Thinking of going to Direct, HR34 with AM21 questions

[primetimeguy]

Currently with Dish and looking at getting two hoppers or switching over to Direct with HR34. I have 4 HDTVs so my thought is to get the HR34 and 3 HD receivers, along with the AM21 for OTA. With this my assumptions are:

- 5 tuners, so 5 things can be recorded at one time, and 5 remains the limit whether it includes the OTA tuner or not (meaning I can't do 6 or 7 recordings by with OTA, still only 5 total)
- the HR34 is connected to one of the TVs and is full function trick play DVR on that TV
- the HD receivers can view any recorded program on the HR34
- the HD receivers can schedule recordings on the HR34
- the HD receivers have their own tuners so I can be watching live TV on all 3 of those while still recording 5 other programs
- HD Receivers cannot pause live TV, but I can press record if I leave the room assuming a tuner on the HR34 is available, and pick up where I left off when I return.

Is any of that incorrect?

Thanks for helping the potential Direct noob.

 

[Mr Tony]

5 tuners, so 5 things can be recorded at one time, and 5 remains the limit whether it includes the OTA tuner or not (meaning I can't do 6 or 7 recordings by with OTA, still only 5 total)

5 tuners total. If you add the AM21 its still 5 tuners...up to 2 can be used for OTA...so its
5 sat 0 OTA
4 sat 1 OTA
3 sat 2 OTA
I see you are in the Twin Cities. The HR34 can scan and show guide info for most of the channels here. 5-3 (metv), 5-6 (thistv) and 23-3 (Country Net) do not have guide info (as does not the low powered religious). You can set up manual recordings but the rest have guide info

the HR34 is connected to one of the TVs and is full function trick play DVR on that TV

yes

- the HD receivers can view any recorded program on the HR34

yes

- the HD receivers can schedule recordings on the HR34

I dont think so but I only have a HR34 so dont know 100%

- the HD receivers have their own tuners so I can be watching live TV on all 3 of those while still recording 5 other programs

correct

- HD Receivers cannot pause live TV, but I can press record if I leave the room assuming a tuner on the HR34 is available, and pick up where I left off when I return.

correct

also one good thing with Directv if you have back to back shows on same channel it will record the overlap without tying up an extra tuner.
Dish receivers either drop the overlap or force you to use 2 tuners for a couple minutes.

 

[primetimeguy]

Thanks for the feedback Ice. Hopefully someone else can chime in about settings recordings from the other HD receivers.

One more question, is the interface if the HR34 and HR24 the same? I ask because I'd like to see a demo and play a bit before I switch and my buddy has an HR24. Will checking that out give me a good feel for how the HR34 works?

 

[mdram]

i woudl say to get a second dvr, just because it will be cheaper now then later

 

[JohnL]

Yes, you can schedule a recording from a secondary HD receiver, you can't Manage your timers from any other receiver other than the actual DVR receiver.

John

 

[primetimeguy]

Yes, you can schedule a recording from a secondary HD receiver, you can't Manage your timers from any other receiver other than the actual DVR receiver.

John

By Manage you mean thinks like delete timers, change priority etc, right? But from the HD receiver I can find something in the guide and tell it to record all new episodes without issue, correct?

 

[Mr Tony]

Yes, you can schedule a recording from a secondary HD receiver, you can't Manage your timers from any other receiver other than the actual DVR receiver.

John

thanks John for the clarification

By Manage you mean thinks like delete timers, change priority etc, right? But from the HD receiver I can find something in the guide and tell it to record all new episodes without issue, correct?

yes

 

[Mr Tony]

One more question, is the interface if the HR34 and HR24 the same? I ask because I'd like to see a demo and play a bit before I switch and my buddy has an HR24. Will checking that out give me a good feel for how the HR34 works?

it works the same and the interface is the same. The only difference between a HR34 and the other HD DVR's when using a AM21 is the other DVR's can only load channels from a database that DIrectv supplies to it. So if the station isnt in the database (like MeTV 5-3) it wont show in the guide.
The HR34 can scan for channels and will load them but show "regular programming"

 

[primetimeguy]

it works the same and the interface is the same. The only difference between a HR34 and the other HD DVR's when using a AM21 is the other DVR's can only load channels from a database that DIrectv supplies to it. So if the station isnt in the database (like MeTV 5-3) it wont show in the guide.
The HR34 can scan for channels and will load them but show "regular programming"

So the HR34 doesn't show full guide data for locals via AM21. Or you mean for the ones not in the database at least you can still get to them with the HR34 since you can scan?

 

[Mr Tony]

If the channel is in the database it will show full guide info
If it has to be "scanned in" it won't
For Minneapolis the only stations without guide info is 5-3 (meTV), 5-6 (ThisTV), 23-3 (Country Network) and the low powered religious stations.

Here is what mine looks like. I have only a few stations being used via the AM21 since most of our stations are in HD
I have the 5's (5-2,5-3,5-4,5-6,5-7), 11-2, 12-2 (I can get KEYC from my house in SW suburbs), 23-2, 23-3 and 41-1,41-2,41-3 in the guide.
As you can see I get guide info for 5-2, 5-4 and 5-7. Your friend with the HR24 can only see those in his guide and not 5-3 & 5-6 too.

 

[Ronnie-]

Holy crap, thats alot of subchannles for one channel to have. The picture quality has to suffer greatly.

 

[Mr Tony]

Holy crap, thats alot of subchannles for one channel to have. The picture quality has to suffer greatly.

nope. Its actually 2 stations merged together.
KSTP (ABC) and KSTC (independent) are owned by same folks (Hubbard...they started USSB back in the day)
KSTP is on RF35
KSTC is on RF45
They use to be separate but they decided to merge the PSIP together

so the setup is like this
5-1 KSTP ABC (RF35)
5-2 KSTC IND (RF45)
5-3 MeTV (RF45)
5-4 ANtennaTV (RF45)
5-6 ThisTV (RF45)
5-7 LiveWell (RF35)

so its 1 720p and 1 480i on one station and 1 720p and 3 480i on the other. Our PBS is like that too. 2-1, 2-2 & 2-4 are off one RF station and 2-3 is off another

Post from the OTA section when they did this (a couple months ago...the only thing is LiveWell is at 480i and not 720p as noted back then)
http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads...-to-Minneapolis-on-6-14?p=2889788#post2889788

 

[ejb1980]

That merging is kinda brilliant. I like it! I have considered getting the HR34 just for the OTA scanning since I am missing 3 subchannels.

What does it do with incorrect data? For example: Raleigh WLFL-2 is Country Network, but the AM21 calls it PBS. Would the HR34 say "regular programming" or the PBS? In fact, the whole PBS channel is messed up on the AM21.
22-2 should be WLFL-DT2 The Country Network, certainly is not HD or PBS.
26 UNC (correct)
26-2 UNC-Kids (WUNL-DT2) is correct.
26-2 UNC-EX should be 26-3 (Directv provides this subchannel incorrectly numbered, but you can add it correctly OTA, but I do not receive this signal.)
26-5 should be 4-4 UNC-MX (it is a cable-only subchannel, but is available on Time Warner QAM on QAM 4-4 for those of us who care. You can't watch it on Directv, but at least I can see the guide info...)

WGHP 8-2 does not work with the AM21 (you can see the guide data, but they switched RF channels and never changed it for 8-2 in the stupid database, despite many calls and emails from viewers and WGHP's engineers) but people say it shows twice, one with "regular schedule" that you can watch and one with guide data.

 

[johnny58259]

Funny you should say this about 8-2 Ejb1980 cause I can get 8-2 with my am21 on my h24 or my hr21 pro but on my h23 I get nothing but searching for signal on 8-2 I live in the Greensboro Raleigh Durham market also and like u said 22-2 is all messed up also.

 

[ejb1980]

What did you do to get 8-2 to work?

 

[Mr Tony]

What does it do with incorrect data? For example: Raleigh WLFL-2 is Country Network, but the AM21 calls it PBS. Would the HR34 say "regular programming" or the PBS?

its kinda weird but it will show the wrong data. We have a situation like that here in Minnesota.
Because the market is so huge (runs almost to Canadian border down to Iowa border)we have spots where a channel number is used in 2 different spots in the market.

example is about 110-120 miles SSW of Minneapolis the ABC affiliate (5) has a satellite station on 43-1 (RF43)....Here in Minneapolis proper there is a low powered HSN (shopping) channel ALSO on 43-1. Since the ABC station (KRWF) is in the database my low powered HSN station shows the guide info for KRWF ABC 43.

WGHP 8-2 does not work with the AM21 (you can see the guide data, but they switched RF channels and never changed it for 8-2 in the stupid database, despite many calls and emails from viewers and WGHP's engineers) but people say it shows twice, one with "regular schedule" that you can watch and one with guide data.

yeah looking at the database it still shows on 8
it shows 8-1 on RF35 but 8-2 on RF8. If you have a HR34 it will scan in the channel on RF35 but show regular programming in the guide.

 

[ejb1980]

This database you have....
I have asked Directv (and many others have, too - check out the Greensboro HDTV forum on AVS) about WGHP 8-2. When I spoke to someone on the phone, I asked the dude to look and see what RF channel 8-2 is attached to. I said I bet it says RF8 and is SHOULD say RF35, but he claimed there is no such database and he would not have access to it. And yet you have it. Is there anyway for someone to call and reference what you're seeing and get somebody to simply change a number in a spreadsheet?