The feature we all know and love as dual live buffers has finally comes to
DirecTV's HR21/HR20 with the snazzy name of Doubleplay. Not a moment too soon either as there's no better time to be able to pause and rewind live TV on two different channels at once than when watching football -- never did understand why all the NFL games were on at the same time. The other sports related feature, called Live Extension, to make it
out of beta this week gives users the ability to easily extend a recording. The default is an extra 30 minutes, which is usually enough to grab a game that goes a little long, but if the game goes into overtime you can extend it up to three hours.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
normychas @ Aug 26th 2009 10:44AM
the games aren't really on at the same time. You have your 1pm games and some 4:15 west coast games. You have a Sunday night game your Monday night game and on occasion a Thursday night game. For the person with basic cable that's 4 games a week minimum 5 if you happen to have NFL network and there is a game on that week all without having to flip between games. There are a bunch of games on at 1pm but most people watch their local game at that time with the 'interesting" or prime time games generally occurring during the 4:15 Sunday night and Monday night slots. Oh how i love football.
Ben @ Aug 26th 2009 10:51AM
No, they are "all" on at the same time, just most of them. So on a normal week there are 14 games on, and 10 are on at 1pm and 4 are not.
Jonathan @ Aug 26th 2009 11:05AM
When this week will it be released to the public?
quick @ Aug 26th 2009 11:54AM
When will this software reach my receiver?
The national rollout began August 22, 2009. A small number of receivers will be updated at a time until the entire installed base has been updated.
Nick @ Aug 26th 2009 11:29AM
So...is this like on the my old DirecTV Tivo where I could select each tuner individually and pause/rewind each one independent? Cause that was a feature I missed when I moved up to a HR21
quick @ Aug 26th 2009 11:51AM
Basically yes
"DoublePlay: This feature allows you to utilize both tuners on your HD DVR HR2x or SD DVR R22 when not recording. Just press the down arrow to activate DoublePlay for use of both tuners. Once activated just press the down arrow to switch between tuners. Both tuners will save up to 90 minutes. The background tuner will be deactivated after two hours if there is no user input from the remote. DoublePlay will also deactivate if a tuner is needed for a recording.
The “PREV” button works for the current tuner the background tuner will stay intact."
source: DBSTalk forums.
Roger @ Aug 26th 2009 11:53AM
Yet another function developed as part of the the Cutting Edge program that Ben knew nothing about.
FNG @ Aug 26th 2009 3:48PM
I know right! He's so lame for not knowing about everything by every company out there. What a tool!
riverside_guy @ Aug 26th 2009 12:03PM
This also means that 3 hours of what, 18 or so has to be devoted to this function. I love how there's TONS of HD channels now, but the MSO/satellite guys are all stuck on drive size from the SD days while triple the capacity drives are about the same price as these way older drives.
Yes, TiVO does have a large drive option, but you end up paying something like 300 bucks to get a drive that only costs a hundred AT RETAIL.
daveak @ Aug 26th 2009 12:23PM
You can update the drive in a TiVo HD to 1 Tb for less than $100 and you can go up to 2 Tb - with an internal drive - in the TiVo HD XL.
Roger @ Aug 26th 2009 12:39PM
500 GB hard drive easily expandable with external drives.
the highest of Defs @ Aug 26th 2009 1:47PM
You need to upgrade then because my HR22 has a 500GB hard drive, with MPEG4 it uses about 1% per hour for HD, so roughly 500 HOURS of HD.
quick @ Aug 26th 2009 2:52PM
I think you mean 100 hours of HD, 1% out of 100%. But that is a lot using 3% of my drive for dual live buffers is no problem IMO. DirecTV is using more that already for recording top HD movies to your hard drive for use with VOD.
Ghoti @ Aug 26th 2009 12:26PM
Awesome new features, very glad that DirecTV subs will be able to use these.
So, they're making strides towards the things that keep me with Dish Network. I love the extended time for sports defaulting to a longer time (I use that regularly). Dual live buffers is really nice too (though if they could figure out a way to send the second buffer to a second TV like Dish has offered for years, there'd be nothing keeping me away).
crawdad62 @ Aug 26th 2009 12:57PM
Ahhh finally. This is one of the features I missed most when switching from Tivo to the HR21. On the surface it doesn't seem that beneficial and I probably wouldn't be jazzed if I never had the feature but I've been hoping this would get implemented. Awesome..... except as of today I still haven't received the update.
ayemac @ Aug 26th 2009 2:01PM
At last! I b!tched and moaned about not having this feature when I was forced off of my DirecTivo to the 21/22s. I now have three and am looking forward to this.
NFL Sunday ticket in HD while being able to switch back and forth between games? Awesome. Long time overdue. I only hope it's as easy as it was with the Tivo unit (one press of the Live TV button).
Matt G @ Aug 26th 2009 2:35PM
This is great news!
I couldn't care less about football, but I'm about to have to pony up the bucks for an HDDVR from DirecTV and atleast now I'll be able to get one with more features!
Woot
Money Mike @ Aug 26th 2009 3:24PM
Thank you. I'm sorry to hear that you don't like football, but I think you're the only other person I've ever seen who has used the phrase properly. Everyone always says "I could care less" and it drives me nuts because it's completely wrong. Outside of family, I haven't heard anyone say it properly in years.
For everyone else, here you go:
http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html
Money Mike @ Aug 26th 2009 2:51PM
I'm very lucky that I have FiOS because this is a standard feature. I can switch between two channels and rewind both of them. It's great if I have to I change the channel when a show goes to commercial, and then come back after the show has already resumed. I simply rewind it.
Essentially, it breaks down to being able to record two shows at once. With DirecTV, I had to have a dual tuner with separate cable lines going to the box to do this (when I had it four years ago). That's unnecessary with FiOS.
Ben @ Aug 26th 2009 2:52PM
Yeah, so it is just like the FiOS DVR except it doesn't still have a 4x3 UI and can record more than 10 hours of HD.
Money Mike @ Aug 26th 2009 3:26PM
Um, I guess so. Did I strike a nerve or something? I wasn't ragging on DirecTV.
Money Mike @ Aug 26th 2009 3:24PM
Um, I guess so. Did I strike a nerve or something? I wasn't ragging on DirecTV.
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Steve @ Aug 26th 2009 5:28PM
What about the HR23s?
kcmurphy88 @ Aug 26th 2009 8:45PM
HR2x-xxx and R22 if I remember correctly. Download is staggered so it might take a week or so before everyone has it. They roll major releases out slowly, just in case there is a big problem not seen in testing.
syt @ Aug 26th 2009 6:08PM
Finally!! Except for the fact that you have to activate "DoublePlay" then they have an idiotic 2 hour timeout.
If you want to force the update, hit the reset button on the front, then when the first blue lights come on, hit "0 2 4 6 8" on the remote, slowly and deliberately. Make sure your remote set to default, not on RF or AV1/AV2.
If you do this on most Friday and Saturday nights at specific times you will get the "Cutting Edge" software instead.
kcmurphy88 @ Aug 26th 2009 8:48PM
Almost entirely wrong.
1) THE UPDATE CANNOT BE FORCED.
2) The 2 hour timeout is due to the fact that unlike the TiVo, dual buffers were not originally planned on, and other system tasks require the background tuner (and/or its disk bandwidth) from time to time. These tasks are postponed while DoublePlay is in effect, but cannot be postponed forever.
kcmurphy88 @ Aug 26th 2009 8:51PM
One should note that most "Cutting Edge" downloads are rather buggy development releases. If you download these to "get features" you may have bad things happen. "Cutting Edge" participants usually have a DVR they are willing to risk to be alpha and beta testers. In return they get their feedback listened to by the development staff.
St.McDuck @ Aug 26th 2009 7:32PM
That Live Extension feature is a great idea, especially after my crappy Time Warner DVR cut off the last 5 minutes of this past Sunday's Mad Men.
dazd @ Aug 27th 2009 10:51AM
Madmen is in SD cropped and stretched on DirecTv. It looks terrible. Why doesnt Directv have AMC HD?
KevinW @ Aug 26th 2009 9:18PM
Just spoke with DirecTv moments ago, this firmware update has been temporarily canceled, with no projected future date of roll-out set.
DirecTv is flakier than Nasa!
Kevin W @ Aug 26th 2009 9:20PM
Just spoke with DirecTv moments ago, this firmware update has been temporarily canceled, with no projected future date of roll-out set.
DirecTv is flakier than NASA!
kcmurphy88 @ Aug 26th 2009 10:23PM
It seems to have been replaced by a slightly later version (0x34C replacing 0x34B)
http://www.redh.com/dtv/index.php?r=HR
mikee @ Aug 27th 2009 10:54AM
Has anyone elses receiver started randomly rebooting since around August 22????
I've been told by dtv to reformat and lose all my content. I wonder if this is related to the new code or a coincidence.
Popov @ Aug 28th 2009 2:25PM
Enough about DoublePlay. I had this feature since day 1 by choosing to record both tuners, and changing back and forth. It wasn't rocket science.
Now where's Multi-Room Viewing (MRV)?
jason @ Sep 22nd 2009 10:40PM
simple all you need to do is get a hdmi cable or rca cables which are also hd you can get them on ebay almost any size for 15.00 or less plug in your box and run it to the 2nd tv if you have a rf remote you can put the box anywhere in the house upto 200 feet and you can control the box