Looking to Upgrade to HD

[Haps]

Ok so I am a DirecTv Customer using a Series 1 Phillips DVR happily for the past 5 years or so. I live in Canada and use an upstate New York address for my billing/service address. Pay by credit card and everything works just fine. My series one is modified mainly that it doesn't dial out.

So here's the issue. I want to get some sort of HD receiver and obviously want to stick with Tivo and Directv. So that leads me to an HR10 receiver. My service address is one that qualifies for DirecTv's distant network service so I get the national NBC/ABC/FOX feeds on 380-386 or whatever channels they are.

1. If I acquire a HR10 and new HD dish I should be able to activate it. However, will it work if it can't dial in to DirecTV. Any way to stop it from trying to dial in. As an alternative perhaps I can get a vonage account with a US number and try that but would like to avoid the extra fee.

2. Will the HR10 receive HD network channels? Are the national network feeds in HD?

[stevel]

Normally, there is an initial call required to activate recording. I have seen a hack somewhere in this forum that gets around that but don't remember the name. This is NOT "fakecall". Once that initial call (or hack) is made, an HR10 does not need to call in. Using crond to schedule fakecall.tcl will prevent the nag screen from showing.

The national network feeds are in HD and can be received by the HR10. You may not be able to convince DirecTV to authorize them for you - that you get the SD feeds does not automatically qualify you.