Review: DirecTV HD DVR
Ed Milbourn recently took a look at DirecTV’s HD DVR HR 10-250.
This machine has plenty of capacity - 250GB. It has twin DBS and ATSC tuners, but no NTSC off-air reception capabilities. The machine just grabs the digital signals it snatches from the air and plunks them directly on the hard drive, so performance is excellent. No DA/AD steps here.
The problem? Buggy software. I know what that’s like with my Scientific Atlanta (or should I say Cisco?) SA8300HD. The UI is also a mess. My PVR isn’t bad, but I don’t have a frame of reference, never having tried a TiVo.
Conclusion?
So, would I recommend acquiring this unit? If you have engineering and/or computer expertise plus patients, go for it. It performs very well. To the average HDTV user, I would suggest waiting on the availability of the new DIRECTV unit with NDS service, and hope for a better design.
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December 3rd, 2005 at 6:29 am
I bought the DirecTV HD DVR a few weeks ago. The first one was defective. The HD channels did not show at all and the regular channels were very grainy. The technician came out to service the unit and he said that we needed a new box. We went to get a new box and the picture was nice, but the DVR only worked on the channel that we were watching and all of the other televisions in the house went haywire. I too agree that there are some glitches that need to be cleaned up before I keep this product.