From 3 DirecTivos to DirecTV HD DVR?

[JeffDomogala]

First time poster here.

I was one of the people caught up in the DirecTivo reboot fiasco that finally got straightened out a few days ago. I love the Tivo for its hackability, but in the DirecTivo's case, DirecTV has managed to remove the one feature that was the most important to us, the multi-room-viewing. Since that is gone, and the fact that I now have all HD TV sets, I'm thinking it may be time to make the move to an HD DVR setup. I'm still at the point where most of the lingo and model numbers look like alphabet soup to me, but I have managed to digest enough to ask some questions.

1 - I'm seriously looking at the HR-34 as the master with C31 RVU clients for the other two sets. What I have not looked at is using multiple HR-24's. Does the HR-24 offer the same multi-room viewing as the DirecTivos did? For those that have had experience with both types of setups, what is your opinion?

2 - I also have to deal with the satellite setup. I currently have the round style dish that points to the 101 satellite. It is actually a replacement 24" dish that I installed to deal with signal strength and rain fade. It works really well. I know the HR-34 wants the SWM dish, but I have a feeling that I am going to be in the same boat as I was with the original small round dish. I have no objection to adding two more individual 24" dishes and providing my own SWM to combine them. I would really prefer to do this. So experts, tell me, is the DirecTV oval SWM dishes any better than the original round dish, or is going with the three individual large dishes and separate SWM the way to go for the best overall signal?

Thanks folks!!!

 

[Hutch1814]

To start, welcome to the site!!!


As for Directv removing the whole home feature, nope, this was strictly TiVo. They wanted to be "different"

I have 3 HDDVRS in my home and can view from any of them and I have 6 tuners to record from but the downfall is I can't see what's set to record from other HDDVRS. Only the one I'm currently at. I can also only stream from one at a time so if I'm in the living room and want to watch a show recorded in the bedroom I can but if my wife wants to watch the same program in the play room she can't until I finish.

With that said, the HR34 has 5 tuners and the C-31's stream from one of the 5 but this gives you full function of DVR at each location and allows you to see what's recording from any location as well. You can also stream up to 3 at a time so no more waiting to watch a recording else where in the house. If it was me I would go with the genie set up (HR34 and C-31's)
You can't use multiple dishes to make a SWM system. This is a special LNB and requires the slimline dish so you would have to have an upgrade on the dish. It requires 1 line to a splitter then from there all the connections are made. Somewhere in line you'll have a power inserter connected to power the SWM system.

 

[JeffDomogala]

Does anyone happen to have a diagram with all of the components and connections I need if I was to go with the HR-34 plus two C-31s? All of the connection diagrams I have run into so far reference older hardware and none deal with the C-31 clients. Of particular interest is how the internet gets connected and distributed in this setup. I see a hardwire RJ-45 on the HR-34 and hopefully that is good enough to connect to my network and take care of everything behind the HR-34 in this setup.

 

[Jimbo]

Does anyone happen to have a diagram with all of the components and connections I need if I was to go with the HR-34 plus two C-31s? All of the connection diagrams I have run into so far reference older hardware and none deal with the C-31 clients. Of particular interest is how the internet gets connected and distributed in this setup. I see a hardwire RJ-45 on the HR-34 and hopefully that is good enough to connect to my network and take care of everything behind the HR-34 in this setup.

Thats because the C-31's are the latest piece of equipment out.

As for your 24" dishes you put up, the SWM SL3 dish will work fine for all the signals needed, I think it is about 30" across, also, they are using Sats that are closer in location now than they use to .... Not sure where you had your particular dishes pointed, but last time I did that type of thing was many years ago and hit the 101, 119 and had an add on for the 110 at the time that gave us the little bit of HD content.

Since then they moved programming to the 99, 101 and 103 Sats, much closer distance and much easier picking up the signal.
Fwiw, all your HD will be on the 99 and 103 Sats.

 

[Liquidforce88]

Does anyone happen to have a diagram with all of the components and connections I need if I was to go with the HR-34 plus two C-31s? All of the connection diagrams I have run into so far reference older hardware and none deal with the C-31 clients. Of particular interest is how the internet gets connected and distributed in this setup. I see a hardwire RJ-45 on the HR-34 and hopefully that is good enough to connect to my network and take care of everything behind the HR-34 in this setup.

Basically with a SWM setup you have one wire from the dish to a splitter. From there you have a single coax line to each location. With the HR34 and clients all you need is to plug an ethernet cable into the HR34 for internet connection. The other way is to have a Broadband Deca connected to your router. Then there would have to be a coax line from the Deca back to the splitter. There is also a wireless deca that can just be installed with the HR34to do a wireless connection.

 

[Liquidforce88]

As far as I know there is no way to do a SWM setup with seperate dishes. I don't know of an LNB that will pickup the 99 and 103 seperatly. You may be able to get your 24" dish to use the SWM3 LNB, but I don't think it will get good enough signal. The slimline will be the easiest thing to use.

 

[JeffDomogala]

Is the "splitter" being referred to a SWM8 or SWM16 I've been seeing in the other HD diagrams I have run across? And to answer the dish question, it is actually a Winegard 30" dish (not 24" as I originally thought) with a dual LNB pointed at the 101 location. Rain fade was a problem and with this dish unless there is something REALLY heavy, the signal is always fine.

 

[JeffDomogala]

I figured out that what the splitter is that you are referring to is one of the green label SWM splitters, not the SWM 8 or SWM 16. I would only need to involve a SWM 8 or 16 if I wanted my legacy DirecTivos still in the setup. And if I did use a SWM 8 or 16 then I need to be careful about which dish I get for the proper connections (no single SWM connection but four outputs for the external SWM 8 or 16). Sound right?

 

[Hutch1814]

I figured out that what the splitter is that you are referring to is one of the green label SWM splitters, not the SWM 8 or SWM 16. I would only need to involve a SWM 8 or 16 if I wanted my legacy DirecTivos still in the setup. And if I did use a SWM 8 or 16 then I need to be careful about which dish I get for the proper connections (no single SWM connection but four outputs for the external SWM 8 or 16). Sound right?

Nailed it. Only thing is LNB is different not the dish. They both will use a slimline dish

 

[raoul5788]

The swm8 and swm16 switches are also used when there are more than 8 tuners.