How to skip ahead quickly on your DIRECTV DVR

I don’t remember who said it first, but the problem with instant gratification is that it’s never fast enough. I think about this a lot when I’m fast forwarding. Luckily there is a way to make this process faster. This is a simple tip that will let you get a lot further, a lot faster using just your remote.

For customers with older DIRECTV boxes or Genie clients

If you have a remote that looks like this:

or one that looks like this:

…then read ahead. If your remote doesn’t look like that, scroll down to the section on “Gemini customers.”

How to do it

When you are fast forwarding, you have four speeds. Pressing the fast forward button over and over again will get you to speed level 4, which is fast enough to get you through a 1 hour program in about 3 minutes. But what if that’s not fast enough?

DIRECTV remotes have a button which they call “Advance.” It’s a button with a picture of an arrow next to a line.

While you are fast forwarding, press the “advance” button to jump forward to the next “tick-mark” These are the black gaps in the line at the bottom and they are usually every 15 minutes. In very long programs they could be every half hour. Whichever, pressing that button will immediately jump you forward to the next one, and you can keep pressing that button over and over again to jump quickly through a recording. With this, you can get from beginning to end of a 4-hour program in about 1 minute.

When you find the part of the program you want to watch, just press the play/pause button and you’ll go back to live TV. Chances are you’ll have skipped a little bit too far unless your reflexes are just inhumanly fast. So, just rewind a little bit to get where you want to be.

Gemini customers

The button you see in the picture above doesn’t appear on the Gemini remote. If you have this remote:

…the process is very similar. The Gemini remote is missing several buttons that used to be on the older remote. But it’s not missing any of the functionality. All the functions that used to be on those missing buttons has moved to other buttons. In this case, instead of pressing a button that isn’t there, you press the right arrow button (next to the word OK.)

So, start fast forwarding, then press the right arrow button to go to the next tick mark. You’ll find that you’ll be able to get through a two hour program very quickly!

Find out more… talk to the experts

If you need more help with your DIRECTV system, Solid Signal’s technicians are here for you! We have a full staff available during East Coast business hours to answer all your questions. Call us at 888-233-7563. If it’s after hours, that’s no problem at all! Simply fill out the form below. We’ll get your information over to an expert who will be able to contact you back as quickly as they can.

About the Author

Stuart Sweet
Stuart Sweet is the editor-in-chief of The Solid Signal Blog and a "master plumber" at Signal Group, LLC. He is the author of over 10,000 articles and longform tutorials including many posted here. Reach him by clicking on "Contact the Editor" at the bottom of this page.