The newest DirecTV HD DVR is in stock and shipping! It’s the HR24, and it’s smaller, faster, and has built-in support for networking over SWM cables.
To begin with, this unit is smaller than previous DirecTV HD DVRs in its physical dimensions, and comes in smaller, more environmentally-friendly packaging. But the capacity is still 500 GB, and, at WeaKnees, we offer the HR24 in upgraded capacities to 2 TB – four times the size of the stock unit.
Next, reports are that this unit is faster due to new motherboard upgrades. In the short period of time we’ve been using these here, we’ve noticed. Speed is good! Even boot time has been improved.
The remote that ships with these units, the RC65RX, is two-way, meaning that the DVR can send info to the remote. That’s the first remote like that that we’ve seen from DirecTV, and it means that you can use the new UEI QuickSet to program your remote on-screen, without entering codes directly into the remote. It’s also an RF remote, and responsiveness is reported to be improved over previous versions. This remote also ships with the H24. (We’ll have the H24 up on our DirecTV receiver page soon.)
Networking really deserves its own blog post, and that will come. But this unit has DirecTV DECA adapters built-in, so if you have a DECA adapter connected to your internet router, and if you’re running a SWM system (green label) then you just need to plug one SWM cable into this unit to support both tuners AND networking – all through that one cable. It’s pretty amazing, and this will support multi-room viewing, some video-on-demand, the DirecTV App Store, and tons of other network and internet features.
Please note: This unit is NOT the DirecTV TiVo that both DirecTV and TiVo have been promising for almost two years now. We do still expect that to come, but not until the end of this year.
