Gemini C71KW-400 original boxes

Thanks for your input Juniper. I contacted Direct TV stream and their sales department said they will work but I was not real convinced by their knowledge. The only thing he could tell me is that they may not be as fast as the dongle Gemini air version, and that you cannot create profiles, which I don’t care about because I’m a single household.

@mikeh81764 I have both the box and Gemini Air. Both are the same speed and you can create profiles on both. If you are afraid they might not work---do a free trial and see .....

Thanks @Ludwick577 👍 I think that’s exactly what I’m gonna do- try a free trial and see how it works.

If you do a free trial and the Osprey works please keep us posted.  I have one too and thinking about going to DTV Stream.

@stelmoqn I did sign up for a 14 day free trial yesterday and the boxes are working fine. Their white glove customer service team stayed on the phone with me to make sure the boxes updated since they hadn’t been used since late 2021. Took a couple of minutes to update and create my login. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that my audio quality is improved through  my Sony Soundbar and I think the picture is better than what I was experiencing with YouTube TV. Glad they’re working that saves me the $15 a month fee for the boxes although they did have a deal if I wanted to get the new Gemini dongle the second one would’ve been free. I’m glad I just stayed with the boxes I have because they seem to be working just fine.👍

Awesome!  Gonna pull my old beta box back out and try the free trial.

As noted, the original units work fine on the current service if they were online at some point not too long before the transition from  AT&T to the new company so that they got the needed update. If you connect your units to a TV and they show the DirecTV logo, they should be good.  If they still show the AT&T logo, it’s much more doubtful. 

Note: I’m guessing they either assumed all the units would be online so would get updated or they didn’t even consider the issue.  Afterwards, it certainly would have been possible for them to come up with mechanism to do the update, but it would have required coordination with AT&T after they were separate companies and/or a utility program directly connected to the unit (probably at an AT&T store).  In any case, it would have involved complexity and probably expense, and I’m guessing they didn’t think there was an important business case there, so weren’t interested in going down that path. 

I think I am out of luck...I pulled out my old box and my unit is a C71KW-200 with the old ATT world logo.  Just hangs when trying to update unless someone knows of a workaround.  I really wanted to try DTV Streaming with an Osprey box with remote for channel numbers to appease my tech adverse husband...

@stelmoqn There is no workaround that I’ve seen reported. Like I said, they could have come up with something, but that would have benefited from prior planning to cover the case and would have required cooperation with AT&T at a level they might not have wanted to deal with - and in any case didn’t. 

However, you can still get and use them. You can buy used ones on eBay for about $45.  To remove the risk of getting one that can’t be updated, make sure you go with a vendor that takes returns and probably one that’s sold a bunch of them.