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I have had TiVo for over 7 years. Quite a few TiVo DVRs have been connected to my TVs over the years, including my HR10-250, which is our family’s TV workhorse.

Yesterday, for the first time in my own personal DVR history, I connected a non-TiVo DVR to a television in my home. With the impending launch of new HD stations from DIRECTV, and my own personal need to have a better understanding of DIRECTV’s HR20, I installed one yesterday.

I cannot yet comment on my experience with using this box, as I have still not recorded a single thing. (I’m bringing the box to the office today to get it upgraded.) However, I can report how surprised I was by how utterly IMPOSSIBLE it was to program the universal remote to my system. Now that I have overcome my issues, perhaps this will help someone else:

1) Don’t even TRY to program your remote to a stereo unless you have first programmed your TV into the remote. I don’t need my DIRECTV universal to program my TV. I need the remote to control the volume/mute on my stereo receiver. There are 7 codes for my stereo, but the one that seemed to work ONLY turned the thing on and off. It would not control the volume or mute! Drove me NUTS. After some web searching, I discovered that the DIRECTV remote will not allow you to program volume/mute on a stereo,unless and until you have a TV programmed in. So I programmed a random TV into my remote, and voila! the volume/mute on the stereo worked without my doing anything more.

2) You may need to download the remote’s programming manual from DIRECTV’s site. My HR20 did not come with a remote programming manual, because (in theory) the on-screen instructions are supposed to be enough. But check this out: My Samsung TV has no fewer than 24 possible codes…but on screen, it showed about 9 of them, followed by “….” and it didn’t display the rest. Maybe there is some magical way of seeing the rest of the codes on screen, but it sure wasn’t obvious to me.

So now that I have my remote programmed, I am excited to start using this thing. Rest assured, though, my HR10-250 will still have the prized spot in my entertainment cabinet, and I’m quite sure that no one else in my family will even touch DIRECTV’s HR20 for many months, if not years to come.

Here’s how you uniquely address two HR20 remotes, or use one remote to control two units. This works for both the HR20-100 and HR20-700 units – one of each or two of either.

On unit #1 you leave setup normal, you might need to cover the IR front panel or unplug the unit so you’re only controlling unit #2. Unit #1 will be controlled with the remote slider in the “DIRECTV” position.

1) Now, that you’re only controlling unit #2 go to Menu > Settings > Setup > Remote > Receiver Mode and you will see either DirecTV or AV1/AV2, select AV1/AV2, at this point the remote will no longer control the unit so go to the front panel and select “Done.”

2) Now take the remote you want to use to control unit #2 and move the slider to AV1. Hold down the “Mute” and “Select” button until the green light flashes three times then enter 00003 on the keypad and the green light should flash twice to confirm the entry. Now, with the slider in the AV1 position it will only control unit #2.

Essentially, step 1 tells the DVR to listen to 00003, and step 2 tells the remote to use 00003 on the AV1 position. So if you want to just have two remotes, each controlling its own DVR, then you can set each remote to be used in the DirecTV position, and just change the code of the second one to 00003, and change the corresponding DVR to AV1/AV2 and it’ll only see that remote.

Thanks Nick!

Rather than published a full-fledged “men of WeaKnees” calendar, we thought we’d put up a few pictures of some of the people here who you’re most likely to talk to if you call. Last night, the whole group went out to Izayoi in downtown LA.

OK, first up is Nicky “Turbo” Boost working on some shrimp chili fondue:

Then we have Max Power, still masticating on some pork belly:

And finally, the Kapster, obviously pondering the next DirecTV TiVo software upgrade:

Next time on Meet WeaKnees: who has upgraded more TiVos than anyone on the planet? We’ve got the answer. Stay tuned.

You may have not noticed, but our site inaccessible for a few hours last night. We moved our DNS servers and domain name registration to Network Solutions and the downtime was during the DNS propagation.

We moved our DNS and registration due to a DDoS at our previous host, Register.com, last week. That DDoS (distributed denial of service attack) left us with spotty service, so we opted for a transfer. We’re pretty familiar with DDoS attacks and we really wanted to distance ourselves from the target. We’re hoping that Network Solutions has DNS servers robust enough to withstand future attacks.

And a final note: throughout the process, Network Solutions had incredible support – the type of support that we always strive to provide to our customers. They answered their toll free number quickly, and provided clear, expert help. Thanks!

Seagate recently confirmed that it intends to discontinue production of IDE/PATA hard drives. If this were absolutely true, it would be BIG news for TiVo owners, the vast majority of whom have PATA drives in their DVRs. These PATA drives, as they age, are failing more and more.

As many of our customers know, TiVo owners with a failed hard drive can resurrect their DVR with a new, reliable DVR hard drivre. We have found that Seagate’s DB35 line of hard drives–which are specifically tailored for use in DVRs–are well-suited replacements. That is why it would be BIG news if these drives disappeared…and why it is big news that Seagate is letting them live, at least for now.

Seagate fully recognizes that an existing DVR, unlike a PC, cannot easily convert from a PATA to SATA hard drive. As a result, Seagate informs us that it is committed to its DB35 line of drives (PATA) at least until the end of 2008, and possibly beyond that time. We also fully expect that legacy DVRs will continue to demand PATA drives, so drive manufacturers who produce reliable drives for the DVR market will have orders to justify the continued production.

It is indeed very interesting to learn that PATA drives in PCs may start disappearing…but not so, at least for now, for the DVR aftermarket.