New to Direct

[larsonse]

New to Direct from Dish and have a few questions.
1. With Dish setup with DVR and two TV's I was able to pause live tv, then fastforward or rewind on both TV's. If I'm reading the info right you are not able to do this with Direct. This feature is only available on the DVR recievers.
2. So....if I need to add another DVR reciever,(upgrade one of my hd recievers) will there be conflicts between the two DVR's, or this is a non-issue.
I have the whole home dvr setup with the following equipment.

2-H25-500 hd reciever
D12-100 Standard reciever
HR24-500 HD DVR
I have to admit, I'm not adjusting well to the conversion from Dish....Change and all that!

Also I'm having trouble getting my remote to work with my TV. It was working after the tech finished the install. Had to reset the receiver (via tech support) and since then it won't work, and none of the codes work either. My daughter has the same TV in her room and her remote works fine, it will work on my TV, but, I can't seem to get my remote to work. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[JerseyMatt]

New to Direct from Dish and have a few questions.
1. With Dish setup with DVR and two TV's I was able to pause live tv, then fastforward or rewind on both TV's. If I'm reading the info right you are not able to do this with Direct. This feature is only available on the DVR recievers.

That is correct, you only get live DVR features on DVR receivers. This is why we try to refer to it as "Multi Room Viewing (MRV)" rather than whole home DVR because it's misleading. A sort of ghetto workaround to this if you find that you need to pause on a non-DVR is to start it recording via MRV and then immediately begin playback. Once it is playing via MRV, you can pause/rew/ff as you wish.

2. So....if I need to add another DVR reciever,(upgrade one of my hd recievers) will there be conflicts between the two DVR's, or this is a non-issue.
I have the whole home dvr setup with the following equipment.

2-H25-500 hd reciever
D12-100 Standard reciever
HR24-500 HD DVR

There will be no conflict at all. You can have as many DVRs as you like (up to the tuner limit of your system, which is normally 8 tuners/4DVR), and the recorded programs will show up in a single combined list. Many of us have multiple DVRs. The schedulers are independent to each DVR, and are not affected by what's happening on another (although collaborative scheduling among all DVRs on a network is a feature high on the wishlist!)

If you were to add a second DVR, I would suggest that you replace the D12 instead. First of all, the D12 is not capable of MRV. Only HD boxes can participate (so then all of your TVs would be MRV capable). Second, HD boxes can be used with no problem on an SDTV. They have a full set of analog outputs (sans RF). But it is much better to have the HD box up front anyway for when you decide to upgrade that TV to HD. There are also "HD Only" channels that the D12 can't receive, and IMO you get better picture quality out of an SDTV using an HD box. It doesn't cost any different per month having the D12 or a second HR24 (a MAJOR advantage over Dish here, they would nail you for an extra $8+ a month), so there's no good reason to keep the D12.

I have to admit, I'm not adjusting well to the conversion from Dish....Change and all that!

There's a learning curve when you switch TO any provider FROM any provider. It's new channel numbers, new features, different guide layout, different remote, etc. But you'll get it. The worst part, I admit, is that Directv remotes have a wonky layout compared to everyone else, but you do get used to it. One important feature you gain even though you are losing DVR functions on the "TV2" you had with Dish is that "TV2" is no longer at the mercy of the DVR timers. It has its own independent tuner, so nothing happening on the DVR affects any other TV.

Also I'm having trouble getting my remote to work with my TV. It was working after the tech finished the install. Had to reset the receiver (via tech support) and since then it won't work, and none of the codes work either. My daughter has the same TV in her room and her remote works fine, it will work on my TV, but, I can't seem to get my remote to work. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Is it not working the TV itself? Or is it not working the receiver the TV is connected to? Or both? Resetting the box shouldn't affect the remote programming, but I would just reset the remote to factory default and run through the onscreen Remote Setup again. To reset the remote, (with the switch in Directv mode) hold down Mute and Select until the green light flashes twice, then enter 9 8 1 (green light will flash 4 times). To get to Remote Setup, press Menu > Favs, Setup, Parental > System Setup > Remote Control > Program Remote. Then just follow the onscreen guide.

 

[larsonse]

Thanks for the quick reply. I had a duh moment last night and remembered direct was open 24/7. Called and am switching out one of the hd recievers for a DVR. The only reason for the standard reciever is it used very little. I thought about switching the standard but I really really use the pause feature a lot.

As for the remote problem, I tried re-programming, but none of the codes work. I don't know why a reset would have done that, or maybe something else happened I didn't notice and that's what caused it. When the tech set it up originally he was at a screen where you could put in the make and model #, but I've been unable to access that screen, guess you need a secret code

 

[raoul5788]

To program the remote, look under the remote link in the menu. Did you get HR24s? They practically program the remote for you, no codes to enter!

 

[JerseyMatt]

Thanks for the quick reply. I had a duh moment last night and remembered direct was open 24/7. Called and am switching out one of the hd recievers for a DVR. The only reason for the standard reciever is it used very little. I thought about switching the standard but I really really use the pause feature a lot.

You can put the new DVR wherever you want, then move the H25 from there to where the D12 is. They're not locked to the room they were originally installed in! Like I said, there's no real good reason to keep a D12 around. Honestly I wish Directv would stop installing them because it would make it easier down the road for them to convert to 100% MPEG-4 and dump the SD duplicate streams.

As for the remote problem, I tried re-programming, but none of the codes work. I don't know why a reset would have done that, or maybe something else happened I didn't notice and that's what caused it. When the tech set it up originally he was at a screen where you could put in the make and model #, but I've been unable to access that screen, guess you need a secret code

Thats in the "Program Remote" tab that I directed you to before. It should come up automatically when you select which device to program.