DirecTV HD DVR - Can't record two programs at once
 

When I first had DirecTV installed (two months ago), I could do this without any problems. About a month afterwards, I had to have a new tuner card sent to me. Just today, I tried to set up a recording for two programs, and suddenly, it won't work - it comes up with the error saying that I need to cancel one of the recordings when I try to set the second one up.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Few things I can think of.

Maybe you don't have line from the 2 of the LNBs from the dish going to both inputs on the machine. If you do, maybe your multiswitch is bad. That's been known to happen.

You may be trying to use the OTA antenna to record something, but it's not set up properly.

Are you sure you have the newest 5 LNB dish? I'm assuming you have the DirecTV branded HD-DVR, you'll need the newer dish to get all the MPEG-4 locals.

Would anything else be going wrong if that were the case? I also have another receiver (not DVR) in the bedroom, and two receivers in the game room, and nothing's wrong with them - of course, they're not DVRs.

I do have lines plugged into both inputs on the machine...nothing in terms of plugging in has changed since the installer came. Haven't even moved the box.

If this is the case, I wouldn't know, as I really don't know what this even means. :) I should mention, though, that it's not just that it won't record two HD programs at once - it won't record two programs of ANY type at once.

Absolutely positive. The guy had to get permission from my landlord just to put it in, as it needed to be out much further in the grassy area to get a good view of the southern sky and hit all of the satellites.

I really got nothing. I would copy/paste this post over at www.dbstalk.com in the H20 thread over there. I would bet you'll get far, far more help over there as it is dedicated to DBS stuff.

Done. Thanks for the nudge. :)

Here's what the informative customer service/tech people always say to do:
Hit the RESET button OR pull the pull either from the wall or the unit, wait 5 min and plug back in.


The other night, I wanted to record one program and watch another and it didn't let me change channels...but I don't have a HD receiver... I was in the middle of watching something so I waited about an hour then I tried it again before I hit reset and sure enough, whatever the problem was, it was gone....
God, I'm going to miss my Tivo in that room come Fall. :grumble:

I have had the same thing happen once on my HR20. I had to hit the red button and reset it, and it was fine once it rebooted. Haven't had an issue since.

There is now an option to do a "soft" reset by going through the onscreen menus. I would try that before hitting the red button.