Dish vs Directv

[highfigh]

They have gone through an evolution over the years. 6 years ago Direct TV's CSRs were too ignorant to answer simple questions so I went with Dish. Then I fell into the mess of Dish's first HD DVR - what a piece of crap! They finally bought it back from me after a year of weekly outages, and I moved to Direct TV 3 years ago and have been much happier. Now I'm moving to FIOS TV this coming Friday and will look forward to a good signal in bad weather.

The one thing that Dish and Direct seemed to have in common was incompetent contract installers. Both had to send somebody back 3-5 times of times before they got it right.

They're not ignorant- they're just not paid to know that stuff and they're not supposed to freelance it. They have reference material and when they have more technical questions, they'll move you up the food chain but remember- they're CUSTOMER SERVICE, not TECHNICAL service. If you wanted to talk to someone who can answer technical questions, have them send updates or verify complaints, you can just ask for the technical department.

 

[highfigh]

In the setup it looks like you may need to connect both RJ45 cables and choose one for STB functions and the other for Music. It was around 11:30 when I was looking at this last night so my head was not clear.

"both RJ45 cables"? The receivers only have one ethernet port. The other is a phone jack and isn't needed, especially if the receiver is connected to the network. Music or TV channels- doesn't matter. If you go to the System Setup menu, you'll see 'Multi-Room' if the receiver has been enabled. If you don't see that, it won't work. The DVR has to be one of the new HD models and won't work if the other receiver(s) aren't MPEG4 (which have been HD-enabled).

 

[adk highlander]

All my receivers are the HR23 models which I think is the newest one. I just looked at the plastic terminators that are plugged into the jacks and they are both RJ45 jacks. I have a phone line plugged in and it is not one of these two.

I have two H23's and one HR23-700.

Here is a link of an image over at newegg of the back of mine: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=82-250-015-TS&ISList=82-250-015-V01&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16882250015&Depa=0&WaterMark=0&Description=DIRECTV HR23 Plus HD DVR

I'll check for the multi-room options when I get home. Thanks.

 

[sholling]

They're not ignorant- they're just not paid to know that stuff and they're not supposed to freelance it. They have reference material and when they have more technical questions, they'll move you up the food chain but remember- they're CUSTOMER SERVICE, not TECHNICAL service. If you wanted to talk to someone who can answer technical questions, have them send updates or verify complaints, you can just ask for the technical department.

All I wanted was pricing, package and ETF information and it was more than those bubble heads could answer.

 

[highfigh]

All my receivers are the HR23 models which I think is the newest one. I just looked at the plastic terminators that are plugged into the jacks and they are both RJ45 jacks. I have a phone line plugged in and it is not one of these two.

I have two H23's and one HR23-700.

Here is a link of an image over at newegg of the back of mine: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=82-250-015-TS&ISList=82-250-015-V01&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16882250015&Depa=0&WaterMark=0&Description=DIRECTV HR23 Plus HD DVR

I'll check for the multi-room options when I get home. Thanks.

Sure! Show a model I DON'T have! I have the H21 and R22 (I didn't originally sign up with the HD DVR but since the signal is MPEG4 now, they just about had to make this and most new models work with HD when an HD receiver is in the house). Neither has 2 ethernet ports but I suppose their manual would explain why yours does. I can't see why it would need one just for music, though.

 

[highfigh]

All my receivers are the HR23 models which I think is the newest one. I just looked at the plastic terminators that are plugged into the jacks and they are both RJ45 jacks. I have a phone line plugged in and it is not one of these two.

I have two H23's and one HR23-700.

Here is a link of an image over at newegg of the back of mine: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ImageGallery.aspx?CurImage=82-250-015-TS&ISList=82-250-015-V01&S7ImageFlag=1&Item=N82E16882250015&Depa=0&WaterMark=0&Description=DIRECTV HR23 Plus HD DVR

I'll check for the multi-room options when I get home. Thanks.

With those models, Multi-Room should work. As I posted, if you go to the Setup menu, you should see a line for Multi-Room.