Who's got the DirecTV Genie system?

[Matt Meiser]

We are thinking of sticking with DirecTV and LOML wants "the one that records 5 shows at a time." We currently have an HD DVR in one room and an HD receiver in another and you can watch from the DVR in the second room. I want to add a 3rd, and maybe 4th TV so we need additional equipment anyway. How do you like Genie?

Also, if you were a long-time customer (we're at 9 years) what did it cost you to upgrade?

Anyone using it with the off-the-air add-on tuner? I confirmed they are compatible and it sounds like they work well together. Without it I'd a few things I record off Toledo PBS that I can't get off satellite.

[Larry Frank]

I got the Genie system four months ago and have the main DVR with 4 hooked to it. I love the system and have not had many problems. It has great recording capacity and can playback on any of the Genie type other TVs. As it advertises, you can record up to 5 shows but the most that I have done is 3 at once. I also have two standard TV hookups that can not access the Genie.

I have one of the Genie units in my shop and can play back woodworking shows and anything else that I want.

The only problem is that once in awhile it seems to get locked up like a computer. All you have to do is unplug the power and then back in and it reboots. Doesn't happen too often.

[Bruce Page]

I have been thinking about upgrading also. I received a flyer yesterday saying we are eligible for a free upgrade but it was vague on the monthly equipment charge. I assume it would be more expensive... everything is.

[Larry Frank]

I switched from Comcast to DirecTV and my costs went down. I think that there website is reasonable for getting a very good idea of the costs. You can help yourself and a friend who has DirecTV if you let them refer you to it.

I had not had any problem with snow until yesterday and today. We got 10-12" of fairly wet snow and snowed heavily last evening. I did not have any problems during the snow. But this morning, as it got a little warmer, the snow slid partially down the dish and I lost the signal. I got a long pool brush and extended it out and pushed the snow off and it was fine again.

[Matt Meiser]

You can't get upgrade pricing from the web and you can't get a referral from a friend if you are a current subscriber. The prior leads me to believe there's different pricing for different people.

[Larry Frank]

I would call them up and tell them that you are thinking of switching to another service that has the better equipment and then see what they will do. I am always amazed that this works with things like cable/satellite, internet access and phone lines.

[Matt Meiser]

OK, just got off the phone with them:
- Genie isn't anything special from a cost point of view. We already have Whole Home DVR with our existing HD DVR and existing HD receiver so there's no new monthly fees there.
- We're adding 2 TVs as part of this deal so we have to pay the extra $6/TV for both--that's our only new fee.
- Genie has 5 tuners. Each TV, main and any with a Genie client, uses one of those tuners if watching live TV which then of course means its not available to record something
- They suggested keeping our existing DVR which will give us a total of 7 tuners. The current DVR does its own thing but can access the Genie playlist and all the Genie units can access the playlist and schedule on the both Genie and the old DVR. That's going to work well for us. The existing DVR will be our daughter's--she can record what she wants (subject to our review of course) and keep whatever she wants as long as she wants. If she runs it out of space, that's her problem to deal with. ;)
- We have to pay $153 after tax to get the Genie and 2 new clients. As I expected there's different pricing for different people. Can't really complain as it hasn't been that long since I pushed quite hard and got all our HD equipment free.
- If you're a long time customer, its probably a good idea to review your channel package. We were on an old package that cost more than a similar new package with more channels. Of course in reviewing SWMBO noticed that for only $7 more we can go up a step from there and get a bunch of new channels so in the end it cost us more. :D

In the end, I don't think Genie is anything radically new. They just added more tuners to the HD DVR and came up with a tuner-less unit for remote TVs.

[Pat Barry]

Matt,
This is helpful. After seeing your posting I tried to go on-line but they referred me to a telephone number to call about the upgrade and I have not done that yet. Here's a question for you. The existing Directv HD DVR I have has 2 tuners and two cables from the antenna on the roof, apparently one for each of the tuners. In our other set-up there is now only a standard definition receiver and a single cable. With the Genie having 5 tuners, do they now need 5 cables from the antenna? And then 2 more for the existing HD DVR you have for a total of 7 cables? And then inside your house from one box to the next is there even more cable?

[Matt Meiser]

Pat, we won't have everything until next Weds. But they have a newer system they call SWM that reduces the number of cable runs. We already have that from when we converted to all-HD.

[Bruce Page]

This is probably a dumb question but I assume any recordings you have stored on the old DVR will be lost?

[Matt Meiser]

This is probably a dumb question but I assume any recordings you have stored on the old DVR will be lost?

I assume not since we are just moving it to a different room. Whether they are safe from my daughter is a different story. Luckily I've still got a DVD-recordable around. I'll let you know Wednesday for sure.

[Bruce Page]

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I meant if someone upgrades from the old two tuner system to the new Genie system, any recordings on their old DVR would be lost.

[Art Mulder]

... the extra $6/TV for both--that's our only new fee.
...
Of course in reviewing SWMBO noticed that for only $7 more we can go up a step from there and get a bunch of new channels so in the end it cost us more.

Hmm, these two statements seem contradictory... :D;)

In situations like this I always do the math. I never let myself think in terms of X$/month or Y$/Week. I always multiply it out to the full year. So (6+7)*12 and it works out to $156/year. Then is when I decide if it's worth it. Sounds like you got quite a lot for that.

(It's been a personal annoyance of mine for years the way some marketing folks try to disguise prices by breaking them down into low dollars per week/mth. So I pull out the soap box regularly... Just ignore me. :rolleyes:)

[Matt Meiser]

Yeah, I usually do too. The whole thing of course is a luxury item. I've been wanting a TV in my office for quite some time. Not that I'm going to sit there watching TV all the time but sometimes I need some noise and sometimes there's stuff going on I'd like to keep an eye on. And...I'm going to run an HDMI cable to my desk so I can use it as a 3rd display. That will come in real handy at times. I can see putting GotoMeeting up there quite a bit.

[Matt Meiser]

Well, guess I won't get to tell you about it until tomorrow at the earliest since they delayed the appointment several times today before cancelling until tomorrow.

They gave me a $50 credit and $15/mo discount for 12 months to "make up for it."
Art, that's $230. :)

[Art Mulder]

Art, that's $230. :)

:D The irony is that you work from home. Just how inconvenienced were you? ;)
That's pretty slick, the discount is more than the price increase... talk about coming up smelling like roses.

[Matt Meiser]

:D The irony is that you work from home. Just how inconvenienced were you? ;)
That's pretty slick, the discount is more than the price increase... talk about coming up smelling like roses.

Actually, fairly significantly as I blocked out time on my calendar for them and put off several conference calls including one with one of the company owners. Then they called me twice during the one call I couldn't put off.

[Matt Meiser]

Update: DirecTV was here just before 8 this morning. The installer checked out the previous install and decided he didn't like the way the last guy grounded it and the mess of cable from the dish to the splitter in the basement so he abandoned all that (I pulled it out tonight) and ran a single new cable from the dish to the splitter.

The new unit's user interface is identical to what we had before so no learning curve there. He also reconnected our AM21 Off-The-Air tuner and set that back up. We have that unit because despite the fact that we are 8 miles from Toledo and 40+ from Detroit we get Detroit locals. He did tell me that people in the southern part of our county can now get Toledo by special request. You have to be on or south of the crossroad 1/4 mile south of us. Doh!

The Genie client boxes are about the size of a wifi router. There was a glitch here in that they had advertised and told me on the phone that they could go on the back of the TV. However to do so they need an RF remote which the installers don't carry on their trucks. He had me call DirecTV and they have two on the way at no charge. Once I've got them I'll mount the boxes on the back of the TVs with Velcro. He left me enough cable to move both.

As planned he moved the old DVR downstairs. Hitting the LIST button on the remote at any TV brings up the list of shows just as before, but the list shows everything from both DVRs Anything can be watched, with the exception that if you are watching a show from the old DVR on a Genie TV, no other Genie box can watch a show from the old DVR. The way we already planned to use the system that won't be a problem for us. Anything scheduled from a Genie TV records on the new Genie DVR. Anything scheduled from the old DVR records there.

The new DVR seems snappier. Not so much at the client TVs--a little bit of lag there but not bad.

There's no longer a telephone connection if you have high speed internet. There's a little bridge module he installed in my wiring closet in the basement that connects to the splitter and to my network switch for internet to the entire DirecTV system.

[Bruce Page]

The new DVR seems snappier. Not so much at the client TVs--a little bit of lag there but not bad..

We’ve had DirecTV for about 2½ years now and the only thing that really bothers me is the lag time changing channels. Normal switching is 2-4 seconds, it doesn't sound like much but it can be agonizing if you just want to surf around. If the set has been on for a several hours the box really slows down and takes several seconds between channels. It drives me nuts sometimes! Is the Genie noticeably faster?

[Matt Meiser]

Seems like it so far but I very rarely watch anything live. We record everything and watch that. When I do change channels, I usually use the guide and see whats on, then select a channel.

That lag isn't unique to DirecTV. The digital TV we had in our camper did it and I see it a lot in hotels.

[Matt Meiser]

An update:

The good--never missing shows because 3, 4, or 5 things we want all happen to be at the same time. Lots more room, main TV is reasonably fast.

The bad--clients are a little laggy on the menus. Not unusable but definitely slower than the locations with DVRs. Old DVR and new aren't totally seemless but we've gotten used to the minor differences. But the big negative--we've had a lot of glitchy behavior which seemed to be getting worse and finally came to a head last week when I rebooted it to try to clear that up. Turns out the hard drive was failing. Reformatting helped (but required setting everything back up but still lots of disk errors on a reboot so DirecTV sent a replacement, which involved setting everything back up again. New one seems better again.

I can't believe they haven't come up with a way to transfer at least settings from an old DVR to a new one.