DirecTV newbie

[ncted]

Hi,

Now that I am finished getting screwed out of a $50 gift card and the receivers I would have preferred by Best Buy, I am getting my new 3 room DVR system installed on Wednesday. I was wondering if there are any issues I should look out for when it comes to installation. Are there tolerances I should insist on for signal strength, etc.? What other sorts of problems may arise?

I ended up getting the RCA DVR40 and 2 DRD435RH receivers. Not really excited about the hardware, but anything has to be better than TimeWarner. Are there any hardware specific things I should know about?

I got the 3LNB dish with the thought that once HDDVR comes down in price, I will upgrade. Is there anything else at this point that I can do to make that upgrade easier in the future?

Thanks in advance,

Ted

 

[slacker9876]

Most are very satisfied with the installation from DirecTV as long as the retailers have informed the customers correctly. i.e., if you want cables fished though your walls or attic it WILL COST MORE. Your installer will get the best signal available at your location, this is usually above an 86 on average, a few WILL BE lower.

Hardware is fine, don't sweat it.

If you plan to buy the HR10-250 you will need to satellite runs and two OTA antenna runs to the location of the receiver, if you do this now it will cost extra. If you are really going to wait and order your hardware from DirecTV it will no doubt come with free professional installation. You will be waiting a while for that one to drop. I would not expect it to go below $600 until a few days before Christmas.

 

[rad]

If you plan to buy the HR10-250 you will need to satellite runs and two OTA antenna runs to the location of the receiver...

Why two OTA runs, the box has only one connection for OTA antenna connection, it's split internally?

If you add the HR10-250 to what you already have on onorder you'll be out of connetions to the dish. So you'll either need to remove something, use only one DBS tuner in the Tivo's or get a multiswitch installed. If you're thinking about the multiswitch then you might want to think about where you'd want to install it and lay out your wiring now to handle it.

 

[ncted]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I already have cable wired in my house. (Quad-shield) Will I need a 2nd line from the dish to the DVR40? I already have conduit running from the attic to the crawl-space and from the crawl space to the IBM Home Director (which sucks BTW). I expect to have to get one additional line fished into the living room, but I wasn't sure that it was necessary.

If/when I get an HR10-250 or other HD/DVR, I would retire the DVR40 to one of the other rooms in the house and keep the 2nd DRD435RH as a spare in case one of the other receivers failed. Will my contract with DirecTV preclude this? I am willing to wait a good long while for the price to come down on the HD/DVRs. Also, what is a multiswitch?

Thanks,
Ted

 

[rad]

Thanks for the replies so far.

I already have cable wired in my house. (Quad-shield) Will I need a 2nd line from the dish to the DVR40? I already have conduit running from the attic to the crawl-space and from the crawl space to the IBM Home Director (which sucks BTW). I expect to have to get one additional line fished into the living room, but I wasn't sure that it was necessary.

If/when I get an HR10-250 or other HD/DVR, I would retire the DVR40 to one of the other rooms in the house and keep the 2nd DRD435RH as a spare in case one of the other receivers failed. Will my contract with DirecTV preclude this? I am willing to wait a good long while for the price to come down on the HD/DVRs. Also, what is a multiswitch?

Thanks,
Ted

Each Tivo requires two runs from the dish/multiswitch if you want to enable both satellite tuners, so you can watch one program while recording another. In addition to this, the HD Tivo can take a single coax run from an antenna for OTA digital stations, so you need a max of three.

My understanding is that as long as you have activated the accound on the box, and I think keep if 30 days, you can discontinue it with no penalty. I replaced a E86 with a HD300 two months after I purchased the E86 with no problem.

 

[ncted]

Well, everything was installed without much trouble yesterday afternoon. The installer had to fish 4 lines, so it cost me $225 for installation which was more than I expected, but after watching him work for 3 hours on it, I feel it was worth it.

Turns out my dish already has a multiswitch in it. Not sure what that means when I want to have more than 4 lines coming in, but it is a ways off before I have to be concerned about that. We had a severe thunderstorm last night, but did not lose any signal, so I am happy and relieved about that. The install tech said I had a signal of 120+ across all 3 satellites. I assume that is good?

One complaint is that the Tivo guide seems a lot slower than the standard receivers. Anyone know a way to speed it up?

Thanks,
Ted

 

[rad]

One complaint is that the Tivo guide seems a lot slower than the standard receivers. Anyone know a way to speed it up?

Change the guide style from the DirecTV style to the List style, that will speed it up a bit.

 

[Incaico]

One complaint is that the Tivo guide seems a lot slower than the standard receivers. Anyone know a way to speed it up?

Just wait a couple of days while it updates the grid and downloads the latest software.