Winter Update details for DirecTV HR20 HD DVR

It's been a week now since the winter update was downloaded to our HR20 and we were greeted with the following heads-up descriptions from our friends at DirecTV (in italics) and my commentary on each:

Menu Changes: with the larger text size and new order of things, the menu is now easier to read and get around

Um, I can't really tell if the text size is indeed larger (I'll take their word for it), and the new order of things seems to be referring to the fact that setup is now the fifth item in the list, and "manage recordings" is on the top level (was it always there?)

Screen Options: in the Guide, My Playlist or while watching TV, you can use the YELLOW color key to view available options.

This is actually a pretty cool update: pressing the YELLOW color key in the various environs results in the following menus:

• Guide: Sort programs by category, jump to a date and time, change favorites list
• My Playlist: Mark programs to delete, sort programs by category, change order of Playlist, open/close all
• Watching TV: View previous channels, Closed Captioning, Change favorites list, audio options
  

Closed Captioning: We've added a quick on/off switch to TV options. To give it a try, press YELLOW while watching TV.

I'm pretty impressed with the CC function so far, especially with two young kids who LOVE to scream and yell just when I'm trying to listen to crucial dialog.

So, they're making incremental improvements to the experience.

I'd still trade all the above to get a better signal on our local FSN-HD channel so I can see hockey in high-def. As it is, the signal's not strong enough so we suffer through pixelated pucks all the time. sigh

DirecTV service level slipping again

While DirecTV has continued to add new HD channels to its broadcast lineup, it seems they're more interested in how many they can "broadcast" than in how many we can "receive" on the HR20 HD DVR supplied by DirecTV. I guess that's something in the small print.

On several HD channels (mostly on our Showtime HD channels), we're getting pixelated pictures with the audio cutting in and out, which is the classic sign of signal loss. On other channels like Food Network HD (chan 231-1) and VH1 HD (335-1), we get no signal whatsoever, and instead are given a litany of troubleshooting instructions on the screen instead, including:

• check all the cables from the TV to the dish to make sure they're connected
  
• unplug and then replug all the cables together again
• do a soft reset of the receiver
• call customer support and refer to code 771

I did all of them, and then threw in a hard reset (unplug the power for 30 seconds) before finally breaking down to call DirecTV customer support (meta-gripe: why the heck don't they list the phone number navigable from anywhere ON the receiver? why must I log in to the web site to get the number?)

After dialing in and navigating the phone tree to get a live person, I quickly blazed through level 1 support and was transfered to the HD technical support crew. Fifteen minutes of phone-based trouble shooting included such things as:

• making sure my BBC converters were working (you can test yourself by navigating to channels 480 and 481 to see what's displayed)
• switching the lines in from one port to another
• checking the connections of the lines at the splitter outside the house
• navigating to various working HD channels to make sure some worked while the two offenders (Food and VH1) still did not
  

No resolution to my problem after all that, so I was told next up is a service call that will cost me $70 plus any parts or additional labor to fix things. To get two extra channels? Fat f*ing chance. I decline.

But wait! I'm informed there's a special: if I sign up for the tech insurance plan at $7 a month, I can get the first service call for only $15 (plus parts/labor). Maybe I'm not aware of how expensive the receiver and remote are (the remote replacement is $87!) Again, no thanks.

So, after six months or so of being satisfied with service quality, DirecTV has reverted back to its old ways in providing sub-par service. Not very thrilled to be back here with them. It really seems the folks at DirecTV don't much care about negative word-of-mouth. Maybe it's because their competition, Comcast, seems to have the same disdain.

minor improvements to DirecTV HR20 experience

In this latest round of software updates on the DirecTV HR20 HD DVR, they've finally introduced "smart" technology into the experience of fast forwarding or rewinding through a show. By "smart" I mean "forgiving."

The situation they've addressed is to help compensate for people's slow reaction times when speeding through a recorded show. If you're fast-forwarding through a block of commercials and you see the show's started again, by the time your brain sends the signal to your finger to press the PLAY button, you're already several seconds into the show already and have to rewind. No matter how hair-trigger your own response times, you still miss a couple seconds of shows.

The brilliant folks at TiVo took this into account from the start and always backed up the show a few seconds from when you hit the PLAY button when rewinding or fast-forwarding. A nice touch that demonstrates they really pay attention to how folks use technology, and a great demonstration of technology closing an interface gap seamlessly.

So, having been trained on a TiVo for three years, you can imagine our frustration when we discovered the HR20 did not compensate for this gap and we had to relearn how to fast forward and rewind through a lot of trial and error to get our timing and prediction skills honed.

Flash forward to this past week, and the good folks on the HR20 dev team have at last introduced this compensation feature so that the DVR automatically backs up five seconds from the moment you press the PLAY button. At last!

On another front (following up on my DirecTV Ka-Lo upconversion process) we're at last seeing the lineup of HD channels expand. This morning I see in the menu a total of 21 high-def channels (up from eight), and the DirecTV folks are promising 100 High-Def channels by the end of the year. Now we get to see the Weather Channel folks in all their HD goodness 24 hours a day!

technical quest update: bluetooth a2dp anyone?

Just about a year ago, I posted about my technical quest to simplify our AV stack and augment its capabilities. Updates here and here and here.

While we're getting good 5.1 sound out of our Harman Kardon AVR245, it's not a push-button experience (yet). We've got the Harman Kardon HKTS-14 speaker system and in our setup, the front speakers are mounted to the wall on either side of the plasma TV, the center channel is perched on a shelf above the TV (the subwoofer is tucked in the corner) and the sleek HK stands for the surround speakers are stored at the front of the room and pulled around into surround position only when we're watching a movie that warrants the surround experience.

Why do they get stored at the front of the room? Our two little girls would undoubtedly knock them over if left in place post-movie (during the day), and I'd likely catch the wires walking by them since we've got hardwood floors. The net effect is that the majority of the time we don't listen to programming in full surround mode, as the surround speakers are stashed in the front of the room where the aural effect is minimal, at best.

While I could spend the time and energy to route the wires through the wall and attic to mount the speakers on the wall in their proper surround location, that's a wiring headache I'll put off for a long time to come, thankyouverymuch.

But now, David Pogue's column today in the NYTimes about Bluetooth and the End of Audio Wiring has got me thinking of a wireless solution our problem. Surely there's a bluetooth solution to be had here, right? I mean, given the A2DP protocol, I can bluetooth stereo signal streaming wirelessly from my AVR245 to the surround speakers mounted on the wall.

But how to do this?

Google searches on bluetooth stereo surround speakers seem to indicate there's more supply in non-North American markets, but here's a list of Bluetooth Stereo Speaker Suppliers in China that will only grow over time, right?

So what are the prerequisites before I'll add A2DP to my system? I have to be able to use my existing speakers. I've paired them purposefully for the entire system and I don't want to have to buy any bulky speaker to mount on my walls that'll unbalance the system.

What this means the gadget/widget I'm looking for will need to be a combination speaker mount/Bluetooth access point that talks to a Bluetooth gateway plugged into my AVR245. Bonus if there's a way to cut down on the battery consumption needed to run the speaker access points.

But if I can find something like this, I'll leapfrog straight over 5.1 sound all the time and start exploiting the AVR245's ability to pump out 7.1 sound.

Of course, if I get the speaker situation taken care of, then I really should upgrade to a HD-DVD player, and maybe I can use that upgrade moment to swap out TiVo for the DirecTV HR20 we've got... hmmm, better not start this just yet.

DirecTV Ka-Lo band up-conversion process suggestions

And just as I thought DirecTV was getting less geeky in their approach to dealing with their HD DVR customers, this new Ka-Lo band up-conversion process comes to bear.

As a DirecTV HR20 HD DVR owner, here's my up-conversion experience and some suggestions for the DirecTV folks on how to make it better (should they care) next time around.

First Encounter: I'm sent an email with subject line "Important Information about your HD Equipment" in which I'm invited to go to a web page to figure out if I've already got the B-Band Converter (BBC) module installed in my machine.

Better approach: DirecTV already tracks my equipment, my viewing habits, my programming... they should already know whether I've got the BBC modules or not. Send me an email to tell me the required modules are being shipped to me (and why) unless I opt out.

Second Encounter: A system message delivered to the inbox of my HR20 telling me to go visit the directv.com/bbc web page to see if I need to order the BBC modules for HD programming.

Better approach: Send a ping through the system to see if my BBC modules are installed (you can do that, too, right?). If not, give me a system message that says the modules are being mailed to me and to call DirecTV if I haven't received them by X date.

Third Encounter: As seen in the picture at the top of the post, the (two) modules arrive in separate padded envelopes (oh, the cost savings!) FedEx'd to my home. Each envelope contains a box containing one module and one single-page instruction sheet. The instruction sheet seems pretty straight forward: Thanks for ordering, installing is easy, pretty explanatory pictures and a copyright notice.

Upon opening the box and sliding the module out, however, my inner geek goes wild and my "I'm just a dumb customer" side barfs on the table. Included with the module is a two-color, double-sided page of instructions from the manufacturer of the module, Zinwell, whose brand is directly under the bolded, big-texted title of the Instructions sheet (no copyright notice on this puppy, thus the repost):

Installation Guide
DIRECTV Approved "B Band Converter (BBC) Module"
(for Ka-Lo band up-conversion)
SUP-2400

And then the getting gets good with the introductory paragraph that includes the BBC Module Functional Description:

The BBC Module is to be used in conjuction with the Ka/Ku Out-Door Unit (ODU) and the A3/MPEG-4 capable satellite receiver, hereafter to be called "the IRD". The Ka/Ku ODU output will consist of a three-way stacked signal: a Ka Lo-band (B Band) at 250-750 MHz, a Ku band at 950-1450 MHz and a Ka Hi-band (A Band) at 1650-2150 MHz. The IRD has an input range of 950-2150 MHz so an up-converter must be used in order to access the 250-750 MHz spectrum. Failure to install a BBC Module at the back of the IRD prevents the IRD from receiving Ka Lo-band. For clarity, a BBC Module must be used with each A3/MPEG-4 capable IRD in the home system. As further clarification, a BBC Module must never be used in a system that contains an Frequency Translation Module (FTM) as the equivalent function is already contained in the FTM.

WTF is an FTM and how can I tell I don't already have it, thus rendering the BBC module moot? Why must the BBC "never" be used in a system with FTM? so much FUD, so little time.

And still a page and a half of tech directions and illustrations I won't bore you with here (still with me?)

Better approach: Get the vendor to leave the technogeek screed out of the module box. Catch pre-shipping the fact I need two and send them both in the same envelope. Include the simple picture-laden how-to single pager and include a bright yellow postcard that says "If you do not install these modules, you risk losing your HD channel access." Done.

Boy, these new HD channels I'm about to get (now that I've successfully completed the DirecTV Ka-Lo band up-conversion process) better be good.

DVDs up-converted to 720 from a Mac?

As I've previously posted, the Planet Earth series on Discovery Channel was eye-poppingly amazing on our Toshiba plasma TV. Definitely worth filling up the HD DVR with those episodes.

My lovely wife noted how much I liked Planet Earth and got me the HD DVD version for Father's Day. The only problem: we don't have a HD DVD player in the house. So, she exchanged for the standard definition DVD format, and, wow, what a difference it makes (unfortunately, not in a good way). I miss my Planet Earth in High Def!

Back in January, I blogged about our A/V tech stack, and you'll notice there's a distinct lack of a DVD player in there outside what's available via our Mac mini. So, I see a couple paths ahead:

1. Get a new standalone DVD player (HD? Blu-Ray? which format's gonna win?) and figure out how to get yet another HDMI cable into and through our HK AVR245. (a DVR and a Mac and a DVD player, oh my!) The AVR245's only got two HDMI inputs, and I'm reaaaally reluctant to go back to an external switcher, especially given the 245's handling of the audio separately from the video.
   
2. Figure out how to get an HD player inside our Mac Mini (highly unlikely, but a man can dream, no?)
3. Figure out how to get our Mac Mini to upconvert the DVD it plays from 480 to 720 (feels like this could be a fruitful path)

I'll give #3 a shot and blog about my progress.

UPDATE: Didn't take too long to find the following sage advice (dollop of common sense?) in an HD forum regarding upconverting from 480p to 720p:

[I]f you're expecting the results to look better than the original standard-def DVD, you'll be disappointed. There is no conversion process that can add detail that isn't present in the original. You will in fact lose some quality because the target resolution isn't an exact multiple of the original.

Looks like I'll just have to "settle" for the standard-def look and enjoy catching Planet Earth on Discovery HD now and then.

new UI design on the DirecTV HR20 HD DVR

Looks like the graphic designers at DirecTV had a few extra cycles to burn, so they've updated the UI and color scheme on the HR20's navigation.

The first sign of the new look is on the warning/welcome screen that pops up as soon as you click any of the menu buttons on your receiver. Besides touting a new "lighter" color scheme, the feature they tout the most is the fact you can now easily see what the colored buttons on the remote are for. That's it?

What I've noticed so far:

• multiple episodes of the same show now show up in the list as one item with a folder icon next to it (replaces the old right-facing arrow)
• help text on what the colored buttons are for have moved from directly under the minimized live picture (upper right) to the strip along the bottom of the screen. Yes, more conspicuous, but it now seems like we've lost some vertical space that otherwise should be used to display program info. The six lines of program info seems overwhlemed by everything else on the screen, and now the space under the minimized live picture is dead space.
  
• the lighter colors (lots of white and light blue) definitely brightens the interface up from the old dark-blue-and-gold scheme (I guess the Cub Scouts sued to get their colors back). The drawback to the new light-and-airy scheme? You're completely overwhelmed by it when catching up on your recorded shows at night in a darkened house. It's as if someone turned all the lights on again, and it takes a moment for your eyes adjust enough to read what's on the screen.
• Navigating through programs (play, ffwd, rewind, skip) brings up a newly designed progress bar overlay across the bottom of the program image that I swear is twice as big as it used to be. So much for trying to fast forward through sporting events... you lose the bottom third of the image (and therefore stats and scores) thanks to this new progress bar. ick.
  

I'll give the new look another week before I firm up an opinion on like v dislike.

One remote control trick I've learned for the HR20 is the ability to put markers on a recorded show to easily skip back to them next time I watch. Here's how:

During playback of a recorded show, pause the recording and press the green button to creates a bookmark. You'll see it show up as a little notch on the progress bar. To move to a bookmark, click the menu button and then select the desired bookmark from the menu and the HR20 DVR jumps directly to the scene you bookmarked.

UPDATE: A couple more "hidden" features to the HR20 as announced in DirecTV's e-newsletter:

• Group Play—Play recorded shows continuously, one after the other. Press "Play" on a folder of recorded shows in your Playlist to enable this feature.
  
• Display Options—Your grid guide can now page up and down faster. To enable this feature, press "MENU", then go to Help & Settings > Setup > Display and turn "Scrolling Effects" OFF.

yet another bug with the HR20 HD DVR

More bizarre behavior from our DirecTV HR20 DVR has recently cropped up:

When we press the 30-second skip ahead button, the DVR actually rewinds about 15 seconds before starting to skip ahead 30 seconds. It doesn't happen every time we press the skip button. And it seems more likely to happen when the show we're playing back is within the first five minutes of the recording.

No, I'm not fat-fingering the skip button and accidentally hitting the replay button (my fingers aren't that big, thanks), and I can't understand why this bug has appeared now.

Our latest upgrade (to software version 0x145) happened on Friday 3/30/07 at 1:47am. Nothing has changed recently in our setup, so I'm stumped about this one.

I'd resisted posting about the HR20 for a long time because I didn't want to jinx our good luck with the latest software build. However, this rewind-before-skipping-ahead "feature" is getting a little annoying.

Oh, and another beef that I've got with the way the HR20 sets up series to record: if there are multiple broadcasts of a show (like the Daily Show or Deadline or Art Mann Presents), the DVR records the earlier broadcast, even if you choose the later broadcast to avoid overlaps with other recordings. Annoying.

But hey, at least I'm not losing programs anymore. (fingers-crossed)

toshiba 42hp66 HD plasma snowy picture

toshiba 42hp66 HD plasma picture snafu
Originally uploaded by thomas pix.

Disconcertingly, I'm seeing the snowy/fuzzy picture problem pictured to the right more and more frequently when I first turn on our Toshiba 42HP66 plasma HD TV.

So far, I'm able to get around it by turning the TV unit on and off a couple times seems to solve the problem and eventually the picture comes in clear as a bell.

I'm not sure where the problem might be, but I've noticed that it has the same signal processing problem whether I'm trying to watch TV (the signal from the DirecTV HR20 DVR) or access my Mac's desktop (the signal from the Mac Mini).

Since I'm getting the problem while trying to "see" both TV and Mac, I don't think the problem is due to the Harman Kardon AVR 245 I use as a switch between the devices. Rather, I think it's something to do with the connection between the AVR 245 and the TV itself. I've tested the physical connection of the HDMI cable to both the back of the AVR 245 and the TV, and those both seem fine.

I'm really hoping it's not the actual HDMI cable that's going bad. Not only because I paid the installer the unholy sum of $85 for the cable, but because the cable has been installed inside the wall so there are not unsightly wires hanging from our wall-mounted HDTV.

planet earth as an hd showcase

I love it when all the technology in our living room functions as it should...

Our HR20 DVR has been faithfully recording all the episodes of Discovery Channel's new Planet Earth series, and it's been delightful to watch these high-def tours de force on our plasma TV with the sound streaming through the Harman Kardon AVR245.

Not only are the sights and sounds stunning, but the editing is top notch, too. You can hear the surrounding low rumble of volcanoes and the twitter tweet of all kinds of insects and birds as if they were in the room with you. The flyovers of mountains are as if you're looking out the window of the plain yourself.

And to the editing: as a father of two young ones, I really like how the chase scenes (wolf chasing caribou or leopard chasing goat) are shown up to the moment of the catch but not through to the disemboweling and consuming.

My daughters are mesmerized by these shows and I think they'll be leaving a lasting impression on them for years to come. Way to go, Discovery Channel.

Planet Earth should be the marketing campaign for all things High Def.

directv hr20 dvr needs customer support

The latest software upgrade for my DirecTV HR20 DVR was downloaded on Feb 28.

I'm now running version 0x134, which has finally fixed the dreaded IKD bug, according to the Level 2 Tech Support supervisor I just spent 20 minutes on the phone with.

Was it a coincidence that on March 1, the day after the software upgrade, my HR20 failed to record either American Idol or Survivor like it was supposed to? Instead of finding them waiting in the playlist for me, I had to go to my History list and see that they've been registered as "deleted" with the following error message:

This episode was canceled because of an unexpected error. (2003)

Evidently I've discovered yet another bug that has now been reported to the tech team awaiting others to share their same pain. If you've had a series fail to record on your HR20 because of the (2003) error, please call customer support to report it so they can fix it quick by having more data points.

Even though DirecTV has claimed it's fixed the IKD bug, they have yet to "fix" their orientation toward how the problems are affecting their users. I spent 35 minutes on the phone this sunny afternoon trying to get to someone at DirecTV who would acknowledge that their product is failing to deliver what it's promised to do (record the shows I ask it to record).

The orientation of the first- and second-tier customer support reps seems to be to do what they can to get you to reset your DVR and assume all will be solved. I finally had to ask for a supervisor after spending 10 minutes with "Loretta" telling me that my problem was "fixed" with the reset and there was no problem whatsoever with the fact the HR20 had failed to record shows for me last week. She tried several times to ship a new unit to me to "fix" the problem which shows just how ignorant she is as to why folks use a DVR:

I have a DVR to reliably record shows for later playback at my leisure.

I don't have a DVR to help someone develop their technology. I didn't pay several hundred dollars to lease this HR20 so I could spend at least an hour a month on the phone with tech support to help squash bugs.

Here's an idea for the execs at DirecTV: look at your user account database and identify the people like me who call in for tech support only after already diagnosing and capturing in explicit detail what the bugs are. Give us free DirecTV service in exchange for us agreeing to be your beta testers with regular bug reporting and feedback looping. When you've got a true GM candidate after testing with us (and all the others who don't know how to beta test well but are along for the ride), you can begin charging us for the product.

As a longtime subscriber, I remember as recently as one year ago when I was a huge DirecTV fan and sang the company's praises. The HR20 ownership experience has done nothing but erode my goodwill toward them. And I'm sick of the phone-tree hell they force me to go through each time I want to help them debug their software.

BTW... the "fast access PIN" thru tech support is 1537 for the next five days. Call 1-800-695-9251 to get straight to the level-two support folks. If Loretta answers, hang up and queue up with someone else.

more directv hr20 dvr bugs

Overnight on February 10, my DirecTV HR20 HD DVR got yet another software upgrade. This marks the tenth upgrade since I purchased the unit last Fall, and this latest upgrade, to version 0x12a, seems to have fixed some bugs while introducing still others.

What's been fixed?

• It's been a couple weeks since I've dealt with the "Instant Keep or Delete" (IKD) bug
  
• I haven't had any black screens of death necessitating a hard resets to free the system up
• the remote has been working without fail

What's still buggy?

• The disk space bar in My Playlist still doesn't reflect anywhere close to reality, and I think shows are getting deleted earlier than they otherwise should. Comparing unwatched to watched shows in My Playlist, the proportion is nowhere near what the indicator shows. While I can't prove it to DirecTV's tech folks, I think there's still hard drive space taken up by all those IKD shows I could never watch. Not a big deal? When these inaccessible shows are reducing the amount of space I have for shows I can access, that's a big deal. It's like telling me the DVR has a 200 hours of capacity but only letting me use 120 hours of it. Yes, this is a bug.
  

What's new?

• Any show I've set to record as a series (each episode each week is recorded automatically) shows up as expected in My Playlist, BUT, when I go to watch an episode, it starts playing at the one minute mark of the show. It records the whole show, mind you, but I have to rewind to get to the beginning.
  

I'm coming up on six months owning the HR20, and I still have the feeling the development team released this thing too early. Kudos to them for continuing to squash bugs, but I'm still less than satisfied with my overall experience as an owner.

I had a standard definition TiVo DVR for five years and never once had a technical issue with it. An unfair comparison between the two? No. It's my real-world comparison of what it's like to time-shift television programming across two different DVRs. As a consumer, I don't care how much more difficult it is to manage HD signals than SD signals. As a consumer, I want to be able to select the shows I want recorded, find them in the playlist after they've recorded and play them when I want, starting at the beginning of the show.

Hopefully the tech team has this same expectation in mind as they continue their two-steps-forward-one-step-back lurching toward a solid product. Keep the IKD bug at bay, and I'll be patient.

how to enable 5.1 sound output from a Mac Mini

As blogged ten days ago, I've been having troubles getting my new Harman Kardon AVR245 seamlessly integrated into my entertainment system.

My challenges included not being able to get a true digital output from my Mac Mini due to the optical cable (S/PDIF) plug incompatibility, not getting the Mac Mini to actually stream 6 channels of sound through the digital output nor being able to use the AVR 245's integrated HDMI switcher.

After a couple hours trouble-shooting today, I've got the system up and running with 5.1 outputs and integrated switching between the Mac Mini's HDMI out and the DirecTV HR20 HDMI out.

Here's what it took:

• Mac Mini digital output: the jack for Headphones/Audio out/Optical out on the back of the Mini is designed to accommodate a mini-headphone plug. If you think you can buy a standard S/PDIF optical cable to hook your Mini to your receiver, think again. You have to buy a separate adapter that'll convert the TOS plug to a minijack-compatible plug. Of course, Apple has a Belkin optical cable kit that has the adapter and will set you back $30 (and takes 5-7 weeks to ship as of this writing), but if you've already got an optical cable, why buy a whole new optical kit? You can hop over to Amazon and spend $1.65 (plus shipping) to buy a perfectly good TOSlink to optical mini adapter. Takes a couple days to get to you, but good luck finding the adapters stocked in a local electronics store (like Fry's). I checked several places and found I'd need to buy a whole "kit" just like the Apple online store is pushing. Adapter in hand, the Mac Mini now has an optical connection to the AVR 245.
• Mac Mini streaming 5.1 sound: I thought once I'd bridged the Mac Mini to the AVR 245 with an optical cable, I'd automagically get 5.1 sound from the DVDs I play on the Mac. Nope. It took a little digging but I found out how to coax 5.1 sound out of the Mini's DVD player (thanks to Dave's recent post on This Much I Know and related Apple Help docs). The default stream is a two channel stream from the Mini. To turn on 5.1 audio in Apple's DVD player, Choose DVD Player > Preferences, and then click Disc Setup. At the bottom of that window, change the Audio output setting to "digital out" and (very important) check the box next to "Disable Dolby dynamic range compression." Voila! Your DVD's 5.1 sound is now streaming out of your Mac Mini. This change to preferences applies to the MacBook, MacBook Pro and iMac, as well if you're using any of them as your DVD player for your TV.
• Integrated HDMI switching via the AVR 245: I'd previously thought that the AVR 245 was hard-wired to match an optical coax and an optical TOSlink to each of the two HDMI inputs. After digging a little deeper into the hundred page User Guide for the receiver, I discovered that I could override these default settings and match each of the HDMI video inputs to one the two optical sound inputs. Why does this make me happy? I can now get rid of the analog push-button HDMI switcher I'd been using to toggle video feeds to our HD TV from the HR20 DVR to the Mac Mini. I can now sit comfortably on the couch and use the Harman Kardon's remote to switch back and forth at the push of a button.
  

Next stop: 7.1 sound, but that'll mean adding more components to my A/V stack, and I've grown fond of the clean four-piece look we've got going now (HD TV, Mac Mini, AVR and HR20 HD DVR).

harman kardon avr245 review

So, I've had my Harman Kardon AVR 245 7.1 Channel Audio/Video Receiver hooked up for just shy of two weeks now, and my ears haven't stopped smiling since they heard the first sounds it pushed through my speakers.

Last year, I picked up the Harman Kardon HKTS 14 6-Piece Loudspeaker System and have been quite pleased with the sound they produce. Oh, what a difference a receiver makes.

Now, this isn't to say the Yamaha HTR-5140 it replaced was bad. However, it is to say that the HK AVR245 is very, very good.

The last time I remember being so conscious of a sound upgrade was when I replaced the standard-issue head unit in my Honda Accord with an Alpine head unit. After picking up my car from the install shop, I sat in the parking lot a good 20 minutes with my mouth agape marveling at the quality of sound.

Flash forward a decade, and the Harman Kardon is having a similar effect on me. I know it doesn't make much sense, but the quiet pieces of songs are actually quieter, and that's what makes the difference in the listening experience. I didn't notice, until hooking up the AVR245, how much noise had been coming through the system to pollute the music I was listening to.

I can get into the technical mumbo-jumbo in a future post, but for now, here are the highlights:

• This is one hefty piece of equipment: all 30 pounds of it. And it's worth every ounce.
• The front of the receiver is beautifully designed with a simple interface: one big wheel to control the volume and a slim line of buttons in a row. Functional simplicity, and the lights are all cool blue.
• There's not an inch of the back of the receiver that's not set up for an input or an output of some kind. I'm almost embarassed at how few cords I have running through the system (for now). I'm confident that'll change over time.
• The included EZset calibration tool is too cool. It's a mic that you put where you plan to do the majority of your listening from, and the receiver calibrates the output level of all speakers to deliver perfect sound to exactly that point of the room (whether you live in a cavern or a padded cell). Sweet.
• Lots of room for upgrades to the system, including the Bridge for my iPod and adding an additional two speakers to upgrade to 7.1 sound.
• The receiver does a great job of outputting Dolby II sound from an analog input.
• Amazon has it for a great price (compared to Best Buy or Fry's), and you can get it for the same price at the link above.
• All the speaker knobs on the back of the receiver are color-coded to match the wires included with the HKTS 14 system. No more crossed wires.
  

The minor complaints that I've uncovered so far:

• There's built-in HDMI switcher for video only, and the AVR245 processes the sound through hard-wired default inputs, one a digital optical, the other a digital co-axial. This is fine if your two pieces of HDMI equipment output via the same media. Unfortunately for me, my HR20 HD DVR and my Mac Mini both have digital optical outs only, so I can't use the built-in HDMI switcher (no sound) and am stuck using the manual HDMI switcher. see Feb 10 post (above) for the good news update!
• The remote for the AVR245 has over 70 buttons, and some of them are multi-function buttons. I use a grand total of 7 buttons. 90% too many buttons for my tastes.
• There's still so much to learn about the receiver, I feel like I've only scratched the surface of possible uses.

Until I do learn more, I'll just keep enjoying these sounds that are comparable to the high-def images coming out of the TV. nice.

Dimming those HR20 blues (lights, that is)

I was studying the DirecTV HR20 DVR user manual over the weekend to try to find out how to get the best quality sound out of it and into my new Harman Kardon AVR245 (this is the subject of a forthcoming post, and a preview is: WOOHOO! It's here!).

Tucked in amongst all the not-so-friendly troubleshooting tips was this little gem:

To dim those blindingly bright blue lights on the "light wheel" on the front of the HR20, simply press both the left AND right arrows on either side of the wheel at the same time. The light intensity of the wheel will cycle through varying levels of dimness, eventually turning off completely. I count four cycles of brightness.

Needless to say, after causing our living room carpet to fade from the intensity of the status lights (I'm only partly kidding), they're now as dim as they can be without not lighting up at all.

my technical quest: 100 day update

I posted last fall about my technical quest, and updated the experience a few weeks later.

Now we've had our new HDTV/DVR/Mac Mini setup for 100 days, and here's my report card on the performance:

• HD programming and the DirecTV HR-20 HD DVR. The HD television experience is still a dream. But, as I've been blogging here, I've been entirely too inconvenienced by the bugs infecting the DirecTV HR-20's performance to leave me anywhere close to satisfied with this experience. The HR-20 has been so unreliable that I've taken to programming the old Standard Definition TiVo to record the same programs as backup. The DirecTV folks don't quite seem to understand that a satisfied customer doesn't set aside time to reboot their equipment (losing 10 minutes of live TV) when they plan to watch live TV. And by no means does a satisfied customer think it's acceptable that the DVR "lost" programs it was set to record. I don't record twelve weeks of Amazing Race only to have the DVR fail to record the finale due to a "known issue." Perhaps I'm spoiled by the fact we own a TiVo series one DVR that has never (I mean never) failed us once. If only the TiVo Series Three was reported to be just as reliable as the one, I'd quickly make the switch. Seems we're all on the bleeding edge of HD DVR technology. I feel bad for folks who don't have a technical inclination like I do (the DirecTV help forum is crawling with them, btw). grade: C- (down from a B- 90 days ago)
• Plasma as Mac Mini monitor. I got the Wireless Mighty Mouse and the Wireless Keyboard (both are Bluetooth devices), and the setup is working great. Still using the analog switch to go back and forth between DVR and Mac Mini, but we've grown used to it. Given the TV's 42" size, I can sit at the dining room table fifteen feet away with the keyboard and mouse on my place mat and use the TV as my monitor when I forget to bring home the power adapter for my MacBook Pro. The Mini recognizes our Toshiba 42HP66 TV as a monitor in the setup, so the picture is sharp and clear and lossless. Well, the only nit I have to pick is that it looks like there's a 15 pixel band that's hidden from top and bottom of the display. Not enough to compromise functionality, but I can't see the bottom of the icons in my dock. Oh, and a bonus to the HD tv as monitor: we now iChat with folks via the big screen TV instead of huddling around a small laptop monitor. grade: A- (from an incomplete 90 days ago)
• Mac Mini as music source. Still haven't bought a new optical cable to improve sound quality from the Mac Mini to the Receiver, but that's because I'm still waiting for the Harman Kardon to come in. Amazon notified me that it was backordered and then notified me a couple weeks later that they no longer had any units to sell. So I've ordered a Harman Kardon AVR 245 (due in four weeks) and will get the optical once that's come in (no sense doing it on the Yamaha at this point). I'll admit it's great having all my iTunes available on the Mini... and as a super-duper Laserium-laced flashback bonus, I turn on the iTunes Visualizer and put it on full-screen mode to get a high-def stoner special on the Toshiba. While I should really keep this at incomplete, I'm giving it a grade on the current setup (with the Yamaha HTR-5140) expecting it to get better with the HK hooked up. grade: B (from an incomplete 90 days ago)
• Mac Mini as DVD player. This has continued to be the high point of the experience. I've had no problems using the Mini as our primary DVD player. grade:(steady from a A+ 90 days ago)

So what's left to do? Not that I'm in any hurry, but I could see the following items happening in the next year or so:

• Hook up our new Canon Pixma 530 printer to our Airport network so we can print from any computer in the house
  
• As mentioned above, acquire and install the HK AVR 245 receiver. It's a 7.1 receiver, so I'd be interested in getting another 2 speakers for 7.1 sound (or sending the signal to speakers to be installed above our patio out back)
  
• Change the HDMI switcher to be an automatic switcher instead of a manual one.
• Get out of the DirecTV HR-20 contract and get into a TiVo Series 3
• Consolidate the four remotes controlling the system into one multi-function remote
• Permanently install our rear surround speakers instead of having them on stands that we move into place when it's a movie night and then "store" at the front of the room all other times
  

My DirecTV HD DVR bug workaround

As posted earlier here and here, I'm still having trouble with my DirecTV HR20 HD DVR. In talking with Customer Support and poring over the DBStalk Forum, I've discovered a troubleshooting sequence for the IKD bug (aka the Instant Keep or Delete bug):

• If your program is infected by the IKD bug (when you try to play, it immediately asks you to keep or delete the program), try to play the infected program several times in a row, answering "no, don't delete" each time. There are reports that this technique has gotten the programs to play... I'm still waiting for the magic to happen to me.
  
• If the above doesn't work, try a soft reboot (press the red button in the compartment where the card slot is, front right bottom of the HR20) to see if they'll work... DirecTV Customer Support has this trick in their support script.
  
• If all else fails, do a hard reboot (i.e., unplug it from the wall, wait 20 seconds, plug in and power up) to erase the IKD-infected shows from the play list.

Yesterday, the IKD bug struck my HR20 again. Before calling customer service, I tried the above steps and finally had to do a hard reboot and I lost the 12 programs that had been "recorded" in the last day. So, no Scrubs, The Office or 30 Rock this week. And no Windtalker off the HDNet Movies Channel.

I spent 20 min on the phone with Theresa at DirecTV Customer Support last night and she apologized for the inconvenience and reported that the IKD is a known bug and they'll be releasing a software update again soon (per DBSTalk.com forum, the IKD bug was first reported on 9/27/06). Interesting, I'd heard that promise before.

My HR20 DVR has been running the "latest" software upgrade (ver. 0x10b) since Tues, Dec 19, and according to Jamie, the Tier 2 support rep I spoke with on Dec 15, the latest upgrade was supposed to solve this IKD bug. Needless to say, it hasn't.

I told Theresa (phone call on Dec 28) that I still hadn't been called back by a service tech (from phone call on Dec 15) to help resolve my "disk almost full" problem. She said that's unacceptable and someone will call soon. I'm not waiting for the phone to ring today.

They've once again failed to follow through. I've decided I'm going to call in each time I have problems so as to build a case for their failing to uphold their end of the service contract I've signed. In case I want to switch back to TiVo and splurge on a Series 3, natch.

DirecTV HR20 HD DVR problems, cont.

Grumble, grumble.

It's now four days since Tier 2 Support at DirecTV informed me I'd be getting the software upgrade that will prevent my DirecTV HR20 HD DVR from skipping recording the shows I've asked it to. Turns out that's not a bad thing, as once the software upgrade comes through, I've been warned I'll lose the ability to get help from Customer Support because they won't know how to support the build (why doesn't this bother me more than it does?)

The good news: I've only had to reboot the machine once since then (because the remote decided to stop functioning, even after fresh batteries were installed). And I've found the DBStalk forums for lots of geeky advice on how to work around issues related to the HR20.

The bad news: My progress bar shows that we have only 15% of our hard drive free due to the phantom "new items" that were recorded but I can't get to thanks to the software bug. And I don't have the frickin' time to be trolling the DBStalk forum trying to get this device to work.

When I visited the DirecTV.com web site, I was more than a little surprised to see that "due to unprecedented demand," the DirecTV HD DVR is waitlisted. It's either high demand, or they're still trying to iron out the bugs before shipping more of the units (see what's happening in the DirecTV HD DVR forums).

I see there's a deal over on Costco.com for a new TiVo Series 3 for "only" $649.99. If I get my purchase price refunded from DirecTV for the malfunctioning equipment, the gap closes to something palatable. It's sorely tempting to jettison the DirecTV HD DVR and go back to good old TiVo, but I'll have to read the fine print on the HR20 purchase agreement to see how long I'm shackled to a poorly functioning device... I'm sure the large switching penalties are tucked in there somewhere.

technical quest update

As I posted a few weeks back, I'm on a technical quest to simplify the HT setup here at home. Here's the status so far:

• Signed up for HD programming and an HD DVR from DirecTV. The install was seamless, if a bit late in the day (service window: 1-5pm, after a courtesy call to say they were running late, installers showed up at 5:45pm). Rave: The HD programming is amazing and, in my mind, justifies the cost of this whole setup. Rant: the DirecTV HR20 receiver/DVR is by no means a TiVo. Still getting used to the setup (and is plenty of fodder for a post unto itself). From the reviews, it looks like I'm not alone in my dissatisfaction. Hopefully with enough software updates they'll squash enough of the bugs so that I can actually watch the shows I've asked it to record. Amazing to see how all these years of time-shifting have spoiled me. grade: B-
• Plasma as Mac Mini monitor. The DVI-HDMI cable works like a charm. Since I only had room to run a single HDMI cable up the wall to the TV, I've got a manual HDMI switcher to go back and forth between the Mac and the DirecTV feed. The signal was perfectly clear with the Mac Mini feeding into switcher port 1. When I moved the Mini's HDMI to switcher port 2 (and put DirecTV on port 1), the Mac's image output got pixelated. I'm still working to figure that out, but I need to get a wireless keyboard/mouse for the Mini to do any serious diagnostics. The borrowed keyboard/mouse from our Tangerine iMac is just too frustrating to use in the new setup. grade: incomplete
• Mac Mini as music source. I tried using my Belkin optical audio to connect the Mac Mini to the AV Receiver, but it didn't work. I took the RCA out instead, and it works sufficiently (but nowhere near as good as the optical, I'm told). I've got a new (Harman Kardon) AV receiver on the way, and will post again once it's here and hooked up. grade: incomplete
• Mac Mini as DVD player. To test the DVD capabilities of the Mac Mini, we popped in Ice Age. Our jaws dropped at the detail and 75 minutes later the test was over to much satisfaction. grade: A+

Overall, it's a nice clean setup with just the three pieces (AV/DirecTV/Mac) in the entertainment center. In retrospect, I'm very glad we mounted the TV on the wall. In addition to cleaning up the look of the whole thing (no dangling wires), I don't worry about anxious little hands accidentally knocking the Plasma set over.