[mythtv-users] Thinking of adding DirecTV, have questions

Andrew Theurer andrew.theurer at gmail.com
Thu Jul 21 22:05:18 UTC 2011


On Thu, Jul 21, 2011 at 4:01 PM, David Asher <asherml at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Jul 21, 2011, at 4:49 PM, Andrew Theurer wrote:
>
>> I currently have 2 HD-HR's for local channels, but I would like to
>> have a little more content.  I think DirecTV would be my first choice.
>> I would want at least 2 HD tuners.  Is there anything I should watch
>> out for?  I assume I need 2 HD-PVR's.  It looks like I might need a
>> couple coax to toslink audio adapters, depending on the STB's I get
>> from DirecTV.  I would like to use http to change channels on the
>> STB's.  Is there something I am missing?  Any issue with using 2
>> HD-PVRs to a single back-end?  Any issues to watch out for with USB?
>> How is the quality of 1080i recordings?
>
> I had the same plan, but I decided to ease into it by only going with one HD-PVR to start.
>
> What I found was that I really didn't need two tuners because of two things:
>
> 1. We watch nearly nothing live and very little even the same night it was recorded.
>
> 2. Most of the cable channels reshow everything several times during the week.
>
> So what happened was I don't actually get all the shows we watch on their first showing, but with only 1 HD-PVR I've never had a problem where we couldn't get every show we wanted reasonably close to its original airing.  Usually within less than 24 hours.
>
> So I can't answer your question about multiple HD-PVRs, except to say you might want to consider trying just one HD-PVR since they are pretty expensive.

Thanks for your ideas.  I understand your hesitation to not go all-in,
but rather ease into this.  My concern was that I would be a new
customer, and getting DirecTV hardware up front has little or no
costs, but changing HW later might cost quite a bit more.  So, for me,
it becomes a decision of which DirecTV HW to get initially that has
the lowest risk. I guess at the moment I am ignoring the HD-PVR costs,
but if I was not satisfied with the Myth/DirecTV setup, I am assuming
most of that cost could be recouped by selling them if necessary.  I
also do watch a lot of live TV, so having 2 tuners is a requirement.
I think I have to decide if I want to hedge by bet [on MythTV].  If
so, then I might want to start with a DirecTV HDDVR and 2 HD tuners,
so I have DVR feature with Myth or DirecTV.  However, if I decide that
Myth works just great, and I do not need DVR feature from DirecTV,
then I have to do something with the HDDVR (return it?), and use just
2 tuners for a Myth-only setup.  Similar situation if Myth does not
work well for me: 1 of the tuners would probably have to go back.  Not
sure what kind of penalty I run in to with returns.  I suppose that's
a question for DirecTV   Other option may be 1 DirectTV HDDVR and 1
Tuner, assuming I can use the HDDVR as just a tuner.

> David.

-Andrew


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