genie mini

Absolutely not. The minis rely on storage (and tuners)  in the genie server. IMHO replacing HR24s with minis is a really bad idea.

That was a HUGE downgrade.

Mini Genies are Clients, not receivers. They have no tuners or recording space of their own. They each steal a tuner and share the recording space of the Genie receiver.

Genie (HR34, HR44, HR54) is a 5 tuner HDDVR with 1TB recording space.

Regular HDDVR has 2 tuners and 500GB recording space (HR21 was last with 320GB)

So a Genie and 2 HDDVRs is the most powerful setup. You have total 9 tuners and 2TB recording space. A Genie and 2 Clients is the same as Genie by itself, just with other TVs able to access it.

Callback and cancel that order. If by just upgraded you meant already installed, well unfortunately the order is final.

Well, I call them back and talked to someone else.  He insisted that these are new equipment that do now have hard drives and tuners.  Asked specifically that it wouldn't use a tuner on the main genie.  I guess we'll see when they come in next week.

Mini Genie Clients don't have tuners or recording space by design! If you wait for the install then you have locked yourself into a 2 year agreement for nothing. DON'T do IT!

That agent has no idea what they are talking about, or do and telling a huge lie to get an upgrade credit they don't deserve.

The Genie-2 (HS17) FORBIDS anything with a hard drive or tuner as it prohibits everything but Clients. That is the design they are pushing these days. The regular Genie line (HR34, HR44, HR54 / HR54R1) still supports regular HDDVRs for more tuners and recording space.

The increased outsourcing from the pandemic is catching up with them. Long way to go to get agents properly trained again and better accountability for those that purposely provide false info like they gave you.

Maybe this will help before you allow yourself to be scammed by that agent.

What's the Difference Between a DIRECTV Receiver and a Genie Mini Client? - The Solid Signal Blog

Cancel the order,  you have been given very wrong info I would NEVER replace an hddvr with a client/ mini they DON'T have hard drives and rely on a genie to function.

Client has no tuners and no recording space. It is not a receiver so cannot work by itself. Each Client takes 1 tuner from the Genie's 5. They are a Client of the Genie, not a receiver themselves.

Regular HDDVR outperforms Clients because of having 2 tuners and 500GB recording space (recent models as the HR21 was the last with 320GB).

There are very limited situations where it would be considered to replace a HDDVR with a Client and lose the tuners and recording space.

1. Have setup or aesthetic reasons to want a small box, such as behind the TV.

2. Have need of one moving around the home somewhat often (such as outside with sports BBQ or such), or issues with running cable to an exact spot. This is where a wireless Client may be preferred.

3. Value a couple 4K channels over the tuners and recording space. Currently 4K only works through a Client connection as there is no 4K receiver at this time.

4. Have the Genie-2 (HS17) which is a Headless Server tower. Only allows Clients, forbidding everything else. So a Genie and 2 HDDVRs (9 total tuners) is already more capability than the Genie-2 (hard cap of 7).

After talking to someone in technical dept.  went with a Genie 2 with 4 clients.

If you were originally replacing two HR24s with Clients, then you at least had a Genie with those two HDDVRs. If that is the setup you had then the Genie-2 (HS17) is still a downgrade. This new system is very restrictive.

Genie-2 (HS17) forbids HDDVRs so you lose your HR24s. That limits you to 7 tuners, no PiP, and if it has any issue you lose all your TVs since Clients cannot work by themselves.

Now if you only had 2 TVs at all, the two HDDVRs, then the Genie-2 (HS17) would be a small upgrade. But you would have a higher bill from $3 Whole Home DVR, and $14 ($7 each) for two more TVs total.

So are the two HR24s your ONLY boxes, so your only TVs, or do you have any others?

I can't believe the tech dep[artment persuaded the OP to give up his HR24s in favor of clients.

That was a bad agent regardless if poorly trained or on purpose.

If the two HDDVRs are their only boxes, then they couldn't be replaced by just 2 Clients. With them mentioning 4 Clients with the latest order, either they already had more boxes then they said (meaning possibly a bigger downgrade with how the Genie-2 works) or they were adding TVs.

A regular Genie, not the Genie-2 (HS17), and HDDVRs on the other TVs would be the actual best setup. If it was only 2 TVs then replacing one of the HDDVRs with a Genie would be ok, and would still keep the recordings from the remaining box.