Love it or
hate it, the
HR20 is here to stay, and one thing its got going for it is a 300GB hard drive, which is bigger than just about any
DVR sold today -- including the
Series3. But, just like many other DVRs out there, it is possible to upgrade the drive to expand its capacity and WeaKnees is there for the faint of heart. WeaKnees is well known for their
TiVo upgrades, but now they are adding the HR20 to list. So for $999, you can now get an HR20 with 1TB of storage, which should go a long way in the world of
MPEG4 or
HD-Lite.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
morphy @ Jul 12th 2007 10:16AM
Weaknees is hoping that most HR20 owners are not aware that they can hook up a SATA enclosure to their HR20 and have it take over as the drives that the DVR uses. I'm sure you can hit 1TB in a SATA enclosure for much cheaper than you can through them.
WallyB @ Jul 12th 2007 10:33AM
I miss my HR10-250. I still can't get used to the HR20. :(
Ben @ Jul 12th 2007 11:34AM
Who really cares about voiding your 90 day warranty or the lease for that matter. WeakNees offers their own warranty and lets face it, the lease is nothing more than a service commitment with a different name. As long as you don't cancel your service, they could care less.
As for the eSATA drive, I don't know about anyone else, but one less box and one less power brick in my rack is very welcomed. Also, one less component to fail.
Scott Greczkowski @ Jul 12th 2007 11:47AM
So why would you want to pay $1,000 when you can do it yourself with an external SATA srive?
Knowledge is power.
Kevin Murphy @ Jul 12th 2007 11:50AM
This has nothing to do with opening your box. Weakknees is simply providing an external SATA drive and an HR20, with "instructions" for how to plug one into the other. Bordering on cynical.
Given reports that the constant stream of HR20 patches (averaging one a month now) has corrupted external drives (being relatively untested in the upgrade process), I think I'll wait.
Earl @ Jul 12th 2007 12:01PM
Few things to consider:
-) Unless WeekNess has worked out an agreement with DirecTV (which isn't stated anywhere), the opening of the HR20 to install an HR20 (Be it pre-purchase, or via their upgrade program), violates the DirecTV warranty on the box... and violates your lease agreement.
After doing either process, you would only get warranty support from Weekness... any replcements or anything else would be through them, as going through DirecTV you would not get an "upgraded" system, and returning an HR20 without a hard drive......
-) The HR20 supports external hard drives via the eSATA port. Drive(s) (as you can RAID drives to gether to create upwards of 3TB if you wanted), connected via eSATA are seen as a replacement drive, not an addon to the internal.
-) If you are so inclinded to violate your lease (or if you out right purchased the HR20 for $800), upgrading your internal drive is fairly straight forward. As there are no software installations necessary (like the TiVo counterpart), just connect the drive... install it... and put the cover back on. The HR20 does everything else at boot.
As far as I am aware, no one has found a method to copy the contents of an existing drive, to a new larger drive.
For a lengthy discussion on the Pro's and Con's of the WeaKness offer... see
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=91160&highlight=Weakness
Don @ Jul 12th 2007 4:29PM
I've been real hesitant about the H20 due to the no-dual live buffers, and the non-Tivo interface. One question for you users - can you do the 30-second skip, ala HR10-250?
Any other gotchas?
Thanks
lordjedijoe @ Jul 12th 2007 12:17PM
I just purchased a Seagate 750 gig hard drive with esata and am unable to have it work with my HR-20 700. Both devices where unplugged for 10 minutes - I connected the esate cable. Then, I plugged in the Seagate, waited 10 minutes, than the HR-20. And it didnt work.
Am I missing something? Any assistance would be great.
Jeff N. @ Jul 12th 2007 12:34PM
Can I ask if customers of DirecTv who have the HR20 are now finding it to be a pretty good DVR?? Their were so many complaints on here about it I have avoided even considering it. But with all the new HD channels DirecTV may soon have I may want to try it out. Have the software upgrades helped this model(HR20) or is it still real buggy?
Dean @ Jul 12th 2007 4:16PM
Regarding the quality of the HR-20 - it's a GREAT DVR. Except for not having dual live buffers (yet, anyway), it's a great replacement for the HR10-250. And DirecTV continues to make improvements, with the feedback of actual users, which makes it a better DVR all the time.
Kevin Murphy @ Jul 12th 2007 5:30PM
The HR20 is much, much improved. It is still being worked on, and there are still functional issues, but none of the crashing and unreliability of the past.
The issues are more like fast-forward messes up one time in a thousand, or doesn't have that nice TiVo backtrack correction when you stop. It has one 1-hour buffer instead of two 1/2 hour buffers, so you can't pingpong between the two tuners and keep your buffers. Channel changing could be faster.
Compared to the HR10-250, it has some weak points (and a few very weak points), but it has advantages as well. The picture is noticibly sharper, for instance. And of course, it will accept the MPEG4 stations due in September at the HD Big Bang.
Earl @ Jul 12th 2007 12:41PM
Where does it state on WeakNess website, that they are just sending you an eSATA enclosure and instructions on how to hook it up?
If that is the case, then it is even more of highway robbery... as the prices are seriously inflated just to give you an eSATA enclosure with drive.
As for concerns of violating your LEASE and your Warranty...
Even if WeakNess sells it to you, the unit is still under the LEASE agreements with DirecTV... not Weakness.
It would be a real shocker if you want to leave DirecTV at a later time, and upon returning your modified unit, you find out that you now have to purchase it (at the higher $800) because you violated the LEASE agreement, by the unit being opened.
As for the warranty... fantastic if WeakNess is going to give you a warranty on it, but what is going to happen when the warranty is up?
Ben @ Jul 12th 2007 12:05PM
Yeah, the warranty after the 90 days could be the sticking point.
As for the lease, maybe it's different on other hardware, but I had a lease on my H20 (which broke in less than a year) and DirecTV wouldn't replace without extending my "lease," so I just sold it on eBay. DirecTV never sent me a bill or anything, and they knew I sold it cause when I called them to cancel it, I told them I sold it on eBay.
Speaking of that, how is this lease any different from their previous "commitment"? The monthly lease fee just replaces the "per box fee" and the lease termination price replaces the early disconnect fee.
BTW, the component outputs were broken, and my TV doesn't have HDMI -- which worked fine. Just wanted to make sure no one thought I sold a bad unit as good to an unsuspecting person.
Jeff N. @ Jul 12th 2007 5:11PM
Thank you Dean for your reply. So the HR20 is greatly improved from when it was first released. That's good to hear. That is odd it does not have dual live feeds.
I wonder if they will correct that eventually?
Dean @ Jul 12th 2007 5:18PM
Yes, you can do 30 second slip. Currently in beta are improvements to the "jumpback" when you jump back out of fast forward, to be more like Tivo.
Cellullose @ Jul 12th 2007 5:10PM
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of unanswered questions with the Weaknees deal.... but the other thing we need to keep in mind is that eSATA support on HR20 is unsupported--it's there for people who want to try, but not ready for mass consumption.
Options for upgrading are looking ugly either way.
Dean @ Jul 12th 2007 5:19PM
It has dual live inputs, to record two shows at once, but it doesn't maintain two live buffers, so if you switch channels on live tv you lose the buffer. You can get around by recording two shows and switching back and forth, but definitely not quite as convenient.
Gil @ Jul 17th 2007 11:09AM
I'm about to get set up with DirecTV and want to know if the HR20 is using the ethernet port yet? I don't have, nor do I plan on getting a phone line for my house, so I'm wondering if it will use the ethernet port to "call home". Also, can I see the HR20 on my network, or share programs between two HR20 like Tivo can do?
Gil
Steve S. @ Aug 15th 2007 6:38PM
There was someone somewhere who posted that they hooked up a Seagate Pro 750 via esata to the HR20. Can't remember who or where. In any case I tried it & it worked out great. I first tried it on the Motorola DVR that COX supplies but it wouldn't recognize the drive. I suspect the port is disabled.