Hi!
My name's Joel I'm a newbie to the forum and I'm in Atlanta. We've been DirecTV customers for a LONG time and had a great run with their Tivo association. I have three DirecTV Tivos and one DirecTV HD20. Love the Tivos! But when I finally made the HD jump DirecTV had already moved on and ended their Tivo association, so I got an HD20. The HD20 has been a NIGHTMARE from the beginning, software issues, picture breaking up, box resetting itself for no apparent reason, weird fast forward behavior, you name it, over a series of three (or is it four) set top boxes we've had them all in the last six months. I've done the HD reformat and multiple resets and hours on the phone with DirecTV reps. The most recent box lasted all of one week in our house because it had all of the above right out of the box and in addition it also made loud popping noises during recorded programs, I mean LOUD as if you stuck a paper clip into a socket noise!
To their credit, DirecTV, in recent months at least, has not argued or made me explain beyond, "it's doing this and this and this and this . . ." they've just replaced the boxes. I just a few minutes ago put in the most recent iteration, the HD20-100S which I'm hoping will solve some problems finally. The old one is sitting in its familiar "return program" box awaiting FedEx. At least I'm not waiting on Comcast to show up . . . .
I do wish that DirecTV still sold Tivo boxes because I loved their software, however I'm not so money that I'm going to go out and do the independent Tivo thing now that I have the units I do. The Tivo/DirecTV era's over and so I want my HD20-100S to work (please god WORK!) the way Tivo intended, so I do have a couple of questions to you grizzled veterans of the skyways.
Should I preemptively do a hard drive reformat & software update before starting to add recordings immediately? Might I be cutting to the chase in doing to, possibly heading off minor erratic behavior in doing this step before I learn what horrors await me or is that a pointless exercise in just making me feel good, like I'm doing something positive for the new box? Maybe I'm overly anthropomorphizing the little silver devil in the hopes that it will like its new digs enough to not mess with me, but I realllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly am tired of messin' with these set top boxes from DirecTV.
Are there any specific "tricks" or settings that ya'll have come up with to make the HD20-100 series play nice or "don'ts" I should observe that are specific to this box?
Any suggestions ya'll can offer will be happily digested and acted upon, short of seances, burning incense or alien intervention . . . unless we're talking Archer, Kirk or Picard, in which case I'll keep an eye on the horizon. I figure if their electronic devices are so reliable that they'll allow their transporters to deconstruct their bodies, organize them into an digital signal and then broadcast that signal to a SECOND device that reassembles them back into humans again, then they can probably fix a satellite receiver DVR . . . imagine if DirecTV were manufacturing transporters. Yeeech!
BTW, my impression is that in the HD DVR universe issues like mine are legion and by no means restricted to these HD20s. I've been generally very happy with DirecTV and my sense is that DirecTV HD customers might have the best situation of the lot despite the problems; though I wonder how good or bad the Tivo HD devices are by comparison?
Thanks! I've gleaned some good info Googling this forum in the past and I look forward to learning more! Sorry for the long post, I find it's easier to type than to be succinct.
Joel
Atlanta, GA
My name's Joel I'm a newbie to the forum and I'm in Atlanta. We've been DirecTV customers for a LONG time and had a great run with their Tivo association. I have three DirecTV Tivos and one DirecTV HD20. Love the Tivos! But when I finally made the HD jump DirecTV had already moved on and ended their Tivo association, so I got an HD20. The HD20 has been a NIGHTMARE from the beginning, software issues, picture breaking up, box resetting itself for no apparent reason, weird fast forward behavior, you name it, over a series of three (or is it four) set top boxes we've had them all in the last six months. I've done the HD reformat and multiple resets and hours on the phone with DirecTV reps. The most recent box lasted all of one week in our house because it had all of the above right out of the box and in addition it also made loud popping noises during recorded programs, I mean LOUD as if you stuck a paper clip into a socket noise!
To their credit, DirecTV, in recent months at least, has not argued or made me explain beyond, "it's doing this and this and this and this . . ." they've just replaced the boxes. I just a few minutes ago put in the most recent iteration, the HD20-100S which I'm hoping will solve some problems finally. The old one is sitting in its familiar "return program" box awaiting FedEx. At least I'm not waiting on Comcast to show up . . . .
I do wish that DirecTV still sold Tivo boxes because I loved their software, however I'm not so money that I'm going to go out and do the independent Tivo thing now that I have the units I do. The Tivo/DirecTV era's over and so I want my HD20-100S to work (please god WORK!) the way Tivo intended, so I do have a couple of questions to you grizzled veterans of the skyways.
Should I preemptively do a hard drive reformat & software update before starting to add recordings immediately? Might I be cutting to the chase in doing to, possibly heading off minor erratic behavior in doing this step before I learn what horrors await me or is that a pointless exercise in just making me feel good, like I'm doing something positive for the new box? Maybe I'm overly anthropomorphizing the little silver devil in the hopes that it will like its new digs enough to not mess with me, but I realllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly am tired of messin' with these set top boxes from DirecTV.
Are there any specific "tricks" or settings that ya'll have come up with to make the HD20-100 series play nice or "don'ts" I should observe that are specific to this box?
Any suggestions ya'll can offer will be happily digested and acted upon, short of seances, burning incense or alien intervention . . . unless we're talking Archer, Kirk or Picard, in which case I'll keep an eye on the horizon. I figure if their electronic devices are so reliable that they'll allow their transporters to deconstruct their bodies, organize them into an digital signal and then broadcast that signal to a SECOND device that reassembles them back into humans again, then they can probably fix a satellite receiver DVR . . . imagine if DirecTV were manufacturing transporters. Yeeech!
BTW, my impression is that in the HD DVR universe issues like mine are legion and by no means restricted to these HD20s. I've been generally very happy with DirecTV and my sense is that DirecTV HD customers might have the best situation of the lot despite the problems; though I wonder how good or bad the Tivo HD devices are by comparison?
Thanks! I've gleaned some good info Googling this forum in the past and I look forward to learning more! Sorry for the long post, I find it's easier to type than to be succinct.
Joel
Atlanta, GA
