OT: Direct TV / DVR / DVD/ Home Theater Thread

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 11:45 pm

They came and replaced my old regular HD receiver today with a HD-DVR/ Receiver. The installer said the only way to be able to watch a record 2 different programs at the same time was to install a secong line.
Since that entailed drilling new holes thru my ceiling and thru 3 walls, I said forget it. He then mentioned that you can do the same thing with a "slitter", but he said "you didn't hear it from me".

Question is...how?
Doesn't the Direct TV Tuner determine the channel? So if I split the outgoing signal from the tuner into 2, how do I get them to be tuned to different channels?

mixdj1 · Post by **mixdj1** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 8:21 am

I'm guessing he means you need to put a splitter on the line coming in to the receiver so that you have two lines to connect to the receiver. If that works I'll be beyond pissed though because I specifically asked the tech that did our install if we could do that because otherwise we needed to run a new line through our brick wall. He said no it has to come direct from the dish. I'm definitely curious to hear if it works for you.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 10:53 am

mixdj1 wrote:I'm guessing he means you need to put a splitter on the line coming in to the receiver so that you have two lines to connect to the receiver. If that works I'll be beyond pissed though because I specifically asked the tech that did our install if we could do that because otherwise we needed to run a new line through our brick wall. He said no it has to come direct from the dish. I'm definitely curious to hear if it works for you.

I'll let you know Mix. I will try it out soon. I had the same situation. The installer wanted to drill all kinds of holes, but then when I said "forget it", he told me about a splitter. Sounds like your guy was just playing it "by the book".

mixdj1 · Post by **mixdj1** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:26 am

JackB1 wrote:I'll let you know Mix. I will try it out soon. I had the same situation. The installer wanted to drill all kinds of holes, but then when I said "forget it", he told me about a splitter. Sounds like your guy was just playing it "by the book".

I'm guessing that they're afraid it will degrade the signal too much and that's why the official policy is that you need two lines. I can't see any other reason why they would need two separate lines run from the dish to the DVR but our installer said it was our only option.

Brando70 · Post by **Brando70** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:48 am

I have a double-cable coming in from the wall. It's two cables just stuck together for most of the run from the dish, and then splitting at the receiver so that each line plugs into the coaxial inputs on the back of the box. They should just need to drill one hole, although if you guys have a single existing line, it might need to be widened since the double cable is twice as wide.

So I do think you need two cables, but they should be able to replace your single cable with a double cable that runs from the dish to your receiver.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 6:39 pm

They're currently beta testings a new multiswitch that allows for 4 seperate feeds from the dish to come through only one coax (through the use of new splitters). The features is called a "Single Wire Multiswitch", or SWM for short.

Do a search for SWM here for a bunch of info on it:

http://www.dbstalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=112

In fact, just bookmark that forum... anything and everything you want to know about the new HD DVR from DirecTV is in there.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 9:49 pm

Well I tried the splitter and it didn't work. I guess you need a dedicated separate line coming from the dish. I guess the only way for me to watch something different while I am recording is to hook up a local channel antenna and switch to that input on the TV?

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 11:37 pm

JackB1 wrote:Well I tried the splitter and it didn't work. I guess you need a dedicated separate line coming from the dish. I guess the only way for me to watch something different while I am recording is to hook up a local channel antenna and switch to that input on the TV?

Jack, read the forum I linked in the above post, it has all of the info you need.

There IS a single wire solution (for dual tuners) but it's currently in beta testing.

A simple coax splitter from Home Depot will NOT work. The multiswitch that you currently have also, will not work with the single wire setup. It's a special multiswitch that they use, and special splitters that get installed. I'm sure, once it's through beta testing, it will be part of the standard install as that will make life easier for everyone.

For now, hook up an OTA antenna to your HD DVR and you can at least record two programs at once that way (assuming one or both of those shows are OTA programming).

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 10:39 am

I will check that out Jon. Thanks for the info.

So with just the one line, all I can do is record one program at a time?
I also can't record one program and watch another?

It's still better than the VCR, but the one program at a time limit is a bummer. Maybe I will try the OTA antenna.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 11:03 am

jondiehl wrote: The multiswitch that you currently have also, will not work with the single wire setup.

What multiswitch do I currently have? I don't even know what a multiswitch looks like? Do they include one with the install?

I hope they release that SWM soon!

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 5:24 pm

I have another Directv question. I am switching to DTV in the next week or two.

What is the deal with the phone line? I would like to have 2 DVRs and 2 regular receivers. How many of those will I need to connect to a phone line? The 2 that I would be watching the most and that would have DVRs are not near an active phone line, however, they have jacks nearby. I just would need to have a phone guy come in and hook them up in our central box. The reason why those are not active is that we just finished our basement and the contractor would not connect the phone but rather just dropped the lines in the box.

bdunn13 · Post by **bdunn13** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 5:50 pm

You don't need a phone... The phone is just in case you want to order pay per view from your remote.

mixdj1 · Post by **mixdj1** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 5:56 pm

bdunn13 wrote:You don't need a phone... The phone is just in case you want to order pay per view from your remote.

What about the sports subscriptions? I was told I didn't need the phone line as long as I ordered PPV from the web site and didn't have any sports subscriptions subject to blackouts.

bdunn13 · Post by **bdunn13** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 7:09 pm

mixdj1 wrote:
bdunn13 wrote:You don't need a phone... The phone is just in case you want to order pay per view from your remote.
What about the sports subscriptions? I was told I didn't need the phone line as long as I ordered PPV from the web site and didn't have any sports subscriptions subject to blackouts.

I don't know where phone lines come into play with blackouts as they do blackouts based on your service address from what I know....

I do all my ordering from the web and I have sunday ticket and gameplan and i have never had a issue... and I don't even have a home phone.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 9:52 am

OK, new question......

I called Direct TV because I have been getting lots of freezes lately....maybe once a day the picture will just freeze and I have to reset it to clear it up. They said they will send me a new receiver to exchange with the old one.

Problem is, I don't want to lose everything on my hard drive. Is there a way to transfer it from one to the other or can I move the physical hard drive from one receiver to the other? Can I save what I have on my DVR to dvd's. Am I screwed?

Leebo33 · Post by **Leebo33** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:40 am

Any word on when SWM will be available? I actually had an installer come out 2 weeks ago, but he recommended against it given the size of my house and the fact that I wanted 2 HD DVRs. He told me to wait for SWM and then they could use the existing cable in my house.

Jack, I was able to transfer programs from my Comcast DVR to a laptop PC via firewire (had to record in real time to my PC was the main drawback) and then burn to DVD. I was even able to burn HD stuff to a DVD, but of course you can't fit much on a single DVD (I think it was 60-90 minutes). I got the instructions from a link at the AVS forum. I'd do a search there too and see what you come up with for your DVR.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:46 pm

Leebo...I'm waiting for that multiswitch as well. In the meantime, I hooked up an OTA antenna so I can at least record or watch lacal channels while I record something else. That helps a lot.

Check this link out....looks interesting:
http://www.tenbox.net/index2.htm

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:29 pm

Jack -

I just added an external drive to my HR20 last weekend.

I picked up a Western Digital 1TB SATA drive @ Best Buy for $279.99 and purchased an external eSATA enclosure (actively cooled w/ a fan) for $21.99 at NewEgg.

It was plug and play, took 5min, rebooted the DVR and now it's recording to the external drive with more than triple the storage space.

I had looked at 1.5TB-3TB RAID setups, but that got kinda pricey. For $300, I can dig it, and get 1000GB instead of 300GB of space to record the gobs of HD now available on DirecTV. With the new VOD feature they launched yesterday, I'm sure I'll fill up 1TB in no time.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:50 pm

jondiehl wrote:Jack -

I just added an external drive to my HR20 last weekend.

I picked up a Western Digital 1TB SATA drive @ Best Buy for $279.99 and purchased an external eSATA enclosure (actively cooled w/ a fan) for $21.99 at NewEgg.

It was plug and play, took 5min, rebooted the DVR and now it's recording to the external drive with more than triple the storage space.

I had looked at 1.5TB-3TB RAID setups, but that got kinda pricey. For $300, I can dig it, and get 1000GB instead of 300GB of space to record the gobs of HD now available on DirecTV. With the new VOD feature they launched yesterday, I'm sure I'll fill up 1TB in no time.

Jon....
That is a good solution if you just want larger storage space, but the problem is that the eSATA drive is "linked" with your current DVR reciever and if anything ever happens to the receiver, you wont be able to read the recordings on the eSATA. I think that is due to the encryption than takes place when you record stuff. The other "pain" is that once you hook up the eSATA drive, your internal drive isn't recognized (although the content is still there) and you cannot watch stuff recorded on the internal drive unless you disconnect the eSATA and re-enable the internal.

I am looking for a way to "permanantly" keep my recordings and I think the only option is a dvd recorder. The thought that all my recordings are gone if my HD-DVR receiver dies, makes me very uneasy. At least my VHS Tapes were "permanent". If you call Direct TV, they tell you the only current option is to archive everything on Video tapes !!!! WTF @#$@$!!
That's the reason I got my dvr in the 1st place! To be done with tapes!
I don't even know if a dvd recorder will work to transfer/record all my current dvr recordings? I know I also have to save them in real time, which will take a while, but at least I will have them on dvd.

jondiehl · Post by **jondiehl** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 1:56 pm

JackB1 wrote: I am looking for a way to "permanantly" keep my recordings and I think the only option is a dvd recorder. The thought that all my recordings are gone if my HD-DVR receiver dies, makes me very uneasy. At least my VHS Tapes were "permanent". If you call Direct TV, they tell you the only current option is to archive everything on Video tapes !!!! WTF @#$@$!!
That's the reason I got my dvr in the 1st place! To be done with tapes!
I don't even know if a dvd recorder will work to transfer/record all my current dvr recordings? I know I also have to save them in real time, which will take a while, but at least I will have them on dvd.

100% correct. I was responding to your "looks interesting" comment about the TenBox, which is exactly what I did to increase storage space (but isn't a solution to your problem).

Before switching to the external drive, my wife and I sat down and watched everything we wanted off the internal drive, and then started with the fresh drive.

For your solution, tapes and DVD are going to be very clumsy and obviously not HD quality. If you want something simple and full HD quality, look into a home theater PC system. The recordings wouldn't be tied to any device, and you can make endless backups at full/100% HD quality as it records the OTA streams to your PC.

Edit: the HTPC solution would be something for you to take a look at going forward, not for pulling your already recorded stuff from the DVR. For that, I'm not sure.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:48 pm

I have decided the best solution to permanently save recordings is another dvd recorded. This way I can record from my dvr to the dvd recorder and free up hard drive space on my dvr. Some dvd recorders also come with a vcr, so I can also dub my tapes to dvd and get rid of them.

Can anyone recommend a dvd recorder with a built in vcr? I have heard good things about the Panasonic unit that goes for around $300 on other websites.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 1:09 am

I just bought a Sony DVD Recorder for the sole purpose of recording stuff off my DVR to clear up space and I just found out it won't record HBO content due to copy protection. Are there any ways around this? Do I need to look for a different brand of dvd recorder? I heard Sony's are wired to look for flagged protected content.

thanks

ddtrane · Post by **ddtrane** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 2:36 am

JackB1 wrote:I just bought a Sony DVD Recorder for the sole purpose of recording stuff off my DVR to clear up space and I just found out it won't record HBO content due to copy protection. Are there any ways around this? Do I need to look for a different brand of dvd recorder? I heard Sony's are wired to look for flagged protected content.

thanks

Believe it or not Jack, I use this:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. ... id=5359382

I've recorded several things off of HBO with this unit and have no problems. Check your local Wallyworlds for this baby. I've had it for 2 years without any problems.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 11:34 am

ddtrane wrote:
Believe it or not Jack, I use this:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. ... id=5359382

I've recorded several things off of HBO with this unit and have no problems. Check your local Wallyworlds for this baby. I've had it for 2 years without any problems.

Thanks D. I will check it out. I heard it just depends on which brand of dvd recorder you get. Some detect the protection.....some don't.

JackB1 · Post by **JackB1** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 2:46 pm

anyone ever try one of these?

http://www.dimax.com.ua/grex/grex.shtml#BUY[url][/url]