticed some buginess like slow transitions between menus, froze up once, lost all my locals then had to reboot. Last night we were watching a Christmas movie and it just decided to stop recording the one we were watching and start recording another 

Hopefully they can get the kinks worked out soon - luckily I have a half-working Tivo Series 2 in the bedroom to serve as a backup.


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## evcomp (Nov 19, 2006)

ot my r15 in Aug and it just started having issues. Freezing up when resuming paused TV playback, black screens, missed recordings, etc. Directv has told me that I need to reformat the drive, but still have shows I want to watch. Now trying to figure out an easy way to get them off the DVR so I can view them later. So far nothing easy has presented itself. Will probably just end up reformatting and hoping for the best. I too was a DISH member for the past 6 years and will say that although the picture is better with DTV, the PVR500 worked much better. SW was rock solid and there was no lag times when using the remote during FF or RW. Just get the best deal.


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