Finally, DirecTV has decided to release to "secondary markets" their HR 20, the HD DVR unit that receives (some) local HDTV channels. While not quite the disaster that was my experience with the HR 10 (see my previous article published last year), it's a close second. Both of these units come under the heading of "don't buy version/1.0 of anything." But I couldn't resist, needing to retain my "early adopter" license.

First of all, please keep in mind these units are true...

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Wow, and OTA is such bleeding edge technology these days

Screaming red flag when you can't have a feature like that enabled on release. This is 2006 and perhaps they should have put the "A Team" from engineering on this flagship product rather than the "C Team".

I';ve been a D* subscriber for about 10 years now. BUT, when our HD dish at our summer place in CO gave up the ghost, I decided to try DishNet. I knew of course that they had about 30 channels of HD programming. Not all the greatest content, but certainly something for just about everybody. What I didn't realize is that I would get all of the Denver market channels including those in HD. THe user interface with the DishNet DVR takes some getting used to - doesn't any change? - but I'm 70 and it didn't take THAT long to master it.

We'll be back in MN ina couple of weeks and I will be contacting DishNet to see if there are any kind of discounts for folks with two locations. I won't need my OTA installation that I paid over $700 for 2 years ago. Although, I still have at least 5 channels scattered around the compass that I can watch as backups.

Here's a curious thing that perhaps someone can sort out for me. It seems to us that the non-HD signals coming from DishNet are FAR sharper than D*'s. Is this a difference in compression or some other factor under their control? Or is it that our 46" Sony Brevia LCD is that much better than our 5 year old Pioneer 50" plasma??

My REAL frustration continues to be the inability with either system to download saved programs in an HD format. S Video sucks and they know it. I have a Sony HDR-FX1 HD camera with the ability to download via firewire. But of course, there is NO firewire outputs on either DVR. We should soon have the ability to transfer HD content to DVD's - when is someone going to build a unit that will allow us to make use of this new technology??

Jerry Rutledge
MN usually.....

Both use fairly low MPEG 2 bit rates for local to local SD satellite retransmission. Both use MPEG 4 for local to local HDTV. I have not seen a side by side comparison of the two, but would guess that Dish has a higher local to local SD rate. Even at low bit rates, it is hard to quantify the difference because of statistical multiplexing techniques that both use.

But there are other varibles, such as the SD video processing circuitry, but since you say the difference is noticeable only with SD local to local reception, I suspect compression differences are the cause.

Don't hold you breath waiting for all components to embrase the lates and greatest technologies. Consumer electronics technology is advancing so quickly that designs are obsolete before they enter the production cycle. There will always be something better (and probably incompatible) next year. That's what makes the business so exciting, and, yes, at times, frustrating.

Two weeks of HDTV recording, the unit is A+, more features than I expected.

The only problem was that Directtv and the installer would not give me the footprint of the new 5 eliment dish. This one weighs 46 pounds and needs a very stable support, I had a steel brace built but we had to drill the holes "on site".

An update:

I have had an HR-20 for over 3 weeks. First, the software upgrade
shows 9-27-06
I have had a few intermittent problems with recorded
programs starting for the first few seconds then freeze.
The
solution was to turn off the HR-20 and go back to the recorded
program. This problem exists in 480 as well as 1080i programs. The
problem will happen no matter if another program is recording or
not.

Once the problem is cleared, it plays correctly and you
can ff and fr and play without any problem.

Note to other
users- the recorder will keep recording to the hard drive when any
program is selected for viewing so I do not leave the receiver on
during the night and I always switch the receiver to an music channel
(does not record music).