Told That DVR Does Not Do Well Traveling On The Road

[Pat60]

When we sold our place I took my DVR and put it on the motorhome...it was just fine until we picked up stakes and traveled to the next place. The DVR would not fully boot up. Called Directv and they said they would replace it.

Went to Camping World and the fella there said that they are having a lot of problems with the dvr not doing well on the road. It seems that all the jarring and bumping on the roads is damaging the guts of the DVR's.

I am presently waiting for my replacement and the only thing he could suggest would be to disconnect it and place it on something that can cushion the jarring and bumping such as the bed.

I can't think of any other reason why our DVR would work fine in the resort that we were in and then did not work when we arrived at the new destination. It worked fine at home as well.

Anyone else experience the same problem???

Pat

[desertdeals69]

Unless your coach is rough riding I don't see that that is a problem. There are thousands of rvers using dvrs without problems.

[hermanmullins]

Pat, one of the problems folks have with their DVRs is heat. If your DVR is in a closed cabinet with little or no air circulation. The DVR can get too hot. Do you leave yours on all the time (plugged in). Even if your DVR is turned off but still plugged in it can still be hot.

Some folks have install a small computer cooling fan to keep the air flowing around the DVR.

Hope this Helps,

Herman

[Kevin510]

x2 with Herman. I would almost guarentee that its the heat.

[jrwitt]

Hmmm ... I am going to chime in here, although I don't have personal experience with RV mounted DVRs. My DVR at home that is provided through the local cable company has a hard drive in it that spins all the time that the DVR is powered on. If the disk is spinning while the coach is moving, even a slight bump can cause a head crash. This happens because the disk head is floating only a few thousands of an inch above the disk platter. If it touches the platter when the is bumped, it will scratch the platter where the data is stored and destroy the disk. I know this from being a retired computer repairman. I replaced lots of disk drives in computers that were damaged because someone tried to move the computer across the desk while it was running. Of course, newer drives are more stable than the older ones, but all can fail. Even laptop drives that are made to take abuse can have these failures. Best way to prevent this problem is to make sure the DVR box if POWERED OFF while you are traveling. That means don't even watch recorded movies while in motion. When you power off the DVR the heads on the disk "park" in a safe landing zone.

And also I agree with what the others said about heat. Heat is one of the biggest contributors to failures of electronic components.

Good luck,

Jack

[Pat60]

Thank you for this information...I guess I will never know what caused the dvr not to be able to boot up when we drove from Ocala to Saint Augustine...I do know that it would start up and then not be able to fully boot up.

We do not have a satellite that can be watched while traveling so it was "off"...

The dvr is sitting in a cabinet with other electronics...the door is not solid so I would think any heat could be let out but who knows.

I do think I will disconnect the replacement dvr when we are ready to leave a resort and store it where it can be cushioned while traveling down the road.

I don't know if the disk is spinning when it is turned off but I feel something drastic happened to cause the damage and it might be that.

I do remember some years back when Directv sent me a replacement dvr, the FedEx guy tossed the box over our fence landing on the ground and when I connected it it would not work so that gets me to wondering that these cheap dvrs are not made to be tossed around.

Camping World is selling Directv HD dvrs which is also odd since the guy there claimed there are problems with dvrs in rv's.

My next question is do I need to connect a "B band something or other" with an HD dvr vs. no "B Band something or other" if I use the non-HD dvr???

Thank you.

[hermanmullins]

Pat,

Unless modified no front TV can be watched when the key is on. Yes inmotion satelite dishes will track the satelite while traveling and most RVs with a second TV, say in the bed room, can be watched.

Many and I say many DVR Receiverd have travled 10 of thousand miles with no problems. Most are stored in a cabinet near the TV and are not mounted on anything to absorb shock. Since you have a door to your receiver that has the mesh on the door and is not solid you should be good to go.

All that being said DVRs do go bad. Dish has at some time replaced all of my receiver at least once. Your roof mounted satelite dish, if it is a single LNB will not receive HD. There are some very good multi LNB open satelite dishes on the marke now, however they can not be used in motion.

Herman

[wayne77590]

Pat,

I have a VIP-722 DVR. The last thing I do when we depart on a trip is to pull it out of the stick house and put it in the MH. For the first leg it is sitting on the dinette cushioned seat. All subsequent legs of the trip it is on the hard surfacce of the entertainment center cubby hole. I have never had a proclem except once when first using it in the MH. I closed the door to the cubby hole area and it got hot and shut down. Now I just leave that door open and I have never had another problem.

DirectTV does not provide HD to any dome antenna on the market, so I have been informed. Dish Network does. I don't know why the difference.

You posted in another post about the Carryout. It does received Dish HD, but not DirectTV HD. The Carryout comes set up to received the DirectTV satellite.

Happy trails.