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DirectTV DVR problems

cantthinkofone

cantthinkofone

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 25, 2004
1,285
0
Missouri, USA
Recently i installed a home theatre system for a guy. I ran a wire for satellite before the walls went up. I also did some wire management on his TV in his living room. A few audio and video cables were not even being used. So i took them out and re did everything and made it a little more simple.

What really confused me was the way the satellite guy ran his wires for the living room. He had 3 wires coming out of the wall and they went to various splitters and then finally two came out and went into his receiver. I scrapped two of them and used one jack on the wall.

Everything worked fine and i went down stairs to finish wiring up the home theatre system. The receiver down there took forever to find the satellite and power up. I couldn't figure out why and the guy told me that he thought two wires had to be ran for the DVR receivers. I was unaware of this so it caught me off guard.

He has a big switch block in his basement with about 15 wires coming in and out of it. He only has two receivers and i thought he just had them all put in so he would have TV in any room if he ever needed.

Now two weeks later he calls me and says that the TV in the basement isn't working, he can't get a satellite signal. But the TV upstairs is working OK. I've been looking around and it looks like you use the receivers like a hub of some sort. He has two jacks on both receivers. I was able to get TV on one of them in the basement so i left it at that. Now I'm not so sure what i've done.
 
I think, from what you're saying, that he uses two TVs with one box.

In that case, you need the two Coax wires going into the DVR, and one going out into the TV it's near.
 
What box does he have? I have the HR 20 and I think one wire is ground (my ground wire is outside to the water spigot) and I have two coming in which I think are for the two tuners or maybe one for HD and non-HD? I dunno why there are two I guess but I'm sure it is noted on the back of the unit.
 
SilentPanda said:
What box does he have? I have the HR 20 and I think one wire is ground (my ground wire is outside to the water spigot) and I have two coming in which I think are for the two tuners or maybe one for HD and non-HD? I dunno why there are two I guess but I'm sure it is noted on the back of the unit.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what models he has. One is a HD box i believe as it has a HDMI jack, it's black with a blue ring the the middle. That is the one thats down stairs in the home theatre setup. His other box is upstairs in the living room and it's greyish white and it's a year or two old.
 
That first box sounds like the HR 20 to me (or a model close to it). It has two coaxial inputs that will be used. Not sure about the other box though.
 
I love DirectTv. The title of the thread had me nervous. Glad it was just a hook up problem.
 
SilentPanda said:
That first box sounds like the HR 20 to me (or a model close to it). It has two coaxial inputs that will be used. Not sure about the other box though.
Click to expand...

Is that a black box or a greyish white box? They both have two coax jacks. He said he has two satellite dishes and that they both hook into the boxes.
 
99779-main_Full.jpg


Thats the one he has in the basement, only it's black.

This is the one he has upstairs...i think, or something very similar to it.

25317.gif
 
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