2 dvrs R22's

It is buffering the channels so it is reading and writing.

weakness.com only offers an external drive.

@Juniper Yes, an old, fat, HEAVY tube tv.  lol  Got a small monitor that I'll probably put in there one day, but as for now, out of site, out of mind and we have visitors only every couple of years.  I'm not sure I even activated the HD receiver.  My mom has macular degeneration and we were trying to get a clearer pic in her bedroom, but I think one of our other tvs died (the daytime ones) and we ended up taking the one from her bedroom.
"That way your cannot delete the recordings from the other boxes, if that is a concern from who uses the other TVs (including guests)."  That is absolutely a concern as the aforementioned legally blind, 91 yr old, sometimes forgetful person watches in the in the living room on the tv attached to the genie.  I will look at the menu later and try and figure out how to do that.  Thanks for suggesting.

Menu > Settings & Help > Settings > Whole Home > Remote Deletion

You will need to set that on each of your DVRs you want to protect from the others. There is a second option to not allow the playlist to be viewable to the others if there is content on one you want kept private.

Got an old flat screen SD-only (big box like CRT but screen itself is flat) for occasional use. But older TVs had to be recycled, such as my older one with the dials as got tired of tapping once on the side and once on the top for one of the channels to come in. A tube TV wouldn't have lasted to get to me, never mind to today. So you are lucky that historic one still works. If ever you replace it, I would see if some place might want it for style, history of technology, or a project.

@Juniper so I think I've already run into a problem... as the recordings on the genie get larger (currently 75% free space), it's taking forever to populate on my machine's playlist.  It occurred to me about the deleting block that it's probably a setting so that you can't delete something from another's machine, but can still delete from whichever one you're on, correct?  That's not gonna help since she's on the genie.

There is no way to lock out deletion for the box she is on. Only remote deletion can be disabled so a person in one room cannot delete the recordings from a different room.

AT 75% free it shouldn't be taking forever to populate. If you were just installed, and the setup was connected to your home internet, it may be updating On Demand info which can take a day or two to fully populate which may slow it down until complete. Jf that is your situation, just make sure you are not connected to a metered/data capped internet or you will eat through your data allowance with the occasional background updating.

Beyond that, all I can think is if the R22 is in poor condition, if any data back and forth between that and the Genie might cause any slowness. Perhaps on the R22 set the recordings to not be visable to the others so you minimize any two-way traffic.

And of course, if you haven't done so, you could try a red button reset on the Genie to see if it just needs a quick refresh.

When only 1/4 the space is in use, that shouldn't have any effect on performance. If you reach 10% or less free, then it would be at risk of slowing down.

The genie is 75% free, the r22 is <20% free space.  Mom records a few shows that I had set to keep all, so there was 25+ hrs each of two, along with all the others.  I deleted about 15 hrs of shows and the playlist popped up pretty quickly. If I can keep my shows off of her genie, but still see her shows, that would solve some of the problems as far as deleting, at least until I watch the existing on my dvr.  Would that be somewhere in "menu" settings?  Appreciate all the help.

@Juniper So, playback (Edited per community guidelines) for a lot of shows (skipping and freezing), but not all (mornings and evenings seem to be worse and it's shows recorded during those times even if watched later).  So, questions... 1. I assume everything is going through my wifi, which isn't all that fast.  Does it work the same with the genie mini?  Because if it's going to be crappy playback, there's really no reason to upgrade to the mini as long as my r22 is holding on.  2. probably a stupid question, but does it take more bandwith to watch a show recorded in HD rather than from a SD channel?  3. Does the length of the show make a difference (ie, would a 3 hr recording be more likely to be jumpy than a 1 hr show)?  Is there anything I can do to aid in a smooth playback?  I've tried refreshing the modem... will the genie automatically reconnect to the wifi?  Right now, was trying to watch something from the genie and it's disconnected from the network.  My computer isn't and neither is my dvr.  

WiFi is only used for connecting wireless clients on their own network or to connect to your home network.

@shannon02 ok, but what does that mean for my playback?  How is the program recorded on the genie in the living room, getting to my dvr/tv in my bedroom and why is the playback "jumpy"?

Coax.

Your internet has nothing to do with your recordings or playback, unless it was downloaded from On Demand. DirecTV is service by satellite.

Satellite beams signal to your receiving dish. Then the coax cabling delivers it to your boxes, including between boxes for Whole Home DVR.

WiFi is only for connecting the main Genie to internet for On Demand. It then shares that with all the other boxes. If your R22 (or any other receiver) is connected to internet by Ethernet, or an external wireless CCK, you will need to disconnect that to prevent conflicts.

Even if you have wireless Mini Genie Clients (C41W or C61W), those don't connect to internet. That is a proprietary wireless network that only connects to the Wireless Video Bridge (WVB) as that bridges the wireless clients to the coax so they can communicate with the main Genie.

Verify coax is finger tight to each box. Then red button reset in a specific order, one at a time so finish one before starting the next. Genie > Client > HDDVR (including R22).

You can also pull power from all for a minute and then plug back in one at a time in the same order. Be aware this clears the guide data which can take 24 to 48hrs to fully download from the satellite.

@Juniper TY for the detailed information.  So what I'm hearing, instead of the R22 frequently disconnecting from my wifi being the problem, it may actually be the solution.  So far, playback today has been much better, but I've been reconnecting to the wifi frequently.  If the signal is traveling from the genie to the r22 via coax, does that mean it's going back to the satellite (or at least the splitter in the attic) and then coming to me?  Short of doing resets, is there any other trouble shooting to be done.  As I'm typing, my tv just froze... this message came up... "Genie has been disconnected from your home network.  This program can no longer be viewed."  To me, that says it's using my home network since what I'm watching was recorded and not downloaded.  I also lose the genie shows when I pull up my list of recorded shows.  Then, the shows came back, I selected the one I had been watching and got this msg, "playback failed. no audio/video data packets received from server."

So, according to directv, I am able to watch shows recorded on the genie on my r22 because of the home wifi.  It is NOT traveling via coax, which is why I don't have access to the genie play list when the wifi is out and the play back is crappy when the wifi use is high.  I've changed as much of the stuff I record to SD channels and playback is a lot smoother.

Whole Home doesn't use WiFi and DTV works fine without an internet connection, they are wrong.