Direct TV receiver is no more. It's demised.

So I've been having problems with my Direct TV Genie receiver, random freezing while watching live TV. Figuring the end is near so I've been power watching everything I had recorded but alas I'm too late, and SOL. Wouldn't connect this morning so I once again hit the red button, which normally leads to a successful reboot. No luck, toes up. On the phone with DTV about 30 minutes while they confirmed its death and they're going to over-night another one to me. Bad timing, I missed Walking Dead on Sunday night and Better Call Saul tonight. Anyone know if there's any legit streams I can watch, (Amazon Prime? Hulu Plus? etc.), or if AMC replays these later in the week? Gotta have my WD and BCS!!

 

Both shows are replayed a lot, so you may catch it late night, like 2-3 AM

 

Thanks PHILLYQ, you were right. New receiver in place and it grabbed a rerun of Better Call Saul last night. Walking Dead rerun is also queued to record later in the week.

 

I wish there was an easy way to back up these receivers, but they lock this stuff up tight. Very frustrating.

 

How is service overall?

 

Walking Dead usually repeats the previous week's episode before the new show on Sunday night. Not sure, but I would imagine Better Call Saul would do the same on Monday's.

 

Direct TV? I've really had no issues with DTV. There's usually a great introductory price, but it gradually climbs, and significantly so. I'm fortunate in that I live in a very boring climate - no snow, very few clouds, and too little rain/thunderstorms. I'll be 2 years into DTV in March and in all that time I've never once lost my signal. This week when my receiver/dvr died they shipped me one overnight, at no cost to me, even though I didn't have a service contract, ($7 or $8/month). They told me they normally would charge $20 for this replacement but because I've "been such a good customer blah blah blah...." I think it's because I pay extra for Showtime, a couple sports packages, and the NFL Ticket, they felt they could waive the fee. All in all however I feel I'm spending way too much for the amount of TV I actually watch, so I may look to make a change after March when my contract ends.

 

Yep, already recorded and watched Better Call Saul. Walking Dead set to record tomorrow I think.

 

Too bad you can't save to the cloud.

 

Interesting, I'm exploring Comcast alternatives.

 

I had Comcast for my cable, still have them for my internet. I went for DTV primarily to save some money, at least during the first year, and also for the NFL Ticket. We may be moving sometime later this year, so that will be a good time to reassess.

 

That's been my 'switch' problem/concern - Internet access

 

At the time small-dish Ku-band satellite TV first started in the mid-1990s, The DirecTV and Tivo people told me they were very nervous about potential lawsuits from movie studios and networks for copyright infringement. They were convinced it would be even worse if they made it easier to make permanent recordings and provide a hard drive with a backup device or easily-replaceable drives and a simple recording format (none of which they do).

 

I do not have one. But inside the Direct TV Genie should be a regular 1 TB hard drive, (maybe 2 TB), exactly the same type as used in a personal computer, or maybe a "special" AV type which really is hardly any different and could be used in a personal computer or other machine the normal way for that machine. It seems that drive has failed inside the Genie unit, but there are things possible to try to recover all of the data. It is even possible that the Genie power supply failed and the drive is OK, and cracking the dead Genie open, removing the drive, and putting the drive into the new Genie would make everything right.

There are fairly easy ways to clone a drive, as long as it still spins, independent of the operating system or file format, and save everything--even a balky drive that is clicking and clunking and won't work normally in its original installation. I have done that several times, with the clone then working perfectly in its original place. But I have never worked on or in a Direct TV unit. Opening one could void the warranty and lease - or, maybe not.

 

I imagine there's nothing too special about the drives DTV puts in the Genie. I agree, if you were so inclined pulling a drive out and replacing it might be possible, but in the end it's just TV shows, movies, etc. Why bother? They replaced mine for free, even worst case $20. Plus, I think if you pull a working drive out I believe there's some sort of encryption that will render it fairly useless outside the Genie. So, you might be able to put your own $90 drive in to replace it.....or pay $20 to get a legit one. What's the incentive?

 

Note that DirecTV (and Tivo) use a proprietary version of Linux, and it's a bit tweaky to open the units up and try to recover the hard drive.

WeakKnees.com can do the recovery to a point, but it's not cheap or easy.