Anyone send the HR20 back and stick with Tivo

4127 Views 52 Replies 26 Participants Last post by gio1269, Jul 15, 2007

trehutch

Discussion Starter · Jul 11, 2007

I am in the same boat as many of you. I currently have 2 H10-250's. I am thinking about the upgrade to the dissatisfaction of my wife who loves her Tivo but that Tivo won't be able to get her favorite channel in HD, HGTV come Q3 07. Has anyone gotten the Hr20 and simple hated it to the point of sending it back to Directv and then going back to Tivo until they rip it our of your hands from it's cold dead chassis. Just trying to keep the options open.

Family room Sharp LC46D92U, H10-250,
Bedroom Westinghouse LW37W1, H10-250

thanks for the call out members my bad HR20 not H20

1 - 20 of 53 Posts

ebonovic

· #2 · Jul 11, 2007

Pretty much anyone that wants and HR20, doesn't have to give up their HR10's.
You can leave them active on your account. (re-the HR10s)

However, you will be hard pressed to get out of the 2-yr contract, without paying a fee.

JimSpence

· #3 · Jul 11, 2007

BTW, your title shows H20, should be HR20.

HiDefGator

· #4 · Jul 11, 2007

I sold my wife on the change with the rf remote so we could put the bedroom unit in the closet out of sight.

She also liked the ability to view pictures from the PC on the TV and the on-screen caller id.

Her only condition was all of the directivo's in the house had to change at once. Same interface\remote everywhere.

Now I just have to decide when to do it. I'm not sure I can go cold turkey off Tivo.

drew2k

· #5 · Jul 11, 2007

trehutch said:
I am in the same boat as many of you. I currently have 2 H10-250's. I am thinking about the upgrade to the dissatisfaction of my wife who loves her Tivo but that Tivo won't be able to get her favorite channel in HD, HGTV come Q3 07. Has anyone gotten the H20 and simple hated it to the point of sending it back to Directv and then going back to Tivo until they rip it our of your hands from it's cold dead chassis. Just trying to keep the options open.

Family room Sharp LC46D92U, H10-250,
Bedroom Westinghouse LW37W1, H10-250

trehutch - You mention H20 several times in your post, but the H20 is just an HD receiver, not an HD DVR. As Jim points out, the HR20 is the new DVR that can receive the new HD channels this fall.

Tony Chick

· #6 · Jul 11, 2007

I kept the Tivo and have both running side-by-side. I let the Tivo handle OTA HD and any D* SD and use the HR20 for live viewing (the guide is much faster), Mpeg-4 stuff & networked music (pictures look horrible, they are SD). So, best of both worlds.

230

· #7 · Jul 12, 2007

My wife couldn't care less if her shows are in HD. So I leave the 10-250 hooked up to the S-Video port for her, and use my 1 component input for my H20. (don't ask why I only have 1 component input. Lets just say don't start yanking on wires from another room when you think it's caught on something.)

Sir_winealot

· #8 · Jul 12, 2007

trehutch said:
I am in the same boat as many of you. I currently have 2 H10-250's. I am thinking about the upgrade to the dissatisfaction of my wife who loves her Tivo but that Tivo won't be able to get her favorite channel in HD, HGTV come Q3 07. Has anyone gotten the Hr20 and simple hated it to the point of sending it back to Directv and then going back to Tivo until they rip it our of your hands from it's cold dead chassis. Just trying to keep the options open.

Family room Sharp LC46D92U, H10-250,
Bedroom Westinghouse LW37W1, H10-250

thanks for the call out members my bad HR20 not H20

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=91721

A thread with both the good and bad of the unit.

bonscott87

· #9 · Jul 12, 2007

By the way, they aren't going to rip the HR10 from your cold dead hands at all. It will continue to function and be useful just fine. It just won't be able to tune into the new HD. Not sure why everyone things the HR10 all of a sudden won't function after Sept 15th.

The question/answer is fairly simple:
Get an HR20 if you want the new HD.
HR10 will still be great for OTA HD and SD as well as MPEG2 HD while it lasts.
OR examine your other options beyond DirecTV if Tivo is your #1 must have.

iaflyer

· #10 · Jul 12, 2007

trehutch said:
Has anyone gotten the Hr20 and simple hated it to the point of sending it back to Directv and then going back to Tivo until they rip it our of your hands from it's cold dead chassis. Just trying to keep the options open.

I did that exact thing - I got an HR20 about 5 months ago, used it for a week and decided I didn't like it and didn't meet my needs as a DVR (ie, reliably record shows). I returned it and got a HR10 off Ebay. Been happy since.

unixadm

· #11 · Jul 12, 2007

I kept my two HR10-250's and added the HR20. Although the HR20 does have a few nice features, my wife and I did not like the interface, the FF, etc so we ended up putting that in the kid's entertainment room...it is their DVR for their shows and a few movies and stuff.

Chuck_IV

· #12 · Jul 12, 2007

I just finally gave in and reluctantly ordered the HR20 and 5LNB dish(install is next Thursday), so I wouldn't be left out with the new HD coming. However, since I own my HR10-250, I may just keep it active and run them in parallel. With that setup, I may actually be able to use the PiP on my TV for the first time(I've had the TV for about 4 yrs), LOL.

TyroneShoes

· #13 · Jul 13, 2007

I ordered a third HR10 from DTV as a replacement for a SD DTivo that died in October, which was, unfortunately, about the time DTV started their HR10 genocide program, which means the installer showed up with an HR20, the first he'd ever seen. It was on their cost-of-shipping-only program, so I figured WTF. I'll give it a whirl.

I was really honestly hoping, and rooting, for the HR20 to be a contender. Simply put, it wasn't. On the contrary, it was far and away the worst excuse I'd ever seen for a PVR out of the 9 I'd owned since 1999. It was shockingly user-hostile, for one thing. I tried valiantly for a week to get with that program, but in the end just couldn't stomach it.

DTV didn't really want me to sent it back, but I finally got them to agree to that and to pay for a HR10 that I found at a CC (they were at the point where they could no longer ship them). Of course I had to threaten them with the fact that Cox cable had more HD and better PQ before they'd do that.

It would have to take FXHD including the shows I watch there being in HD before I would consider replacing an HR10 with one of those, and I would probably have to back those recordings up (in SD) with a HR10. And I still doubt if I'd like that situation very much.

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jbrasure

· #14 · Jul 13, 2007

I had an HR20 for about 3 months. It drove me and my wife crazy. We sent it back, switched to cable, and now we have a Tivo Series 3. We've been happy ever since.

fasTLane

· #15 · Jul 13, 2007

I have wondered about this option myself. Did you use an HR10-250 before this?

HiDefGator

· #16 · Jul 13, 2007

Several of you seem to have very negative opinions of the HR20 that were formed months ago when it first came out. Is there a way for us to separate the opinions based on the software the HR20 is running today vs. when it was first released?

I'm trying to be fair here and clearly it is not the same product today that it was 8 months ago.

BruceShultes

· #17 · Jul 13, 2007

I have a Tivo S3, a D* HR10-250 and a D* HR20-700.

I did not get the HR20 until about 2 months ago.

While I still prefer the Tivo interface, at this point the HR20 software has been tested and tweaked often enough, that it has no more problems than either the S3 or the HR10.

The HR20 software is still being worked on to fix whatever problems are still left and add more features. For those users who wish to participate, new software builds are available for download and beta testing almost weekly.

Check out the Cutting Edge forum on dbstalk.com.

Of course, most of the problems with the S3 are caused by my cable company. In the case of the HR10, the only problems have been since D* started to upgrade them to versions of the 6.3 software.

Cudahy

· #18 · Jul 13, 2007

Since I don't like the idea of constantly switching between the 2 I guess I'll keep the 10-250 till they turn off the existing HD mpeg2 channels. Most people assume this'll happen when all the HD mpeg4 channels are up next summer; but with all the bandwith they'll have then. if a few hundred thousand 10-250's are still working maybe they'll keep them up for a couple more years.

bonscott87

· #19 · Jul 13, 2007

Cudahy said:
Since I don't like the idea of constantly switching between the 2 I guess I'll keep the 10-250 till they turn off the existing HD mpeg2 channels. Most people assume this'll happen when all the HD mpeg4 channels are up next summer; but with all the bandwith they'll have then. if a few hundred thousand 10-250's are still working maybe they'll keep them up for a couple more years.

No. You're forgetting that the 2 new sats do *nothing* to relieve the awefull bandwidth problems they have on the other older 3 MPEG2 sats. They will shutdown the MPEG2 HD feeds as soon as they possibly can. This time next year they will probably be gone. If you still want HD from D* they will offer you an upgrade, simple as that. If you don't want the upgrade that is your choice. I'd expect a big push starting at the beginning of the year. By then those who wanted the new HD would have already upgraded on their own and they will just have a few stragglers left that don't have at least one MPEG4 receiver.

fasTLane

· #20 · Jul 13, 2007

The current HDLIL is not on the current sats? When that moves will it not free up *something*?

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