DIRECTV Plus DWO2-10021 HD DVR (Lease)

I purchased this with my new HDTV from Best Buy a year ago. I thought I paid $300 to buy it ... WRONG! This is the price to "upgrade you lease". You have to give it back to Direct TV if you cancel their service, which I just did. Not only that but after you pay $200 to "upgrade you lease" with this product they charge you $4.99 a month to continue to lease it. I have had Direct TV out to my house almost monthly since. The receiver doesn't work half the time and the HD reception is awful. The picture breaks up or is out half the time due to weather or nothing at all. They will also lock you into another two-year commitment if you upgrade with this to HD service. I have been with Direct TV for several years and was not happy to find I had to pay to cancel a service that was not working half the time anyway. Don't buy this product is my advice and stay away from Direct TV. In my experience the customer service is horrible. I had to pay $6 a month for their protection plan to avoid the $75 service call for the guy to come out and fix something I was already paying for. I went round and round with their customer service for almost a year before happily paying the cancellation fee just to get rid of them. In all fairness I was perfectly happy before the upgrade with my Direct TV service and my old non-HD DVR. I want HD service that works though so I am going to cable where there is no contract and much better customer service in my area.

I bought one of the first Tivos when they first became available. I got all the bells and whistles and lifetime service. It served me well and I loved it for seven years until it gave up the ghost.

Then I bought another one, again with lifetime service. It was even better. I consider both purchases a great deal and am glad I made them. But then, my 20-year-old TV broke and I bought a new flat-panel HD TV. It still worked with the Tivo, but one day I made the "mistake" of watching over-the-air HD stations with my new TV and it knocked me over. I didn't realize just how much better high-definition TV was compared to standard definition.

OK, it was time to upgrade to an HD Tivo. I'd even buy the $800 model because I loved the features so much. Well, I soon discovered that Tivo has abandoned satellite reception and would not even record my over-the-air programs in HD.

So I investigated alternatives. The negative reviews of DirecTV on Amazon were scary, so I decided to wait and see if things improved. It was very frustrating, I just can't watch real-time programs with commercials, and I didn't like being tied to the broadcast schedule of my PBS HD channels. But I suffered on with it because of these reviews.

My cat-sitter happened by one day and saw the TV. I gave her an HD demo and she immediately went out and bought a similar one. She's not in a location that gets HD channels over the air, so she also upgraded her standard DirecTV DVR to the HD DVR. I didn't find out until a month or two later that she had done that. Curious to find out how it worked for her and when I asked, she said it was super and she just loved it.

That didn't sound consistent with these reviews, so I was even more confused. But I noticed that DirecTV offered an in-house maintenance contract to guarantee the system would meet my approval for just $5.99/month. I decided to take the plunge and bought one and had it installed. The installation took only about an hour and went very smoothly.

That was four months ago. I've been watching my HD channels via DirecTV and even my over-the-air HD channels, all recorded beautifully in HD. The DTV system is faster and smoother than my old Tivo even though it's doing much more work to record HD. I like the menus better, and I can do somethings much easier than with the old Tivo. And it has a few features that Tivo doesn't.

I miss a few things from Tivo, the suggestions and the network access. But the network never worked well anyway, and the search feature in the DirecTV recorder is so good I find many more programs I want to watch than I have time for anyway.

I gave my old Tivo with it's lifetime service to a relative, and they're enjoying it, but when and if they get HD I'm sure they'll dump it too.

In short, I've had no problems with my DirecTV HD DVR over the last four months, and my cat-sitter has had no problem with hers over the last 6-8 months. And she didn't even bother with the maintenance contract.

Normally, people with good experiences like mine don't bother to write these reviews while the people with bad experiences write theirs with vehemence and venom. So you can't really tell just what percentage of these systems have problems and how well they get resolved by reading these reviews. In any case, I'm really happy with my system and have no hesitation recommending it based on my experience.

I read all about the problems of the HR20 before we got it, but since it had so many features I wanted (like the HDTV!), we got it anyway. Keep in mind most people say the unit was much worse in early 2007. I was kind of dreading getting this, after our last box was such a piece of junk, locking up all the time, and losing the signal right in the middle of shows - almost every day.

I've had this for about 3 months now, and the first month there were a couple issues with it locking up, and onetime losing our recorded shows. We've gotten a couple software updates since then, and have not had any problems the last couple months (Nov-Dec 2007).

We love how it easily records shows, shows the name of the show, date recorded, and if it was in HD or not. We love the fast forward thru commercials, when you see the show and hit Play, it actually backs up a bit for you so you don't miss any of the show!

So the last couple months its been working flawlessly, and we love all the features. I just hooked it up to the Internet and now am getting the DirecTV on Demand, downloading shows and movies from the Internet.

We recently got DirecTV after seeing their ad blitz for 75 HD channels. They brag about their "digital picture and sound," and their great customer service.
The truth is the only way to get digital picture and sound is with a HDTV and an HDMI. Their picture is actually worse than the picture we got with Comcast. Not to mention there is no two year agreement with cable, no picture loss when it rains, you do not have to pay for "leased equipment, and you do not need an ugly dish hanging on your house.
When we purchased our most recent HDTV, we figured we would replace the DVR we had with DirecTV and get an HD DVR to replace it.
DirecTV told us we would have to pay $299 for the privlige of leasing their receiver from them. In addition to this we would have to pay $50 because we were a new customer "and had not established a credit history with them." Also, we would have to pay $20 for shipping and handling and extend our contract for another two years.
Maybe DirecTV thinks it is in the cellphone business because all they want to do is lock you into long-term contracts and make you bleed money to them forever. Their symbol should be a ball and chain because that is what they really are. Cable here I come!

Directv Upgraded me from HDTIVO to the this junk for free, after i got it i realized why it was free, as i said its junk. anyone who has the HDtivo receiver will hate this receiver.

I would have returned the receiver in 15 minutes if i had to pay for it.((((((( i am thinking of returning it even it was free ))))))))))))))
ITS VERY slow, the DVR featured are nothing like TIVO, as i was told they were , i don;t get why one channel keeps 90 min in memory while the other one has None that makes NO sense if i want more than 30 min i would just record it.Why the memory clears when you switch between channels, and when i record a program I do not have the option to skip to the end , of jump forward in 15 min intervals. who ever designed this unit has no IDEA what a DVR should do, i am a very upset as i was forced to upgrade so i could get all the new HD channels that they have been advertising.the old receiver would only get the 7 to 10 stations i have had for the past 2 years
Oh i almost forgot you also have to get a HUGE dish , its so big that it has 2 supporting arms on either side so the wind does not move it. all that said you really do not have much choice except they get the message and do a real upgrade in the HDDVR 21 which should be out soon .....