DIRECTV Residential Experience (DRE)
Now Available for All Hotels
Revolutionary DIRECTV Hotel TV System
In 2012, DIRECTV introduced a revolutionary Hotel TV system called DIRECTV Residential Experience or DRE for short. The DIRECTV DRE gave hotel guests the same TV experience they love at home including number of channels, interactive onscreen programming guide and even the remote.
The DIRECTV DRE gave hotel owners a TV system with no upfront equipment costs savings them thousands in capex. For most properties it eliminated the need for an expensive headend systems in order to deliver HD programming and allowed them to offer the programming choice guests enjoy at home.
It changed TV for Hotels for any property that had the wiring needed to install this incredible system.
According to Solid Signal, “to date, over 1,000 hotels have installed DIRECTV receivers and DVRs into guest rooms, giving the best quality HD picture and hundreds of channels to each hotel guest. Yet, 97% of hotels still don’t have DIRECTV Residential Experience (DRE) and it’s not because they haven’t wanted it.”
DIRECTV DRE Wiring Restrictions
The one drawback when it was initially released was the wiring requirements, the DIRECTV Residential Experience required home run wiring. That meant a wire from each room to the central closet.
For new hotels, installing home run wiring is easy enough. Because of that the DIRECTV DRE is quickly becoming the brand standard for new hotels. Home run wiring makes it possible for each receiver to get a strong signal even if cables to other receivers are broken.
But what could you do if you want DIRECTV Residential Experience and have an older property? Most existing and older hotel properties have loop-through wiring.
While DIRECTV has worked hard to keep prices on headend equipment down, before now hotels with loop-through wiring had to settle for a more expensive hotel headend TV system with a limited number of channels or do a complete re-wire of your property. RE-wiring can run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on the size of your hotel.
What is Loop-through Wiring?
The best way to visualize what loop-through wiring is, is to think of the lighting on a Christmas tree. One strand is plugged into the wall and the rest are plugged into that strand of lights to create a single long strands of lights in series with just one plug into the power.
In hotels this means a single cable carrying your television signal from your central closet to each room in series.
The problem for the DIRECTV DRE system was that it is a Single Wire Multiswitch or SWM system like you have in your home. Maintaining signal integrity over a loop-through cabling configuration was impossible due to the many different splitters and cabling & connector conditions.
DIRECTV DRE Now Available for practically ALL Hotel Wiring Configurations
The technical hurdle that needed to be overcome to make the DIRECTV Residential Experience available to almost all properties was a insurmountable. Well almost insurmountable.
DIRECTV invested in developing a piece of technology that makes the DRE possible for not only for properties with loop-through wiring, but also much older properties with almost obsolete RG-59 cable.
So what makes this magic possible? The new DSWM13 multi-switch. It has the power to push the signal up to 300 ft through a run of loop-through wiring and splitters/taps and connectors that are already installed in the walls at almost all properties.
Why should Hotel Owners Care about the Guest TV Experience
While its true that hotel guests have smartphones, laptops and tablets and other sources of entertainment, an evening of TV is still a restful way for people to unwind after a day of sightseeing or a full slate of business meetings.
Adding the DIRECTV Residential Experience is actually less expensive than overhauling your wi-fi system. And lets be honest, if you have an existing property with loop-through wiring, your wi-fi system is probably already completely overloaded by those very same devices.
Making your hotel guests rely on their own cellular data plans isn’t very hospitable and it may not even be an option if your area doesn’t have good 4G coverage. By adding the DIRECTV Residential Experience, you show your guests that you’re a property that cares about their experience by providing the latest amenities and the entertainment options they want.
What Makes the DIRECTV DRE the New Brand Standard for Hotel TV Systems
So what makes the DIRECTV Residential Experience the new brand standard?
#1 – The DIRECTV DRE gives your guests the same TV viewing experience they have at home.
Prior to Satellite TV, high definition TVs, and digital programming, staying in a hotel meant more TV viewing options than you had at home. Today most of your hotel guests have 40+ inch HD TVs and as many as 280 channels at home. In hotels with a headend type hotel TV system, the number of channels available could be as little as 12-24.
#2 – The DIRECTV DRE gives the hotel owner/operator the ability to control the receivers in each room remotely.
When a guest leaves, the receiver can be reset, wiped clean and made ready for the next guest. A central computer can also monitor all the receivers, detecting problems and notifying the hotel TV system administrator (the installing company or staff on site) before they affect the guest.
#3 – No upfront equipment or installation costs.
This can be a Capex savings of tens of thousands of dollars for even a small hotel. It is all rolled into an easy monthly payment.
