My receiver gave up the ghost. It all started with an ‘access card’ error’ about 2 weeks ago. My electricity popped off and on a few times yesterday. TV was working fine last night. This morning, Nope. I got a weird error code. Before I could write it down reciever just went black. I went on line and got the standard stuff. Make sure its plugged up. Make sure the line is in the back of the box snugly. Make sure the plug in works. Make sure the power strip works. Reboot by unplugging. Reboot by a reset button. Nothing worked. Called customer service. Got a live person. He determined my reciever gave up the ghost. Duh! Drop shipping me a new one. 3 business days. Grrrr! It would be Friday!
Question: Is there any easy way to get my recordings from this crapped out box?
No. They are gone. The hard drive is encrypted to that DVR only.
The place to ask about this is at the DBStalk forums. If there is a way, they would know (but I doubt it would be easy).
Crappola.
Thanks for the reply.
The lovely folks at DirecTV are, of course, now the lovely folks at AT&T. I was expecting this to be in the pit.
One of the biggest mistakes of my life was the day I cut the cable and Tivo, and went to DirecTV. Everything about it sucks, especially the remote.
Perhaps the hard drive is encrypted so that we can’t watch films if we don’t pay the bill, or a thief can’t watch them. It would be nice if we could just swap out the drives and watch “our” films on another format.
I solved the problem by buying a DVR, but some video is altered so that it won’t copy to a DVR.
I would love to see DirecTV to the door. Streaming video is not possible out here in the boonies. Dish network wouldn’t even send a technician to install a system. DirecTV is all that’s available for TV. And I loves me some TCM.
I just switched from Comcast to DTV. Comcast blows so, so massively. So far DTV is better knocks on wood.
Does rain affect your reception?
Yes, rain puts it right out.
A bird flying by affects it. Mr.Wrekker says someone clearing their throat in the next county affects it. Of course were sitting on a county line, so he may be right.
I just left AT&T on the advice of AT&T. When I called AT&T Direct TV if I could get a live person their solution to my problem with on Demand was to change internet suppliers. When I then would call AT&T about improving my internet they suggested that I change TV supplier. So On the advice of AT&T I switched to Comcast.
The internet is working so much better away from AT&T. But customer service I am not so sure about.
Comcast annoyed me by declaring my-I own it-cable modem out of date and I had to wait three days to order a new one. I saw in their notes that the modem was ood for those owned by Comcast, not those owned by customers. Aside from that they aren’t bad. They even sent a guy out to install the modem I bought.
Oh, they did insist in charging me for another drop when I changed to a cable box with a recorder. Both times I had to argue with some Pakistani guy.
It’s been generally down hill since Motorola stopped C-Band subscription. C-Band with a 10’ dish was fantastic for reception out in the woods. Feeds of Star Trek without commercials!
dammit.
I have Dish (not in the boonies) and nothing affects my reception. It’s been great.
Question along the lines of the OP. My wife called Dish and threatened to leave for greener pastures, and they gave us a discount. But it came with the requirement to get a new Hopper DVR. (Which is smart, but ok.) This was sudden, so we had some stuff on the old DVR, which we still have. Clearly I can’t move the recordings to the new one (the tech told me that) but can I plug an HDMI monitor into it and watch them that way?
DirecTV box was delivered. Some how I got it hooked up to the ‘biggest TV in south Arkansas’ (stoopid) I start the reactivation process. I’m holding back tears, I know heartbreak is coming. Y’all know my situation. I’m way out in the woods. No landlines, cel service is spotty. Wi-Fi is great. Good you can finish the activation online. NOT. As someone upthread said they are co-mingled with ATT. The web site is un-navigatable. You can not access your account for direcTV thru ATT without an acct. for ATT. I don’t have an account with ATT. Ok. Make an account. After approximately 15 pages of stupid questions. Finally, they need my email address. Type her in. Nope! Apparently the email address that I’ve had for…I don’t know…10 freaking years!!! is invalid. What??
I tried it every which-away. Nope!
No TV. I’m tearing up. 4 days no TV. I did get to watch some cool YouTube videos, hand picked for me. (Thanks, Mikey:)) Dang it. I like TCM. I missed Jamestown on PBS. I missed NOVA.
I decide in my morbidity that maybe, just maybe I could sit in the tree house with 2 phones and someone inside looking at the screen and texting to me on their phone. I need one person and three cel phones. I text Son-of-a-wrek to come by after work.
I’m testing the phones when I see an icon for a live chat for tech support. I punch it up. They asked my name, and then a box pops up on my screen. Type your issue here. I do. And I wait and wait. Finally I get a reply. ‘Jon’ says he can help me. Yay! I say ‘great’. His next reply was, I kid you not, was ‘Are you married?’
Well, dammit.
Click, and Jon is no more.
I’m sobbing, now.
No TV!!
I fiddle around til Son-of-a-wrek gets here.
He got here, finally. I pour out all my grief and stress on my poor son. I am just going on and on. Explaining how I’m going up the tree and he’s to stay in the house with me on the phone texting him. He says ‘Ma, shut up!’
He looked at my hook-up, approves with a thumbs up. Picks up all the pertinent numbers. Steps out on the deck calls the 800 number. Looks in the door one time, says yes into the phone. I’m agog. He comes in presses the remote control once and ‘Eureka!’ A picture. He puts the remote in my hand. Says ‘bye’ and leaves. OMfreakin’G.
How did he do that?
And just think this morning I worried if the boy could manage at all in the real world, At. All.
Clearly, I did a good job raising him! 
I ask women in that situation, “When did you realize that your son could repair things?” I recall Mama Plant having me over at midnight to find her wedding ring that she thought went down the tub drain. I was in the bathroom closet trying to dig up the drain trap, when I glanced over to the sink and saw the little box used to clean jewelry sitting on the sink…and cleaning all those tiny plastic pipes in the dishwasher.
She would still put her arm out when the car braked to keep me from falling off the seat as she did in 1964.
BTW, if I told her to shut up at any age, she would slap me across the room. :dubious:
I love a happy ending!
More likely to prevent easy piracy.
Hey Beck, I’m in rural North Carolina. No cable. I do get better cell service than you do but I don’t care for Direct TV or Dish. We went with Viasat. I can use 100 gig a month at up to 30 Mbps. Anything over 100 gigs in a month may be throttled but no extra charge. I pay $150 per month. The first three months were $100 per as a signup deal. Two year contract.
We use it to stream netflix and roku. With our TVs The pics are acceptable. We haven’t, in our 5 months of usage, hit our 100 gigs yet. We’ve come close but not quite.
I was thinking you may be interested.
He said ‘shut up’ in a nice way. Kinda like ‘oh, Ma quit worrying, I got this’. He’s a good son. Has a good wife.
I’ll look into that. Thanks