Upgrade to new 2250 model DVR - Need Instructions

I would recommend that you send a Private Message to the ATTU-verseCare Community Specialist team.  One of the specialists will respond to your PM shortly.  Please look for the flashing envelope at the top right of the page for your response from a team member.

See if they can get you what you need.  I'm sure they can!!

I back up what BeeBee suggested.  Let us know what happens.

Hi JesterJr,

We have received your message and look forward to working with you to get this issue resolved.

-David T

Success!  I have successfully upgraded from a VIP1216 to a VIP2250 DVR.  Here are the exact steps as they occurred and what I learned from the experience.

• Posted question to this forum on how to get an upgrade.
• Received private message from an ATTU-verseCare Community Specialist (David T.)
• David T. worked with me through the entire process and followed up with me each step (he's awesome).
• First we shipped a "high capacity" DVR to my house.  Unfortunately what arrived was the older VIP1225 which does have a larger hard drive than the VIP1216 but a slower chipset than the VIP2250.
• What I learned:  
• The "high capacity" DVR upgrade can be fullfilled by whichever of the two larger capacity models the warehouse in your area has sitting on the shelf.  The ATT customer service portal doesn't allow the customer service rep to specifically pick the VIP2250, only a "high capacity" DVR upgrade.  You'll get whichever one is in stock in your area.
• I shipped the new VIP1225 DVR back to ATT.
• Next we scheduled a technician to come to my house to perform a DVR upgrade instead of mailing me one via the customer service system.
• The technician showed up (he was awesome by the way) and had two VIP2250 DVRs on his truck.  He checked my account and confirmed I had the U450 package and replaced my VIP1216 with a new VIP2250.  Success!
• What I learned:
• Although I'm not positive it appears the upgrade option applies if you have the U350 package or higher but I didn't confirm that.  Also "new" installations with a U350 package or higher seem to automatically get the VIP2250 DVR.
• In my area of North Texas, you can't reliably get an upgrade to the VIP2250 without a technician service call to your house.
• If you do a service call for an upgrade and there's nothing wrong with your original DVR you'll likely be charged an upgrade fee.  If there is anything wrong with your old DVR you can get the upgrade fee waived.
• All this happened over the course of 4 business days so it was pretty dang fast!

Hope this helps anyone out there looking for a DVR upgrade to the VIP2250 

Hello JesterJr,

Thank you for the very detailed updated! Please stop by anytime you have any questions or just to hang out!

Dmitriy

I'm a brand new U-verse user. Just put in the full package, U450, 6 TV's, phone and internet. I noticed that, even though I've only had it 3 days, there are only about 27 hours of HD recording space left. It appears I was given the lower capacity VIP1216 model.  I thought I had already purchased/ordered the highest capacity, but apparently not. How do I get that exchanged for the 2250?

Similar to many of the other posts on the topic, we have a similar situation as Jester Jr - our VIP 1216 DVR is the original one that was installed in October 2007 (getting kind of slow in responding, but still records ok), that is a primary component causing our home theater system to suffer the audio cut-outs when using an HDMI cable.   Until last week we had the VIP 1216 connected via HDMI to our LG Smart TV, and an optical audio cable to our Onkyo SR-502 AV Receiver.   The optical cable eliminated the audio cutouts that we experienced when trying to use the HDMI for both video and audio.   Last week we had our home theater system reconfigured by having the LED TV mounted on the wall, connected to a new Onkyo TX-NR535 AV Receiver.   That receiver has 6 HDMI input ports and 1 HDMI output port, and was selected so that we would only need one cable running from the home theater components, into the wall, and out to the TV's HDMI port.   Other components using that single HDMI cable to the TV include a Blu-Ray DVD player, an Amazon Fire TV device, and the U-verse VIP1216.   Installing HDMI and component video cables through the wall from the home theater system to the TV is not doable.

Unfortunately, the new Onkyo AV Receiver is more sensitive and updated than the 10-year old Onkyo it replaced and even with an optical audio cable running from the VIP1216 to the Onkyo, we experience audio drop-out on every U-verse channel that is broadcast in stereo (Golf channel, some light night TBS and TNT programs, etc.).   Setting the U-verse Digital Audio setting to stereo would solve the audio cut-out problem, but then we'd lose the surround sound capability for the majority of other channels broadcast in Dolby or other better-than-stereo means.   And, yes, we tried 3 different HDMI cables from the Onkyo to the TV, and all 3 experienced the same audio cutout when used for both video and audio or when used for video with the optical audio cable providing the audio path.

From the numerous posts on this Board and on the similar Onkyo forum boards, it's apparent that our 1st generation U-verse DVR is the culprit, and the audio cut-out problem that is causing our not being able to properly use our home theater system or hear all of our U-verse channels would be eliminated by installing the latest generation U-verse DVR, such as the Motorola VIP2250 or Cisco ISB7500.

We tried BeeBeeSA's suggestion to send a private message directly to the ATT U-verse Care Community Specialist Team, but haven't received a response.

Any other suggestions would be most welcome.   We are U300 subscribers and would upgrade to U450 if that's what it takes to have a latest generation U-verse DVR provided in exchange for the VIP1216 so that we can enjoy all of the benefits of U-verse and home theater.

Just a minor clarification - the 1216 is a non-DVR STB. You may have a DVR 1225 somewhere else in the house. That is the box to trade. Best bet is a PM to attcustomercare - click here - https://forums.att.com/t5/notes/privatenotespage/tab/compose/note-to-user-id/192773.

The 1216 *is* a DVR with a 160GB hard drive. The 1200 is a non-DVR which runs the guide and VOD menus slower than anything and AT&T should be replacing them free-of-charge to all customers since they pushed the newer OS out to everyone.

Edit - Please note that when I said "should be replacing", that was my opinion. I had a 1200 that was fine...until they pushed the new "poster view" update out to everyone. It then took VERY LONG times to do simple things like search for a show, search for upcoming episodes, or even play a movie on demand. I then updated to a wireless box (luckily, the tech had one on his truck that he gave me for no charge.) Your milage may vary. If anyone still has a wired VIP-1200, I'd suggest politely raising a stink to see if they'll waive the install fee. It is my personal belief that a customer should not have to pay when a company makes changes that affects their equipment...whether this be AT&T or DirecTV or even a non-TV company.

I mean, if I have an ID card to get my into a building that I had to pay $5 for and my company recalls all those cards because the old cards won't work with the new system. Should I have to pay $5 for that?

I didn't have to pay any sort of "swap fee" when Time Warner recalled my analog cable box back in 2006...and these VIP 1200s should be the same way...if any are still remaining in the field.