Hughes Directv DVR and Vonage?

Question

I have a Series 2 Hughes Directv DVR (SD-DVR80) and I also recently got a Vonage account. I discovered after I set up my vonage account and dumped my old telephone company that my DVR is having lots of trouble making its weekly call using my local dial in number, unlike before I got Vonage. I am trying every dial prefix and call waiting prefix I can find on the internet without any success so far. I was just wondering if anyone else out there has had the same problem with this model and if you ever found a solution without hacking. I'd rather not do that.

Answer 1

You do not have to have a phone connection to use your DVR, even though DirecTV insists that you have one. You need the phone for initial setup; after that just ignore the nuisance messages that appear. You won't be able to do on-screen ordering of PPV movies or receive software upgrades (of which there aren't any more), but there are ways around that, too. My TiVo hasn't been connected to a phone line for 535 days (according to the last message).

Answer 2

It's different software, that takes awhile to get used to. The one thing that might make it worth it though is that the DVR+ gives you 100hours of recording time which, odds are, is more than you're getting with the tivo you have right now. DTV sold Tivo so it doesn't make those boxes anymore and is trying to phase them out with the DVR+ so that all the customers are using the same software. Also with the DVR+ you don't need a phone line connected unless you plan on ordering payperviews with your remote on that box because it gets upgrades through the satellite unlike Tivo which used the phone line for software updates.

Answer 3

My friend and I both have Hughes DirecTV DVR's and Vonage and haven't had this problem. We didn't do anything different than with a regular phone line.