WARNING - Before you go in for the HR20

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See you are actually totally agreeing with me. I said everyone chooses based on their own criteria. You chose different but you still agree with my overall point that people should choose on their personal criteria not based on system bashing from people with different criteria.

See we agree

 

I've had "empty" recordings and continue to have problems with the HR20, especially the "no signal" on tuner 1 bug.

 

Sounds like a bad tuner. Call DirecTV and get a replacement. No amount of software updates will fix a bad tuner. Good luck!

 

To be short and simple... We like HD. We like Tivo. For many of us, we like tivo more.

In the first days, the HR20 was a complete piece of crap. Tivo, Inc. has never released anything that bad -- even in their first days. Today, the HR20 is much improved, but it's still nowhere near the simplicity and stability of a tivo.

 

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You are only entitled to that opinion if you owned both a first gen HR20 and a first gen TIVO. Let me completely assure you that first gen TIVO's were riddled with problems, but I was still happy to have it. I have an October 2006 HR20 that has never had a single problem.

Please don't let hard facts get in the way of your opinion. This is not even to say you are wrong but I don't think you have first hand experience (please now pop in and tell me that you do)

 

Since you insist! loloolol Well JohnB... I had a first generation HR10 and an Oct 2006 HR20. The TIVO only gave me trouble one time... when I upgraded to that crappy 6.1 (or whatever version it was!) firmware. FORTUNATELY I was able to get back down to 3.1f so it's still working GREAT! Now I'm SURE I'm an exception to the rule for TCF members BUT on the other hand, my HR20 has given me issues from day one. YES it IS working better today then before but it's STILL missing recordings, STILL doesn't have DLB, still etc etc etc.

This, I suppose, entitles me to that opinion as well! I remember the HDMI issues from TIVO although I didn't suffer from them. In fact I am still using my first one unit ($1,000!) and still enjoying it!

 

I have plenty of first gen experience. I had the first gen TiVo, the DirecTiVo from the first week of release, the 10-250 from early on and the HR20 from Nov 2006. Perhaps more importantly, since everyone's experience is different based on a thousand variables, I was very active on this board at the time and for the HR20 release the DSBTalk forums.

From my POV, the HR20 launch was unprecedented in the level of critical problems in the first few months. There have always been people with bad TiVo experiences too, but there wasn't a fraction of the noise from so many users at the time of their launch as their was with the HR20. Not even in the same league. Go back and search the archives on thsi board and try to find the same level of issues reported by so many people. Also, I know at the time that when people had early D* TiVo issues, they were sent replacements because they were perceived by D* as largely hardware issues. The same was not true of the HR20. There were always some who got clueless or easy CSR's who got sent new units, but in many, mnay cases DirecTV didn't because they openly acknowledged they had "known" software problems and expected people to wait about 6 months (depending on when you got it) for them to be fixed.

All that said, D* did release software updates WAY more frequently and quickly than they ever did with the TiVo. And the box now, for most it appears, is WAY more stable and already has responded to a lot of the UI and feature gripes from the early releases which, again, is radically faster than it happened with TiVo. I can definitely see for some, depending on their feature priorities, why the HR20 is now a better box, even without the HD issue. And there is no doubt for better or worse that it is D* future direction. Wishing for a new TiVo alliance is pretty hopeless at this point... I am sure eventually I will have to give up the last remaining TiVo or drop D*.

So I am not a hardcore HR20 hater. But I also don't like reinventing history. It was a initially a very troubled machine for a vast number of people (not a small minority) of users who got in in 2006. There was no comparison with the early TiVo laucnh.

 

Here's the thing, why must the HR20 be compared to "the first generation HR10?" DVR's aren't 'new' anymore, and the HR20 should've worked every bit as well as the HR10 does *now,* not when it (HR10) was first introduced years ago.

When I got my HR20, it was supossed to be an upgrade ...not a restart from square one. We were paying for the privledge of being D* beta testers.

Yes, there are people who claim they've never had a single problem with the unit....ever. But I think those are in the minority. My unit still misses SL recordings too, and until this stops happening, I can't recommend the unit.

 

Because it was a first generation product... no part of it was bought or licensed from any experienced DVR maker. It was 100% home grown within DTV. They don't want to license anything from anyone because they'd have to pay for it; and if they refuse to pay Tivo, Inc. $1 per DVR subscriber for all of Tivo's technology, what makes you think they'd pay anyone else anything?

And there are people who have reportedly had unending problems with tivo's. These things are always hard to gauge as those who aren't having issues generally don't speak up. However, the number of deployed HR20's has been increasing, but I've not seen a coresponding increase in complaints.

 

Are you really being serious in comparing the people who have 10-250 problems (other than HD failures which are univeral to all DVR's) to the level of problems with the the early HR20? I'm sorry, but it's a difference of magnitude. Its like comparing a product that has less than 1% of replacement due to overheating with the early XBox 360 where MS ended up admitted it was an issue in a huge percentage of the boxes. Fortunatley for D*, there's was a remotely addressable software issue. But it was massively different in scale.

Again, not an HR20 hater. I own and use one and expect to eventually have another (or is sequel). And for a vast majority of users, the problems are behind them. I would say that the # of people still with HR20 issues is now finally on par with 10-250 issues, proportionate to the user base. But I am repeatedly mystified by this argument that the early problems were comparable. Its about as credible as a flat Earth..

 

When Hyundai introduced their very first automobile it wasn't compared to compacts from 10 years ago ...it was compared to that which was currently on the market (which is the way it should be).

HR20 should be comparable to other units and how they work today. That's the standard.

 

I was on the phone almost weekly with D* about our HR20 problems. After a year of problems, phone calls, and empty promises (and 4 replacement units)...they've worn me down. I've simply stopped calling to complain, as the response I get isn't worth the phone call anymore.

I've accepted the fact that I've got to live with it, until D* fixes it. It is what it is unfortunately.

 

Unfortunately people seem to be unable to view electronics this way and I have never understood it either.

When the Xbox came out even though it was going against the PS2 people compared it to the PS1 since it was the first generation by the Microsoft fans and the Sony fans argued it should be compared to the current PS2. Then when the PS3 was launched it was compared to the Xbox 360 launch by the Sony fans and not the actual system at the time of the launch.

Since the R-15 came out people have been comparing it to since Tivo first premiered on Directv back when it only had one tuner active. The argument is always that the product is first gen so it should be compared to the first gen. It seems limited to electronics but only when the company gets a pass. For example the Zune was never compared to the first Ipod that I have seen.