That's the thing. I got so used to my old Directv Tivo's and how great they were that these new DVR's are just absolute shit in comparison.

I agree. I had problems with my Comcast DVR a few years ago. I lost almost an entire season of "Smallville" and "Heroes", along with several movies. One day, I woke up and everything was deleted from the hard drive. Nobody at customer service could figure out WHY?.

I thought I would ask this question here, rather than starting a new thread.

As I said earlier, I just switched to Direct over the holidays and still figuring out the tricks. Is there a way to manually set the time of the recording? I know you can it to start a little bit earlier or end a little bit later, but I'm talking more specific. I'll give my current problem as an example.

The Australian Open just started, which means 2 weeks of a lot of tennis that needs to be recorded. I was setting recordings and hit on a problem night. Tennis coverage starts at 10 (central time), and I have 2 recordings scheduled at 9 (Damages and Top Chef). Both are scheduled to go over: one is scheduled until 10:01 and the other scheduled for 10:15. So, I essentially can't set my recording for tennis because of one minute. Is there a way to manually set a start and end time for a recording? I could do this with my old Time Warner DVR; I would just set the DVR to start the tennis recording at 10:01 or 10:05 or whatever.

Yes.

Menu>Manage Recordings>Manual

Aww, thank you. I don't think it would have dawned on me to click there. I was so focused on the guide.

Oh, and to actually benefit to this discussion, I have been so happy with my Direct. Fortunately, I don't have to contend with snow where I live, but it has been fine in heavy wind, although hasn't really been tested by heavy rain yet.

As for the OnDemand ... the downloading thing is a bit of a pain, but the OnDemand I had through Time Warner was awful. Actually, it hardly ever worked for probably the last year I was with them (I had been a subscriber for 5+ years), and when it was working, it was really clunky, slow and the picture was really bad, like a VHS recording. Plus, the selection was pretty poor and no HD options. So, the OnDemand from Direct is a huge step up for me, although it does suck that if I have company that we can't just pick something and watch it. And how come no HBO?

I'll acknowledge that much of my problems has to do with my local Time Warner service. I was shocked at how much better the Time Warner OnDemand and DVRs were when I visited an out-of-town friend. It's like my area's DVRs were the ones they probably used 5 years earlier or something. Plus, I noticed when I browsed through the guide that they had a bunch of HD channels that weren't even offered in my area.

Yeah, the VOD quality from a cable provider can vary greatly. The Comcast in my area used Scientific Atlanta boxes and the guide and VOD were very clunky to say the least. My mom has Comcast, but for that area, they use Motorola boxes - the software was much better and faster and the VOD speed was very fast.

To update this thread, I finally got my install yesterday. They're going to have to come back tomorrow since they installed the dish on a tripod on the front edge of my roof, right after I told them my landlord didn't want the dish where it could be visible from the road. It looks obscene right now. I'm THRILLED with the service though. The picture is so much clearer than I got even on HD channels with Time Warner. One thing I wasn't aware of: you have to submit an online rebate to get the promotional $23 off/month, and that takes 6-8 weeks to process. The referral credit also takes a couple months to process. Oh well! Even without the promotional pricing, I'm still playing 2/3 of what I was with Time Warner.

Plus don't you have to sign up for automatic bill pay to get the final $5 of that $23?

What channels are you recording the tennis on? Are you aware that Directv is offering all the grans slams this year on channels 701-708? I think 701 is the 6 way split screen (like they do for NFL Sunday Ticket, NASCAR,College FB, and March Madness)

just checking.

Yes, I believe so, but they signed me up for that when I ordered over the phone. To be eligible for the rebate, you have to sign up for paperless billing and give them your email address for promotional emails. You also get an additional $20 credit when you sign up for all three of those (their "green" promotion").

I'm liking my new install too... but it does make me realize how much I hate watching live TV. The HD-DVR is decent, but I only ordered one, and I'm waiting for my serial-to-usb converter to come in the mail so I can change the channels on my other box with the TIVO.

Is there a full blown manual somewhere online for the DVR? Not the barely basic guide they give you? I'm curious to know what the USB port is for.

As I mentioned in another thread, I recently switched my service package. I had been on an old Total Choice package thru a deal with Verizon and one other incentive was a free dvr offer. I looked at their new packages and saw that I could be upgraded for a $1 so I did it.

I was shocked when the installer actually showed up today after canceling the previous two times. I was on the fence about even bothering at this point but went ahead and had him install it. So far I like it well enough and will like saving some serious cash each month over Comcast. Plus I can finally watch the Big Ten Network in HD.

I had some major ice build-up that made all HD channels disappear towards the beginning of winter, so I got up on my roof, gently scraped it off, and sprayed mine with Pam nonstick cooking spray. No problems since, and it's a long winter here in Chicago. Not sure if this is the recommended method, but it works for me.

I've had my problems w/DTV over the past 7 years, but overall I've been very pleased. Be glad you're coming on board now. When the HD-DVR first came out it was loaded with problems and they were making nonstop changes to try address those problems. Every time you'd get used to it, they'd change it some more, but it's been pretty darn good, stable, and the same for some time now.

I'm sure there's something like that at dbstalk. They do have a pdf for "hidden" features on the dvr remote. I think the usb can be used for an external hard drive, but it REPLACES the one in your box, and there are some other caveats (it's also not officially supported by DTV).