Is the HR20 an inferior product

Advertisements

cool, but what was ur deal to get the upgrade? I need 4 hd dvrs and only have 2 hr10-250's so they said they'll only offer me 99 plus shipping for those 2, the other two have to be retail.

btw the rep actually argued that I only have 1 hr10-250, I told her i'm using the second one right now!

 

Mine was a customer retention upgrade. My 2 year commitment was up and I was calling them to cancel my service because they were about to take my account out of suspension, then they offered to upgrade my HD and Standard DirecTivo for free. I didn't get any programming deals, so as far as a CR deal it was so/so, but it worked for me and I am much happier being back with DirecTV.

 

The HR20 looks like poo on OTA HD channels that look fantastic on the HR10-250.

The OTA and MPEG2 channels look like they are being severely and heavily filtered in the HR20. It is either a feature of their chipset, or an intentional setting applied to soften the difference between hi-bandwidth OTA and their lower bandwidth MPEG4 stream.

The net effect is that OTA looks identical to the MPEG4 at reduced bitrates. It should NOT, but it does. Hi bitrate OTA HD should look great and a lot better than reduced rate MPEG4.

I'm guessing that drives down the D* complaint calls from Joe SixPack blinking between channels and noticing the difference.

 

It is not a huge amount of people, just mainly the the same lemmings and zealots (which is why I call them that) who post often enough (and possibly under different names ) that make it sound like the HR20 is a POS. As already stated by many, it's mostly personal preference. But some take it as an all or nothing situation (thus the zealot tag).

As for the half truths, there are things like claiming no DLB makes it worthless, when there is a simple work around. And the gripes about the picture in guide (or whatever it's called) but yet was on the top of the Tivo feature wishlist since day one. Someone even claimed the HR20 was slower then the HR10, which unless his box is broken is just not right.

I'm all for opinions, but when someone states something as if it's a fact, then that is a crusade. Especially when their goal is to try and scare people away from the unit in the hopes that if they can get enough people to be fellow lemmings, that DirecTV will change their mind and bring Tivo back (which IMO will never happen at this point in the game).

 

Advertisements

It's poo.

Anyone who doesn't agree is brainwashed or working for D*.

 

I am not brainwashed, nor do I work for D*. I'm am also not mindlessly stuck on a box whose obsolescence is here and now.

 

Oh brothers, what a load of... Just one more line people tell themselves to back up their position.

I did comparisons up the wazzu between my OTA and MPEG4 locals when I first got my HR20. To my eye there is no difference at all. I still have to record my CBS OTA due to LIN TV not playing nice and I can't see any difference between the CBS HD shows and the NBC, ABC, FOX HD shows I record in MPEG4 from D* (other than the larger hard drive space the OTA shows take up).

I upgraded from an HR10 and have never looked back. Never missed a recording due to the HR20's fault. Never had a blank recording. I've only had pure HDTV enjoyment.

 

http://oceania.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=230991

EchoStar will continue to pursue its appeal of the patent-infringement judgment that TiVo won http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6470703.html against it, according to Ergen.

"We believe we're right, and we don't believe we infringed," Ergen said. "Win or lose [the appeal] we plan to have conversation with TiVo about how we can work together."

I wonder what the chances are that Dish will ultimately become TiVo's partner for satellite TV?

 

when people say "no dlb make it worthless" and gripe "the 'pig' sucks!" those are opinions. i dunno how things like that can even be stated as fact.


sounds like you have a beef with 1 or 2 people here, and the rest of us have to suffer through the 'battle.' too bad for us, lol.

 

FYP

 

QFT -

 

Gee, do you understand that they ***SHOULD*** look different?

The OTA signal from a good station that's been recoded to a lower bitrate will suffer degradation from the transcoding process.

The HR20 does a FAR better job on SD material.

But the HD quality is poorer on good OTA material and visibly so.

It's just how it is.

 

Yeah, that's really not the point he's making. He's saying that the HR20 is doing something with the OTA signal and therefore it looks like poo. Or filtered poo. Or MPEG4 locals.

If I get the HR20 on Friday, I'll have it running in tandem with the HR10. After I calibrate my TV, I can directly compare what the HR10 is doing/not doing to OTA broadcasts vs. the HR20.

 

Please post your results when you do, thanks!

 

I compared my MPEG4 HD locals on the HR20 with the OTA signal using my TV's internal ATSC tuner, so the HR20 was not involved in the process when I was looking at my OTA channels. I don't know how I can say it any clearer, but to me, there was/is no difference between my OTA signals as viewed with my TV's ATSC tuner and the MPEG4 HD locals as viewed with the HR20.

It's just how it is.

(And the HR20's OTA tuner is much better than the HR10s. With same antenna sitting in the same position, my OTAs come in much better than they did on the HR10.)

 

+1

 

Do I think the HR20 is an inferior product? Well let's see, Monday my wife tells me all the channels had suddenly gone black and the box had turned into a zombie yet again. Yet another reboot (I reboot once a week at least anyway or it will freeze up) and everything is back to normal, or so I think. I go to watch Prison Break which it had recorded earlier and under my list of shows that have been recorded it's gone, along with everything else on the list. That's the second time I've had that happen since I got the stupid box in August.

It's also still having problems only recording first run shows. It has a bad habit of recording old stuff and trying to tell me it's new, even though I've seen it before. I also hate how it doesn't seem to respond right away to remote commands. I never know if when I press a button the machine got it or not. Yea, I know I can turn on sounds so I'll know that the machine received the command, but I don't like using the sounds. The ff button on the remote is now sounding like it's going to fall out any day now too. It gives new meaning to the old term "clicker". Yea, real great quality unit you've got here Directv.

At least I still have my HD-Tivo, you know, a REAL DVR that actually keeps the shows I record running on my other tv. In the 3 years I've had that one, it's never, repeat, never lost all of the shows in the Now playing list. It's also smart enough to actually record first run shows only when I tell it to. I also miss having Wishlists a lot with the HR20. I really don't see why they can't implement a similar feature on it, but then again, I doubt it'd work anyway even if they did.

To be sure, there ARE things about the HR20 that are better than the HD-Tivo. 90 minute buffer, free space indicator, and not having to have it plugged into a phone line. These are great, but I don't care in the least if the machine isn't reliable, and so far it's proven to be far from it for me.

 

After 2 months of using both (I kept the HR10 stacked on top of the new HR20), here are my thoughts. I generally use the HR20 for MGEG-4 & surfing (80% usage) and I use the HR10 to record Leno, NFL, and most other non-MPEG-4 stuff (20% usage).

It has been stated that dual buffers is only for sports. I disagree. When surfing I will often pause a program during a commercial, while I surf with the other tuner, returning later to resume. This is inconvenient on the HR20.

User Interface: The HR10 is way more intuitive. The HR10 remote is way better. But, the most important UI issue is speed. So even though I hate to say it, overall I like the HR20 UI better. Wow, I can't believe I just said that.

Suggestions: I love suggestions! Since I began using TIVO (4 years ago?, 3 generations of products back), I have meticulously rated programs, to train the suggestions. Yes, I sometimes find weird stuff there (Spanish, cartoons, etc), but overall, suggestions is very good at finding stuff similar to what I watch. It often finds stuff that I would have recorded if I had know about. It is essentially an assistance who looks for stuff that I might otherwise miss. It pre-screens stuff for me. To this day, I love looking in there and discovering what it has found for me. I am VERY bothered that suggestions can not search MPEG-4 material. I feel cheated to lose a feature I liked so much.

So overall, I have converted with only slight regret. The MPEG-4 channels make it a no-brainer. But, I definitely want Dual buffers and Suggestions back!

garbec
www.wetdesert.net

 

Good summary but do you really think the UI is that much more intuitive, I wonder if you/I are just more used to the TIVO one and if we only ever used an HR20 we'd be fine ??? It's genuine question. The more I use the HR20 the more I find little TIVO things inconvenient (for example 2 presses to get to Now Playing, turning off the recorded show I'm watching to view the guide being the two obvious one's)

 

I do think the Tivo UI is more intuitive. One of the reasons is how easy it is to learn. I have learned the HR20 much faster than my wife and kids, because I am a geek. I studied the remote instructions and read FAQs on dbstalk. And I have needed to show my family how to use it. The TIVO interface required no manual. I remembered a guy on the internet saying that TIVO had a great WAF (wife acceptance factor). I think TIVO was easy enough that many non-geeks would use it. The HR20 does not accomplish the same.

Remote: The peanut remote won awards for being easy to use. The number of buttons, size variance, and shape all made it intuitive and easy to learn. The HR20 remote requires more memorization. You are correct that after you have memorized it, it works, but it is not as easy to learn. Example 1: When you hold the peanut, your thumb falls right on the yellow Play/pause key, which is the most often used key. On the HR20 remote, your thumb falls on the SELECT key, and you have to reach upwards to get to play or pause. I often hit select instead of play on the HR20 by mistake. Example 2: If you don’t know what to do on the TIVO remote, you hit the TIVO key at the top, and it will walk you through the decisions.

I don't deny that some keystrokes are faster on the HR20, but I stick by my observation that TIVO is easier to use and learn, especially for the masses.