A Networked Home

DirecTV HD DVR HR20-100S - Part 1 - Hardware

Hardware 

I received the DirecTV HD receiver and have had 24 hours to play around with it.

At this point I don’t, yet, want to cover the interface because it has not been enough time to really get into it. I will say that it’s no TiVo, but I think I can get used to it.

For now I will cover the hardware itself. The box is fairly small and very light. It, surprisingly, came with 1 SATA port, 2 USB ports (1 rear and 1 front) and 1 ethernet port. In the manual these were all listed as “For future use”, but the ethernet, at least, is already active. I looked at the Network setup on-screen, but had not yet tried to set it up. All ports included:

Off Air Cable (1)
Satellite Cable (2)
Phone (1)
Component (1)
Composite Video (2)
Composite Audio (2)
Digital Audio-optical (1)
S-Video (1)
HDMI (1)
USB (2)
Ethernet (2)
SATA (1)

It came with all of the cables necessary - HDMI, Component, Composite and S-Video.

The hook-up (I used HDMI) was simple and then a quick call to DirecTV to activate was also smooth.

I have begun setting up my old “Season Passes” and figuring out the basics of navigating the interface. That is where I will pick up next time.