A couple of weeks ago I was talking to one of our longtime customers. He’s the sort of guy we love at Solid Signal… the kind that likes to push their equipment as far as it can go. He has one of the more complex DIRECTV setups I’ve seen in a long time. It’s full of HR24 DVRs, an HR54 Genie 1, and a bunch of Gemini devices. Talking to him makes me realize that it’s time to revisit that question, “how big can your DIRECTV system get and still work?”
It’s not the easiest question to answer, because it really depends on what you mean by “work.” Without further ado, let’s get into it.
The maximum number of devices
There is no theoretical limit to the number of devices that can be run off the same DIRECTV dish. Businesses and hotels have had installations with one dish and hundreds of receivers. That’s the neat thing about DIRECTV Satellite. As long as you can maintain the signal-to-noise ratio on the cable, you can keep adding receivers. All of DIRECTV’s commercial systems are fully modular and expandable.
At home, this means that you could have a receiver in every room of your mega mansion without a problem. Now, when you get into DVRs, that’s another matter.
The maximum number of devices that can record
Believe it or not, there’s no limit to the number of DVRs you can have in a DIRECTV system. However, there’s a limit to what you can put in DIRECTV’s activation system. You can have one and only one Genie DVR in your home. If that one is a Genie 2, it’s sort of “end of story.” You can’t add additional receivers or DVRs to your home setup. However, if you choose the HR54 Genie 1, you can add as many HR24 DVRs as possible, up to a point. The HR24 is older technology and only has two recording tuners, and its use is limited. Some people will not be able to add one to their accounts. If you have questions about whether or not you’ll be able to add an HR24 to your DIRECTV account, call us at 888-233-7563 and we’ll check DIRECTV’s systems for you.
The maximum number of devices that can share programs
Here’s where it all comes down to earth a little bit. Once you get to the point where you want to share programs between devices, you do run into some limitations.
Limitation #1: size of the cloud
DIRECTV uses a variant of MoCA technology to supply network information over coaxial cables. This is what makes it possible for you to share programs between devices. You are limited to 16 devices, and that includes the adapter that connects the coax network to your home internet. So for example you could have 8 DVRs and 7 receivers all sharing programming, and that’s it because slot #16 goes to the connection between the coax network and the internet.
Limitation #2: the multiswitch
If you have a dish with only one line coming out, its internal multiswitch limits you to 13 tuners. That’s different from 13 devices. Here’s a tutorial to help you understand the difference. If you have an external SWM-30 multiswitch, you’re limited to two banks of 13 tuners. You can’t generally share programs between different banks on a multiswitch. It’s possible to cheat this restriction, but you would still be limited to a total of 16 devices on the multiswitch (on both banks combined) because of limitation #1.
Limitation #3: The DVR’s memory
When you’re using a DIRECTV DVR, it will generally find about 8 devices to share with. Sometimes it will find one or two more, sometimes it will find one or two less. But it’s a known fact that the DVRs themselves are limited in this way. Even if you have properly connected up to 16 devices, you probably won’t be able to share with more than about 8 of them. This limitation could probably be fixed in newer devices but older devices just don’t have enough memory to be able to see all the devices at once.
Limitation #4: Genie/client relationships
If you have an HR54 Genie, you can only use three client boxes (Genie Mini or Gemini) at once. You can have up to 8 on your account total, including any combination of mini client or Gemini, but only three can be in use. The challenge here is that sometimes it can be hard to get the Genie DVR to “forget” an unused box. You’ll end up rebooting sometimes in order to clear things out. The HS17 Genie 2 will allow 7 client boxes at a time, with a total of 8 on your account.
It all adds up
It’s important to know that each one of these limitations is affected by the others. For example, if you try to have 7 Geminis and you already have 9 other devices connected to each other, chances are you won’t be able to see all your equipment at once. In this case things can get very flaky as devices will come on and off of your network at will and it can be a very unpleasant experience.
It’s also worth knowing that, unfortunately, these limitations aren’t likely to get fixed. With a later version of the MoCA standard, it would be possible to have 128 devices at once. With newer hardware that doesn’t exist, you might be able to see and communicate with all those devices. But the cost of developing all of this might exceed DIRECTV’s projections for how much money it will make them. They are, after all, a business.
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