# Commercial skip



## KentSRose (Jun 6, 2003)

Hi, I am finally getting high def and will be forced to upgrade my TIVO DVR. I am choosing between TIVO Series 3 with cable and the Directv HD. One of my main concerns is the commercial skip. Does a 30-second commercial skip exist in the Directv equipment.


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## TonyTheTiger (Dec 22, 2006)

Yes. You can choose between a 30s slip which fast forwards through the time or an actual skip.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

TonyTheTiger said:


> Yes. You can choose between a 30s slip which fast forwards through the time or an actual skip.


Let me correct that. There is a backdoor code that will let you change from 30 second slip to 30 second skip.


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## jimb726 (Jan 4, 2007)

rminsk said:


> Let me correct that. There is a backdoor code that will let you change from 30 second slip to 30 second skip.


Isnt that what he said??


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## TonyTheTiger (Dec 22, 2006)

I believe it's a documented feature, so there's nothing "backdoor" about it!


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## KentSRose (Jun 6, 2003)

Well, I was glad to hear that Directv's DVR has the 30 second skip. I wish I could get the TIVO 3 with Direct, but I guess that's not in the cards. I got their upgrade package: DVR, new dish, and installation for about $120 (with a new 2-year commitment).

New topic: I'm used to having more recording time available than I'll get with a high-def. DVR. Is Directv's DVR expandable?


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## bpratt (Nov 20, 2004)

KentSRose said:


> Well, I was glad to hear that Directv's DVR has the 30 second skip. I wish I could get the TIVO 3 with Direct, but I guess that's not in the cards. I got their upgrade package: DVR, new dish, and installation for about $120 with a new 2-year commitment.
> 
> I'm used to having more recording time available than I'll get with a high-def. DVR. Is Directv's DVR expandable?


It is very easily expandable. You buy an external SATA disk enclosure, plug it into the SATA port in the back and restart your system. I upgraded both of my HR21-700s to 750 Gig drives which gives me about 120 hours of HD recording time on each.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

TonyTheTiger said:


> I believe it's a documented feature, so there's nothing "backdoor" about it!


There is not any DirecTV documentation that mentions this feature. It is a "backdoor" that has been reveled other forums.


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

rminsk said:


> There is not any DirecTV documentation that mentions this feature. It is a "backdoor" that has been reveled other forums.


It also remains enabled on a reboot unlike the Tivo backdoor 30 second skip.


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## ilh (Dec 21, 2007)

shibby191 said:


> It also remains enabled on a reboot unlike the Tivo backdoor 30 second skip.


Standalone TiVos remember the setting two since 9.x software.


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

shibby191 said:


> It also remains enabled on a reboot unlike the Tivo backdoor 30 second skip.


Mine stays when my Tivo reboots - just happened over the weekend.


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## jimb726 (Jan 4, 2007)

RS4 said:


> Mine stays when my Tivo reboots - just happened over the weekend.


Is the TiVo a code sequence or is it just a setting?


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

jimb726 said:


> Is the TiVo a code sequence or is it just a setting?


As I recall, I put in the code sequence like we did on the Dtivos, but I'm not really sure. I seem to remember putting the sequence in both of the Tivo HD's in February when I got them. I've never had to reset them since. But, I could be wrong - maybe it was already there and I just started using it.

I know one thing - that is one feature that I use a lot and really like.


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

RS4 said:


> Mine stays when my Tivo reboots - just happened over the weekend.


As noted only on the latest software on the newest stand alones.


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## jimb726 (Jan 4, 2007)

RS4 said:


> As I recall, I put in the code sequence like we did on the Dtivos, but I'm not really sure. I seem to remember putting the sequence in both of the Tivo HD's in February when I got them. I've never had to reset them since. But, I could be wrong - maybe it was already there and I just started using it.
> 
> I know one thing - that is one feature that I use a lot and really like.


That is nice. Although personally I find that I like the slip better. It seems that more and more shows now have either 3 minute or 3 1/2 minute with the occasional 4 minute break thrown in. Drives me nuts to overshoot the break and startup 20 or 30 seconds into the show.


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## KentSRose (Jun 6, 2003)

Regarding the external SATA drives used for expansion on the H21, is there a formula about how many gigabytes = an hour of high def storage? I noticed Newegg has a 500g drive for $104 today, 24-hour sale.


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

KentSRose said:


> Regarding the external SATA drives used for expansion on the H21, is there a formula about how many gigabytes = an hour of high def storage? I noticed Newegg has a 500g drive for $104 today, 24-hour sale.


500 gig drive isn't going to get you much over the internal. Be a waste of money in my mind.

Here are the approx hours. HD MPEG4 hours.

Stock - 50 hrs
500 gig - 65 hrs
750 gig - 100 hrs
1 TB - 145 hrs

These are numbers taken off weakness so they should be pretty accurate. Probably better option is to ask the quesiton at DBSTalk which is the forum for the DirecTV DVRs and you'll get your answer pretty quick.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

jimb726 said:


> That is nice. Although personally I find that I like the slip better. It seems that more and more shows now have either 3 minute or 3 1/2 minute with the occasional 4 minute break thrown in. Drives me nuts to overshoot the break and startup 20 or 30 seconds into the show.


Same here. That's why I've always just used TiVo's FF. Nothing worse than skipping midway into a play in a football game.


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## bpratt (Nov 20, 2004)

KentSRose said:


> Regarding the external SATA drives used for expansion on the H21, is there a formula about how many gigabytes = an hour of high def storage? I noticed Newegg has a 500g drive for $104 today, 24-hour sale.


As with everything in the DVR, it depends. The HR21 comes with a 320 Gig drive, but D* reserves about 100G for other things. That leaves about 220 Gig for HD storage. A 500 Gig drive would leave about 400G, a 750 Gig drive would leave about 650 Gig .........

I think the MPEG4 HD channels use about 4.5 Gig / hour and the MPEG2 HD channels including OTA HD use 7 to 7.5 Gig / hour. The SD channels use about 2.5 Gig / hour. Using those figures, I think you can calculate how much space you need based on what you record.


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## KentSRose (Jun 6, 2003)

Thank you, that's exactly the information I wanted.

So I'll be getting the H21 (tomorrow), with approximately 220g free for storage. If I add a 500g external drive, that would be 720g for storage. Divide that by 4.5g/hour (I do not have an OTA connection), and I should have 160 hours of mpeg 4. That's more hours than I have become used to with my HDVR2, so that should be plenty.

If I got it right.:up:


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

KentSRose said:


> Thank you, that's exactly the information I wanted.
> 
> So I'll be getting the H21 (tomorrow), with approximately 220g free for storage. If I add a 500g external drive, that would be 720g for storage. Divide that by 4.5g/hour (I do not have an OTA connection), and I should have 160 hours of mpeg 4. That's more hours than I have become used to with my HDVR2, so that should be plenty.
> 
> If I got it right.:up:


Actually no. Adding an external drive *replaces* the internal. It's not additive. That's why I was saying a 500 gig drive really isn't worth it because you're replacing 320 with 500. Not a big jump for $100. For just a few bucks more you can get a 750 or 1 tb and get a lot more space.

Of course if you really want to go crazy you could get an external Raid enclosure and load it up with 3 TB. I don't think you'll ever run out of space.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

KentSRose said:


> Regarding the external SATA drives used for expansion on the H21, is there a formula about how many gigabytes = an hour of high def storage? I noticed Newegg has a 500g drive for $104 today, 24-hour sale.


There's a formula, but it isn't simple. Multiply all SD on the drive by about 1/6, and multiply all MPEG-4 by 0.7, and you will probably be close to the number of actual hours of MPEG-2 HD that the drive will hold. For example, if a drive is rated at 100 MPEG-2 hours, then it should hold about 130 MPEG-4 hours, and about 600 SD hours, roughly.

But I wouldn't use just any drive. Off-the-shelf drives are typically built for burst throughput, which isn't a factor for DVRs, where the content streams in much slower than the burst throughput rating of the drive, even if its a 4400 RPM drive. But what is a factor is sustained throughput, and lots of drives aren't built for that. Browse the DBSTalk forum to see who is having success with what. MyBook drives are particularly iffy.



shibby191 said:


> ...Here are the approx hours. HD MPEG4 hours.
> 
> Stock - 50 hrs
> 500 gig - 65 hrs
> ...


As it turns out, they are either not accurate at all, or my math is off significantly (I would have to guess it's my math, but I'm not sure where the error is). I have the 1TB from Weaknees (which works beautifully, BTW) and if you use their rating of 145 HRs of MPEG-4 HD and my math, it doesn't add up.

I calculate currently that I should have about 30% space left on the drive, but the calculator in the HR20 claims I should have about 63% left (Yippee!!). So even if my math is off, I think a 1 TB will hold at least 160 MPEG-4 hours, possibly many more than that. I think it would even hold 160 MPEG-2 hours.


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## jimb726 (Jan 4, 2007)

TyroneShoes said:


> There's a formula, but it isn't simple. Multiply all SD on the drive by about 1/6, and multiply all MPEG-4 by 0.7, and you will probably be close to the number of actual hours of MPEG-2 HD that the drive will hold. For example, if a drive is rated at 100 MPEG-2 hours, then it should hold about 130 MPEG-4 hours, and about 600 SD hours, roughly.
> 
> But I wouldn't use just any drive. Off-the-shelf drives are typically built for burst throughput, which isn't a factor for DVRs, where the content streams in much slower than the burst throughput rating of the drive, even if its a 4400 RPM drive. But what is a factor is sustained throughput, and lots of drives aren't built for that. Browse the DBSTalk forum to see who is having success with what. MyBook drives are particularly iffy.
> 
> ...


This is probably a dumb question, but is there any chance the amount of compression differs, possibly with the time of day or content of the show? It just seems odd that so many people vary. I know just watching the percentage left meter on mine there is no consistant number when deleting shows, sometimes its 4% sometimes its 3%, etc. It would almost seem like there is another vatiable that isnt known yet.


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## jimb726 (Jan 4, 2007)

nrc said:


> Same here. That's why I've always just used TiVo's FF. Nothing worse than skipping midway into a play in a football game.


Exactly, with the slip I can sorta see whats going by and usually I can stop within 5 seconds of the start of the game or program. This is especially important to me with racing as many times they will cut commercials short to come back to the track if there is an incident like a crash.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

jimb726 said:


> This is probably a dumb question, but is there any chance the amount of compression differs, possibly with the time of day or content of the show? It just seems odd that so many people vary. I know just watching the percentage left meter on mine there is no consistant number when deleting shows, sometimes its 4% sometimes its 3%, etc. It would almost seem like there is another vatiable that isnt known yet.


I think that's a very astute observation, and not a dumb Q at all.

There is variability. If channel A delivers at 18.5 mb/s and channel B delivers at 11, your drive will fill up faster with programs from channel A. OTA channels deliver pretty-much the same bit rate all day long, with the noted exception being FOX and PBS who use compressed-domain switching where network programs will be a different rate than local programs.

Most HD sat channels are about the same rate as each other (and most MPEG-4 sat channels are about 30% more efficient). Same for SD channels, although for both HD and SD sometimes premium channels and more-popular channels will be slightly higher than non-premium or less-popular channels. There is also stat-mux, which varies the rate according to how much motion there is in the picture, which applies to DBS and to FOX, but probably few others if any, although some OTAs with subchannels are beginning to use it.

There is also a misconception that sports will take more room than a talk show, which is not true _unless _stat-mux is involved, and then it is not really a large difference. Another misconception is that an SD show will take less space even if on an HD channel, which is not at all the case. SD programs on FOX stations actually take more space than their HD prime programs, because local stations usually set a fairly-constant bit rate of about 14.5 for local fare, while the FOX network, using stat-mux, delivers at an average of about 13.

So everything is a guesstimate, that's true. Numbers are general.

But if you record a variety of programs from a variety of sources, you should fall fairly close to the estimates, unless they are specifically tied to a particular spec, such as "MPEG-4 HD programming", or unless, as I suspect, the estimates themselves are flawed.


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## tpdkrau (Mar 26, 2007)

FWIW in my experience 30 second skip on the HR-21 is not as responsive as on any DirecTiVo I've used. In particular, if you overshoot the last commercial the 6 second rewind seems delayed and the video and audio are not in sync during the skip back. I often skip back too far because the HR-21 response is so slow.


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## sjberra (May 16, 2005)

rminsk said:


> There is not any DirecTV documentation that mentions this feature. It is a "backdoor" that has been reveled other forums.


It is documentented in the software release notes that it was implemented in, so this is not a "backdoor" if the company released information on how to choose which form of 30 second skip you want to use.


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

sjberra said:


> It is documentented in the software release notes that it was implemented in, so this is not a "backdoor" if the company released information on how to choose which form of 30 second skip you want to use.


Is it in the online help section or the user manual, or is there a menu selection that one can choose to set it?


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## KentSRose (Jun 6, 2003)

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=72648&highlight=HD+DVR+Plus+Tips+Tricks


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## RS4 (Sep 2, 2001)

KentSRose said:


> http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=72648&highlight=HD+DVR+Plus+Tips+Tricks


I guess D* must be too busy fixing things to document them


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## sjberra (May 16, 2005)

RS4 said:


> Is it in the online help section or the user manual, or is there a menu selection that one can choose to set it?


Hmm, have never seen a updated owners manual for any unit, including your vaulted HR10 - is there published documentation for the patch they put in to the HR10 for remote booking? Or are you putting both of them in the same category?

At last it was coded by the directv programmers, documented and officially supported


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