The Solid Signal Blog

Last month, DIRECTV suffered its most public and possibly longest satellite outage in a decade. It’s a tribute to the hard work of its engineering and broadcast teams that most channels were restored in about 12 hours. Full service was restored in a little more than 24 hours. That’s pretty amazing when you consider how satellites work. It’s not like they can go up there and press the red button to reset it. When something happens, they have to take very specific steps and slowly bring the satellite back to life. The satellite with the issue was DIRECTV11, which went into service in 2008. It’s been quietly doing its job for about 16 years and it’s quite possible we’ll see it keep functioning for ten more. When something like this...

I know how the minds of some of our Solid Signal fans work. You want to be futureproof. You want to get your install nailed down and you don’t want to change it if you don’t have to. The one thing you don’t want to do… put in a temporary fix and then have to change it again in a year or so. That’s why I know that some of you have already put in DIRECTV C61K 4K Genie clients when you don’t have to. You’ll get the occasional nag message saying “This TV doesn’t support DIRECTV 4K Service” and you’re ok with that. But then… you run into another issue. There’s like, no RCA outputs. Older DIRECTV equipment was really full of analog outputs. Take a look at this HR22 DVR from years past: There are two sets of standard-definition composite...

If you’re putting up a cellular signal booster, you’re doing it because you want better signal inside. There are a lot of reasons that you might have bad cell signals indoors. Honestly most homes are really not very good at letting cell signals in. They’re almost designed to keep them out. Here’s what I mean. Metal, stucco, and energy-efficient windows These three things actually repel cell signals. Metal, whether it’s aluminum studs, flex conduit, ducting or just electrical wires, causes cell signals to bounce back. Stucco is placed over a metal mesh that’s very effective at blocking cell signals. Believe it or not the worst culprit is low-E glass. I’ve recently learned that as much as 99.9% of a cell signal is blocked by...

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It’s not a coincidence that both DIRECTV and DISH have satellite antennas that are about 36″ wide. There’s a FCC rule called OTARD that says an HOA can’t stop you from putting up an antenna if it’s smaller than one meter (39.37″) in any direction. Both US satellite providers have kept this rule in mind when designing their equipment. After all, it wouldn’t help business if HOA’s around the country didn’t allow people to put up satellite dishes, right? But, is it possible that today’s satellite dishes could get smaller? Technology has advanced a lot since the late 2000s when today’s satellite dishes were first released to the public. You would think that today it would be possible to make much smaller devices, right? In order to...

The meter you see above is Toner Cable’s latest signal meter. It’s one of the least expensive and most capable devices for measuring ATSC 3.0 signals. It’s also significantly more expensive than our SignalScout ATSC 1.0 meter. Yes, Toner’s device brings more to the table, but we’re asked frequently why there isn’t a lower-priced ATSC 3.0 meter available. After all the technology for measuring ATSC 3.0 signals isn’t incredibly special. If you actually want to get a live picture, you have to pay for licenses for several patents, but even that probably isn’t too expensive. In order to understand why ATSC 3.0 signal meters are so expensive in 2024, you have to look at the way these devices are made. The fact: manufacturing costs aren’t...

Sometimes, you have to improvise. Cord-cutting is a massive phenomenon and shows no sign of stopping. The first wave of cord-cutters were happy to ditch high cable costs and get their content from antenna and streaming. In the last few years, streaming has gotten just as expensive as cable and it’s driving a whole new generation of cord-cutting. Today’s cord-cutters rely on free services like Pluto for national content, while getting local content from a TV antenna. Unfortunately, not everyone can mount an antenna on the roof. Not everyone can make do with a small indoor antenna. What can you do if you need to improvise? I’ve recently been asked if it’s ok to put an antenna inside a garage. Of course you can mount an antenna in the...

Clients rule the world. At least, they rule the world of satellite. Since 2012, the leaders in satellite TV have both used clients instead of receivers in their top-end devices. That means for the last six years, pretty much every new customer has gotten a server-client system instead of a receiver-based system. But, what does this mean? Let’s take a deeper look. First, a little history. Few people expected that this box from DIRECTV would rock the world. Originally called by the boring name of “HR34” it quickly became renamed as “Genie.” It became the basis for all DIRECTV installations after it, as it begat the HR44 and HR54 Genies, as well as the Genie 2. On the DISH side of the street, we saw the Hopper come out not long after...

What you see above is a truly old receiver. If I recall correctly, I took that picture back in 2008, of the then-new HR23 DVR. DIRECTV hardware made in the 2000s has proved incredibly reliable, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of you out there have this very DVR in your home theater today. But let’s say you get new hardware for one reason or another. Can you just take the access card from the old receiver and put it in the new one? The short answer is that you can’t. Before I unpack that, I need to explain why this is even something to think about. Unfortunately a DVR isn’t forever. Honestly these things are incredibly reliable. I know people who are still using DVRs from 2006 and they still work, slowly. But the point is they...

If you’ve happened onto Max during the last month, you’ve probably heard of The Regime. This limited series stars Max darling Kate Winslet and features a laundry list of production staff from top shows like Succession. Not only does it seem like a slam dunk for every possible award, it also seems like a really decent, high quality show in its own right. Since the first episode aired last week, its reviews have been very poor, to put it charitably. According to ScreenRant, the Rotten Tomatoes score went from 89% to 57% practically overnight. The show itself didn’t change, of course. It was just seen by a much larger cross-section of reviewers. Folks with mid-size blogs like this one don’t get the same early access to shows that big...

You’re probably getting this news from every possible source right now, but Daylight Saving Time starts again this weekend, unless you’re in one of the few states that doesn’t observe it. Good news: it’s going to be light after dinner. Bad news: if you’re a person who’s always believed in “early to bed, early to rise,” it’s going to be dark when you get up again. There was a time when Daylight Saving Time required an hour’s worth of wandering from room to room setting clocks on devices large and small. That’s still true but to a much smaller degree now, thanks of course to the internet. For example: Home theater equipment should set clocks automatically. Your phones should have the right time when you get up. Smart home devices will...

Believe it or not it was about 14 years ago that DIRECTV released its last standalone DVR. I was working for another blog at the time and I reviewed the product prior to launch. When it launched, the DIRECTV HR24 was a speed demon, small and sleek. It revolutionized the way DIRECTV products looked and felt for a decade. Shortly after the launch of the HR24, DIRECTV pivoted all its efforts to launching its Genie DVR products. Genie is a great product for homes — it’s more energy efficient and gives every room in the house the same functions. It’s also a great product for DIRECTV, because the small Genie clients are inexpensive to make and last seemingly forever. Still, not everyone wants or needs a Genie system. With the Genie system...

Cutting the cord is all the rage. It seems like no matter who you talk to, they’re into kicking the old cable company to the curb. However, cord-cutting isn’t what most people think. When people think of cord-cutting, they automatically think of streaming. But, as we’ve all learned painfully in the last year, cord-cutting can be as expensive as traditional cable. It seems like we all need to ask ourselves… Are we REALLY saving money? Around the time cable bills started going over $100 a month, people started looking for alternatives. They said, “let’s bundle Netflix and Hulu and that’s most of my TV anyway.” It started out great but before you know it you’re paying Netflix, Hulu, Paramount+, Prime Video, Max, and a few other services...

If you’ve had a rough week, you’ll probably revel in the videos you’ll find at the Hydraulic Press Channel. For no particular reason, the owners of this channel love smashing things large and small in a hydraulic press. There’s nothing more to it than that but the results are strangely satisfying. In this case they smashed a ball-bearing and the result was terrifying, deadly, and pretty darn fun to watch in slow motion. Don’t believe me? Check this out. They surrounded the press with a blast shield and several cylinders of ballistics gel to show how you would basically have been ripped to shreds if you’d been anywhere near this thing when it all went down. A hydraulic press uses a heavy ram and relies on the principle that some...

Back in 2010, we made a big jump into YouTube videos. It was a fairly new thing for us, and honestly it was a fairly new thing for everyone. While YouTube had been around for several years by that point, it was just getting to the point where you could produce decent quality and watch it full screen. Back then, the big story was 3D TV. DIRECTV jumped in with both feet, and every manufacturer competed to get a system on the market as soon as possible. They thought that 3D was going to be the next big thing after HD. And of course, they were way off base. Before I explain why, take a look at this video we produced back in those days. Truth be told it’s not that bad. It looks a little silly by today’s standards but it’s held up pretty...