Integrated DVR & TiVo Makes this a Hit !
Written: Sep 29 '04
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Pros: Quiet, reliable, flawless recordings. Built-in ATSC tuners (HDTV off-air broadcasts).
Cons: Too expensive. You'll gain another 10 pounds from watching too much TiVo.
The Bottom Line: At this time, it is the only HDTV/TiVo choice for DirecTV. I would rate it as excellent if the price were lower.
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| glenhamilton's Full Review: Hughes HR10-250 (250 GB) 200-Hours Video Recorder |
Having high quality, high definition recordings doesn't get any better than this. We have used a prior version of this unit for about 18 months and recently switched to this HDTV model about 3 months ago, and got it just in time for the Summer Olympic. Watching sports activities was great, especially since we were able to receive it from ATSC broadcast TV. We put the previous version in another room for our son. Since we have a prior "standard broadcast" model, we have something to compare against.
PROS:
TiVo is the star of this unit. I think I will do a separate review of Tivo since you can buy them separately from a DVR. Without TiVo, this would be just an expensive HDTV recorder. So, I'll put more about the TiVo in another review later.
SUPERB RESOLUTION: The biggest advantages is being able to record HDTV broadcasts. Of course, this is why you are buying this puppy. During the 3 months we've had the unit, it has performed flawlessly. Recordings are as good as the original broadcasts.
BIGGER HARD DISK: HDTV is roughly double the resolution in both the horizontal and vertical axis, so that means it has to process and record 4 times the information as with standard TV broadcasts. Thus, you need a bigger hard drive. With the 250GB drive that comes in the unit, you can record up to 30 hours of HDTV or 120 hours of standard (or any combination of both). There isn't a lot of HDTV content out there yet, but it is growing rapidly. Even so, I was surprised how quickly I was starting to fill the hard disk space with HDTV programs. I suspect that this could become a minor weakness of the unit over time because you will be recording more and more HDTV instead of standard broadcast. I may end up putting an additional hard drive in it like I did in my older unit.
BUILT-IN HDTV TUNER (ATSC off-air digital broadcasts)
In the Northern California area, I'm able to currently receive 7 HDTV broadcast channels. Of course, this doesn't mean they always transmit HDTV content. Some movies are HDTV and some are not. Even so, I think this is a great feature to have TWO tuners built into the unit. It lets you record 2 HDTV broadcasts simultaneously. This might encourage you to buy just a TV monitor instead of a TV with an ATSC tuner built into it. After all, if you have the tuner in the TiVo unit and can record, why would you want to spend and extra $200 or more to buy a TV with it built-in? On a large plasma or LCD tv, models with an ATSC tuner can cost an extra $400 or more. All I had to do was to buy one of those nice small antennas (I bought the Terk model) and mount it on the roof line. Since it is horizontal, it is barely visible from the street. I plugged it into the HR10-250 and we got great reception (about 30 air miles from the transmitters). With digital broadcasts, there is no more ghosting from reflections of building and other objects. You either get the signal or you don't. Sometimes there may be quick dropouts. This indicates you are probably too far from the TV transmitter and should consider a better antenna.
REMOTE CONTROL: I can't say much about the remote control since I don't use it. Every remote control I own goes into a drawer. I use my Harmony remote instead (separate review).
CONS:
Price, price, price. Wait for them to come down from the $1000 price tag. Demand is high right now and its keeping the price high since they have only recently been in production. As more are produced, my guess is that you should be seeing at least $200 shaved off the unit by end of year, and by mid next year, half the price.
Slooooow menus: The was a problem with our original unit. The TV listing menus come up very slow (a few seconds). It doesn't sound like a long time, but when you are sequencing through the time slots or channels, it can get wasteful of your time. I use the channel up and down buttons to scroll through a page at a time, and that makes it faster to display. You'd think that by this version, Hughes could have put in a more powerful processor. Other people have made similar comments about slow menus.
NEW DISH? If you don't buy this as part of a packaged system, then keep in mind you will likely need a new dish if you are upgrading the receiver for a system you already have. Unless you have one of the newer oval dishes with 3 LNBs, you won't receive any of the HDTV broadcasts. The dish will also be pointing in a slighter higher elevation and more Southerly direction. Since I was moving to another home, I just called DirecTV and took them up on their offer to leave my old (standard) dish at the other house and have them install a newer oval dish for free at my new house. Otherwise, I'd have to shell out another $100 for a new dish and install it myself. As it turns out, I had to go out and make a minor adjustment because the installer was in too big of a hurry and didn't align it to get the best signals. Another note is that since the newer dishes typically have 4 multi-switched outputs, you can actually drive 2 of these DVRs (2 lines are desirable for each unit).
MISC:
WHERE TO BUY IT: This is a tough one. Every store is going to charge you full retail price at this time until the current demand is met. Maybe someone else will have a comment where to get it. I bought mine at a slight discount from eBay. Yup, it was new out of the box, but had another satellite company shipping sticker on it that least me to believe it was resold once or twice between satellite companies. Shop around.
PHONE LINE: Some people forget that you need a nearby phone line for connection to this unit. It usually makes daily calls in the middle of the night to download newer satellite listings, update software if needed, and report back what shows you purchased. Be advised that most of the wireless phone jack units don't work well for this purpose. You may or may not be lucky. I had to route a phone line to my unit since there was not one near my TV.
QUIET: This model seems quieter than my older unit. I could hear the fan whinning more easily in the prior unit.
ONE THING I MISS about my prior unit is that it had an RF output. I understand why Hughs removed it. The cost is much more to put in an HDTV modulator, and most people are going to use the component outputs anyway. However, I was using it to connect to my house cable line (I don't use cable and disconnected it). The signal would then go to other rooms in the house. Thus, I could use my remote control to send signals to the TiVo downstairs and watch it in my bedroom. Since there is no longer any RF out, I bought an separate small transmitter that hooks up to the s-video outputs and transmits the signal wireless up to my bedroom.
S-VIDEO and COMPONENT VIDEO NOT ACTIVE AT SAME TIME: This is not a big deal to me because I worked around it. In my situation where I need to also send a signal to another room via my wireless transmitter, I needed both outputs active at the same time. Most people will use just one or the other and it is not an issue.
Most people I talk to don't seem to realize that part of the HDTV spec is that it also incorporates 6-channel surround sound capability. Ooops, I shouldn't have said that. Now you are going to go out and spend another $800 on a surround sound system ;-)
In summary, we are really happy with this unit and I am considering buying another one for the bonus room. Since we are not in there as much, I'll wait for a price drop.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 899
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Epinions.com ID:
glenhamilton
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Member: Glen Hamilton
Location: Northern California
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 15 members
About Me:
Engineering Executive (electronics and software)
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