Want to reserve a tuner for a persistent channel

[slice1900]

It can be done when the transition is over.

The problem is that the dealers are on the legacy system and don’t have access to the new system yet.

Customer service (800 Directv) is clueless also.

Ah interesting, good to know!

You wouldn't happen to know when commercial customers are going to get switched, would you? I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. Directv's web site is complete useless for commercial customers, you can't view your equipment, resend auths, not even look at your bill let alone pay it. AT&T has a pretty low bar to meet for it to be better than Directv's. In fact, they really can't be worse - even if they just dropped web access entirely for commercial customers nothing would be lost, but I'm hoping for a gain since AT&T does a pretty good job of taking care of their commercial customers in the telecom sphere.

 

[lnbchris]

It can be done when the transition is over.

The problem is that the dealers are on the legacy system and don’t have access to the new system yet.

Customer service (800 Directv) is clueless also.

So should I wait for a while?

I don't know how "dealers" might have anything to do with it.

All I need to do here that is "different" is get an "owned" box off of eBay - confirmed to be "owned" through Directv's people (I would take care of all the activation work with them myself).

Well I guess I have answered my own question here.

 

[lnbchris]

I just wanted to update this a bit. The H25 came in and I was able to get it activated just fine. Directv tech support under AT&T worked out very well for me.

I tested the H25 and had a question. Since this is an "owned" unit, I may end up selling and getting an HR24, depending on what answers I get here. This is a single tuner unit.

I think I remember back when I had an older Tivo, it needed to reboot in the middle of the night for routine updates. If I recall correctly, that had a single tuner, and it needed to use it to download the schedule (probably not the firmware updates I am remembering here). So it would become unavailable at some random time in the middle of the night just so it could run updates.

Now yesterday my newly acquired H25 *did* update the firmware - at around 6:30pm. That is just about an hour after I got the access card activated through tech support. The log says so. I restarted it a number of times after that as I tested it and got it further configured.

Then in the middle of the night I had it on, and it restarted on its own around 12:30am, when I was watching something. A popup dialog came up and said something like "this unit needs to restart", and gave me the options of "now" or "later". There wasn't any firmware update, after that happened it still said the last firmware update was at 6:30pm earlier that day.

Is this due to it being a single tuner unit, in which case I can expect that on a regular basis (I am thinking maybe a routine schedule update), or was that an uncommon thing?

Thanks

 

[lnbchris]

P.S. A couple times I very briefly see an "error 771" message during "receiving satellite info" stage of startup. In particular right around where it says "20%". This doesn't seem to happen during normal operation though. So I am willing to discount this as a recurring glitch during the startup routine.

This happens on the H25, so far only during startup. I have the H25 and an HR44 sitting side by side, and I don't see that message on the HR44 at all. The H25 always starts showing the live TV feed a few seconds sooner. I have them both on the same channel. I have done this test this several times now, and it seems consistent.

 

[Jimbo]

P.S. A couple times I very briefly see an "error 771" message during "receiving satellite info" stage of startup. In particular right around where it says "20%". This doesn't seem to happen during normal operation though. So I am willing to discount this as a recurring glitch during the startup routine.

This happens on the H25, so far only during startup. I have the H25 and an HR44 sitting side by side, and I don't see that message on the HR44 at all. The H25 always starts showing the live TV feed a few seconds sooner. I have them both on the same channel. I have done this test this several times now, and it seems consistent.

The HR44 is a DVR so it has to buffer while the H25 isn't, thats where I would imagine the lag is between the two.

 

[lnbchris]

Well it is a few days in and the H25 receiver seems to be staying on so far. No idea if it is still going down in the middle of the night or not. If it is, then it is also able to recover on its own. I will eventually find out.

It did have an interruption at least once on the first night, but I didn't think to reboot the HR44 before that, considering the addition of the H25 on the same satellite dish and hence the same "network". Maybe that was a factor, maybe not.

I still am trying to learn whether or not the H25 reboots, or at least interrupts the video feed, on its own in the middle of the night to download its schedules (as I seem to remember the single tuner Tivos did years ago).

I did block all the interactive settings on the H25, so that it doesn't try to do anything with the HR44. This is under "Whole House" settings on the H25 menu.

 

[mdram]

it should only reboot for a software update, which are rare, but a new unit may need to do this
guide data does not require a reboot

allowing it to read the hr44 will not cause it to reboot

 

[al]

If a firmware update is not forced when installed, the receiver will do a firmware update and reboot 2-6 hours after activation. That is the reboot you experienced. As already stated, guide updates do not require a reboot.

 

[lnbchris]

Thanks for the confirmation on the H25 not needing to reboot or otherwise interrupt the video feed for schedule updates. I captured some stuff late last night as another test, it looked good and without interruptions today. I'll post back with any further updates.

Thanks again to all