Switched away from satellite a couple weeks ago and DirecTV doesn't want the old equipment back. Is there any use for this stuff?

I am under contract with them, and I can't find a use for it anyway. Worst sat equip I have ever seen.

My old Dish antenna is still on my roof.

Take it to the lake house or deer lease

Hold on to any communication you have from them saying you don't need to return the equipment. DirecTV is known for coming to people several months after the fact and saying "where's my stuff, you now owe us X for not returning it."

As far as reusing stuff, the DVR's have 500G or 1T SATA drives in them that you could reuse to backup your other computers. Other than that, nothing you can reuse or sell.

Good advice on the letter. as for the drive, is there a way to get what is on there transferred?

There are some articles floating around for how you could clone one drive and put it back in the same DVR, but from what I remember, the data is encrypted and the encryption keys are either in the hardware of the specific DVR, the access card or a combination of both. Long story short, there is no way I am aware of to transfer recordings from one DVR to another DVR. Now, depending on the DVR and if you can still play the shows, you could try something like a VCR connected to the RCA ports or maybe a capture card on your PC connected to the RCA ports. I don't think you can use the HDMI connector on the DVR because of the HDMI copy-write protection standards.

Since you have already canceled, it's probably too late for you. However, for anyone else reading the thread, if you are planning to cancel DTV, disconnect the coax from the satellite before you cancel and disconnect the internet connection to the DVR's if you have them Internet connected. DTV sends the cancellation signal through the satellite stream. Once it hits the DVR, it's dead. However, if you disconnect the DVR from the satellites before they send the signal, it won't get the disconnect signal and will work in a limited fashion. Since you're no longer connected to the satellites, you won't get new shows or live TV. However, you can watch already recorded content. The DVR will complain about no satellite connection when it powers on and every couple of hours afterwards, just hit escape and then hit your list button to see the old content. This may not work with the new H17 headless units because the mini's need to check that they are authorized. However, there are lots of people out there with old DVR's that are watching old recordings.

Lots of old satellite equipment bought and sold on eBay and other online places. As for the receivers, so long as the last owner didn't leave an outstanding (billing) balance, anyone can call Dish or DirectTV and have the it reactivated on a new account. All the equipment that I have at my deer lease was purchased from local sellers. Just be sure they still support some of the older receivers you might run across. Also, you can call and give them the receiver number before you buy and they'll tell you if there's an outstanding balance on it.

thanks gtrich94. I had disconnected the units a few days before canceling. I am going to see if I can play anything from the DVR.

When I cut the cable, I hooked my antennae coax into thespot the satellite went into. I was told the signal would be too weak to go to those 3 rooms. Worked great. I mounted my antennae near the box and it has worked great for almost 4 years now.