Getting the HR20-700

[sp44again]

just read this post. are you sure about this? last I read there was no activity across the eSATA port and the only way you could swap drives was internally. can you show me where you read this? in theory, even though the internal drive was shutdown, when you unplug the external drive the internal should still come back up with all of its recordings intact (that's what happened when the guy was swapping around internal drives at least).

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here you go

linky

[borghe]

edited my post but didn't see you already replied.

very nice feature, well, will be once it doesn't full replace the internal drive.

also found instructions for manually upgrading my HR10 to 6.3a That should make the living room a happy camper, at least until the first national MPEG4 channels are announced.

[Chinatown]

longtime no see friends!

Figured I would stop in and mention that after much run around with D* yesterday, I have a technician coming out on Oct 3rd to install the new HD DVR.

About a month ago I called D* and asked about retention offers to get another Tivo. The offer was quite good ($200 credit, $10/month off of service) but I would have to first buy the unit from Best Buy. Starting up a new business right now $400 out of pocket is a little steep. So I let it go. Now that I heard these new units are coming out, and that people are getting the AT9 dish and DVR shipped for $20 with free installation and no cost, I tried for that. D* insisted that the best they would do is exchange my existing Tivo for free and sell me another one for $199 (after $100 mail-in-rebate). Frustrated I said I wanted to cancel my service and the CSR said that was fine and she would cancel it right there for me. *click*

I called back a second time and the gentleman I spoke to (after apologizing for the previous woman) offered me my existing offer again. Well, the DVR is actually $300 now, so D* would be paying me $20 after a year to take this DVR. BONUS! The catch, I still had to go to Best Buy and buy it first. Well, for a $200 instant credit, I figured what the heck. Only problem is that no Best Buys in the area had the unit nor knew when they would be getting any more in (ok, who from the board has been buying these???). Strike two.

So I called back a third time, got yet another lady, and told her I couldn't buy it. She said that was too bad, but she couldn't ship me one. So I pointed out on D*'s page where it let me put one in my cart and get ready to check out with it. She sounded genuinely shocked and said she would put through a test order for me. Lo and behold the system accepted the order. She said a technician would be out on Oct 3rd to install the Dish and new DVR.

So anywho, really... does anyone else on the board have one? Someone in the area has to because they sold out at Best Buy. Also, does anyone here have MPEG4 locals? What is the quality? I really won't care too much. My antenna is still working like a champ and once D* activates the OTA tuners in the HR20-700 I'll just use those and not MPEG4, unless the D* locals look better. Does anyone know how DirecTV is getting the locals? Are they being fed the baseband video over fiber or are they getting the MPEG2 video and recompressing it to MPEG4? Just curious. If they are getting the baseband video then 4 (and 58 when they come up) should look better than OTA being they won't be compressed with 4-2 and 58-2.

I have been a customer since 2002................Spoke to Jennifer............she was a delight................This is the offer she gave to me...................2 payments of $66.23....so a total of 132.46 + tax...........installation on October 16th.......I did not commit, but probably will after getting the OK from the boss.........She did give me here ID #. That will insure me of getting this same offer when I call the installation department ( 1-888-382-1222)

[borghe]

as an update, I was less than thrilled with MPEG4 WTMJ last night. During The Office, a show with, believe it or not, lots of fast camera movement and lightning quick pans, the picture was horrible. When the camera was stationary even with reasonable movement on the screen the picture looked very nice though with some noticeable artifacting, though I would definitely still call it HD (not HD Lite). But man, when the camera would do a quick pan the entire picture just fell apart.. and it also suffered from the notorious fast forward degradation.. that is when you fast forward the picture becomes extremely pixelated and grainy.

not meaning to sound overly negative here. For the vast majority of the show the picture was pretty damn close to OTA, and at only 66% the hard drive space of it to boot. but if PQ is of the utmost concern to you, you'll be complaining with everyone else for D* to get those OTA tuners activated. will check out some WITI and WISN programming for you as well and report back. Would LOVE to check out some WDJT programming, but I guess that ain't happening.

[Chinatown]

I have been a customer since 2002................Spoke to Jennifer............she was a delight................This is the offer she gave to me...................2 payments of $66.23....so a total of 132.46 + tax...........installation on October 16th.......I did not commit, but probably will after getting the OK from the boss.........She did give me here ID #. That will insure me of getting this same offer when I call the installation department ( 1-888-382-1222)

...FYI................If you currently are getting Fox & ABC east, you will probably get a letter in the mail. The gist of same will be to keep them or lose the locals HD,via "D". It seems like a simple choice if you are also getting them over the air. Afterall, with the Fox East, an extra NFL game is worth retention........