RCA DWD490RE DIRECTV/UltimateTV ReceiverSee Restrictions)
Off-Grid Comments
I live off the grid: no cables connect my house to the street--no power, no telephone, no cable, etc.--I have solar panels and a cell phone, and now a satellite dish. So my comments won't be applicable to most people. But, to people in similar situations, information like this can be hard to find so I thought I'd post it here.<br />DirecTV: I was able to activate the DirecTV service by calling on the cell phone. They must be able to activate access cards through the satellite signal. Don't try to activate your receiver on someone's else's landline and then move the receiver to your house--apparently it will then expect to be able to check on your billing over the landline and deactivate if it can't make a connection--but if you activate it without the landline it'll just keep going (I hope!). One significant disappointment was that apparently there are no national feeds for UPN and the WB (Ack! Buffy!). Unless you live in one of the cities with local satellite feeds you're limited to CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, and PBS national feeds (however you can get both east and west coast feeds which makes resolving conflicts easier with the three hour time difference).<br />Tivo: I first tried a Philips DirecTV/Tivo receiver and (expectedly) it wasn't much use without a telephone connection. I could pause live TV but couldn't record. And Tivo required that telephone connection to get its programming information. Even though I could see the programming information DirecTV had downloaded from the satellite, Tivo couldn't use it. So I disconnected it and got the DirecTV/UltimateTV receiver. (for the record I had thought I'd be getting a landline this summer and comments about Tivo's interface advantages had convinced me to try Tivo first--but I want to record NOW!)<br />UltimateTV: UltTV gets its programming information off of the satellite, rather than a telephone landline, so now I can record. In the literature and on the web you'll see comments about having to install a telephone line, but I talked to the people at UltTV and they said the only things you needed a landline for were to get pay-per-view, access WebTV, and rarely there might be a major problem with the receiver which required them to force a system update down a telephone line (usually system upgrades come down the satellite signal)--and in that rare event you could take your receiver to somewhere else with a dish and a landline (like a local dealer) and get it upgraded/fixed there.<br />Power: The RCA DirecTV/UltimateTV receiver has been drawing a near constant 36 watts--about 0.9 KWhrs/day if I leave it on all day (about 26 KWhrs per month). I usually don't--even though I have enough energy from my panels to run it all day this time of year (April)--it's right near my bed and although it's pretty quiet (about the same as a desktop computer hard drive, natch), it's enough that I don't want it on when I'm sleeping. I'm probably going to move it to the basement and control it with an IR repeater. Then I might leave it on all day, except in December and January when there isn't a lot of sun here in Vermont (it's not a waste of electricity when you have solar panels!). For the record, the Philips DirecTV/Tivo receiver used 40 watts. Not a whole lot more. A big difference though was cold start time: The Philips took four minutes from power on to watchable picture, live or recorded. The RCA takes only fifty seconds to get a live picture up (large inset in the Home screen), or only thirty seconds to get a recorded show. Both receivers/systems have a power/standby button but neither affects power use in the slightest--they just affect what's being sent to the TV (standby screen for Tivo, static for UltTV). If you leave the power connected there's no wait from standby for either receiver.<br />I haven't confirmed this but it seems the receiver needs to be on (connected to power) for a couple days before it has downloaded programming information for the upcoming two weeks (which is what they advertise it has access to)--and even then there are significant gaps. I don't know if that's because I disconnect the power and it loses info, or if there are just gaps in the information it downloads. If I just turn it on for a few hours each evening I usually only have programming info for the next day or two. Just means I have to stay on top of planning recordings and resolving conflicts.<br />I'm still getting used to the UltTV interface and didn't really have enough time to fully learn the Tivo interface so I won't compare them--others have done so. I will say that the UltTV series recording definately still needs work (yes, Simpsons up the wazoo!).<br />Hope this is helpful to some folks!