So... I decide to take the HD plunge...

[trickblue]

Our local Best Buy happened to get some of the DTV HD DVR's in recently. There were only three so we decided to get one. I bleed TiVo, but at $299 I had to give the nod to the DTV unit in this instance, not to mention the fact that after all was said and done I got it for $157. The HD TiVo unit is around $700 and that doesn't include subscription...

WOW... My 50" Plasma has come alive. I can't believe how good this looks and I don't even have the 5 LNB dish installed yet (Tuesday).

There are only 9 channels available right now, but they have quite a variety of programming. I sat mesmerized at the shows on Discovery HD Theatre earlier today. It was like I was looking through a window.

DTV has already launched 2 new satellites, and they will have 150 HD channels by Spring... I can't wait...

I researched this HR-20 unit a bit and it isn't the piece of utter junk they have been rolling out in the two different R-15 units recently. This is a heavy well-built piece of equipment that is much less clunky than it's predecessors. I hope it proves to be reliable.

The good news: ESPN is in HD... VERY sweet pic...

The bad news: Berman and Salisbury are in high def too, and it ain't pretty. Thank God Salisbury isn't doing his **** in a Box routine...

 

[theebs]

congrats man.

I hate to burst your bubble but that hr-20 is pure crap so far, but they keep updating it. I am on my second one..

Universal, hdnet and hdnet movie are great channels...tnt shows the same thing over and over!!

Not sure where you live but if you get a off air antenna for about 50 bucks...terk 25 you will get stations the dish does not offer. It is well worth it.

and those 150 stations directv keeps promising are a pipe dream right now.. I think there is a chance we may get about 10 or so more in the fall. Supposedly tbs, usa, fx, ae, sci fi and some others......long time before that though.

Hd net has hockey and espn 1 and 2 and tnt have basketball so for a sports junkie it is great.

So congrats!! I gave in finally in november. I am very happy.. Just keep track of what your recording because the hr 20 is famous for stopping mid show or missing entire shows.....

check around on dbstalk forums, they have great hr 20 threads.

there are updates frequently to the software and sometimes you have to force the download.

 

[trickblue]

congrats man.

I hate to burst your bubble but that hr-20 is pure crap so far, but they keep updating it. I am on my second one..

Universal, hdnet and hdnet movie are great channels...tnt shows the same thing over and over!!

Not sure where you live but if you get a off air antenna for about 50 bucks...terk 25 you will get stations the dish does not offer. It is well worth it.

and those 150 stations directv keeps promising are a pipe dream right now.. I think there is a chance we may get about 10 or so more in the fall. Supposedly tbs, usa, fx, ae, sci fi and some others......long time before that though.

Hd net has hockey and espn 1 and 2 and tnt have basketball so for a sports junkie it is great.

So congrats!! I gave in finally in november. I am very happy.. Just keep track of what your recording because the hr 20 is famous for stopping mid show or missing entire shows.....

check around on dbstalk forums, they have great hr 20 threads.

there are updates frequently to the software and sometimes you have to force the download.

Believe me, I have little faith in the DTV DVR's as I have been through several R15's...

I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping this one pans out...

 

[Danny White]

Our local Best Buy happened to get some of the DTV HD DVR's in recently. There were only three so we decided to get one. I bleed TiVo, but at $299 I had to give the nod to the DTV unit in this instance, not to mention the fact that after all was said and done I got it for $157. The HD TiVo unit is around $700 and that doesn't include subscription...

WOW... My 50" Plasma has come alive. I can't believe how good this looks and I don't even have the 5 LNB dish installed yet (Tuesday).

There are only 9 channels available right now, but they have quite a variety of programming. I sat mesmerized at the shows on Discovery HD Theatre earlier today. It was like I was looking through a window.

DTV has already launched 2 new satellites, and they will have 150 HD channels by Spring... I can't wait...

I researched this HR-20 unit a bit and it isn't the piece of utter junk they have been rolling out in the two different R-15 units recently. This is a heavy well-built piece of equipment that is much less clunky than it's predecessors. I hope it proves to be reliable.

The good news: ESPN is in HD... VERY sweet pic...

The bad news: Berman and Salisbury are in high def too, and it ain't pretty. Thank God Salisbury isn't doing his **** in a Box routine...

I have the HR-20. I love the HD, but the performance is just so-so.

It freezes up on me just randomly about once a week. Also, if I do too much fast forwarding or jumping backwards, it gets jammed up and needs to be restarted.

My only other complaint is that I haven't been able to get my HD signal much past the high 70s so when there's bad weather it drops down to the 50s and my picture is spotty.

But I love the clarity, and you can't beat the price.

 

[Doomsday]

Its pretty hard to watch regular channels after watching HD.

 

[Meat-O-Rama]

congrats man.

I hate to burst your bubble but that hr-20 is pure crap so far, but they keep updating it. I am on my second one..

I've had the HR20 since about mid October and have had very few issues with it. From reading around on the internet, these guys are truly hit or miss. They seem to be improving all the time though.

Good for you that you got it in time for the Super Bowl. CBS IMO has the best HiDef quality. I remember the last SuperBowl they did, when I had just gotten my HD TV and I was blown away. (disclaimer: CBS broadcasts in 1080i, and my TV is natively 1080i which may explain why the HD picture seems better than some other channels.)

 

[calico]

I made the HD plunge a few weeks ago. I have dishnet and am happy with the HDDVR right now that I have.

It really is hard to watch SD channels now after watching Blu-ray movies and HD channels.

 

[Kevinicus]

If you're blown away by satellite HD, you really need to check out some movies on HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. While I don't care much for King Kong as a movie, it's absolutely gorgeous on HD-DVD. It's nice to have HD without all the compression cable and dish add to it.

On a disappointing sidenote...

A couple months back we had some really high winds and just after that I started having troubles with the local CBS HD signal. Since I have the older HD-DVR (even though DTV promised me the new one when they were available. They lied through their teeth to get me to sign up.), I have to get local HD via the off-air antenna. When I looked at it on top of the house it looked to me like it was blown over a bit, so I figured that was the problem. I don't have a ladder so I haven't been able to get up there to check it out.

Now I'm throwing a SB party, so I bought a signal amplifier to see if it would help. Can't have a party with no signal. Well after I hooked that up, I started having trouble getting all the other local channels as well. Then I loosened the connection and it started working. I figured maybe that was the problem all along and tried skipping the amplifier and just going for a looser connection on the DVR. It worked for a little while, but as soon as the AFC Championship game came on it went out again. Started messing around with the connections again and I'm not sure how this worked, but I had the amplifier connected to the DVR, and the cable from the antenna not connected to anything, but about 5 inches away from the amplifier and it worked perfectly. No idea how it worked without actually being connected, or even close to it, and why it doesn't work well, if at all if it's connected properly.

Unfortunately the cables/amplifier are at the dog's tail level and so he easily knocks it of place and the signal is lost (missed 24 and Heroes tonight because of that). I got it working again for now, slightly connected to the amplifier. At least I think it's working. I just can't tell with CBS, early in the day it seems like the thing is working ok, but when it gets to prime time shows (CSI etc.), or football it goes out, so I have a hard time knowing if it's really ok or not. I guess if CSI works this week then things should be good, though I still plan on getting on the roof.

Sorry about the long 'sidenote.'

 

[theebs]

I honestly think the antenna looks better than the dish.

I watch everything on local channels..abc, cbs, nbc, fox, upn, wb, pbs on the antenna instead of the dish. It never goes out and it looks tremendous.

My hr20 screwed me tonight big time. My wife and I were playing with our son and cleaning up his room etc..and we had the dvr set to record heroes and 24....it froze up without us knowing and recorded neither...

this is the second unit I have had and I am worried this one will die on me!

 

[Kevinicus]

I honestly think the antenna looks better than the dish.

I watch everything on local channels..abc, cbs, nbc, fox, upn, wb, pbs on the antenna instead of the dish. It never goes out and it looks tremendous.

My hr20 screwed me tonight big time. My wife and I were playing with our son and cleaning up his room etc..and we had the dvr set to record heroes and 24....it froze up without us knowing and recorded neither...

this is the second unit I have had and I am worried this one will die on me!

I agree, it looks better over the air. Unfortunately mine did go out a little.