Whole Home DirecTV HD for Mom

[mzpro5]

So instead of a gaming system I am upgrading the DTV at Mom's from an SD system to their Whole Home HD service.

There are 2 HD capable TV's and one SD and I've wanted to upgrade for sometime and Mom will really like the ability to watch in her bedroom what she recorde in the living room. And the 720p Sammy in the basement will look very nice.

 

[mzpro5]

DTV installed 2 new HD receivers and a new HD DVR with the Whole Home service at Mom's yesterday.

Things went OK but the initial installer they sent was pretty green and ended up having to call in another more experienced installer. Took about 4 hours but it would have been shorter if they just had someone that knew what they were doing initially.

I knew the Sammy plasma in the basement would do HD very well even though it is only 720p. also knew the 40" Sony CRT in the living room would but what surprised me was the TV in the bedroom, an older Toshiba CRT also did thru component and the difference in the picture was great, Mom loves it.

At first the whole home wasn't working, apparently the installer never finalized the activation steps but a call to DTV and 10 minutes later and it seems to be working fine. Haven't had much chance to use it but I think it will work out well. I actually scheduled a couple programs for her DVR to record via my iPad last night (which in and of itself is kinda neat) so we'll see how that worked out later today.

Though a few glitches it went pretty well. It all comes down to who DTV has contracted with in your area for installations/repairs. We have a pretty good one in my area.

 

[Huey]

Jeff, can you designate where the program is recorded? So if you are downstairs, can you tell the program to record upstairs?

 

[Towen7]

I'm pretty sure that there is only one DVR but the content can be accessed from any receiver. So all the recordings reside in one place.

 

[Huey]

I'm pretty sure that there is only one DVR but the content can be accessed from any receiver. So all the recordings reside in one place.

No, at least from my understanding of my setup, each unit is still a dvr, and that you can watch content from either machine. They may be moving to a one dvr setup with their home media center, but I think the old ones will still share with each other.

 

[Towen7]

So a setup with 5 TVs uses 5 DVRs!?!

That be crazy expensive from a haware perspective. DVRs cost the providers a lot more than regular STBs.

 

[Dennie]

So Jeff, the important question is...

How does Mom like it? Does she have any hesitation in using it?



Dennie

 

[Huey]

So a setup with 5 TVs uses 5 DVRs!?!

That be crazy expensive from a haware perspective. DVRs cost the providers a lot more than regular STBs.

Currently, I think that is what it entails. With their HMC, that may change, but those of us with the older dvr's, each receiver still has a dvr which I am understanding can be shared.

 

[Dennie]

DTV installed 2 new HD receivers and a new HD DVR with the Whole Home service at Mom's yesterday.

Well, it appears that it was 2 new HD Receivers and one HD DVR! If I am reading this correctly!



Dennie

 

[Towen7]

Huey and I have different understandings of how DirecTV's current Whole Home DVR system is setup then. MZ's description has one DVR and two standard STBs. That's what DirecTV wanted to install at my place (before I cancelled the order). Each receiver gets two connections; one to the satellite and another to a network. Live TV works over the satellite to each STB as normal. The network is used to communicate with the DVR that will stream content over the network to the STB requesting it. The long install times are usually due to the networking of the STBs.

 

[Huey]

I could be wrong in my understanding, but I do know that with my setup, I should be able to share content off of either dvr. They may be moving away from that, like Towen said due to cost though.

 

[mzpro5]

I'm pretty sure that there is only one DVR but the content can be accessed from any receiver. So all the recordings reside in one place.

No, at least from my understanding of my setup, each unit is still a dvr, and that you can watch content from either machine. They may be moving to a one dvr setup with their home media center, but I think the old ones will still share with each other.

Sorry guys I was at a meeting.

There is only ONE DVR, the other two are just HD receivers that tap into the one DVR. You could get more than one DVR and it would still work but I couldn't see the reason you would want to do that, at least in my situation. I'm not even sure they can do it with older boxes. If you did decide youwanted 2 DVR they could do that and you could tap off of either but again I don't see why the average person would want to do that. Plus like T7 said it would be way too expensive. As it is the whole thing cost me $300.

Dennie

Mom is getting used to it but a bit hesitant. I also installed a Roku HD box in the bedroom for her so she can watch NF movies, probably should not have done both on the same day.

Her biggest problem is with remotes, I got her a Harmony 650 for the bedroom and she had a problem with that. In the end she was trying to use it while lying in bed and blankets at the foot of the bed blocked line of sight. I am pulling the STB from the lower rack and putting it on the top of the TV and that should solve that problem.

 

[Dennie]

I'm pretty sure that there is only one DVR but the content can be accessed from any receiver. So all the recordings reside in one place.

No, at least from my understanding of my setup, each unit is still a dvr, and that you can watch content from either machine. They may be moving to a one dvr setup with their home media center, but I think the old ones will still share with each other.

Sorry guys I was at a meeting.

There is only ONE DVR, the other two are just HD receivers that tap into the one DVR. You could get more than one DVR and it would still work but I couldn't see the reason you would want to do that, at least in my situation. I'm not even sure they can do it with older boxes. If you did decide youwanted 2 DVR they could do that and you could tap off of either but again I don't see why the average person would want to do that. Plus like T7 said it would be way too expensive. As it is the whole thing cost me $300.

Dennie

Mom is getting used to it but a bit hesitant. I also installed a Roku HD box in the bedroom for her so she can watch NF movies, probably should not have done both on the same day.

Her biggest problem is with remotes, I got her a Harmony 650 for the bedroom and she had a problem with that. In the end she was trying to use it while lying in bed and blankets at the foot of the bed blocked line of sight. I am pulling the STB from the lower rack and putting it on the top of the TV and that should solve that problem.

The older we get the larger the learning curve!

Yeah, I had to "teach" my Dad to push a button and wait a second or two. When he would push a button and it took 3 seconds for something to happen, he would continue to push buttons and screw the whole thing up! LOL It got to the point that I would have to tell him (over the phone) to press OFF and wait! Now press ON and wait! Now press the channel numbers and WAIT!!! LOL

Thank goodness, he's got the hang of it now.

It sounds like raising the STB to above the TV will solve her problems. Keep us posted and thanks for posting this.


Dennie

 

[mzpro5]

Yeah, I had to "teach" my Dad to push a button and wait a second or two. When he would push a button and it took 3 seconds for something to happen, he would continue to push buttons and screw the whole thing up! LOL It got to the point that I would have to tell him (over the phone) to press OFF and wait! Now press ON and wait! Now press the channel numbers and WAIT!!! LOL


Dennie

My Mom does that also, she thinks because it is "technology" it should work instantly. then she asks me why it doesn't and when I try to explain she has no idea what I am talking about. So now when she asks such questions I just say "Mom it's magic and you wouldn't understand" she actually accepts that answer while laughing.

 

[Botch]

So a setup with 5 TVs uses 5 DVRs!?!

That be crazy expensive from a haware perspective.

Not to mention the light bill perspective. Read an article a few months ago that DVRs use more electricity than a refrigerator.

 

[Dennie]

Yeah, I had to "teach" my Dad to push a button and wait a second or two. When he would push a button and it took 3 seconds for something to happen, he would continue to push buttons and screw the whole thing up! LOL It got to the point that I would have to tell him (over the phone) to press OFF and wait! Now press ON and wait! Now press the channel numbers and WAIT!!! LOL


Dennie

My Mom does that also, she thinks because it is "technology" it should work instantly. then she asks me why it doesn't and when I try to explain she has no idea what I am talking about. So now when she asks such questions I just say "Mom it's magic and you wouldn't understand" she actually accepts that answer while laughing.

That's a good one, I'm going to have to use that with Dad. I bet he would laugh also!

Like when I tell him to "reboot" his computer. He says "I don't know how to do that"! I say, do you know how to turn it off? He says yes! Do you know how to turn it back on? He says yes! I tell him to do that instead! LOL Once it is back on I tell him he now knows to "reboot" the computer! He gets the "Deer in the headlights" look.

I now tell him to turn off the computer and turn it back on, He gets that! I think a lot of it is the "new" language that "they" don't understand, not the concept.



Dennie

 

[Huey]

If I was buying new equipment, yes I could see why you would only want one dvr. I'm talking about using my existing equipment.

 

[Towen7]

To share content using previous generation DVRs requires an entirely different setup. Those boxes are not networked the same way and are not compatible with the Whole Home DVR system. To use WHDVR you need an HR2x series DVR (HR20/HR21/HR22/HR23/HR24) and an H2x series STB (H21/H23/H24/H25).