# Hate your HD-DVR? I apologize to all of you...



## jfalkingham (Dec 6, 2005)

Ok, so I had a HR20-700 that worked great. Never had an issue, NEVER! I would read reports from folks complaining about this or that and always wondered what the big deal was. Well, my HR20 moved on to greener pastures. They sent an HR22-100 as a replacement. This thing is SLOOOOOOOOW. The menus, the channel changes, the series links, the response is ridiculously slow. I have the settings the same as was on my HR20, but man, what a piece. So now I am on the other side of the fence, with a receiver that sucks compared to what I had and its making me hate DIRECTV, which I have had since '94. 

So - to all of the folks that had problems that I could not believe, I apologize. I am now with you :grin:


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

jfalkingham said:


> Ok, so I had a HR20-700 that worked great. Never had an issue, NEVER! I would read reports from folks complaining about this or that and always wondered what the big deal was. Well, my HR20 moved on to greener pastures. They sent an HR22-100 as a replacement. This thing is SLOOOOOOOOW. The menus, the channel changes, the series links, the response is ridiculously slow. I have the settings the same as was on my HR20, but man, what a piece. So now I am on the other side of the fence, with a receiver that sucks compared to what I had and its making me hate DIRECTV, which I have had since '94.
> 
> So - to all of the folks that had problems that I could not believe, I apologize. I am now with you :grin:


Just goes to show ya how different people's experiences can be. I had an HR20-700 that I fought with for over a year but didn't want to give up because of the OTA. Once our locals came on line, I finally had it replaced with an HR22-100 and most of my problems disappeared...


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## LameLefty (Sep 29, 2006)

I have an HR20-700 that's 29 months old and an HR22-100 that's three months old and both of 'em work fine. 

(I also have an HR21-700 that's I've had for 15 months and an R22-200 that I've had for almost a year that work great too).


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

I have both HR20s and a HR21.
Yes my HR20 is faster and I believe DirecTV is planning to work on the HR21/22/23 to improve its speed.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

jfalkingham said:


> Ok, so I had a HR20-700 that worked great. Never had an issue, NEVER! I would read reports from folks complaining about this or that and always wondered what the big deal was. Well, my HR20 moved on to greener pastures. They sent an HR22-100 as a replacement. This thing is SLOOOOOOOOW. The menus, the channel changes, the series links, the response is ridiculously slow. I have the settings the same as was on my HR20, but man, what a piece. So now I am on the other side of the fence, with a receiver that sucks compared to what I had and its making me hate DIRECTV, which I have had since '94.
> 
> So - to all of the folks that had problems that I could not believe, I apologize. I am now with you :grin:


I have to eat crow too. I bought a new TV (couldn't resist the price) and found I didn't have an HR for it. (I always plan ahead, once I sold a rifle so I could buy a scope for it, true story.) I tried everything I could think of to find a 23 and failed and had to buy an HR22-100. After all my ranting and raving about 100s and I had to buy one. Naturally, the damn thing works perfectly. I feel like such a hypocrite every time I turn it on

Rich


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

I'm still not 100% convinced that the problem is with the specific models, but that its actually the individual units that might be suspect. For example, out of spec memory, or a poor performing hard drive, etc, something that my not be quite right in the box itself, but not bad enough to actually cause it to not work. But I could be wrong here. But if you gave me 10 identical PCs, and ran benchtests on them, you would get 10 different results, so I relate it to that analogy.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

I've got an HR22-100 that's slow as a slug, and four HR20-700's and one R22-200 that zip along, relatively speaking. The HR22-100 replaced an HR21-700, also a slow-poke. All the boxes are currently running the same software release. /steve


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## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

CCarncross said:


> I'm still not 100% convinced that the problem is with the specific models, but that its actually the individual units that might be suspect. For example, out of spec memory, or a poor performing hard drive, etc, something that my not be quite right in the box itself, but not bad enough to actually cause it to not work. But I could be wrong here. But if you gave me 10 identical PCs, and ran benchtests on them, you would get 10 different results, so I relate it to that analogy.


IMHO, it's 99% software. I have had a HR20-700 since October 2006 and I have had a HR21-700 from the release date. My HR20 was a disaster at first, but I stuck with it, and after all the software updates, it has been reliable for a year or so. The HR21, on the other hand, alternates between really slow and just as fast as the HR20. It varies with the software release. The current release for the HR21 is REALLY SLOOOOOOW. Particularly annoying when used alongside the HR20 (both are connected to the same TV). The only other difference between the two is that the HR21 has only 1 iteam in the prioritizer (Islanders - Sports - Hockey), whereas the 20 has 41 items in the prioritizer.

Nevertheless, I'll stick with it, and with the next software release it will probably be just as fast as the HR20 again (until the next release, that is).


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

Part of the problem is that when people post about their problems other people who typicaly are senior testers on this forum who often own 3 or 4 DVR's always come out and say that it works fine. 

My take is that they think it works fine but in truth things may may not be as fine as they say, but because of redundancy they never experience the same level of frustration that a person with a single DVR experiences so they dont get upset.

Eg. a person with three DVR's may set 2 of them to record CSI Miami, so if even one of them works he's cool. While other poor Kn0bs like me who only have one DVR get home and find they have just been Boned


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## EricJRW (Jul 6, 2008)

I'm getting ready to take another serious look at AT&T's U-Verse... I'm sure it's going to have its own unique quirks and problems, but it's getting harder and harder to keep sending D* money for a such a frustrating experience. When my DVR works, it's great... But now I've experienced the "scheduled show gets removed from the To do list" problem, and that just defeats the purpose of a DVR.


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## Tom Robertson (Nov 15, 2005)

dreadlk said:


> Part of the problem is that when people post about their problems other people who typicaly are senior testers on this forum who often own 3 or 4 DVR's always come out and say that it works fine.
> 
> My take is that they think it works fine but in truth things may may not be as fine as they say, but because of redundancy they never experience the same level of frustration that a person with a single DVR experiences so they dont get upset.
> 
> Eg. a person with three DVR's may set 2 of them to record CSI Miami, so if even one of them works he's cool. While other poor Kn0bs like me who only have one DVR get home and find they have just been Boned


I can't speak for anyone but me.

I very, very rarely have problems with my DVRs. Admittedly, I don't get to check every recording on every DVR, but most of them are used regularly.

Note, I don't say I don't have any problems. 

I also recognize that even tho I might not see certain problems, does not mean they don't exist. 

Cheers,
Tom


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## jfalkingham (Dec 6, 2005)

I will say this - I agree its software related. I was able to run some external tests on key components, everything looked fine from a hardware perspective. The onboard network was another story, there was a sort of throttle on it via the pass through, which makes no sense based on the board that I could see, but that was the only thing I saw. Anyway, I'm also certain that updates (whenever they come) will resolve over time. I almost think this thing is continually indexing, which could cause the slowdown. Not sure why, but just a hunch....

Anyway, I don't really hate DIRECTV, I just hate that my good HR20-100 died to be replaced by a slow learning HR22-100.


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## roadrunner1782 (Sep 28, 2008)

My HR22-100 varies from slow to moderate speed. I've never considered it fast by no means, not that I can really complain about that since it works as it's supposed to. I just hope Directv is working to get the boxes to respond quicker and not just concerning themselves with adding new features that may just make them even slower!


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

CCarncross said:


> I'm still not 100% convinced that the problem is with the specific models, but that its actually the individual units that might be suspect. For example, out of spec memory, or a poor performing hard drive, etc, something that my not be quite right in the box itself, but not bad enough to actually cause it to not work. But I could be wrong here. But if you gave me 10 identical PCs, and ran benchtests on them, you would get 10 different results, so I relate it to that analogy.


I don't doubt that, I've got two HR20-100's sitting side by side, one of them has been nearly flawless since I've had it, the other one has had all kinds of problems, come in and it's frozen or playing, but won't accept any commands without a reboot, various recording issues, at other times, both normally get updates at the same time, right now, both of them seem to be working fine, when the guide issue happened last Saturday night, one of them got hit and the other one never missed a beat.

Both boxes were installed the same day, and they both experience completely different problems. Something is squirrely for sure with software or hardware.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

rebkell said:


> I don't doubt that, I've got two HR20-100's sitting side by side, one of them has been nearly flawless since I've had it, the other one has had all kinds of problems, come in and it's frozen or playing, but won't accept any commands without a reboot, various recording issues, at other times, both normally get updates at the same time, right now, both of them seem to be working fine, when the guide issue happened last Saturday night, one of them got hit and the other one never missed a beat.
> 
> Both boxes were installed the same day, and they both experience completely different problems. Something is squirrely for sure with software or hardware.


In your case it CAN'T be software, you are running two identical models. This is a closed system as far as software goes, if they are running the same version of software, it cannot be software if the models are from the same manufacturer.


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## srevis (Sep 20, 2007)

I am one who has had very few problems with my hr's (3 of them) but am hopeful for the new tivo box when it releases hopefully still this year.


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## erosroadie (Jan 9, 2007)

srevis said:


> I am one who has had very few problems with my hr's (3 of them) but am hopeful for the new tivo box when it releases hopefully still this year.


Not sure if this applies to the thread, but my HR21-700 and HR20-100 are sometimes cumbersome to change channels, rewind, etc. They both have two sat lines going in (as well as separate OTA (AM21 for the HR21)). However, my beloved HR10-250 (HD TiVo) has only one line going in (bedroom, don't want to string another cable) and it is lightning fast to any remote command.

So, is it the unit, the software release version, the number of sat leads, or some other-worldly reason???


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## jeffstra (Jun 23, 2006)

My HR20-700 has had various problems that seem to come and go. From needing to reset every couple of days or get gray screen instead of my recorded program to no problem at all for months. From work I set my recorder to record President Obama's news conference the other day (a great feature) but when I got home all I had was a short gray screen and yet the News Hour recorded just fine the following hour with no intervention on my part. I hit RBR anyway. Whatever the problem they need to fix it.


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

CCarncross said:


> I'm still not 100% convinced that the problem is with the specific models, but that its actually the individual units that might be suspect. For example, out of spec memory, or a poor performing hard drive, etc, something that my not be quite right in the box itself, but not bad enough to actually cause it to not work. But I could be wrong here. But if you gave me 10 identical PCs, and ran benchtests on them, you would get 10 different results, so I relate it to that analogy.


But PCs are an open system. DVRs are a closed system. If you bought 10 PCs fresh out of the box and immediately tested them, they would essentially be closed. And they would all perform identically unless some of them were DOA. But that would be obvious.

I relate it to the fact that the HR-2xs are horrible products. If some people are lucky and some are not, that's a bad product. Products aren't supposed to work well for some people and give other people headaches. They are supposed to work consistently for everybody. "Poor performing hard drive"? They should be all be the same! Or at least put in a way for the customer to detect and fix bad sectors.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

It seems everyone points to what their most familiar with.
Software people say it's the software, while hardware people think it's the hardware.
Being a hardware guy, and having some experience in manufacturing, having different "results" from the same hardware, would seem to point to the hardware. 
Perhaps the software could be improved to be more tolerant of timing issues, but isn't this really the only thing that could be software related?
Poor manufacturing processes, lack of quality testing, seems much more likely/probable.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> I've got an HR22-100 that's slow as a slug, and four HR20-700's and one R22-200 that zip along, relatively speaking. The HR22-100 replaced an HR21-700, also a slow-poke. All the boxes are currently running the same software release. /steve


Ah, I really hate to say this, but my 22-100 is no slower than my two good 21-700s or my 21-200. And they are really not much slower than my good old 20-700s.

The 21-700 in my hidey-hole has been used for testing various eSATAs and was deeply wounded by a cheap HDMI switch. It is also surrounded by so many EM fields that neither my cell phone or my wireless phone works correctly in that room. That one is noticeably slower than the rest. But if I go upstairs and watch the content of that 700 in another room it works just as fast as the rest of them.

I don't know whether it's just a case of getting used to the difference between the 20s and 21s, but they seem pretty close to me. I know this goes against everything that's been posted about the relative speeds of the various models, but this is a true statement of my experiences.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

CCarncross said:


> I'm still not 100% convinced that the problem is with the specific models, but that its actually the individual units that might be suspect.


I agree and I think it is a way of rooting out bad units. Every NR that comes out causes problems with some HRs and there really seems to be no pattern. That leads me to conclude that you are correct in your assumption. I've thought this was the case for quite a while.

Rich


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## cfilkins (Mar 16, 2007)

Just thought i'd chime in...I have a pair of HR22's, and how quickly they respond seems to change daily. One day it's great and speedy and usable, the next day it's 1-2 seconds from pressing a button on the remote to seeing anything happen on screen.

Being a computer guy myself, this doesn't make a ton of sense for a "closed" system, and I don't imagine it'd be a hardware issue. It's almost like trying to use a computer while Windows tries to run updates in the background...it degrades system performance. But I can't imagine what "programs" are running mid-day on my satellite receivers.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

dreadlk said:


> Part of the problem is that when people post about their problems other people who typicaly are senior testers on this forum who often own 3 or 4 DVR's always come out and say that it works fine.
> 
> My take is that they think it works fine but in truth things may may not be as fine as they say, but because of redundancy they never experience the same level of frustration that a person with a single DVR experiences so they dont get upset.
> 
> Eg. a person with three DVR's may set 2 of them to record CSI Miami, so if even one of them works he's cool. While other poor Kn0bs like me who only have one DVR get home and find they have just been Boned


I'm sure you are partially correct, but I have eight HRs and have had no problems for a year or so. I know people who are having problems don't want to hear someone post that he/she has no problems, but unless some of us do post something positive (when it is deserved), there is no way to compare experiences.

We have four HRs that pretty much mirror each other, but we watch each one and see no problems. Of course, if we watch CSI: Miami on one HR, we don't watch it on another HR, but we do switch from one to the other and see no problems.

Rich


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> It seems everyone points to what their most familiar with.
> Software people say it's the software, while hardware people think it's the hardware.
> Being a hardware guy, and having some experience in manufacturing, having different "results" from the same hardware, would seem to point to the hardware.
> Perhaps the software could be improved to be more tolerant of timing issues, but isn't this really the only thing that could be software related?
> Poor manufacturing processes, lack of quality testing, seems much more likely/probable.


The sluggishness of the system at times, makes me think it's more software related, like a memory leak in Windows. A lot of what is classified hardware is really the software that runs the hardware(aka firmware). Why does rebooting help in so many cases, and I've never really understood the leave it unplugged for 10 or 15 minutes thing either, what kind of bug requires keeping the unit unplugged for 15 minutes that a reboot wouldn't fix.

It may be the same hardware and software, but just like any program, some people use the same software on the same basic systems and depending on the way they use it, can totally crash the system while other people have used the same setup and software for ages and never had any problems. Certain commands, and sequence of events expose bugs all the time.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> It seems everyone points to what their most familiar with.
> Software people say it's the software, while hardware people think it's the hardware.
> Being a hardware guy, and having some experience in manufacturing, having different "results" from the same hardware, would seem to point to the hardware.
> Perhaps the software could be improved to be more tolerant of timing issues, but isn't this really the only thing that could be software related?
> Poor manufacturing processes, lack of quality testing, seems much more likely/probable.


Exactly. If the software was causing the problems on a massive scale at least one of my HRs would be affected. I think it is the "hardware" that is feeding the HR, more than the hardware "in" the HRs. I think the greatest problem we see is due to poor installation of the system feeding the HR. Poor dish alignment, poor dish installation, poor fittings on the cables, etc.

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Ah, I really hate to say this, but my 22-100 is no slower than my two good 21-700s or my 21-200. And they are really not much slower than my good old 20-700s. [...]


Did some controlled GUIDE speed testing this morning, and my HR22-100 is almost exactly twice as slow as my HR20-700. Granted I only tested one feature of the UI, but the GUIDE speed test is proving to be an excellent predictor of overall response. /steve


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## techm8n (Jan 3, 2008)

I've only been with DTV for about 1 year and 3 months. When I was first setup, I received two HR21s which was newly released back then. These DVR's were horrible. My frustration level was at 9 out of 10. Slow like a slug and required many reboots. 

But after many NR updates, they finally stabilized (after 1 year). I do wish navigation performance be faster.


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## TXD16 (Oct 30, 2008)

jfalkingham said:


> They sent an HR22-100 as a replacement. This thing is SLOOOOOOOOW. The menus, the channel changes, the series links, the response is ridiculously slow.


Welcome to my world.

As I have noted many times, using my HR22-100 units, even at their "best" (a very relative term), is a borderline painful experience when compared to my now-nearly-ancient R15-100. The R15 is so much faster at executing every command that I find myself subconsciously heading to my study, which is where the R15 lives, when I just want to scan the programming guide to check out an evening's offerings.

As Steve mentions, the guide speed tests appear to quite representative of overall performance, and they are certainly that when it comes to my units


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## jeffstra (Jun 23, 2006)

rich584 said:


> I'm sure you are partially correct, but I have eight HRs and have had no problems for a year or so.
> 
> Rich


How can that be when I have one that is very inconsistent in its performance? As stated previously, that smacks of poor quality control/design. By now the HR-20's should have had its bugs shaken out or the units should be replaced.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

To try to answer a couple of posters:

While it may be a "closed system", it is being feed guide data. Many software types have thought there is a memory leak, which I don't know is true or not.
"What I've seen" is response does vary over time, but I relate this to the guide data, and having to process it [in the background]. The guide, the series links, etc.
My DVRs are slower right after a download, and somewhere about 36 hours later seem to be the fastest.

As to the 15 min without power, verses rebooting. This seems to be related to the voltages being stored on/in the chips. A reboot doesn't clear/drain all of them and just like a PC motherboard, "sometimes" you need to completely power down/reset BIOS to clear a problem.
I'm not sure of the causes, but "could be" simply bad solder joints [also many other things too].


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

jeffstra said:


> How can that be when I have one that is very inconsistent in its performance? As stated previously, that smacks of poor quality control/design. By now the HR-20's should have had its bugs shaken out or the units should be replaced.


"Replaced"? 
With what?
options:

a new unit that hasn't been burned in or fully tested
a refurb unit that has been burned in by the previous user, but has had marginal testing to verify it even functions, let alone that a user problem has actually been identified or fixed.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Did some controlled GUIDE speed testing this morning, and my HR22-100 is almost exactly twice as slow as my HR20-700. Granted I only tested one feature of the UI, but the GUIDE speed test is proving to be an excellent predictor of overall response. /steve


Can't argue with empirical data. Perhaps I've adapted (or been assimilated, obviously, resistance is futile. :lol

Rich


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## cdc101 (Jan 9, 2007)

jfalkingham said:


> Ok, so I had a HR20-700 that worked great. Never had an issue, NEVER! I would read reports from folks complaining about this or that and always wondered what the big deal was. Well, my HR20 moved on to greener pastures. They sent an HR22-100 as a replacement. This thing is SLOOOOOOOOW. The menus, the channel changes, the series links, the response is ridiculously slow. I have the settings the same as was on my HR20, but man, what a piece. So now I am on the other side of the fence, with a receiver that sucks compared to what I had and its making me hate DIRECTV, which I have had since '94.
> 
> So - to all of the folks that had problems that I could not believe, I apologize. I am now with you :grin:


I feel your pain...I got another DVR (for a new HD TV) and they sent me an HR22-100 and it acts just like you said.

I still have my HR20-700 in the bedroom, but the HR22 is the primary now...and it's SLOW.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

jeffstra said:


> How can that be when I have one that is very inconsistent in its performance? As stated previously, that smacks of poor quality control/design. By now the HR-20's should have had its bugs shaken out or the units should be replaced.


I dunno how it can be. Especially after what they put us thru in late '06 and most of '07. But they did rebuild my ''system" and since then (January-April) of last year, I have had no problems. Before that rebuild, I had so many problems...so very many problems. Oops, starting to get angry just thinking about it.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> To try to answer a couple of posters:
> 
> While it may be a "closed system", it is being feed guide data. Many software types have thought there is a memory leak, which I don't know is true or not.
> "What I've seen" is response does vary over time, but I relate this to the guide data, and having to process it [in the background]. The guide, the series links, etc.
> ...


Isn't that a capacitive problem? I used to do a lot of electrical work on huge air compressors and I always had to wait an hour or so to let the large capacitors used in the start up sequence drain. Even then, I had to take them out physically and short them out to get them completely drained.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> "Replaced"?
> With what?
> options:
> 
> ...


Great answer! Fred will be so proud!

Rich


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Isn't that a capacitive problem? I used to do a lot of electrical work on huge air compressors and I always had to wait an hour or so to let the large capacitors used in the start up sequence drain. Even then, I had to take them out physically and short them out to get them completely drained.
> 
> Rich


 Well that is where/how the voltage is stored.

Considering this isn't "high voltage", better grounding should bleed it off faster, but you do understand the "what/why" of 15 min without power, verses a simple reset.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Can't argue with empirical data. [...]


Learned this from a QA guru named W.E. Deming, who my last employer hired as a consultant:

"In God we trust... all others bring data!"

:lol: /steve


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## ATARI (May 10, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> "Replaced"?
> With what?


DISH

U-verse

cable / cablecard / TiVo


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## ATARI (May 10, 2007)

Steve said:


> Learned this from a QA guru named W.E. Deming, who my last employer hired as a consultant:
> 
> "In God we trust... all others bring data!"
> 
> :lol: /steve


I am a QA guru, and my motto has always been "Trust, but verify."


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> Well that is where/how the voltage is stored.
> 
> Considering this isn't "high voltage", better grounding should bleed it off faster, but you do understand the "what/why" of 15 min without power, verses a simple reset.


I don't understand why it needs 15 min without power, what kind of residual problem can these units have that need to be without power for 15 minutes, they can completely blow up instantaneously on bad data from the guide, and it takes 15 minutes to reboot the unit, what kind of residual data or exactly what is the deal with a 15 minute power reset. PCs get settings in BIOS wrong and have to be bled down to default settings, but that's normally people tinkering with them and blow them up to where they won't reboot. As has been mentioned this is a closed system hardware and software.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rebkell said:


> I don't understand why it needs 15 min without power, what kind of residual problem can these units have that need to be without power for 15 minutes, they can completely blow up instantaneously on bad data from the guide, and it takes 15 minutes to reboot the unit, what kind of residual data or exactly what is the deal with a 15 minute power reset. PCs get settings in BIOS wrong and have to be bled down to default settings, but that's normally people tinkering with them and blow them up to where they won't reboot. As has been mentioned this is a closed system hardware and software.


 I seem to have a bit more experience with "strange" problems it looks like.
I've had motherboards that needed months of sitting [no power or battery] to remove a "bad condition" stored in the chips.
If you read the manual [god forbid any of us ever do that] there is a page where they say to pull the cord for 3 min to reset the power supply.
I've even had a H20 that when switched to a SWM system, took several hours without power before it would switch back to a non SWM function.
Without ripping these boxes apart and probing everything, I can only use my experience and "sense" what is going on and how to get it to do what I want it to [if I can].
"Oh yeah" and the chatroom nights helping out others here with their problems and "remembering" what worked.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

ATARI said:


> I am a QA guru, and my motto has always been "Trust, but verify."


Not sure if you're old enough to remember that Reagan loved that phrase as well. He used to say it to Gorbachev in Russian: "doveryai, no proveryai."


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## rebkell (Sep 9, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> I seem to have a bit more experience with "strange" problems it looks like.
> I've had motherboards that needed months of sitting [no power or battery] to remove a "bad condition" stored in the chips.
> If you read the manual [god forbid any of us ever do that] there is a page where they say to pull the cord for 3 min to reset the power supply.
> I've even had a H20 that when switched to a SWM system, took several hours without power before it would switch back to a non SWM function.
> ...


Months? If we could just swap these boxes out without hassle and half the time end up with new two-year commitments, it wouldn't be as bad, but something about the design and/or software is not good with these boxes, they keep coming out with newer models, and it seems they have the same kind of problems as the older boxes do, so what have they learned? I can understand the first generation having weird glitches, but from reading the board, it doesn't appear things are really any better with the newer stuff.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rebkell said:


> Months? If we could just swap these boxes out without hassle and half the time end up with new two-year commitments, it wouldn't be as bad, but something about the design and/or software is not good with these boxes, they keep coming out with newer models, and it seems they have the same kind of problems as the older boxes do, so what have they learned? I can understand the first generation having weird glitches, but from reading the board, it doesn't appear things are really any better with the newer stuff.


"Months" was a true statement. It was with an old Intel 430x chipset [I think that's correct] and the "bug" if you loaded more than 64 megs of memory. They would go to "never neverland", and took a long time to come back.
[As to the boxes]
Each model is designed by the manufacturer. The "how they do that", is up to them, so they don't all share a "standard architecture". Similar yes, but not exactly the same. 
It's clear that the HR20 has a better processor than the newer boxes. "Most" changes in the newer boxes have been to lower costs.
In a Chat with DirecTV, "they" know about the slower speed of the HR21/22/23 and are hoping to improve this in future releases.


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Tom Robertson said:


> Note, I don't say I don't have any problems.


This is what they call a "sin of omission".


----------



## mjbvideo (Jan 15, 2006)

If it's a hardware or dish alignment or switcher issue then why was my unit working poorly up to a software release last fall - then it worked perfectly for a couple months until a software release towards the end of December? It's bad code, plain and simple.


----------



## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

It's probably a combination of problems. My top 3 suspects are:

1) They have been trying to make the software compatible with all the different Receivers so they all handle the data stream properly.

2) The hardware is not really fast enough to do what they want, so they keep trying to optimize it, most times they go too far and create a problem/bug so they have to backoff and change course.

3) Reliable HD decoding is just hard to do!
Made even harder when your dealing with a SD and HD mix and receivers that are under powered.

BTW rebkell the 15 minutes is to let all the capacitors discharge, that way your sure all the chips are completely powered down, memory cleared.



rebkell said:


> The sluggishness of the system at times, makes me think it's more software related, like a memory leak in Windows. A lot of what is classified hardware is really the software that runs the hardware(aka firmware). Why does rebooting help in so many cases, and I've never really understood the leave it unplugged for 10 or 15 minutes thing either, what kind of bug requires keeping the unit unplugged for 15 minutes that a reboot wouldn't fix.
> 
> It may be the same hardware and software, but just like any program, some people use the same software on the same basic systems and depending on the way they use it, can totally crash the system while other people have used the same setup and software for ages and never had any problems. Certain commands, and sequence of events expose bugs all the time.


----------



## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

Thanks Tom for the Honesty 



Tom Robertson said:


> I can't speak for anyone but me.
> 
> I very, very rarely have problems with my DVRs. Admittedly, I don't get to check every recording on every DVR, but most of them are used regularly.
> 
> ...


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## David MacLeod (Jan 29, 2008)

I had a hr20-100 and a hr21-100 side by side for a few weeks around thanksgiving. 
did not have am-21 plugged in to the hr21 at first and I could not see any difference in speeds.
plug the am-21 in and its like speed brakes were deployed 

no way of knowing if its still the same since I have all hr21 units now. wonder how much of this is usb related.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

David MacLeod said:


> I had a hr20-100 and a hr21-100 side by side for a few weeks around thanksgiving.
> did not have am-21 plugged in to the hr21 at first and I could not see any difference in speeds.
> plug the am-21 in and its like speed brakes were deployed
> 
> no way of knowing if its still the same since I have all hr21 units now. wonder how much of this is usb related.


My sluggish HR22-100 has no AM21 attached to it. It is network-connected, but so is the HR20-700 that runs the GUIDE speed test almost twice as fast. /steve


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## compnurd (Apr 23, 2007)

I think they are trying to do too much with something that cant handle it. They really need to take some time to speed these things up and not add more features. So that when i press a menu button i dont have to wait several seconds. My old SA8300 DVR with cable blows both HR's I have ever had speed wise and the one Fios HD DVR i got to play with blew this one out of the water speed wise weather HD or SD


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## calidelphia (Feb 17, 2007)

I couldn't agree more with the OP. The Guide and List speed on my HR21-100 is completely unacceptable, and been that way for months. Not since I received it as a replacement, but months. That points me to bad NR releases and nothing else. 

Oh, and see my sig.


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## TXD16 (Oct 30, 2008)

David MacLeod said:


> I had a hr20-100 and a hr21-100 side by side for a few weeks around thanksgiving.
> did not have am-21 plugged in to the hr21 at first and I could not see any difference in speeds.
> plug the am-21 in and its like speed brakes were deployed
> 
> no way of knowing if its still the same since I have all hr21 units now. wonder how much of this is usb related.


My HR22-100s were snail-slow before I installed my AM21s and they are snail-slow now. They have been nearly through every NR and CE, with only very minor differences in UI speed (plus or minus).


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

Speed on HR20-100 is great, it's the 771's, lost recordings and auto Resets that are killing me!


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## Shades228 (Mar 18, 2008)

Have you guys tried doing SL3 instead of SL5( assuming you don't need spanish programming or locals off the 119) to see if that helps your guide speed?


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## calidelphia (Feb 17, 2007)

Shades228 said:


> Have you guys tried doing SL3 instead of SL5( assuming you don't need spanish programming or locals off the 119) to see if that helps your guide speed?


Can you elaborate?


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## TXD16 (Oct 30, 2008)

Shades228 said:


> Have you guys tried doing SL3 instead of SL5( assuming you don't need spanish programming or locals off the 119) to see if that helps your guide speed?


In my case. my AU9-SL3 leaves me no alternative.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Well that is where/how the voltage is stored.
> 
> Considering this isn't "high voltage", better grounding should bleed it off faster, but you do understand the "what/why" of 15 min without power, verses a simple reset.


I do, now if we can just get other folks to buy into it.

Rich


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

CCarncross said:


> In your case it CAN'T be software, you are running two identical models. This is a closed system as far as software goes, if they are running the same version of software, it cannot be software if the models are from the same manufacturer.


Yes, it can. Unless those machines are doing exactly the same thing then memory leaks and bugs can affect one and not the other.

The people that do CEs sometimes forget to note that they are resetting their machines at least once each week...they may never get to enjoy the three weeker on busy machines.(about every three weeks to a month you need to do a reset or risk lockups, trick play failure, extra slow response, non-response to remote, etc.). I did experience that leaving a machine basically unused (recording some SLs, but no real playback use) leads to a much more stable box.


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

rich584 said:


> I'm sure you are partially correct, but I have eight HRs and have had no problems for a year or so. I know people who are having problems don't want to hear someone post that he/she has no problems, but unless some of us do post something positive (when it is deserved), there is no way to compare experiences.
> 
> We have four HRs that pretty much mirror each other, but we watch each one and see no problems. Of course, if we watch CSI: Miami on one HR, we don't watch it on another HR, but we do switch from one to the other and see no problems.
> 
> Rich


Rich,

Your machines didn't lock up at all last year? If that's the case they're pretty special.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Learned this from a QA guru named W.E. Deming, who my last employer hired as a consultant:
> 
> "In God we trust... all others bring data!"
> 
> :lol: /steve


Can't argue with that either. Might not be an empirically based statement, but it sure is logical. By the way, "data" is one of the words that annoys me no end. Singular and plural, how are you supposed to tell if the context doesn't explain the plurality or the singularity? By interpolation? :lol:

Rich


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## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I seem to have a bit more experience with "strange" problems it looks like.
> I've had motherboards that needed months of sitting [no power or battery] to remove a "bad condition" stored in the chips.
> If you read the manual [god forbid any of us ever do that] there is a page where they say to pull the cord for 3 min to reset the power supply.
> I've even had a H20 that when switched to a SWM system, took several hours without power before it would switch back to a non SWM function.
> ...


VOS,

Let's be fair now...if you read the manual you're also likely to find incorrect/missing information. With DirecTV RTFM isn't always the best answer.


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

ATARI said:


> DISH
> 
> U-verse
> 
> cable / cablecard / TiVo


_*VOS*_ was vague when he said that. He should have said (and I'm sure he meant): "With what that's better?"

Rich


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

rebkell said:


> I don't understand why it needs 15 min without power, what kind of residual problem can these units have that need to be without power for 15 minutes, they can completely blow up instantaneously on bad data from the guide, and it takes 15 minutes to reboot the unit, what kind of residual data or exactly what is the deal with a 15 minute power reset. PCs get settings in BIOS wrong and have to be bled down to default settings, but that's normally people tinkering with them and blow them up to where they won't reboot. As has been mentioned this is a closed system hardware and software.


Look at it this way: In those circuits there are capacitors. They store "juice" just as a battery does. A capacitive circuit will not drain out just by pulling the plug. Don't try this: You pull the cover off a TV with a CRT. You ignore the warnings about the high voltage because you pulled the plug. OK that's logical, but wrong. The capacitors will retain "juice" (I=E/R is "juice" to an electrician) and if you touch the wrong thing, you will take a healthy jolt, perhaps a fatal jolt.

What the 15 minute wait after unplugging does, hopefully, is drain the capacitive circuits.

Understand? I can go further if you don't.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

rebkell said:


> Months? If we could just swap these boxes out without hassle and half the time end up with new two-year commitments, it wouldn't be as bad, but something about the design and/or software is not good with these boxes, they keep coming out with newer models, and it seems they have the same kind of problems as the older boxes do, so what have they learned? I can understand the first generation having weird glitches, but from reading the board, it doesn't appear things are really any better with the newer stuff.


Good point, the 20-700s are, in my opinion, the best of the HRs. I've only got three left, and they are simply a better device. I'd happily trade my five other HRs for five 20-700s.

Why do they keep coming out with new models? I'm pretty sure it's a money based decision. Everybody raved about the black 21s when they came out and they are more aesthetically pleasing than the rather ugly 20-700s, but they don't work as well.

Sometimes the "first generation" is the best. Not always, but sometimes.

Rich


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

mjbvideo said:


> If it's a hardware or dish alignment or switcher issue then why was my unit working poorly up to a software release last fall - then it worked perfectly for a couple months until a software release towards the end of December? It's bad code, plain and simple.


And yet, if you put those same HRs that you're having trouble with in my home on my ''system", they'd probably work, not every one, but most of them.

By the way, we all understand your frustration. We went thru the same thing. But we learned. And it is a long, steep learning curve. A couple years ago, this forum was filled with rage packed postings. I was one of those posters, and I think I had every right to be outraged. But, I've come to terms with that outrage and now I kinda understand what D* did. I'm not a big fan of using the public for testing, but that goes on in many industries.

Rich


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

dreadlk said:


> It's probably a combination of problems. My top 3 suspects are:
> 
> 1) They have been trying to make the software compatible with all the different Receivers so they all handle the data stream properly.
> 
> ...


Well said!

Rich


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

dreadlk said:


> They have been trying to make the software compatible with all the different Receivers so they all handle the data stream properly.


Parsing text should be trivial but DIRECTV seems to have trouble with it. It shouldn't require extra horsepower or years of testing to master if they already know exactly how to do it the old way unless they are doing something like trying to use the CPU to convert the raw data from the old system to the new system (as opposed to using the old scheme until the new streams are the order of the day). *nix is littered with tools to translate and convert text streams on-the-fly.


> 2) The hardware is not really fast enough to do what they want, so they keep trying to optimize it, most times they go too far and create a problem/bug so they have to backoff and change course.


TiVo has demonstrated that they can successfully execute the same tasks on surprisingly similar hardware. Blaming the hardware is an apologist's excuse for not fixing the software problems.


> 3) Reliable HD decoding is just hard to do!
> Made even harder when your dealing with a SD and HD mix and receivers that are under powered.


Decoding is done largely in dedicated hardware so I'm not buying that argument. At most, all the main processor needs to do is let the hardware know what to expect (and it may not even need to do that).

I think it more likely that the software of the machine is not up to the task and/or the priorities assigned to the various tasks aren't in balance.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Ken S said:


> VOS,
> 
> Let's be fair now...if you read the manual you're also likely to find incorrect/missing information. With DirecTV RTFM isn't always the best answer.


This was in no way meant to be "RTFM". You have never read/heard me post /say that.
I simply remember the manual describing "the protection circuits" in the power supply.


----------



## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> This was in no way meant to be "RTFM". You have never read/heard me post /say that.


Ya... RTFP! :lol: /steve


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Yes, it can. Unless those machines are doing exactly the same thing then memory leaks and bugs can affect one and not the other.
> 
> The people that do CEs sometimes forget to note that they are resetting their machines at least once each week...they may never get to enjoy the three weeker on busy machines.(about every three weeks to a month you need to do a reset or risk lockups, trick play failure, extra slow response, non-response to remote, etc.). I did experience that leaving a machine basically unused (recording some SLs, but no real playback use) leads to a much more stable box.


 You've always been a strong supporter of "the memory leak". Since I'm a strong supporter of the CE process, I do reboot my receivers weekly for software downloads.
I can't prove or disprove if there is a memory leak, "but" one of my HR20s is in daily use by another member of my household, has stayed on the NR most of its life, and has never had a problem. If it had or when it does, I'm the first to hear about it and so far, everyone has been "the user".
With a sample size of one, this isn't proof of anything.


----------



## ATARI (May 10, 2007)

> With DirecTV RTFM isn't always the best answer.


I can't comment on newer models manuals, but the manuals that came with my HR20 and H20 were close to worthless. Actually they were worse, because they contained incorrect information.


----------



## ATARI (May 10, 2007)

Steve said:


> Not sure if you're old enough to remember that Reagan loved that phrase as well. He used to say it to Gorbachev in Russian: "doveryai, no proveryai."


I am old enough, but I did not remember that.


----------



## ATARI (May 10, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> In a Chat with DirecTV, "they" know about the slower speed of the HR21/22/23 and are hoping to improve this in future releases.


The 23s are slower, too?

Could you provide a link to the chat transcript?

That's disapointing to hear. I thought that having the newer decoder chips would have made them faster. I was planning on getting one once they are available at retail, but now I may have to rethink that.


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Ken S said:


> Rich,
> 
> Your machines didn't lock up at all last year? If that's the case they're pretty special.


From April on, and excepting my wounded 21-700, and the HDMI switch fiasco (don't remember when that was), no. The wounded 700 is liable to do anything on any given day, but I like it and don't want to give it up. The rest of them have been rock solid. If they weren't, you'd hear about it.

By the way, I consider a "lock up" to be a situation where you have to pull the plug and a "freeze up" something that can be resolved with a couple clicks. And I don't get freeze ups either. I truly think this is a result of the complete rebuild of my "system" that the CMG mandated.

Rich


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Ya... RTFP! :lol: /steve


I did that when I got my first HR. What a disappointment! Then I turned on the HR and...

Rich


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

ATARI said:


> The 23s are slower, too?
> 
> Could you provide a link to the chat transcript?
> 
> That's disapointing to hear. I thought that having the newer decoder chips would have made them faster. I was planning on getting one once they are available at retail, but now I may have to rethink that.


I keep reading the same thing about the 23s. I had hoped that they would be a step up and would still like to get my hands on one.

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

ATARI said:


> That's disapointing to hear. I thought that having the newer decoder chips would have made them faster.


The HR22's and 23's appear to be using the same BCM7401 processor that the HR21 uses. It's a single-chip processor/decoder, as opposed to the HR20 design, which uses separate processor/decoder chips (BCM7038/BCM7411).

FWIW, TiVo apparently made the same chip choices when they followed up the Series 3 box with the less-expensive TiVOHD box. /steve


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

ATARI said:


> Could you provide a link to the chat transcript?


I can't and if I could: it would be deleted and/or I would be perhaps booted/banned for breaking the trust that allowed me into the chat.


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> The HR22's and 23's appear to be using the same BCM7401 processor that the HR21 uses. It's a single-chip processor/decoder, as opposed to the HR20 design, which uses separate processor/decoder chips (BCM7038/BCM7411).
> 
> FWIW, TiVo apparently made the same chip choices when they followed up the Series 3 box with the less-expensive TiVOHD box. /steve


Aww, I bought into the 23's First Look. I'm still gonna get one.

Rich


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> I can't and if I could: it would be deleted and/or I would be perhaps booted/banned for breaking the trust that allowed me into the chat.


I wondered how you'd answer that question. Honorably, as I expected.

Rich


----------



## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

More on why the newer HR's may be slower.

According to this TiVo Series 3 vs. TivoHD FAQ: _"The Series3 is still better in one respect -- superior MRV throughput. The newer, more integrated design of the TivoHD has less memory bandwidth, and as a result, transfers of recordings between TivoHD DVRs are about 30% slower than transfers of recordings between Series3 DVRs."_

As I mentioned above, the HR20 uses the same separate CPU and DECODER chips as the Series3, and the HR21/22/23 uses the same single CPU/DECODER chip as the TiVoHD. /steve


----------



## ATARI (May 10, 2007)

Steve said:


> More on why the newer HR's may be slower.
> 
> According to this TiVo Series 3 vs. TivoHD FAQ: _"The Series3 is still better in one respect -- superior MRV throughput. The newer, more integrated design of the TivoHD has less memory bandwidth, and as a result, transfers of recordings between TivoHD DVRs are about 30% slower than transfers of recordings between Series3 DVRs."_
> 
> As I mentioned above, the HR20 uses the same separate CPU and DECODER chips as the Series3, and the HR21/22/23 uses the same single CPU/DECODER chip as the TiVoHD. /steve


I don't want to turn this into another TiVo thread, but now much do you want to bet that the new DirecTiVo will be TiVoHD based and not Series 3.


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

ATARI said:


> I don't want to turn this into another TiVo thread, but now much do you want to bet that the new DirecTiVo will be TiVoHD based and not Series 3.


You'll get no taker here. If I understand Steve's post correctly, we (I'll have to have one) will get the cheaper, poorer performer. As it was in the beginning...

Rich


----------



## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> The HR22's and 23's appear to be using the same BCM7401 processor that the HR21 uses. It's a single-chip processor/decoder, as opposed to the HR20 design, which uses separate processor/decoder chips (BCM7038/BCM7411).
> 
> FWIW, TiVo apparently made the same chip choices when they followed up the Series 3 box with the less-expensive TiVOHD box. /steve


Steve, would you say that the 23-700 is nothing more than a 21-700 with a larger hard drive, much like the 22-100, that we know is a 21-100 with a larger hard drive?

Rich


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Steve, would you say that the 23-700 is nothing more than a 21-700 with a larger hard drive, much like the 22-100, that we know is a 21-100 with a larger hard drive?
> 
> Rich


 "And" it has the wideband tuners that don't need BBCs when connected to a non SWM system.


----------



## vurbano (May 15, 2004)

I just do not understand why my HR21 is such a dog. Always has been.


----------



## vurbano (May 15, 2004)

veryoldschool said:


> I have both HR20s and a HR21.
> Yes my HR20 is faster and I believe DirecTV is planning to work on the HR21/22/23 to improve its speed.


They continually talk about speed improvements in the CE's. Heck its should be blazing fast by now with all of the CE's. I guess it went from slug speed to turtle?


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> This was in no way meant to be "RTFM". You have never read/heard me post /say that.
> I simply remember the manual describing "the protection circuits" in the power supply.


VOS,

I know that...wasn't trying to insult you at all...just joking about the quality of DirecTV manuals.


----------



## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Steve, would you say that the 23-700 is nothing more than a 21-700 with a larger hard drive, much like the 22-100, that we know is a 21-100 with a larger hard drive?
> 
> Rich


Yup. It appears to be comparable to a 21-700, but with a 500 GB drive and wide-band tuners, as *VOS *points out. /steve


----------



## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

ATARI said:


> I don't want to turn this into another TiVo thread, but now much do you want to bet that the new DirecTiVo will be TiVoHD based and not Series 3.





rich584 said:


> You'll get no taker here. If I understand Steve's post correctly, we (I'll have to have one) will get the cheaper, poorer performer. As it was in the beginning...


Probably will be TiVoHD based, but not necessarily a poor performer. E.g., I don't see TiVoHD users complaining about speed. And remember, the software TiVo wrote for the HR10 ran fine on a box with a half-speed CPU and half the on-board memory, compared to an HR21. /steve


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Ken S said:


> VOS,
> 
> I know that...wasn't trying to insult you at all...just joking about the quality of DirecTV manuals.


 Guess I "misfired", after reading posts where someone says just that....which isn't helpful.


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Steve said:


> And remember, the software TiVo wrote for the HR10 ran fine on a box with a half-speed CPU and half the on-board memory, compared to an HR21. /steve


[not intended to be any plus or minus of Tivo]
The MPEG-4 decoding is a larger user of memory. This was a big issue, as to the added cost/STB, of changing over to MPEG-4.


----------



## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> [not intended to be any plus or minus of Tivo]
> The MPEG-4 decoding is a larger user of memory. This was a big issue, as to the added cost/STB, of changing over to MPEG-4.


Could be, but hadn't heard that. Have a source?

Anyway, 4 GB of DDR memory (2 x 2GB) is now selling for $18 after rebate. The HR2x's have 256MB, IIRC. /steve


----------



## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Steve said:


> Could be, but hadn't heard that. Have a source?
> 
> Anyway, 4 GB of DDR memory (2 x 2GB) is now selling for $18 after rebate. The HR2x's have 256MB, IIRC. /steve


 It was back in the "dark ages" and a program about HDTV and the technology in work for the industry to implement it.
"I would guess" 512 MB was still "a few" bucks, because "their concern" was an additional $5 cost/box.


----------



## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Ignoring the fact it would void the warrantee, and be a terms violation and all that...

How hard would it be for a electronics expert/shop to replace the CPU with a faster one, or add more memory to a HR22-100? Im guessing the chips are LSIs soldered to the board and not plugged into sockets. Just curious. Would be interesting to see one of the companies making these boxes to come out with a "PRO" version like they did before, but with a REALLY fast cpu, lots of memory, etc. I also think it might be retro if they put a channel number display on it, for those times we use the box to listen to XM. They could have the channel number, then scroll the artist/song title like the little XM car radios, and most A/V receivers do to display current audio settings.


----------



## Ken S (Feb 13, 2007)

Steve said:


> Could be, but hadn't heard that. Have a source?
> 
> Anyway, 4 GB of DDR memory (2 x 2GB) is now selling for $18 after rebate. The HR2x's have 256MB, IIRC. /steve


I thought the HR2x had 1GB of RAM?


----------



## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> I thought the HR2x had 1GB of RAM?


Could be. I assumed it had the same as the TiVoHD, which I got from here:

"_*How does the TivoHD compare to the old DirecTiVo hardware?*

The original DirecTiVos were based on 166MHz processors with 64-128MB RAM and EIDE hard drives. The TivoHD has 256MB RAM with a SATA hard drive, and it uses the same 300MHz Broadcom BCM7401 DVR CPU found in the latest DirecTV HR21/HR22/HR23 and Dish Network ViP612 DVRs.

With the latest 11.0 software, the TivoHD is noticeably more responsive than the old DirecTiVos. Although improved over the old DirecTiVos, guide scrolling performance is still not comparable to the latest Dish Network ViP622/ViP722 satellite DVRs._"

If the HR2x has 1GB, then I guess the TiVoHD software might run better on it. That's good news. /steve


----------



## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Understand that the DVRs don't use off-the-shelf SIMMs -- they use surface mount chips. The economies of scale are not the same.


----------



## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Davenlr said:


> Ignoring the fact it would void the warrantee, and be a terms violation and all that...
> 
> How hard would it be for a electronics expert/shop to replace the CPU with a faster one, or add more memory to a HR22-100? Im guessing the chips are LSIs soldered to the board and not plugged into sockets. Just curious. Would be interesting to see one of the companies making these boxes to come out with a "PRO" version like they did before, but with a REALLY fast cpu, lots of memory, etc. I also think it might be retro if they put a channel number display on it, for those times we use the box to listen to XM. They could have the channel number, then scroll the artist/song title like the little XM car radios, and most A/V receivers do to display current audio settings.


First problem is that a different processor would very likely not have the same pin layout as the current one so a swap out would not be a possibility. Furthermore, the code for these boxes is written specifically for the chipset used.
Assuming you could find a "faster" version of the same processor that was a pin for pin match and would work with the existing code, these devices are BGA (Ball Grid Array) from factor so they require some extremely expensive rework equipment to remove and replace that most repair shops can't afford. In devices designed to be "upgraded" these types of chips are usually installed on a seperate module that plugs into the device, on disposable consumer devices like these they are usually installed directly to the main pcb to save manufacturing costs.

It's very doubtful that the memory is dynamically allocated in these devices. So even if you could add memory, there likely wouldn't be any perfromance benefit to it.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Was with you up to here:


BattleScott said:


> [...]It's very doubtful that the memory is dynamically allocated in these devices. So even if you could add memory, there likely wouldn't be any perfromance benefit to it.


Are you saying these boxes don't rely on the OS to manage memory (and therefore virtual memory) use? Because assuming they do, then adding more RAM should certainly cut down on disk-swapping, which has to help.

E.g., while I have no direct knowledge of this, I always imagined that the need for "tuning" we often talk about is addressed by playing with the Unix "nicing" values for the various resident processes, and is not directly related to how memory is used, which is managed by the OS. That said, I never managed development of an application such as this, so I could be totally off-base. /steve


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

Steve said:


> Was with you up to here: Are you saying these boxes don't rely on the OS to manage memory (and therefore virtual memory) use? Because assuming they do, then adding more RAM should certainly cut down on disk-swapping, which has to help.
> 
> E.g., while I have no direct knowledge of this, I always imagined that the need for "tuning" we often talk about is addressed by playing with the Unix "nicing" values for the various resident processes, and is not directly related to how memory is used, which is managed by the OS. That said, I never managed development of an application such as this, so I could be totally off-base. /steve


I'm not saying that performance couldn't be increased with more memory AND the code tweeking that you mention. Just that simply adding more memory wouldn't acheive anything. In other words, I don't believe that the code is designed to support dynamic memory allocation, meaning that whether or not a function utilizes a disk-swap transaction would not change simply because more memory was added. It would require the code to be changed to allow decisons about how functions are handled based on available memory. 
Typically, these types of devices are coded around a specific memory structure and are designed to operate within that environment. I don't believe the OS is used for anything more than the basic runtime kernel to provide access to the hardware level resources by the main code, and is not "actively" managing the system resources like we think of in a traditional computer system. 
Of course, this is based strictly on my experience with other purpose built appliance computers, not any direct experience with these particular ones so I could be off in that regard, but the rest is still valid as to the viability of a processor swap...


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Davenlr said:


> How hard would it be for a electronics expert/shop to replace the CPU with a faster one, or add more memory to a HR22-100?


As everything is surface mounted that lets out most hardware upgrades. It might be possible to do some sort of fly-wire socket installation but it would be extremely expensive and not entirely immune from various and sundry interference issues.

One of the advantages of having a single platform is that you can make some pretty sweeping assumptions about what is or isn't available and how much.

The best way to eke out all possible performance is to not implement a bunch of cool technologies like virtual memory. Using hardwired addresses is usually more efficient than using vectors and pointers. Bank switching is not your friend in a multi-tasking scenario.

These chips are not general purpose devices and were not meant to be a sledge hammer as was common in computers before GPUs.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Yup. It appears to be comparable to a 21-700, but with a 500 GB drive and wide-band tuners, as *VOS *points out. /steve


Damn. That "First Look at the 23s" led me to believe that the 23 was gonna be an upgrade on the other HRs. What happened there?

Rich


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

rich584 said:


> Damn. That "First Look at the 23s" led me to believe that the 23 was gonna be an upgrade on the other HRs. What happened there?


Most who have seen them in operation have testified that the picture quality is noticeably better.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Probably will be TiVoHD based, but not necessarily a poor performer. E.g., I don't see TiVoHD users complaining about speed. And remember, the software TiVo wrote for the HR10 ran fine on a box with a half-speed CPU and half the on-board memory, compared to an HR21. /steve


I had so much trouble with TiVos and they were all hard drive related. The HRs don't seem to have that problem. I know that the big difference is where the OS resides and I hope that the TiVos don't just overpower the HRs when they come out.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

BattleScott said:


> I'm not saying that performance couldn't be increased with more memory AND the code tweeking that you mention. Just that simply adding more memory wouldn't acheive anything. In other words, I don't believe that the code is designed to support dynamic memory allocation, meaning that whether or not a function utilizes a disk-swap transaction would not change simply because more memory was added. It would require the code to be changed to allow decisons about how functions are handled based on available memory.
> Typically, these types of devices are coded around a specific memory structure and are designed to operate within that environment. I don't believe the OS is used for anything more than the basic runtime kernel to provide access to the hardware level resources by the main code, and is not "actively" managing the system resources like we think of in a traditional computer system.
> Of course, this is based strictly on my experience with other purpose built appliance computers, not any direct experience with these particular ones so I could be off in that regard, but the rest is still valid as to the viability of a processor swap...


That was interesting. I could read the words, but I have no idea what your conclusion means. But, the argument brings up a question that has bothered me for years, so many devices can be either internal or external, why not a device that would hold memory chips and could be connected via USB or Firewire or whatever is left?

Rich


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Damn. That "First Look at the 23s" led me to believe that the 23 was gonna be an upgrade on the other HRs. What happened there?


IIRC, there was some subjective opinion that audio was superior on the HR23, but I don't have one so can't comment on what differences, if any, folks were hearing.

Since the HR23 is just acting as a DD 5.1 pass through device, I'm not sure how the sound could be any different, except perhaps for output volume. /steve


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

harsh said:


> Most who have seen them in operation have testified that the picture quality is noticeably better.


That's the only plus I've seen and that is pretty subjective. Lots of adverse posts about them. Be interesting to see for myself. I really wanted to believe that "First Look".

Rich


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

rich584 said:


> But, the argument brings up a question that has bothered me for years, so many devices can be either internal or external, why not a device that would hold memory chips and could be connected via USB or Firewire or whatever is left?


Two words: bus speed.

Performance in computers is directly related to how quickly things can communicate between one another. That's why cache RAM makes such a big difference. Hanging RAM out on a USB bus would be like connecting to your hard drive via a dial-up modem.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

harsh said:


> Most who have seen them in operation have testified that the picture quality is noticeably better.


Again, the HR23 uses the same decoder as the HR21/22, so I don't understand how there can be a visual difference between models decoding and passing the same satellite bits read from disk to your display device. Not logical to me. /steve


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

rich584 said:


> That's the only plus I've seen and that is pretty subjective. Lots of adverse posts about them.


A surprising number of comments to the contrary came from those who had/have never auditioned an HR23.

The main downside that I can think of is possible diplexing complications.

The HR23 is, after all, just another DIRECTV Plus HD DVR.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Steve said:


> Not logical to me.


To be certain, it defies logic, but logic doesn't always apply where contouring is present.

Maybe they adjusted some output section and the picture and/or sound is "brighter" which may seem "better" (this was an old computer sound card trick; remove the hiss filtering and bingo, it sounds like it has improved top-end response).


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> IIRC, there was some subjective opinion that audio was superior on the HR23, but I don't have one so can't comment on what differences, if any, folks were hearing.
> 
> Since the HR23 is just acting as a DD 5.1 pass through device, I'm not sure how the sound could be any different, except perhaps for output volume. /steve


The audio portion doesn't really interest me. I'm satisfied with the audio on the HRs and I was satisfied with the audio on the old SD TiVos. After firing 5" guns for years and banging out solidified resin from iron pans with a sledge hammer, my hearing (which was good enough to qualify me for being a Sonar Man) is shot at both ends of the sound spectrum. Put simply, music holds little interest for me. Used to enjoy it, but I can tell something is missing.

Hear (no pun intended :lol anything else good about them? I was pretty close to ordering one yesterday, then I started thinking about all the negative posts I've read. I wonder if there is such a thing as "prebuyers remorse"?

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

harsh said:


> Two words: bus speed.
> 
> Performance in computers is directly related to how quickly things can communicate between one another. That's why cache RAM makes such a big difference. Hanging RAM out on a USB bus would be like connecting to your hard drive via a dial-up modem.


Good explanation. Seemed like a good idea...

Rich


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## BattleScott (Aug 29, 2006)

rich584 said:


> That was interesting. I could read the words, but I have no idea what your conclusion means. But, the argument brings up a question that has bothered me for years, so many devices can be either internal or external, why not a device that would hold memory chips and could be connected via USB or Firewire or whatever is left?
> 
> Rich


Basically I'm just saying that aside from what I say about how the software functions, the hardware restrictions alone are enough to prohibit a processor upgrade like the poster was asking about. 
As for plugging additional memory in the USB slot, that would be less efficient than using the SATA bus and hard disk as USB2.0 is a much slower interface.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Again, the HR23 uses the same decoder as the HR21/22, so I don't understand how there can be a visual difference between models decoding and passing the same satellite bits read from disk to your display device. Not logical to me. /steve


I've read some posts that said the PQ was better, but I still think that's an awfully subjective subject. What I focused on in the "First Look" was what seemed like faster processing speed and improved PQ. If the PQ was that much better, wouldn't we expect to see a lot of posts raving about the PQ?

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

harsh said:


> A surprising number of comments to the contrary came from those who had/have never auditioned an HR23.


Naive, I must be. Never occurred to me that someone would post anything about something they've never used.



> The main downside that I can think of is possible diplexing complications.


Diplexing in the context of OTA?



> The HR23 is, after all, just another DIRECTV Plus HD DVR.


Yeah, but it is made by Pace and the best HRs I've had have been 700s. I don't really have a use for another HR and I'm willing to wait until Costco gets them, so I do have time for more research and consideration of whether I really want another HR (can you really have too many HRs?).

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

BattleScott said:


> Basically I'm just saying that aside from what I say about how the software functions, the hardware restrictions alone are enough to prohibit a processor upgrade like the poster was asking about.
> As for plugging additional memory in the USB slot, that would be less efficient than using the SATA bus and hard disk as USB2.0 is a much slower interface.


So there is no way to do it? I guess if there was, we would have seen peripheral memory cards by now.

Rich


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rich584 said:


> So there is no way to do it? I guess if there was, we would have seen peripheral memory cards by now.
> 
> Rich


 Fred would ask why connect it with two juice cans and a string?

I haven't seen the HR23 yet. "Some" of the praises may simply come as they're "new". [not necessarily related] I have made changes to my system [ie: changing 480i to 480p] and sat back to view it. I come to the conclusion it's improved, then later notice "the change" never took place, as I needed to change channels for it to change.
In the old days and the stereo world, they used to call this "psycho acoustics" [and a lot of money was made/wasted with this].

"I would look for" side by side comparisons and a description of what the differences are.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Fred would ask why connect it with two juice cans and a string?
> 
> I haven't seen the HR23 yet. "Some" of the praises may simply come as they're "new". [not necessarily related] I have made changes to my system [ie: changing 480i to 480p] and sat back to view it. I come to the conclusion it's improved, then later notice "the change" never took place, as I needed to change channels for it to change.
> In the old days and the stereo world, they used to call this "psycho acoustics" [and a lot of money was made/wasted with this].
> ...


Fred says "Hi".

The only way I can do side by side comparisons is to buy a 23. I will look for posts from folks who did that.

Rich


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## jeffstra (Jun 23, 2006)

veryoldschool said:


> "Replaced"?
> With what?
> options:
> 
> ...


How about "with one that works consistently." I know that's asking a lot. I'm currently an early adopter of the new OPPO Blu-Ray player. What a difference in support. While there are a few bugs at least they're working on them with a small crowd. With D* i feel we have all been early adopters for several years.

P.S. I understand your point, I'm just adding to it.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

jeffstra said:


> How about "with one that works consistently." I know that's asking a lot. I'm currently an early adopter of the new OPPO Blu-Ray player. What a difference in support. While there are a few bugs at least they're working on them with a small crowd. With D* i feel we have all been early adopters for several years.
> 
> P.S. I understand your point, I'm just adding to it.


Unfortunately, even the Protection Plan just says it will replace your defective HR with an HR of equal or better quality, or words to that effect. And many times you replace a defective HR and get a defective HR as a replacement. I think they take their policy of "equal to, or better than" a bit too literally. If you're really, really lucky you might get one that "works consistently". Altho, that statement leaves a bit to be desired too. Consistent with what?

I do know what you mean, but getting a replacement that works is a crapshoot at best, a nightmare at worst.

Rich


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Unfortunately, even the Protection Plan just says it will replace your defective HR with an HR of equal or better quality, or words to that effect. And many times you replace a defective HR and get a defective HR as a replacement. I think they take their policy of "equal to, or better than" a bit too literally. If you're really, really lucky you might get one that "works consistently". Altho, that statement leaves a bit to be desired too. Consistent with what?
> 
> I do know what you mean, but getting a replacement that works is a crapshoot at best, a nightmare at worst.
> 
> Rich


Hardware wise, it seems those built in Mexico [both -700 & -100] had a better build quality than the builds in other countries [aka China].
The first runs of the Samsung [Malaysia] also seemed to be good.
The H20-600 [Korean] simply seems to have been a poor design as they all run way too hot.


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

Not saying its not true, I think it is this true,, but Wow for Hr2x users thats like someone in the scientific world saying they captured Bigfoot or The Lockness Monster. It just sounds so unreal!



Ken S said:


> Rich,
> 
> Your machines didn't lock up at all last year? If that's the case they're pretty special.


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

So many companies are making HD decoder boxes and most of them are buggy just like the Hr2x. IMHO I think the chip decoding process is not nearly as perfect as you might think. At this point in time with so much money being thrown at the problem, I don't think even Directv could be taking so long to work out the bugs, something in the hardware must also be at fault.



harsh said:


> Parsing text should be trivial but DIRECTV seems to have trouble with it. It shouldn't require extra horsepower or years of testing to master if they already know exactly how to do it the old way unless they are doing something like trying to use the CPU to convert the raw data from the old system to the new system (as opposed to using the old scheme until the new streams are the order of the day). *nix is littered with tools to translate and convert text streams on-the-fly.TiVo has demonstrated that they can successfully execute the same tasks on surprisingly similar hardware. Blaming the hardware is an apologist's excuse for not fixing the software problems.Decoding is done largely in dedicated hardware so I'm not buying that argument. At most, all the main processor needs to do is let the hardware know what to expect (and it may not even need to do that).
> 
> I think it more likely that the software of the machine is not up to the task and/or the priorities assigned to the various tasks aren't in balance.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

Ken S said:


> Your machines didn't lock up at all last year? If that's the case they're pretty special.





dreadlk said:


> Not saying its not true, I think it is this true,, but Wow for Hr2x users thats like someone in the scientific world saying they captured Bigfoot or The Lockness Monster. It just sounds so unreal!


FWIW, I have 6 DVR's and 1 H21-200. While I had other issues, I can't remember a single 2008 lock-up either. /steve


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

rich584 said:


> I had so much trouble with TiVos and they were all hard drive related. The HRs don't seem to have that problem. I know that the big difference is where the OS resides and I hope that the TiVos don't just overpower the HRs when they come out.
> 
> Rich


I think they do. Some of the problems people are having sound hard-drive related. Maybe they should perform a scan for bad sectors.

The other thing is, when a Tivo acts funny it's usually the hard drive because everything else is pretty stable. When an HR acts funny, it's considered normal. So because an HR has so many other problems, you can't tell if the hard drive is the culprit or not. I'm surprised HR owners (and their customer support) don't perform bad sector scans, since it's the number one problem for other DVRs.

There's nothing special about Tivo hard drives vs. HR hard drives. They should have approximately the same failure rate.


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Hardware wise, it seems those built in Mexico [both -700 & -100] had a better build quality than the builds in other countries [aka China].
> The first runs of the Samsung [Malaysia] also seemed to be good.
> The H20-600 [Korean] simply seems to have been a poor design as they all run way too hot.


All the 700s I have were made in China. I wonder whatever happened to the 200s, they seem to have dropped out of the picture completely. The one I have works well. At least my son never complains about it.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

dreadlk said:


> Not saying its not true, I think it is this true,, but Wow for Hr2x users thats like someone in the scientific world saying they captured Bigfoot or The Lockness Monster. It just sounds so unreal!


To be honest, just writing that post scared me. Afraid I'd jinx myself. Don't believe in jinxes? Try playing baseball in some form for forty years. But that post really scared me. All I could think of was "here it comes". But they are all running well in spite of my statement and I can only hope that continues.

Two years ago, if you had told me that I would put that in print, I would have thought you were a madman. But, there it is. Don't know how long it will last, but I've been really trouble free since last April.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

dreadlk said:


> So many companies are making HD decoder boxes and most of them are buggy just like the Hr2x. IMHO I think the chip decoding process is not nearly as perfect as you might think. At this point in time with so much money being thrown at the problem, I don't think even Directv could be taking so long to work out the bugs, something in the hardware must also be at fault.


Gotta be the hardware primarily. How else to explain my lack of problems. Not discounting software problems completely. But I think you're on the right track.

Here's a link to ponder:

http://www.examiner.com/x-5622-Bost...s-experiencing-problems-here-in-Boston-lately

I'm pretty sure those problems are not confined to the Boston area.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> FWIW, I have 6 DVR's and 1 H21-200. While I had other issues, I can't remember a single 2008 lock-up either. /steve


Boy, are we going to jinx ourselves!

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

bobcamp1 said:


> I think they do. Some of the problems people are having sound hard-drive related. Maybe they should perform a scan for bad sectors.
> 
> The other thing is, when a Tivo acts funny it's usually the hard drive because everything else is pretty stable. When an HR acts funny, it's considered normal. So because an HR has so many other problems, you can't tell if the hard drive is the culprit or not. I'm surprised HR owners (and their customer support) don't perform bad sector scans, since it's the number one problem for other DVRs.
> 
> There's nothing special about Tivo hard drives vs. HR hard drives. They should have approximately the same failure rate.


I think the difference is where the OS resides. Do the TiVos have SATA drives? I had so much trouble with TiVo and hard drives. The nice thing about an eSATA is that if you have problems you can disconnect the eSATA and go to the internal drive and, usually, you see the same problems, which kinda rules out HDD problems.

Rich


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## jeffstra (Jun 23, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Unfortunately, even the Protection Plan just says it will replace your defective HR with an HR of equal or better quality, or words to that effect. And many times you replace a defective HR and get a defective HR as a replacement. I think they take their policy of "equal to, or better than" a bit too literally. If you're really, really lucky you might get one that "works consistently". Altho, that statement leaves a bit to be desired too. Consistent with what?
> 
> I do know what you mean, but getting a replacement that works is a crapshoot at best, a nightmare at worst.
> 
> Rich


DirecTv seems to be the company we love to hate or hate to love. I am a loyal customer, it's just hard sometimes.


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## Steve (Aug 22, 2006)

rich584 said:


> Boy, are we going to jinx ourselves!


Didn't say I didn't have other problems.  In my experience, lock-up's are pretty unusual. I've owned at least 4 HR's since March of 2007 and I don't think I've had more than 2-3 lock-ups total in that time.

I define a "lock-up" as the box essentially becoming a "brick". I.e., completely non-responsive to front panel or remote controls. The only fix is to unplug it for some period of time. /steve


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

jeffstra said:


> DirecTv seems to be the company we love to hate or hate to love. I am a loyal customer, it's just hard sometimes.


I've come to accept the HRs for what they are and the great anger I felt a couple years ago has subsided to the point that it's not a problem anymore. I keep telling myself "They are so much better than a VCR." and that seems to help.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

Steve said:


> Didn't say I didn't have other problems.  In my experience, lock-up's are pretty unusual. I've owned at least 4 HR's since March of 2007 and I don't think I've had more than 2-3 lock-ups total in that time.


Wow! Since March of 2007. Wish I could say that.



> I define a "lock-up" as the box essentially becoming a "brick". I.e., completely non-responsive to front panel or remote controls. The only fix is to unplug it for some period of time. /steve


That's how I define lock-ups too. I define "freeze-ups" as something that can be corrected with a couple clicks of the remote.

Rich


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## jeffstra (Jun 23, 2006)

rich584 said:


> I've come to accept the HRs for what they are and the great anger I felt a couple years ago has subsided to the point that it's not a problem anymore. I keep telling myself "They are so much better than a VCR." and that seems to help.
> 
> Rich


I agree, I'm no longer upset either. It's just that if they didn't drop recordings and need to be reset as often as they do, if they just worked like they should, how much better they'd be. Fortunately when this happens it seems to be something I can live without and not something like a ball game.


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

rich584 said:


> Wow! Since March of 2007. Wish I could say that.
> Rich


He didn't say if they were powered on!


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

rich584 said:


> I think the difference is where the OS resides. Do the TiVos have SATA drives? I had so much trouble with TiVo and hard drives. The nice thing about an eSATA is that if you have problems you can disconnect the eSATA and go to the internal drive and, usually, you see the same problems, which kinda rules out HDD problems.
> 
> Rich


The S3s do. But the HD and HDXL only accept the official Tivo hard drive add-on kit, "DVR expander".

But since it's your DVR, and there are free Windows and Linux-based tools out there, you can put any eSATA drive inside if you want. I'm surprised you didn't do that with your old Tivos (unless they were new, then I would have sent them back, too).

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5616160#post5616160


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

bobcamp1 said:


> The S3s do. But the HD and HDXL only accept the official Tivo hard drive add-on kit, "DVR expander".
> 
> But since it's your DVR, and there are free Windows and Linux-based tools out there, you can put any eSATA drive inside if you want. I'm surprised you didn't do that with your old Tivos (unless they were new, then I would have sent them back, too).
> 
> http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5616160#post5616160


I did put larger internals in the SD Series 2 TiVos, I don't think I remember an eSATA port on the back of them. I don't think they were SATA drives tho. Perhaps just the HD TiVos have SATA drives?

I did have an awful lot of problems that I know were related to the hard drives and, with a D* Series 2 TiVo, there's not a lot you can do except get a new hard drive for them. Got really expensive and I had twelve (12) TiVos running when I started with the HRs in '06. Just didn't trust them. And I found a site that guaranteed the hard drives for three years as opposed to weaknees.com's 3 months. But the hard drives with the 3 year guarantee made so much noise that they were unbearable. And since they did record and playback, everyone I sent back got returned. They "couldn't hear any abnormal noise".

So, realistically, I've had better luck with the HRs. Altho I have to admit that I have tried to block out the fall of '06 and most of '07 from my memory.

My wife is amazed that we still have D*. I rarely (read never) put up with what I have gone thru with the HRs. If they cost $2000 apiece, I would have had a herd of lawyers after them. OK, this is me losing my temper. Must stop and calm down.

Rich


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

rich584 said:


> I did put larger internals in the SD Series 2 TiVos, I don't think I remember an eSATA port on the back of them. I don't think they were SATA drives tho. Perhaps just the HD TiVos have SATA drives?
> 
> I did have an awful lot of problems that I know were related to the hard drives and, with a D* Series 2 TiVo, there's not a lot you can do except get a new hard drive for them. Got really expensive and I had twelve (12) TiVos running when I started with the HRs in '06. Just didn't trust them. And I found a site that guaranteed the hard drives for three years as opposed to weaknees.com's 3 months. But the hard drives with the 3 year guarantee made so much noise that they were unbearable. And since they did record and playback, everyone I sent back got returned. They "couldn't hear any abnormal noise".
> 
> ...


Only the S3s and later have the eSATA port. FYI, the Tivo's eSATA connection supplements the internal hard drive. You use both at the same time.

You went through THAT MANY hard drives? That's a string of bad luck. I generally use Samsung for the older IDE drives. Quiet and reliable.

Of course, you could be having hard drive problems with your HR units as well. Video stuttering, can't playback the recordings, etc.


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## Tallgntlmn (Jun 8, 2007)

And here I thought the slowness was my imagination. Moving from a SD-DVR40, this guide and the menus are ridiculous. I go to scroll and hit page down and then hit it again and it's like it doesn't even recognize that I hit it. Oh well, guess I'll get used to it until the TiVo based unit comes out.


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

Another thing that gives me a lack of confidence is the way the HR2x handles external esata drives. Why on earth would someone write firmware that formats the drive if it's powered up after the receiver?? Thats why I dont use an external drive, if you plug it and the receiver out and then plug the receiver in before the esata drive there's a good chance the esata will get formated over!

Why didnt they build the firmware with a prompt asking if it can format the drive #$%. That kind of stuff makes you wonder about all the possible other internal stuff that may be poorly designed and may also explain why the firmware never really gets better



rich584 said:


> Gotta be the hardware primarily. How else to explain my lack of problems. Not discounting software problems completely. But I think you're on the right track.
> 
> Here's a link to ponder:
> 
> ...


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## hdtvfan0001 (Jul 28, 2004)

dreadlk said:


> Another thing that gives me a lack of confidence is the way the HR2x handles external esata drives. Why on earth would someone write firmware that formats the drive if it's powered up after the receiver??


It's designed to do that.

In addition, there are millions of possibilities on what drive, what model, formatted or not, and other combinations when an eSata is "plugged in", so making the default to format it makes plenty of sense.

...and then of course...its not even a "supported" option....so its tough to complain when something "unsupported" just happens to work well anyway.


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## dreadlk (Sep 18, 2007)

I have to totaly disagree, all it requires is a prompt to ask if it should go ahead with the format. My PC does not format my external drive because I connected it after the PC booted so why does an HR2x ?

BTW it Works well until you have 1TB of shows get erased then you throw it out the window


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

bobcamp1 said:


> Only the S3s and later have the eSATA port. FYI, the Tivo's eSATA connection supplements the internal hard drive. You use both at the same time.


Kinda figured they would do that, the Series 2 had enough room to put two internals in and they would add to each other. I put a lot of brackets and dual drives in for a while and then, for whatever reason, you could just put a 300G drive in, which gave us plenty of storage.



> You went through THAT MANY hard drives? That's a string of bad luck. I generally use Samsung for the older IDE drives. Quiet and reliable.


I don't think it's luck. I rarely watch live TV and I guess I beat up DVRs. Folks who record 20 hours a week of shows have little or no problems, but I really fill up DVRs. Got eight HRs going now and am thinking of adding another just for Yankees games (I record baseball games for six hours just in case of rain delays).



> Of course, you could be having hard drive problems with your HR units as well. Video stuttering, can't playback the recordings, etc.


Nope, no problems at all. Even my poor wounded 21-700 rarely gives me any trouble. It's a lot easier to troubleshoot HRs with eSATAs than it was with TiVos. If an HR with an eSATA starts doing something strange, I just switch to the internal and, so far, have usually seen the same symptoms pop up on the internal. In any case, I can't remember (I will admit to a bad memory) getting a replacement HR since last April and, by golly, that's a year now. And they are all in constant use. (For those people out there who take every word literally, by "constant use", I mean used daily.)

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

dreadlk said:


> Another thing that gives me a lack of confidence is the way the HR2x handles external esata drives. Why on earth would someone write firmware that formats the drive if it's powered up after the receiver?? Thats why I dont use an external drive, if you plug it and the receiver out and then plug the receiver in before the esata drive there's a good chance the esata will get formated over!


I've unplugged the HRs so many times and have never had an eSATA reformatted. I rarely do anything but pull the cord when a problem arises. To "refresh" an HR, I do use the menu restart option.



> Why didnt they build the firmware with a prompt asking if it can format the drive #$%. That kind of stuff makes you wonder about all the possible other internal stuff that may be poorly designed and may also explain why the firmware never really gets better


If you go to the diagnostics page, it does have a reformat prompt, I believe.

Rich


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

dreadlk said:


> I have to totaly disagree, all it requires is a prompt to ask if it should go ahead with the format. My PC does not format my external drive because I connected it after the PC booted so why does an HR2x ?


If you boot the HR first, and leave the eSATA power off, the HR won't recognize the eSATA, why would it format the drive? I do this all the time and have never seen an eSATA get reformatted unless I told the HR to reformat the drive.

And, after all the posts on how to hook up an eSATA, why would anyone power up an eSATA after the HR has booted up? If you are going to use an eSATA, the HR is the last thing that should be energized. Always. You don't have to unplug the eSATA or unhook the jumper cord to reboot. Just the HR, most of the time. Sometimes I do have to pull the plug on an eSATA, but I always plug it back in first then plug in the HR. Once you have the jumper cable installed, there is never any reason to unplug it that I know of.



> BTW it Works well until you have 1TB of shows get erased then you throw it out the window


That did happen to me after an NR a few months ago. When the HR rebooted after the download, a screen popped up telling me there was a problem with the eSATAs hard drive. I tried using the diagnostics to get the programming back, but failed a couple of times and finally just reformatted it and lost all the programming. Dumped the eSATA because I figured the odds on it happening again were pretty good and have had no problems with that HR since.

Rich


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## bobcamp1 (Nov 8, 2007)

rich584 said:


> I don't think it's luck. I rarely watch live TV and I guess I beat up DVRs. Folks who record 20 hours a week of shows have little or no problems, but I really fill up DVRs. Got eight HRs going now and am thinking of adding another just for Yankees games (I record baseball games for six hours just in case of rain delays).
> Rich


All DVRs are always in constant use. There is no heavy or light DVR use. For the hard drive, it's heavy use under hot conditions. That is the worst environment for it. Certain manufacturers are known for their reliability, some for there noise (or lack of it).

Most DVRs (including the HRs and Tivos) use Western Digital drives now, which are supposedly rated for DVR use (that just means they are slowed down to reduce noise levels). WD has been moderate in reliability and noise. Seagates have a nice warranty, but are REALLY LOUD.

A list of quiet hard drives is here: http://www.silentpcreview.com/article29-page2.html

And now back to the topic.... 

For our house, one missed recording was it. We sent back all three of our HR-20s within 48 hours of getting them (as they all failed to record at least one show in a 72 hour stretch), and downgraded to SD service so we could use our Tivo.


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## ImBack234 (Aug 26, 2008)

bobcamp1 said:


> And now back to the topic....
> 
> For our house, one missed recording was it. We sent back all three of our HR-20s within 48 hours of getting them (as they all failed to record at least one show in a 72 hour stretch), and downgraded to SD service so we could use our Tivo.


Wow you got to love that. :eek2::lol:


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## Rich (Feb 22, 2007)

bobcamp1 said:


> All DVRs are always in constant use. There is no heavy or light DVR use.


Not too sure about that. Recording and playing back have to increase the load on the HR, don't you think? And when I watch sports, I'm always going back and forth. That's when I've had eSATAs lock up on me.

Rich


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## gsslug (Sep 13, 2006)

jfalkingham said:


> Anyway, I'm also certain that updates (whenever they come) will resolve over time.


I had a lot of problems this time last year with an HR20-700. After a couple of software updates the problems went away. Still get an occasional hiccup but nothing serious.


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## dodge boy (Mar 31, 2006)

I can honestly say I hate alot of things in this world but my DVR is not one of them...


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