My New Directv Dvr Just Syarted Continuously Running Fan Why

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Taurus Senior Member Thread Starter

We recently became DirecTV subscribers and have no problems with their service, picture quality etc and are satisfied customers. The manual and numerous on-screen instructions are well-written and easy to understand. And all those music channels are a welcome feature.
But........

Oh man, does that HD DVR/satellite box use up the power! FYI: it's model number is HR23 - 700. Its cabinet is always very warm to the touch - whether it is on or off - not surprising I guess, since I can put my ear up to the box and can hear the hard drive softly clicking away, every time I've checked.

I understand that it's always operating, even when we turn it "off", so it retains the ability to download new operating software for example. O.K. I have no problem with that. But unless I read something incorrectly, it also downloads entire movies(!) in case we want to watch them via the pay-per-view option.* Key phrase: "in case". We're not really into the pay-per-view thing, so this is not a feature we have much use for and it pales in comparison to the power the box looks like it is using 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Does anyone know of a command or check box somewhere in its set-up menu to turn off the movie download feature so the box is truly "off" unless it absolutely needs to be on? Thanks.

On a side note: changing channels with this box can be rather frustrating because it's so clunky & slow i.e. it usually requires a couple seconds for the channel to "tune in" so when using the up/down channel button to move up or down to another channel, the tuner seemingly gets flustered and pauses on a channel you don't want and ignores the last couple of button pushes you entered, or blank out completely for a few seconds with just a blank screen. It eventually catches up.....most of the time.

Our non-DVR boxes have none of these symptoms and so I have a feeling this is due to the hard drive in the DVR being used to enable the pause/rewind/FF/etc features for live TV. This feature is very handy, but while changing channels it would be nice to temporarily deactivate it.

* I was poking around the Guide and out of curiosity clicked on a newly released movie & a box appeared that IIRC said "This movie has already been downloaded. Select "Buy Now" to watch.
No. Tivo and other DVRs are the same -- the hard drive still has to spin, and the operating system has to run, and the internal clock has to be on in case you have a program to watch.
If it's getting hot, buy a little fan and put it on the back of the unit. If you don't like these ideas, unplug it... but be forewarned that booting it up takes 5-10 minutes.

What they should do is build in a "sleep" mode for the DirecTV DVR (and Tivo and similar units), but it's a very, very simple computer with minimal features.
Unless you don't want to fully benefit from the functionality of a DVR, there isn't much you can do to reduce electricity use. Unless you record so few shows (and you're always home when they're on), it would be highly impractical to unplug the box between scheduled recordings. And, of course, there are other issues like downloading programming data and system updates, but you could probably force a connection to get those things to happen whenever you want.
Here's a chart that may be of interest. It shows the average power consumption of various DVRs. I see that DirecTV has one model that's one of the "greenest" and another that's one of the most power hungry. If you have the latter, maybe you could get your box swapped for something that requires less energy to operate.
Attached Files:
He already has the more efficient HR23 model per his intial post.
Regards,
Taurus Senior Member Thread Starter

Thanks vidiot. It has a built-in fan mounted on the side of the unit, so I'll trust that to keep everything at proper temperature (that sight of that fan is what made me finally place my hand on top of the cabinet to see why it was there!).+1
Boot-up: yep it takes a few mintues to do that, so unfortunately the un-plug idea is out.

P.S. while I've used the 30 sec skip feature on recorded programs on a buddy's DVR, now that I have it here at home, it is so nice to buzz through commercials.....all those DOZENS and DOZENS of commercials.....most channels cram in there.
You really want to leave the DVR on. As you mention even if you turn it off it stays on. This is essential not just for program and software downloads. This is essential because they send authorization streams and if your unit is unhooked or unpowered it may lose it's authorization. That means you'll have to call them up and get a rehit.
I've experienced this problem with satellite receivers long before there was a Directv. I've had clients with vacation homes where they shut down all the power, and without fail they'd have to get their boxes reauthorized when they powered them back up. This is not a huge deal, but it can take a while to get to them depending on their call volumes.

Btw, even if you don't lose authorization, the boot up procedure can take quite a while. I've reset hundreds of directv boxes and sometimes it can take well over 5 minutes for them to go from cold to a working state. It's not just the booting. They have to download satellite info and guide updates after power cycling and that can take a while.

As for taking a long time to change channels, this is a compound problem. Even without a DVR it takes a while to change channels. This is for the most part a problem with digital signals. Back in the analog days you could hold your channel up or down button and change channels pretty much instantly. Those days are long gone. Some of the newer digital TV's are much faster than the older digital systems but they're not close to instant. With a DVR you have a much longer lag. Much of this is because a buffer has to be filled before programming starts.

Don't feel so bad. I have 8 DVR's here which are constantly running.
Are your other boxes HD boxes? I have noticed that HD boxes often "pause" to tune in a channel when the screen resolution changes (420, 750, 1080). I alwys felt it was a "side effect" of the format. I notice this "pause" on all my HD boxes - there is no significant difference in the one with a DVR.
I love the 30 sec skip feature but it's not nearly as good as it was on Tivo or Replay. Those skipped pretty instantly while the Directv DVR is more like a fast scan and you actually see the picture moving. The Tivo and Replay function was more of a 'jump' than a 'fast scan'.
If you watch the same programs over and over you get to know how many commercial spots are run in each break. That way I just push the 30 second button the correct number of times.
Woohoo, my U-Verse box is the greenest. I can be so smug now!
Thanks. I missed that detail.
The channel changing can be sped up slightly by forcing use of a single resolution (see the Setup Menu). However, there is no way to overcome the buffering issue Doug mentioned, and, in most cases, best picture quality is obtained using the Native Format mode.
Taurus Senior Member Thread Starter

Buffer - that's the term I was trying to think when I wrote my original post. Eight? Wow!Nice, we've got one of the more efficient models.Just one. And it changes channels nearly as slow as the HD DVR box. The SD boxes fortunately almost change channels as quickly as an old-skool analog box.I tried that, and it seemed to be quicker but not enough to make surfing less time consuming. This issue is not a HUGE deal but is just irritating enough to make me post about it!
On a non-related and geeky side note: as someone who grew up reading lots of sci-fi including much from the 40s and 50s, seeing a satellite dish mounted on our roof and pointed at a satellite in orbit around the planet(!!) still makes me pause sometimes and think to myself......damn, that is really cool. Quite a few of the things described in those old books with the yellowed pages we use daily now - it's surprising sci-fi back then used to be regarded with rolling eyes & sometimes outright scorn by many in the literary world.
Here's my thinking about channel surfing when you have a DVR, for what it's worth: Why do it? The purpose of a DVR is so you don't have to waste time channel surfing, hoping to find something of interest. Set up season passes to record things you know you want to watch regularly, and then browse through the guide or search for other programming you are also interested in and record that. Then when you actually feel like watching TV, you should have plenty of stuff YOU want to watch at your finger tips and you don't have to waste time wading through stuff (including commercials) you don't want to see.
Channel surfing and watching commercials are for people who don't have dvrs.
What if something comes up that's unscheduled?
What if a new show comes on that you've never heard of?

What if there's a live news event and you change channels hoping to catch a station covering the story?

There's tons of reasons to channel-surf -- though I admit, I don't watch a ton of TV and don't do it very often. I've often said, "I'd probably watch almost no TV at all if it wasn't for Tivo." (Technically, I have several DirecTV HD DVRs, which we call the Divos.)

Ironically, Tivo has again lost their patent lawsuit against Dish network, which is a crime. (Details at this link.) I keep desperately wishing a smart company like Apple would just buy Tivo and incorporate all of their features and the program guide into Apple TV... but no luck so far.
Well, I'm not sure what you're thinking about when you write about unscheduled programming. News bulletins? Press conferences? No, thanks; if I want to watch something like that, I can look at it online.
As for new shows that I've never heard of, I have become a fan of some shows due to TiVo Suggestions, which is far more effective for me than hoping to stumble upon something good. I also come across stuff I wouldn't otherwise know about using TiVo wish lists -- very easy to put in favorite actors' names and/or topics and then see what's coming up in the next two weeks that relate to those wish lists. And, of course, if I become aware of something through another means (friends talking about something, seeing a promo while doing cardio at the gym), I simply program my TiVo to record that show.

I still don't see a need to channel surf, but to each his own.
I pretty much channel surf using the channel guides. Mostly I started doing this because of the time it takes to change digital channels, but I also like seeing the program descriptions. Also I like surfing the guides a page at a time as it's is much faster.
Another cool way to surf is to go to a channel with the guide, move the cursor to the channel description on the far left and hit info and select. That way you can see just that channel but see the future programming much quicker. I often do this looking for movies to record.