# Time to retire the HR10-250



## jagrim (Aug 26, 2006)

I am planning on deactivating my daughter's HR10-250 this weekend and replace it with an HR20-100. She still has recorded shows that she would like to watch (at her leisure). If I disconnect the phone line and sat inputs prior to deactivateing, will her recorded shows still be able to be watched?

Thanks in advance
:bowdown:


----------



## BattleZone (Nov 13, 2007)

Yes. Be sure to remove the sat connection before calling!


----------



## jagrim (Aug 26, 2006)

Thanks


----------



## Draconis (Mar 16, 2007)

Just remember, the authorizations on the card do have a expiration date. 

If you disconnect the IRD from power when you deactivate it you will be able to watch programming, but this will only be temporary, once the authorizations expire you will not longer be able to watch them.


----------



## whitepelican (May 9, 2007)

Despite the (mostly incorrect) comments made above, you will have no problem at all watching the recordings on an HR10-250 indefinitely. You don't need to worry about disconnecting sat. feeds before cancelling or any other such nonsense. I have one HR10-250 that I bought used on ebay over a year ago and it still has the original owners recordings on it. I can watch them just fine if I choose to. I have also had many, many disconnected DirecTivos that didn't have service authorized that I've been able to watch recordings on over the years. If the recordings are there, you can view them, end of story. There is absolutely no worry about recording authorizations expiring unless you are talking about pay-per-view movies (and then only with the very latest software versions).


----------



## TJStaar (Aug 1, 2006)

I have 2 HR10-250's that I deactiviated in 2007. I am in the process of copying the programs that I want to keep to a DVD recorder. Other than the rather annoying habit of constantly looking for a satellite signal, they are playing flawlessly. You should be fine.


----------



## whitepelican (May 9, 2007)

TJStaar said:


> I have 2 HR10-250's that I deactiviated in 2007. I am in the process of copying the programs that I want to keep to a DVD recorder. Other than the rather annoying habit of constantly looking for a satellite signal, they are playing flawlessly. You should be fine.


You could go into the setup on an HR10-250 and tell it you have OTA only, and then you won't get the "searching for satellite" nags anymore. Of course, you might get "searching for antenna", but I'm not sure if that would still happen if you didn't actually add any OTA channels to the Channels I Receive list.


----------



## MarkEHansen (Sep 4, 2008)

whitepelican said:


> Despite the (mostly incorrect) comments made above, you will have no problem at all watching the recordings on an HR10-250 indefinitely. You don't need to worry about disconnecting sat. feeds before cancelling or any other such nonsense. I have one HR10-250 that I bought used on ebay over a year ago and it still has the original owners recordings on it. I can watch them just fine if I choose to. I have also had many, many disconnected DirecTivos that didn't have service authorized that I've been able to watch recordings on over the years. If the recordings are there, you can view them, end of story. There is absolutely no worry about recording authorizations expiring unless you are talking about pay-per-view movies (and then only with the very latest software versions).


I don't know about the HR10-250 in use by the OP, but as far as DirecTiVos go, I have a Hughes HDVR2 DirecTiVo, and when I upgraded to a newer HR23 machine, I was (eventually) no longer able to view any recordings on the HDVR2. This took about 1-2 days. When I talked to D*, they said that the machine needs to re-authorize itself (via Satellite) every couple of days, or it will lock up.

I expect it may be different for different machines.

Regards,


----------



## whitepelican (May 9, 2007)

MarkEHansen said:


> I don't know about the HR10-250 in use by the OP, but as far as DirecTiVos go, I have a Hughes HDVR2 DirecTiVo, and when I upgraded to a newer HR23 machine, I was (eventually) no longer able to view any recordings on the HDVR2. This took about 1-2 days. When I talked to D*, they said that the machine needs to re-authorize itself (via Satellite) every couple of days, or it will lock up.
> 
> I expect it may be different for different machines.
> 
> Regards,


I'm sorry, but that's just not correct. The CSR was selling you a line of BS. If you still have the HDVR2 you could plug it in today and play back the recordings. Unless, of course it has some sort of hardware error, which is what it sounds like when you say it would "lock up". That is not typical behavior for an inactive DirecTivo unit.


----------



## MarkEHansen (Sep 4, 2008)

whitepelican said:


> I'm sorry, but that's just not correct. The CSR was selling you a line of BS. If you still have the HDVR2 you could plug it in today and play back the recordings. Unless, of course it has some sort of hardware error, which is what it sounds like when you say it would "lock up". That is not typical behavior for an inactive DirecTivo unit.


Sorry, but this is what happened to me. It worked for a little while, then stopped. The only way to get it working again was to pay the additional receiver fee ($5) and hook a Sat cable up to it.

These are the facts. I was there.


----------



## whitepelican (May 9, 2007)

MarkEHansen said:


> These are the facts. I was there.


Your facts are just wrong. I'm not disputing the fact that a CSR told you you had to pay $5/month to view your recordings. I'm just disputing whether the CSR told you the truth. They didn't. And if your HDVR2 stopped playing back recordings, it was not due to it being disconnected/unauthorized, but most likely due to a hardware error. I've got piles of these DirecTivo units (including a couple HDVR2s) sitting around my house right now, and I could plug any one of them in and play back the recordings off that unit anytime I want.


----------



## MarkEHansen (Sep 4, 2008)

whitepelican said:


> Your facts are just wrong. I'm not disputing the fact that a CSR told you you had to pay $5/month to view your recordings. I'm just disputing whether the CSR told you the truth. They didn't. And if your HDVR2 stopped playing back recordings, it was not due to it being disconnected/unauthorized, but most likely due to a hardware error. I've got piles of these DirecTivo units (including a couple HDVR2s) sitting around my house right now, and I could plug any one of them in and play back the recordings off that unit anytime I want.


This is my last comment on this topic. The message I got on the machine once it got to this point was that it was not authorized, or something like that. This is when I was trying to get into the list of recorded shows.

I don't know why this happened. Perhaps it was something specific with the firmware running on the machine at the time, I don't know.

Your experience was certainly different, but it does not negate what happened to me.

Best Regards,


----------



## TJStaar (Aug 1, 2006)

whitepelican said:


> You could go into the setup on an HR10-250 and tell it you have OTA only, and then you won't get the "searching for satellite" nags anymore. Of course, you might get "searching for antenna", but I'm not sure if that would still happen if you didn't actually add any OTA channels to the Channels I Receive list.


Thanks, I'll try that. Go PACKERS!


----------



## goo_nadd (Sep 27, 2009)

I guess I need to retire my HR10-250

I just purchased a new 500 gig HD but it seems the power supply might be bad (another $80.00). I get the "insert access card" message. The audio and video drops out too.

I really love this machine. I have a HR21/700 and the slow speed just kills me.

The recent addition of double play makes the HR21 a little better.

I need a new DVR, what should I do? Call DTV?

Thanks in advance,
Jim


----------



## codespy (Mar 30, 2006)

I have to agree with whitepelican on this one. I still utilize five Hughes HDVR2's and just update programming on them every year or so and although not currently activated they work just fine as DVR players. Any S2 DirecTiVo (that I know of) works this way.

I know the DirecTV branded units do not however. I had an R15 loaded with programs which after deactivation worked for a short time until I received the dreaded 'searching for authorized content' nag.

If you are still having problems mark, it must be some other issue/IRD.


----------



## MarkEHansen (Sep 4, 2008)

codespy said:


> I have to agree with whitepelican on this one. I still utilize five Hughes HDVR2's and just update programming on them every year or so and although not currently activated they work just fine as DVR players. Any S2 DirecTiVo (that I know of) works this way.
> 
> I know the DirecTV branded units do not however. I had an R15 loaded with programs which after deactivation worked for a short time until I received the dreaded 'searching for authorized content' nag.
> 
> If you are still having problems mark, it must be some other issue/IRD.


Well, I hooked a sat cable back up to the machine so I would be able to view recorded content (whether or not it was actually necessary  ). Since then, I've gotten used to being able to use the machine as a back-up to my new HD DVR - and for just $5/month, I think I'll just keep it that way until the machine dies :grin:

I may disconnect the sat cable and just run it for a few days and see how it does. If I can get to this, I'll report back here with what I find.

Thanks,


----------



## MarkEHansen (Sep 4, 2008)

goo_nadd said:


> I guess I need to retire my HR10-250
> 
> I just purchased a new 500 gig HD but it seems the power supply might be bad (another $80.00). I get the "insert access card" message. The audio and video drops out too.
> 
> ...


Are you referring to the power supply in the DVR? There's an article that talks about replacing bad capacitors in the power supply used in several different machines. I'm not sure if you're machine is one of them, but you can have a look at the article:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Repair-a-Hughes-HDVR2-Tivo-Power-Supply/

Note that even if your DVR doesn't use the same power supply, it may still be having the same problem. After talking to some friends I know, it seems that these large filter capacitors are notorious for going bad - and do so all the time. The article describes what to look for when checking for a bad capacitor.

If yours has a bad cap, you may be able to replace it (I did, it was pretty easy) or have someone else do it for you.

Note: If you don't own the DVR, then be careful about tinkering in it. It may violate your terms of service or some such. Beware :eek2:


----------



## whitepelican (May 9, 2007)

MarkEHansen said:


> I may disconnect the sat cable and just run it for a few days and see how it does. If I can get to this, I'll report back here with what I find.


If you do decide to do this and you have a problem with it again, try to get the exact wording of the on-screen message. I'm very curious, because your case is the first I've heard of anyone having this kind of problem using an unsubscribed DirecTivo.


----------



## codespy (Mar 30, 2006)

Mark-

When you boot up, the last step is to acquire satellite information where the dots appear on the bottom of the screen. With the your HDVR2, the dots will not appear since there is no sat cable hooked up. Just press the top 'DirecTV' button and it takes you to the main menu where you find the now playing list.

The only nag I get when playing something is 'please insert valid access card' which lasts only 5 minutes then goes away.


----------



## whitepelican (May 9, 2007)

codespy said:


> The only nag I get when playing something is 'please insert valid access card' which lasts only 5 minutes then goes away.


I believe you can put any card in to avoid that nag. (Or maybe this is only true of Tivos that are hacked.)


----------



## MarkEHansen (Sep 4, 2008)

whitepelican said:


> If you do decide to do this and you have a problem with it again, try to get the exact wording of the on-screen message. I'm very curious, because your case is the first I've heard of anyone having this kind of problem using an unsubscribed DirecTivo.


Well, I disconnected the sat cable from my HDVR2 and it continued to work for several days, even across reboots.

I don't know what happened the first time I tried this, but since I can't replicate it, we'll have to assume it never happened :eek2:

Each time I go back to the unit after some delay, it's on a screen reporting that it wasn't able to get the satellite signal and offers me the choice of trying to get the signal again, re-doing the satellite setup again, or going to DirecTV Central.

At this point, if I just hit the "List" button, the machine hangs and must be power cycled. On the other hand, if I hit the DirecTV button (or take the menu option to go to DirecTV Central) it works.

Of course, since I go to the machine rarely (so it's usually always on this screen when I get there) and I'm used to hitting the List button to go the Now Playing list, I hit this several times 

Other than that minor issue, it seems to be working fine, and continues to show my recorded programs, etc.

I just wanted to report back, as I promised I would


----------



## whitepelican (May 9, 2007)

MarkEHansen said:


> Well, I disconnected the sat cable from my HDVR2 and it continued to work for several days, even across reboots.
> 
> I don't know what happened the first time I tried this, but since I can't replicate it, we'll have to assume it never happened :eek2:
> 
> ...


Thanks for responding. Theoretically, I guess this still isn't the same situation as you had before because the box is still active on your DirecTV account, right? Of course, there is no way for the receiver to know that once it's disconnected from the satellite, so maybe it is the same.

By the way, I'm sorry for giving you a hard time about this previously. I just wanted to try to help others out by letting them know they would still be able to view the recordings on their Tivo units when they remove them from service to replace them with newer hardware. Because there seems to be some confusion on the issue due to the fact that the DirecTV branded DVRs don't allow this.


----------



## MarkEHansen (Sep 4, 2008)

whitepelican said:


> Thanks for responding. Theoretically, I guess this still isn't the same situation as you had before because the box is still active on your DirecTV account, right? Of course, there is no way for the receiver to know that once it's disconnected from the satellite, so maybe it is the same.


Still, the CSR said that the box would check for a re-auth via sat every couple of days, and that's clearly not happening this time.

I wonder if DirecTV was able to send a shutdown signal to the box the last time (before I disconnected the cable)? However, I'm pretty sure I disconnected the cable *before* the installer got into the house.

By the way, I've always had the box connected via phone line. I wonder if it got the deactivate command that way?



whitepelican said:


> By the way, I'm sorry for giving you a hard time about this previously. I just wanted to try to help others out by letting them know they would still be able to view the recordings on their Tivo units when they remove them from service to replace them with newer hardware. Because there seems to be some confusion on the issue due to the fact that the DirecTV branded DVRs don't allow this.


I didn't take any offense, so please don't worry about that.

I wonder though if it's confusing because sometimes the boxes work as you say, and sometimes they do not? :grin:

Best Regards,


----------

