Direct TV replacing SD recievers with HD recievers and TV Translator

[TechBill]

Direct TV replaced all my SD recievers with a new HD reciever at no charges and I ask them why are they doing it and they said they are no longer going to stream old SD streams so all SD recievers had to be replaced with the HD ones.

Direct TV replaced all mine with a black HD Model H23 and at first I couldn't tune into SD channels because when UIRT USB try to tune it it would go to HD channel since both SD and HD have same channel number so I have to press up one channel to get SD because I do not have a HD subscription.

I fiddled with it for hours and still couldn't get it to go to SD channel when a channel number is tranmistted to H23 and gave up on it then went to call Direct TV customer support.

The customer support said sorry there was no way to switch channel priority around and that in 2 month all the SD channel will be gone by then so I went ahead and subscribe the HD channel so I can get my TV back and SageTV wouldn't be recording a "Channel not purchase" screen...


I also owe a TV Translator and tried using it but it wouldn't work at all. I did use the configutation to check and my serial port did detected the tv translator and uploaded a new firmware to it but it didn't help any.

The test could not detect either serial or usb plugged in so I couldn't test it either so I am staying with UIRT USB for now.

Anyone got TV translator working on Model H23??


Bill

[HelenWeathers]

According to the Patterson web site:
http://www.patersontech.com/products...ranslator.aspx
the converter works with the H23-600 model. Click on the compatibility tab and see the note: May require "-600 Mode" (formerly H20 Mode). Also requires DTV software version 0x404C or later.

[stanger89]

Interesting, any idea if they're going to do away with the HD "access fee" when they drop the SD simulcasts?

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Interesting, any idea if they're going to do away with the HD "access fee" when they drop the SD simulcasts?

I wondered about that too but they wouldn't say. Two of our TV are HDTV so we already had two HD STBs and the others were SD STBs and they came to replace those remaining SD STBs in the house with HD ones.

But when the installer activated it none of the HD channels were activated just only the SD channels so I thought we were paying per STBs until we called DirectTV and they said no we are already paying one fee for as many HD STBs in the house so they resend the code to the STBs and the remaining HD STBs finally start recieving the HD channels.

Look like I am gonna have to invest in the HD-PVR soon.



Bill

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by HelenWeathers

According to the Patterson web site:
http://www.patersontech.com/products...ranslator.aspx
the converter works with the H23-600 model. Click on the compatibility tab and see the note: May require "-600 Mode" (formerly H20 Mode). Also requires DTV software version 0x404C or later.

Thanks for the info! I didn't see that page but I was in a hurry to pack and didn't explore the website fully so I will try the 600 mode when I get back home sunday evening.


Bill

[bastian74]

Any official news about this? I have several sd receivers and haven't heard boo about it.

[Jesse]

Hi,

This is interesting. I have two D* HD boxes and two D* SD boxes. Both of my HD boxes are H20's (one DVR one regular) and all of the video outputs are hot all of the time, on all channels that we subscribe to. Is the H23 not hot to all video outputs all the time?

For an alternative to the Patterson device check out this thread: http://forums.sagetv.com/forums/showthread.php?t=35663

I have not heard anything like this from D* as of yet, but if they want to give me two new HD boxes for free I will take them.

Jesse

[Olias]

Originally Posted by Jesse

Hi,

I have not heard anything like this from D* as of yet, but if they want to give me two new HD boxes for free I will take them.

Jesse

I called up DirecTV customer service a couple of months ago and they sent installers out two days later with a new dish and three H23 HD boxes. No charge for any of it. I previously had three H10 tuners which are now collecting dust in the basement.

[bhyman1]

Curious. I have two SD boxes, D11-500's and havent heard about this. I just texted a friend whose and installer for DTV and asked him about this.

It might be that they are moving away from the old sat's and you need a newer box to address the new sats.

edit: just head from my friend. It depends on the area and what sats they can see. For example, up here in Maine they're doing the swaps for the Bangor area since they can't see the 119 bird.

[TechBill]

Originally Posted by bhyman1

Curious. I have two SD boxes, D11-500's and havent heard about this. I just texted a friend whose and installer for DTV and asked him about this.

It might be that they are moving away from the old sat's and you need a newer box to address the new sats.

edit: just head from my friend. It depends on the area and what sats they can see. For example, up here in Maine they're doing the swaps for the Bangor area since they can't see the 119 bird.

We are in Southwest Missouri but we do not have any idea as to why they swapped out our SD boxes for the HD ones thou. We're not complaining since it free swap and our monthly bill remain the same. DirectTV called us like 3 week ago and told us they are going to swap out our SD boxes with HD ones and they finally came and swapped it yesterday.


We wondered if maybe because they are getting rid of mpeg2 stream and going totally mpeg4 stream then again we didn't ask the installer why he was swapping out the boxes.

The installer even let me keep the 2 old SD remotes since it the same remote as the HD ones. Now we got remote for each side of the couch and bed!



Bill

[stanger89]

Well, a bunch of the "eastern" markets are going 100% MPEG-4. Doing away with the MPEG-2 SD simulcasts of the HD channels would net them probably on the order of 200-500Mbps of bandwidth. Or to look at it another way, probably enough for 50-100 new HD channels.

Those guesses are assuming on the order of 100 2-5Mbps SD MPEG-2 channels are eliminated.