My big-dish C-band satellite unit has been on the blink. The little motor that rotates the antenna between vertical and horizontal polarity has failed, and I can now only tune in half of the available channels.

I am considering switching back to little-dish as long as I can still get my HDTV from it.

Browsing the DirecTV site, they don't seem to offer a package which includes both HDTV and a DVR.

Note that I know there isn't an integrated HTDV DVR on the market yet.

I don't care about recording HDTV, I'd be happy if I could just use the DVR for SD, but it appears as though I'd need to buy two separate boxes for this and there's no clear information on how or how well such a two-box system would be integrated. Has anyone else done this? (Have a DirecTV DVR as well as DirecTV HD?) What are the integration issues if any?

My poor understanding of the situation is that you can get yourself a HD tuner and the DirecTiVo and they'll treat it like you've got two separate tuners, i.e., connected to two separate TVs. Technically, it should work fine, although you'll probably need to talk to them on the phone to find the correct way to get it billed.

Dish Network will have a single dish HDTV solution called SuperDISH out soon. And a PVR to go along with it. Soon being by the end of the year.

Dish Network will have a single dish HDTV solution called SuperDISH out soon. And a PVR to go along with it. Soon being by the end of the year.

Yup, discovered that today. Supposedly the system will run in the neighborhood of a thousand bucks. Ouch! (Gee, I wonder what OTHER things I can think of which cost a thousand bucks which I thought was well worth it... )

An extra paycheck from the other breadwinner in the family got us an impulse buy today. Samsung DirecTV/HDTV receiver, very nifty, with all of the features I needed (upconverts everything nicely to 1080, OTA HD tuner, gray bars in sideboxing mode, disk comes with four multiplexed outputs, etc.). I also got one of the $99.00 two-tuner Hughes Tivo/DirecTV units.

The way they integrate is: They don't. One of the units goes to one input on the TV, the other unit goes to the other. So I can watch nice sharp 1080-upconverted live TV, or I can watch kinda-fuzzy Tivo'd output via S-video plug, my choice.

I haven't got the system all hooked up yet (I'll tackle the dish install and the RG6 cable runs tomorrow), so we'll see how it goes.

The guys at Magnolia Hi Fi in Roseville were very nice and knowledgable. And they get mad props for having the Karma in a reasonably favorable display. I powered it on and showed the guy: "See that boot up animation? That's mine. <grin>". Dunno why he wasn't impressed. I got pictures, I'll prolly post them in the Karma thread some time next week when I get time.

Tony, how many channels are in HDTV? I've had this HDTV ready TV in my basement since 2000 and have never seen it do its thing!

If you have an HBO and a Showtime subscription, you can get those in HDTV. A surprisingly large amount of their programming is simulcast in both standard-def on their main channels and hi-def on their hidef channels. For the HBO/Showtime shows which do not have a hidef print available, they broadcast an up-converted regular-def show with black side bars.

If the TV stations in your local area have hidef over-the-air broadcasts, you'll get those. (That's called "OTA"... Early receivers did not have an OTA module and it was a separate thing. Now it's integrated, so that's pretty cool.) It was neat at the store, flipping back and fort between the HD and SD broadcasts of a football game on CBS on adjacent channels. In my area, there are a bunch of local stations broadcasting in hidef including PBS. I'm hoping that my antenna picks at least some of them up well.

There is also HDNet, and HDNet movies. HDNet was showing a hockey game while I was in the store, looked amazing in HD. I'll definitely watch a lot more hockey now. Just in time for this season, too!

There is Discovery HD Theatre, which is fun. And ESPN-HD.

Then there's HD pay-per-view options, and that's about all for now. Supposedly a few more are coming online this year, such as Skin..., er, Cinemax. The whole deal is listed here.

I would reply but you've already got it figured out.

I have that exact combination of Samsung HDTV and combo TiVo. I think it's the best you can do for the moment. I'm eagerly awaiting the HDTiVo.

BTW, that Samsung has horrible IR reception. Someone has reported that it's because the mirrored bezel reflects IR and it performs better if you don't take off the protective plastic from the front. I ended up having to get an IR repeater so I could use the remote from the couch. Stupid design.

I've noticed this about the IR, but it's not a big deal. The real problem child for IR reception is my Toshiba DVD player. Often it takes three hits of a given button with the remote pointed directly at it. And no, it's not the batteries in the remote.

My Philips DVD player also has this odd problem. Sometimes I have to stand up to get the remote on the same level as the DVD player to get it to work. It's quite stubborn.