Thoughts on DirecTV's Whole Home DVR?

[Kov-Ice]

Think I'm switching from DishNet to DirecTV. Been with Dish for over seven years, but I've always wanted a Whole Home DVR setup and they've not offered one. Tried U-verse, but HD quality was really poor. Dish looks to have a new product (finally) called the Hopper that's supposed to be a WH-DVR, but all their website says is "Coming Soon."

Anyway, DirecTV has a good deal through AAA on top of their normal stuff, so I'm likely gonna give it a try. Question is, who has it and how do they like it? Is the WH-DVR set up through power line networking basically? HD quality good? What say you?

Thx,

[EzyStvy]

In case you haven't already looked for info like this:

Comparison between Dish Network and Direct TV
DirecTV Comparison - Compare Dish Network and other Satellite TV Deals



DIRECTV vs. DISH Network TV
$24.99/mo. DISH Network TV - DIRECTV vs. DISH Network TV

DIRECTV vs. DISH Network - The Equipment

Both Satellite dish companies offer free equipment. DIRECTV offers free installation in up to four rooms, while DISH Network offers free installation in up to six rooms when signing up with Agreement. If you want a DVR receiver or an HDTV receiver, DIRECTV will charge an additional fee, whereas DISH Network offers an HD DVR receiver upgrade, plus HD equipment for up to three TVs, at no extra cost.

Plus, DISH Network is the market leader in product innovation and consistently offers breakthrough technology, like the revolutionary ViP922 Slingloaded DVR, which allows you to watch DISH Network TV on your PC or smart phone. To learn more about this breakthrough technology and other satellite equipment, visit the satellite TV equipment section of our site.

[mbossman2]

Originally Posted by Kov-Ice Think I'm switching from DishNet to DirecTV. Been with Dish for over seven years, but I've always wanted a Whole Home DVR setup and they've not offered one. Tried U-verse, but HD quality was really poor. Dish looks to have a new product (finally) called the Hopper that's supposed to be a WH-DVR, but all their website says is "Coming Soon." Anyway, DirecTV has a good deal through AAA on top of their normal stuff, so I'm likely gonna give it a try. Question is, who has it and how do they like it? Is the WH-DVR set up through power line networking basically? HD quality good? What say you? Thx,

I have had DirecTV for 12 years.

their HD service is excellent and the DVRs are pretty darn good.

from what I understand the WH-DVR runs on a loop of the coax that feeds the other receivers...the installation requires an extra set of coax to be run.

[birddog_61]

We just switched from dish to direct and got the whole home setup. It is nice, but if we weren't setting up two houses I don't think we would have switched. The whole home is really cool but it has its drawbacks. First you can only ever record two shows at once, while your recording two shows the main tv will have to be watching one of them, while the rest of the tv's can watch whatever. The way it works is the main box that has all the tuners in it can talk to the dumb boxes at the rest of the tv's through the coax. The small boxes that get put at the rest of the tv's do not have a tuner in them. This is fine except when you are watching something that is recorded on one of the small boxes there is a noticeable lag from when you hit fast forward or try to access something until it actually happens. Also unlike what the commercial shows you can not pause something in one room and then start watching it in another. You have to stop the playback in whatever room you are leaving and then go into the recorded show list in the new room and tell it to play, not a big deal but it annoys me that they say pause on the commercial when that is not the case. As far as channels and hd and 3d content direct has great channels and lots of hd and a decent amount of 3d. (more than dish on both counts) However I have noticed some things with direct that never happened to us in the 10 years of having dish, first and most annoying is sometimes it seems like the audio gets digitized and you can not understand what anyone is saying on that channel, you can change the channel and the new one will be fine but if you go back the original channel is usually still messed up. This has lasted up to an hour before, and even turning the tuner off and unplugging it doesn't fix it. Second is direct seems much more susceptible to weather than dish, if our dish cut out it was raining cats and dogs, with direct if it rains very hard the signal drops in and out. Last, and this has only happened to us twice in the 3 months of having direct, is sometimes when it's recording and the weather is clear it seems to miss small sections of the program. You will be watching and it looks fine, then all of a sudden the audio drops out and it skips forward 4-5sec and plays fine for a few minutes until it decides to do it again. Honestly if your just going to switch for the whole home dvr, I would wait until dish gets theirs to market and then read up on how well they work. If it wasn't going to cost double to set up two homes on dish then we would not have switched or we would be switching back.

[David M]

I have been with DirecTV for years. Never had any comparison with Dish. Overall my experience with DirecTV has been excellent.

There is an almost imperceptible difference in quality between movies on DirecTV and movies played on a Bluray player.

I bought a Bluray player for watching Netflix. The price of on demand movies on DirectTV I think is too expensive, expensive compared to Netflix at least.

I was able to hack the DirectTV DVR and install a 2 TB drive. I think now though there is the option of adding an external drive.

[doubledragon5]

I had Dish once, their service sucked. Went with Direct TV and never looked back. Now I have cable, since moving down here, and let me tell you Time Werner is awful. Were thinking of moving from our current home, and dropping cable when we do.. If I can not get Verizon, then I will look into getting Direct TV again..

[Kov-Ice]

Got DirecTV installed last weekend. Seems to be a good move. I got the 1 TB Media Server edition of their WH-DVR, which allows for recording five HD shows at once. It is a big plus to have all shows in one place accessible for viewing anywhere. The downfall is that you can only pause a live TV show on the television with the DVR. The others would require you to begin recording the show, find it in the list and begin playing it, then pause... Ah well, overall it looks like an upgrade.

[EzyStvy]

Hopefully you don't do like I do and forget you're watching a recording and can FF through the commercials

[SARGE]

We have Uverse and can record 4 things at once. Not a hiccup in years. We got DirecTV only so gal bud can have NFL Sunday Ticket and see all her games (thanks Colt McCoy). Amazing, the picture quality is much better than Uverse so even if a game is on both, we choose Direct to watch. Nice having a back-up service as well but only use it in football season.