A wonderful DVR with some issues

An HR21 is a digital video recorder (DVR). This means television is recorded onto an internal hard drive in a proprietary format for playback immediately (live) or for recorded playback later (recorded play).

The HR21 is a large black box, with a several lights and buttons on the front face to indicate or control function of the device. It is capable of standard definition output or high definition output using a variety of well known television connectors. If you have any U.S. TV made over the past half century, this DVR will connect to it. My only experience with the HR21 is as an HDMI high definition device.

The internal hard drive is 320 gigabytes in size, which is able to hold approximately 200 hours of standard definition TV, and about 50-75 hours of high definition TV. The HR21 is a complex computing device dedicated to storage and presentation of DirecTV programming. It does a wonderful job, but does require a bit of effort to learn how to operate.

I switched to the DirecTV HR21 from a Dish Network DVR 508, mostly to get the high definition stations offered by DirecTV. I already understood operation of a Dish Network DVR, and found operation of the DirecTV HR21 to be similar to operation of the Dish Network counterpart. If you are familiar with one type of DVR or TIVO device, learning the DirecTV HR21 should be easy.

With the DirecTV HR21, you will have access to all DirecTV programming based on what you have subscribed to. The HR21 is the current production DVR unit provided by DirecTV.

After installation and set up, the HR21 will reboot a number of times to attain the current firmware level. It usually does this at night, however it can reboot at any time. During a reboot the HR21 is unavailable for regular use. Similarly the program guide starts out fairly empty, but fills in over time. Eventually the program guide lets you record programs on any subscribed station up to 2 weeks in advance.

When watching live television, the HR21 always keeps the last 30-90 minutes in a live buffer. This permits you to begin recording the program you are watching live from the beginning of the program at any time. For example if you notice the set is half way through the news, and hit record on the remote control, your HR21 will record the news from the beginning of the program. You can then watch it from the start, or view it later.

Program information on the DirecTV program guide is weak compared to the Dish Network guide. Additionally recording new episodes is hit or miss as often old episodes of a program are recorded as if they were new. This didn't happen much on the Dish Network DVR.

If you search for DirecTV and HR21 or HR20 via Google, you'll see many poor reviews of these devices. Generally at release the HR20 and HR21 DVR's were unreliable. Subsequent firmware updates have greatly improved these devices. More recent reviews will be more favorable.

The remote control for the HR21 is a bit large, and somewhat cryptic. There are 4 color buttons with no explanation. These buttons do have DirecTV DVR unique functions, but you need to be in a particular screen to see them listed at the bottom as providing a function. For example in the program guide the green button advances the guide by 12 hours, the red button moves the guide up to 12 hours backwards. Effective use of the HR21 remote takes a bit of time.

While a bit cryptic, the HR21 remote control is very powerful. When using my older Dish Network DVR 508, I required an expensive remote control (a Harmony 880) to operate my set. I now only use the remote from the DirecTV HR21. The capability of this remote is impressive compared to my prior experience with an older Dish Network remote. This remote can control the HR21 via IR (infrared) which is standard on most remotes, or via UHF. The advantage of UHF control is the ability to run the DVR by remote without a clear line of sight. You select the type of remote function on the setup screen of the HR21.

The on and off buttons of the remote turn on and off not only the DVR but also the television. Note, the HR21 is capable of recording programs while powered off, and if you are already recording a program it will continue to record without any issue if you power the DVR off.

Quality of the recording is great. I love high definition television, and am addicted to it already. Presentation of high definition programming on the HR21 is comparable to over the air broadcast. The maximum resolution of the HR21 at this time for high definition is 720P or 1080I. If you have a 720P or 1080I set, you can lock in your preferred resolution. The HR21 will convert from whatever format is broadcast to your desired resolution. You can also select several preferred resolutions and let the DVR decide which is best for a particular station. I let it select from only 720P and 1080I, and tell it to convert any 480I or 480P signal to the higher resolutions.

The HR21 has dual tuners, each requires its own satellite feed (cable from the satellite). This feature permits concurrent recording of up to 2 programs at the same time to the DVR hard drive. It is possible to be viewing a previously recorded program and concurrently recording 2 new programs onto the DVR hard drive with no noticeable degradation in system performance.

Additionally, the HR21 supports video on demand, which is an Internet based video download feature of DirecTV. It requires your HR21 to be connected to a cabled Internet router and to have access to Internet. The HR21 is capable of performing as a 2 port switch, which means it can feed another Internet device from itself. If you already have one Internet device, and want to add an HR21, you can do this without any extra hardware with this feature. If enabled, there are thousands of programs from different DirecTV stations that can be downloaded onto the DVR hard drive by Internet.

Much of the video on demand programming is free, some is pay. Generally it is programming you could have already seen over the air, but can also obtain via Internet whenever you want. I have found my Comcast HSI Internet is able to display a standard definition program as it is being downloaded. This means that once I select a program to watch, it can be immediately viewed while it is downloading. My 6mb download speed downloads standard definition video faster than it is played. High Definition videos take much longer to download, and I can't view them live. Instead I wait for them to download in the background.

The maximum use of the HR21, would be to watch a recorded program, while concurrently recording 2 programs over video feeds and also to be downloading a video program over Internet. When I have done this, the HR21 continued to perform flawlessly.

An undocumented feature of the HR21, is the ability to use it's ESATA connection to plug in an external hard drive. This permits installation of a larger drive than the unit comes with to record programs. Be careful, DirecTV doesn't officially support this feature, and will deny it exists if you call technical support. Yet in a recent poll at dbstalk.com half the users of the HR21 and HR20 DirecTV DVR's indicated using an ESATA drive to extend their ability to record. A larger hard drive means the ability to record more programs at a time. To learn about this feature Google "esata hr21" without the quotes, or visit the dbstalk.com high definition DVR forum.

DirecTV is in the process of converting from standard definition to high definition. For many stations this means there are currently 2 feeds, one high definition and another at standard definition. The HR21 handles this by having duplicate station entries. For example there will be two CNN's, one at high definition (the default) and the other at standard definition but both at station 202. This can be confusing at first, but after a while you get used to it. This feature can be turned off, and you can elect to have only the high definition signals displayed.

When viewing on a high definition TV, you can instruct the HR21 to stretch standard definition signals to fit the high definition aspect, or you can have the DVR display without stretching which will result in black bars on either side of the picture. Stretching distorts the standard definition signal but uses the full screen, not stretching leaves large areas of the screen black. My personal choice is to have signals stretched to fit the screen. It has the effect of making actors on the screen look fatter than they are.

I'll just add that recently CBS nightly news went from standard definition to high definition, and it made one heck of an improvement in my opinion. Once you get used to true high definition broadcasts on a high definition set, the standard definition broadcasts won't look nearly as good anymore. Currently when I see a standard definition station, it appears to always be a bit of a blur to me. I believe the high definition signals have about 4 times the information in them as the standard definition signals. It is very noticeable on the eyes, even on a 42 inch set. With this DVR you will want a high definition set to get the most out of it.

Finally, I'd add that the HR21 can support an over the air tuner called the AM21, which can be purchased for $50 from DirecTV. This tuner does NOT work with Comcast or most other cable signals and is for high definition reception of local channels only. It does work for over the air signals. If installed it permits use of two additional tuners to record over the air high definition television. The HR21 is restricted to having only 2 tuners active at a time. They can be any mix of satellite or over the air tuners. You can not record three or four programs at a time.