DirecTV HR20-700 HD HDTV DVR Satellite Receiver Features
- 1 Optical Digital Output
- 2 Sets Of RCA (Red/White/Yellow Outputs) - 1 S-Video
- High Definition TV Output (via HDMI And Component)
Price: N/A
User Reviews about DirecTV HR20-700 HD HDTV DVR Satellite Receiver
I've had my HR20-700 for 2 years now. I'm very happy with it. It is a high definition (HD) receiver for the DirecTV satellite TV service, and it is a digital video recorder (DVR) that records programs on its internal hard disk drive. Unless you have a satellite antenna installed, a clear line of sight to the DirecTV satellites, and pay a monthly subscription fee to DirecTV, this HD DVR would be of no use to you. In fact, DirecTV will continue to own this device, in almost all cases, after you pay for it, so the price is really a non-refundable deposit permitting you to use it. This often comes as an unpleasant surprise to people after they "buy" one of these. The upside of this is that if you develop some problem with the device, you may be able to exchange it for a different unit, or perhaps a different model, from DirecTV, sometimes paying a further fee. Unless you already subscribe to DirecTV, you are probably not going to want to "buy" an HR20-700, because a satellite receiver of some sort would ordinarily be supplied with no special initial charge to a new subscriber. So you would have paid the fee for the HR20-700 unnecessarily.
I can compare the HR20-700 for you with the cable HD DVR that I had previously. The HR20-700 is lots better in almost every way. The program guide is wide screen, it lists programs out two weeks in advance, it lets you suppress TV channels you don't care about, it has advanced facilities for searching for programs and recording series. It's only serious failing in comparison to the cable DVR I had is that it's rather sluggish in changing changing channels or paging through the program guide.
How well the HR20-700 works for you will depend on the current state of its operating system. New versions are automatically downloaded over the satellite link every few months, and generally, it's getting better. And of course the quality of the DirecTV satellite service itself changes year by year, and that has also gotten better. For these reasons, review comments from several years ago may be criticizing things about the HR20-700 or the DirecTV service that have been fixed since the time of the reviews.
Although Amazon's form for this review had me rate the sound quality for the HR20-700 (I gave it 5 stars), actually there is no processing of the sound going on -- the HR20-700 just passes on whatever is coming over the satellite link. Since for many HD channels that will be Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, to take advantage of that, most will want to connect the HR20-700 optical or HDMI port to an audio-visual receiver (AVR) and separate speakers, because a TV will not do it justice.
The HR20-700's ethernet port connects it to any local ethernet network you have or to the internet, if you're connected to that. You can download programs or movies over the internet connection, usually for extra fees, but personally I don't do that. I do use the connection to my local network pretty extensively to play music, view photos, and play videos from either my wife's Vista computer or my Linux system. My wife can also view programs that were recorded on the HR20-700 on her computer. Using the still experimental multi-room viewing (MRV) feature of DirecTV receivers, I can also view HR20-700 recordings on the DirecTV H21 receiver I have in my study. -- A great DVR to rent from DirecTV.
If you want a DVR and HD all in one with Directv, you must get this, has interactive qualities and allows you to hook up to internet for additional programming. Although I think Directv is coming out with a whole house DVR soon, so may want to hold off on it unless you do not care about that. -- A must have
The HR20-700 HD IRD is much improved from when it was first released. Dual built-in OTA (ATSC) tuners are now active (with firmware download in 2007). Dual Live Buffers (Double Play) also now active.
I am on the DirecTV Beta team and we've had lots of new features added and improved its stability from previous firmware versions.
The HR21, HR22, and HR23 units are similar but with larger hard-drives, although only the HR20 has the built-in dual over the air tuners. -- HR20-700 much improved
