August 17, 2006

First Look - DirecTV Plus HD-DVR

There's been a lot of buzz over the new DirecTV Plus HD-DVR. We're not sure if it will win over the DirecTV TiVo die-hards but we'll see. Here a review over at DBSTalk.com that has some details and quite a few images to check out. The review starts with the specs:

Here is a brief summary of the HR20 features
-) High Definition TV Output (via HDMI and Component)
-) 2 Sets of RCA (Red/White/Yellow Outputs) - 1 S-Video
-) 1 Optical Digital Output
-) Dual SAT Tuners
-) Dual ATSC Tuners (functionality is disabled at this time, see notes later in the review)
-) Wired RJ-45 Ethernet Port
-) External SATA Connection
-) 300gb SATA Internal Hard Drive
-) RF Remote Compatible with the Included RC24, and the soon to be released RC32RF

Estimated Recording Space (Not a cumulative value)
~ 30 Hours of MPEG-2 (OTA) HD
~ 50 Hours of MPEG-4 HD
~ 200 Hours of Standard Definition (SD)

The review goes on to say:

This unit supports the standard HD video outputs:
480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i
You have CROP, PILLAR, and STRETCH mode for those resolutions as well...

You have a choice now....
You can fix the resolution to one setting (Everything output at 720p->Stretch) or.... you now have the choice of a NATIVE resolution mode.

When in NATIVE resolution, the unit will change to the appropriate resolution....
When surfing it adds about a half second/second delay while the unit changes resolutions

You can configure the unit to only allow certain resolutions, but you can't set it to see just certain modes (pilllar, stretch, crop)

Overall, this is a small but decent review with a ton of images that you'll want to check out.

At DBSTalk.com