HD DirecTivo pre-order

[borghe]

A sponsor of the Tivo Community board is starting a HD DirecTivo pre-order campaign..

you can find the thread on the community board here.

the actual site/page is here.

Based on reports from the board this dealer comes highly recommended.. However, I Am not posting it here is a sales pitch for the dealer but instead just because this is the only pre-order currently available.

Here is some specific info. The units are supposed to ship to him on March 24th. He is getting 350 of them (as of 12pm CST 1/19 he had reserved around 220). Retail price is $999. You can pre-order with no deposit. However, if you put down a deposit he will match it up to $100. So if you put down $100 you will only pay $899. He will also match the price of any other dealer who has them in stock and shipping on or before the day yours ships.

Overall this is a great deal. I have pre-ordered mine already. As of noon today there was still some room for more, so if you have DirecTV, love HDTV, and love Tivo, I highly recommend you consider going ahead with this.

[kjnorman]

I purchased my DirecTV system though this company.  I had a mixed experience with them (though mostly with the installers):

• The order was delivered quickly
• The first installer as not trained or had the equipment to install a 3 LNB dish so this was rescheduled
• The second installer came out, opened up our package and discovered that the wrong dish had been sent (only a standard dish - not the 3 lnb one) - this may explain the mixup with (2) above.
• Installer says they will feed back wrong dish problem to ValueElectronics and arrange a new dish.  They didn't - I had to chase this up.
• ValueElectronics ship the new dish but I find them poor with giving the shipping tracking numbers.  I have to chase this up after getting the wrong tracking numbers.
• Third installer comes out and installs the dish.  DirecTV at last - hurrah!
• Find that the signal strength is not great on sats 110 and 119 then have snow over night and we lose 110 and 119 and most of the transponders on 101.
• Check the dish and find that the whole dish is encased in ice.  Turns out it was installed underneath a gutter that dripped ice all other the LNBs and down the center of the dish...
• Installer comes back out and moves the dish to our roof.  Better signal strength and no more picture breakup - but I was concerned about him drilling holes in our roof
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So all in all - not the greatest experience.

In the end it was all sorted out and any delays we had were caused by the fact that this was done over the Christmas/new year period so some shipping took longer than expected on the replacement dish.

Though it was not trouble free, it is hard to beat their price.  Total cost for a tripple LNB, Huges DirecTivo, a second Huges standard box all installed was $60 + $30 shipping.  I also received a Hughes 900Mhz cordless telephone/remote combo that appears to work okay.

Kerry

[borghe]

Ok, but we don't know if any of the existing hardware will be compatible with blu-ray or hd-dvd.... no domestic cable/sat box has firewire turned on. The ones with firewire ports right now are technically just as useless as the ones without. And there is no guarantee from anyone that those ports will be turned on anytime soon.

I just think it is a tad harsh to be calling something useless when arguably it is the best device of its kind and the goals you have are currently and for the not so near future, unobtainable. To me it's along the same lines as saying all HD devices are useless because they are 1080i and not 1080p. Eventually we will get there, but to sit with nothing while waiting for a technology that likely won't hit for the next 2-3 years (remember, they are saying by late 2005 at the earliest)... eh.. maybe you can wait that long for the ability to timeshift HD.. me, I'll be doing it in just over 2 months.

kerry - was the installer from value electronics or was it a local contractor through directv? It sounds like the part with you actually dealing with VE was ok aside from the shipping problems that were possibly due to holiday shenanigans. I am curious to know...

[kjnorman]

Originally posted by borghe
kerry - was the installer from value electronics or was it a local contractor through directv? It sounds like the part with you actually dealing with VE was ok aside from the shipping problems that were possibly due to holiday shenanigans. I am curious to know...

The contractor was local but managed from some outfit in California.  I would guess that it was not a ValueElectronics installer but a DirecTV one due to the communication issues between VE and the installers.  For example when I contacted the installers they wanted my order number so I gave them my order number with VE.  Did not exist.  They finally found me and it turns out that they have a different order number between VE and them - though no one told me.

Regarding my buying experience, this was okay.  I ordered via the telephone as, at that time VE's website was not working for the particular option I wanted (twin room with DirecTivo and 3LNB dish).  The sales person was very polite and knowledgable and explained their procedures:

1. I needed to authorise a direcTV agreement.
2. They would validate this and the ship the equipment and notify shipment my email so that it can be tracked.
3. Once the equipment arrives the installers will contact me to arrange installation.

However it did not quite work that way....

1. I signed the DirecTV form and faxed it back to them on Dec 3rd.
2. I phone them that same day and they confirm that they received the form and everything is okay.
3. Two days later the package arrives - wow that is quick I think - must have been shipped from a local warehouse.
4. Next day (Dec 6) the installers contact me to arrange installation - schedule for Dec 14.
5. On Dec 8, get an email from VE saying the package has shipped - Doh!  Got it like four days ago - but interestingly while it has a link to UPS for tracking there was no tracking numbers on the email.

First installers (Dec 14) were useless so we rescheduled for a week later.  On the second install attempt (Dec 21), when the package is finally opened (it states that only the installers open the package) we discover the wrong dish and also that my bonus phone/remote combo is not included.  So:

1. The installer talks to his people in CA and he says that they will call me back regarding the dish as they will need to ship another from California.  They do not call me back so I call them.  They state that the dish is not their problem and that I need to call ValueElectronics.  God! I wish someone would just tell me this to begin with.
2. Phone VE and explain the situation (its about 5pm EST on a Friday at this time) - they say they will look into it ( they need to check with their suppliers) and will call me back that day.  They don't.
3. On the Saturday morning I email the sales person I bought the system through my woes and he emails back that they have to wait till Monday as their shipper is closed.  That's fine.  On Monday 22nd he emails that they are shipping the new 3LNB dish and phone/remote thing and that someone should be at home to receive it, but there are no ETA or tracking numbers.
4. I wait a few days (as this falls over Christmas Day) - still no shipping information and no dish so I chase VE on Dec 26.  Finally get the tracking number over the phone.  It does not work on UPS.  Work out that they told me an "I" when it should have been a "1".  Can finally track the dish and find out it was at UPS Milwaukee on the 24th, but its reported ETA is the 30th.
5. Dish sits at UPS a few days (I guess they are still clearing out Christmas backlog) and the dish shows as being out for delivery on the 30th.  I call the installers to reschedule and explain that I should get the dish that day - we schedule for the next morning.
6. In our area the UPS guys usually deliever by around 2pm.  By 3pm I was getting worried so called UPS.  They said it would be delivered that day.  By 5pm still no show so called again - stated that it could be delivered up to 7pm.  Never knew that!  By 6:50pm still no show and by now I was thinking that the install would need to be rescheduled again when ping-pong the door bell rings and here is my dish!
7. On Dec 30, had a new installer come out who worked with me regarding line placement etc.  After three hours finally had DirecTV.

Then of course we had that snow in the first week of January (we had about 8 inches all in all here near the lake) and the dish got caked in ice.  Not really the installer's fault - neither I nor he when we discussed dish placement thought about the overhanging gutter.  I was just happy to have a descrete location.

I partially solved my problem of no reception by melting the ice with a hairdryer but the dish had moved a bit so still had no 110 or 119 but I did manage to get back Speed Channel which was the only thing important to me at the time.  On Jan 6, installer came out again and moved the dish.  Its now more visible but I have not had any major problems since then.

So I ordered on the 3rd and finally had a working system on the 31st.  

How much of a problem was caused by ValueElectronics, the drop shippers, the installers, not just the fact I was doing all this over the business time of year for shipments I do not know.

As to ValueElectronics I found it depends on who you talk to.  Then I chatted to my sales guy he was always very helpful.  I couple of times I chatted to an asian sounding lady.  She was less helpful.

As a company I think they try to be customer focused (especially considering that they are an East coast discounter which by definition is usually an oximoron with regards to customer service) but in the end, they were a little let down on the shipping side of things.

Kerry

[borghe]

thanks.... I will let you know how the shipping goes on this... on the good side of things... it is looking from a number of places that these will actually be shipping closer to the end of March.. a couple weeks earlier is always welcome.

[kjnorman]

borghe,

Well when you get your HD Tivo, please be sure to tell us all about it and I would like to get one (hence my 3lnb dish now) once prices come down a bit.

Kerry

[borghe]

just to update you guys on my status... I am #328 in line for my Tivo from Value Electronics... Robert (the owner) has confirmed that this does put me in the first allocation of units, but the second week of shipments... Currently it looks as if my unit will be shipping the week of March 29th..

So the race is on.. Who will be the first to get an HD DVR on the board? TWC looks close.. It could be a tight race..

[mhz40]

Originally posted by borghe
So the race is on.. Who will be the first to get an HD DVR on the board? TWC looks close.. It could be a tight race..

I'm scheduled to start demoing the 3250HD DVR by the end of the week, but I guess that's cheating!
So the race will continue, borghe...
I'll try to keep you all updated on launch progress etc...  Hopefully we will see these widely available in less than a month.  Obviously everything hinges on solid code.

MHz40

[The Law]

What does the 3250 offer over the 8000 series?  I visited SA's website could readiliy locate the differences.  Just curious.

[gparris]

Questions, questions:

Looking at SA's website this 3250HD is only a HD box and looks like it replaces the 3100HD-not a DVR at all!
Are you sure this is a HD DVR? :confused:

Will the HD DVRs rent for the same fee as standard 8000's do now once these 8000HD's become available?
(Yes, I know about the additional $5/box service fee for DVR).

With the new HD DVRs,  the 4:3 pictures you get, for example, when the local news comes on after a HD widescreen show is on, will the box allow you to stretch the picture to eliminate sidebars or is this only for the SD channels? I am still unclear on this.
I was hoping not to go to an SD input - and are these turned on for use on the 8000HDs?
:confused:

Either way, recording in HD and eliminating a couple of boxes will be great!

[borghe]

IIRC, the 3250 is a DVR receiver unit.. this means it can't record anything, but is meant to be setup in a separate room and received DVR streams from a head unit (8xxxHD.. can't remember the exact model number). It can also display a normal cable signal..

as I said, the DVR server will be a model 8xxx (like 8500 or something). Note that AFAIK the about to be released 8000HDs that are all the buzz on this board amongst TWC subs are not DVR servers... they are standard HD DVR boxes... the DVR server I am referring to is a different model that is meant specifically to work with the 3250 end units.

this is actually a very slick concept.. Voom is also deploying something like this later this year.. I would love to see directv deploy this also, but I have a feeling that their coax infrastructure inside the home wouldn't be able to accomodate it.. they would need to utilize HPNA or plain old ethernet or something.. or else release specs for a new type of multiswitch that would allow the receivers to "see" each other.. Tivo already has something like this in place in the form of HMO for SD, but that still requires full blown Tivos to work... not just a stripped down receiver unit... and it isn't available on DirecTV units (though Tivo claims that it would work just fine on them)... it uses ethernet in the form of USB Ethernet adapters..

[gparris]

Thanks for clarifying the that. That would mean you only have one HD DVR and boxes that link to it like a server. COOL!

Folks like me that had PVC tubes put in their homes under construction will benefit from this kind of arrangement.

Now all they have to do is couple it with a DVD recorder to archive off the Hard Drive and we're set. Moxi? Is that what the call the new box from Diego? Or does it just play DVDs and act like a DVR/STB?  It's getting a little confusing....

Thanks again.

[mhz40]

My apologies.  I got my model numbers screwed up.  The 3250 is SA's newer HD box.  It's list of 'features' are similar to the current Pioneer units, but it's not a DVR.  The DVR is a 8000HD.
Again, sorry for the confusion.

MHz40

[borghe]

doh, have  to apologize also.. I just searched SA's site...

I was close.. the Explorer 8300 will do as I am saying, but as of right now I am not seeing anything on HD, just what looks like an SD version. The model numbers listed are 2100 and 3100 for the end units, but again, nothing is listed in HD. There is a post on this site that claims the unit will be an HD unit, but again, in all of the press releases and on SA's site itself I see nothing about it being HD... I wonder if that is just wishful thinking on that reporter's part... The other thing that leads me to believe the 8300 will for now just be an SD only box is that it is supposed to go into field testing in February.. I can't imagine SA will be going into field testing on a new HD DVR when they haven't even widely rolled out the old one... I guess only time will tell...

[The Law]

so, mhz40, what exactly will you be testing?

/me confused :confused: