So I've had my HR21-700 going on six months now, and have had nothing but problems controlling it via remote. My component stack is located about 25 feet from the living room, so I use a Universal Remote MX-850 with an MRF-250 remote IR base station and IR emitters in front of each component.
Every component with the exception of the damn Directv DVR works flawlessly. The DVR will respond great for days and then suddenly will only respond to maybe 10% of the button presses. My favorite is when I hit a button like five or ten times, nothing happens, and then suddenly all 10 button presses are executed, inevitably deleting something I didn't want to delete, or changing some setting I didn't want to change. It's utterly infuriating!
Tonight I'd finally had enough and went through the procedure to program the factory remote that came with the box for RF. I had pretty much the same problem once I had the system working on RF with the factory remote. It would maybe respond 30% of the time (50% if I moved within FIVE FEET of the box!...200 foot range my a$!), so I set it back to IR and am back to struggling with the MX-850.
I've read all kinds of complaints on various forums about this device's lack of stability and it's IR responsiveness, and I know from experience if I call and complain they'll send a tech out with a refurbished unit, which is unacceptable. Doing a hard reboot might fix the problem for the first few button presses and then it sucks again. Usually after several days of wanting to throw the thing out the closest window it magically starts working again, at least partially.
Has ANYONE had any luck in getting this box to work consistently with a Universal Remote and an IR base station with IR emitters, or is my best bet to have Directv take it back and give me a non-DVR HD receiver, and then go and buy a TIVO???? And yes, I've tried different emitters and different channels on the base station. That's not the problem. The RF signal from the MX-850 is reaching the base station just fine and the IR emitter directly in front of the IR receiver on the box is firing consistently. The problem is the IR receiver in the HR21-700.
Signed,
Frustrated in San Jose, CA
Every component with the exception of the damn Directv DVR works flawlessly. The DVR will respond great for days and then suddenly will only respond to maybe 10% of the button presses. My favorite is when I hit a button like five or ten times, nothing happens, and then suddenly all 10 button presses are executed, inevitably deleting something I didn't want to delete, or changing some setting I didn't want to change. It's utterly infuriating!
Tonight I'd finally had enough and went through the procedure to program the factory remote that came with the box for RF. I had pretty much the same problem once I had the system working on RF with the factory remote. It would maybe respond 30% of the time (50% if I moved within FIVE FEET of the box!...200 foot range my a$!), so I set it back to IR and am back to struggling with the MX-850.
I've read all kinds of complaints on various forums about this device's lack of stability and it's IR responsiveness, and I know from experience if I call and complain they'll send a tech out with a refurbished unit, which is unacceptable. Doing a hard reboot might fix the problem for the first few button presses and then it sucks again. Usually after several days of wanting to throw the thing out the closest window it magically starts working again, at least partially.
Has ANYONE had any luck in getting this box to work consistently with a Universal Remote and an IR base station with IR emitters, or is my best bet to have Directv take it back and give me a non-DVR HD receiver, and then go and buy a TIVO???? And yes, I've tried different emitters and different channels on the base station. That's not the problem. The RF signal from the MX-850 is reaching the base station just fine and the IR emitter directly in front of the IR receiver on the box is firing consistently. The problem is the IR receiver in the HR21-700.
Signed,
Frustrated in San Jose, CA
: I checked the settings for my IR receiver base station, and sure enough the IR blaster was set to ON. What was happening was that the DVR was receiving the signal from the individual IR emitter stuck to the front, AND the signal from the base station's IR blaster, in effect canceling each other out. The rest of my components weren't bothered by the double signal, but I guess it was confusing the heck out of the HR-21. Removing the small IR emitter from the front did the trick, and the unit is now responding almost perfectly to the signals from the base station's IR blaster. Thanks! :up 
