# I'm finally getting a 942 for my 921



## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

After 10 :eek2: different 921's Tech Support is finally giving me a 942 as a replacement. The straw that broke the camel's back was losing half of the SD Cleveland LIL's (8514-8521) the day they turned on the HD locals (which should not have affected a 921 since the HD locals on 61.5 should be MPEG-4).

The short story is that the day that the HD locals were turned on, for some reason my 921 started looking for 8514-8521 on 61.5 instead of 110 (same transponder, wrong satellite). 

My question for those with a 942: What are the common bugs of the 942? What is the current s/w version and how long has that version been deployed? 

My 921 beef was with version L332, which is over a year old. The receiver needed to be rebooted almost daily, hard EPG use caused lock-ups, the screen would black-out for no reason at all, Audio dropouts on recordings, etc.

Perhaps the Tivo suit affected further s/w development. L332 had been the most bug-filled version ever. Several of the replacement 921's I had experienced the same problem within days of being installed. I gave up after #10 believing that the issues I had were software related and not hardware. Software version L278 proved to me that the 921 could function reliably. Yet all ATS ever did was replace hardware. I even asked for a 942 the last two times, however back then that was not an option (even though others had posted that they did get a 942). 

I'm not going to upgrade to HD until I get an HDTV. I got the 921 to be ready for the future (and to get OTA ATSC signals integrated). I can use the dual mode of the 942 for the bedroom TV, however I will miss the S-video output of the 921 (which was the only decent-looking SD output of the 921 - the RCA and RF outputs of the 921 were too hot/over-driven).


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## Miner (Oct 29, 2004)

Michael,

The 942 is a nice receiver. I had it active until about last Sep as part of the MPEG 4 upgrade. I had it in the bedroom, and a 622 in the living room. They are very similar except for the MPEG 4 and external HD capability. One thing the 942 lacked was composite output for TV1, if i remember. My bedroom TV wasn't HD at the time (but having the Monsters, Rave, Film, etc in bedroom is nice), so I had to put the 942 into dual mode and use the TV2 composite out.

I'm speaking from memory but I don't think there have been any recent updates to the S/W. It was very stable as I remember. Compared to an 811, it is far more stable. I rarely had any issues with it.

Miner


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

Miner said:


> Michael,
> 
> The 942 is a nice receiver. I had it active until about last Sep as part of the MPEG 4 upgrade. I had it in the bedroom, and a 622 in the living room. They are very similar except for the MPEG 4 and external HD capability. One thing the 942 lacked was composite output for TV1, if i remember. My bedroom TV wasn't HD at the time (but having the Monsters, Rave, Film, etc in bedroom is nice), so I had to put the 942 into dual mode and use the TV2 composite out.
> 
> ...


IIRC the 942 has composite, what it does not have is S-Video (which is what I currently use on my 921). The 921's composite was overdriven (as was the RF).

I'm looking forward to the dual mode (something the 921 did not have) since I have a bedroom TV not connected to E* currently. Are both tuners available for DVR recordings in dual mode if TV2 is off?


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## mattfast1 (Mar 26, 2008)

The 811 makes Windows 95 look stable.


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## Miner (Oct 29, 2004)

Michael P said:


> IIRC the 942 has composite, what it does not have is S-Video (which is what I currently use on my 921). The 921's composite was overdriven (as was the RF).
> 
> I'm looking forward to the dual mode (something the 921 did not have) since I have a bedroom TV not connected to E* currently. Are both tuners available for DVR recordings in dual mode if TV2 is off?


TV1 is only component or HDMI. TV2 is only composite or RF. Above that, TV1s component may also be only 480p, not 480i but I could not swear to that.

As far as I know, the default recorder is Tuner 2, so that what you're watching on TV1 is less likely to be disturbed. It doesn't matter if TV2 is on or off. If TV2 is on, what your watching on TV2 would change to the recording channel.

Mark


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## mattfast1 (Mar 26, 2008)

Mark is correct, the 942 does have record plus, which will send recordings to TV2 unless there is a conflict.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

I checked out the pdf files of 942 manual yesterday. It appears that the only composite output is for TV2. I guess I can live with that for awhile.

I also saw that Dish interactive was mentioned. Does the 942 have ch 100,or is it the same lame "interactive" feature that the 921 had (weather and a few lame games that never worked right)?


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

Well finally got the 942 hooked up. I'm using single mode using the composite output. It actually looks better than my 941 did using S-video.

All my questions have been answered, I finally got Dish Home


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## skippytym99 (Apr 14, 2008)

Miner said:


> Michael,
> 
> The 942 is a nice receiver. I had it active until about last Sep as part of the MPEG 4 upgrade. I had it in the bedroom, and a 622 in the living room. They are very similar except for the MPEG 4 and external HD capability. One thing the 942 lacked was composite output for TV1, if i remember. My bedroom TV wasn't HD at the time (but having the Monsters, Rave, Film, etc in bedroom is nice), so I had to put the 942 into dual mode and use the TV2 composite out.
> 
> ...


According to tech support 921 and 942 receivers will no longer be shipped because of the TiVo Lawsuit they will be replaced by the 622. I think that is a very good thing I am tirod of my 921.


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## mattfast1 (Mar 26, 2008)

That's correct. Also the 721 will be exchanged for a 522 receiver.


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## 722921 (Jan 3, 2008)

Okay, so if and when my 921 breaks down, I'll get a 622? What is the fine print on this?


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

I'm in no rush. My 921 is currently working _better_ than my 622 which pixelates severely on playback of MPEG-2 HD OTA and sat sources.


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## mattfast1 (Mar 26, 2008)

If you have a warranty (IHSP, DHPP, etc.), it's free, like when we RA a 1k it becomes a 301 (or 4900) and a 7100/7200 becomes a 501.

If it's OOW, you will probably have to pay something for the RA, but the CSR may decide to waive it anyway. Of course you would have to pay any fees that apply to the equipment as well. A CSR (or a chat agent) could give you more specifics about what that would actually be.

Existing receivers do not need to be replaced under the terms of the lawsuit. Their DVR functionalities will not be deactivated.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

Anybody else here get a 942 recently as a replacement? The one I got had some other market's locals in the guide (in red). I called tech support who could not remove these channels from my "all chan" guide.

I just flipped through the EKB sd local detail, the locals in my guide are from Providence / New Bedford (WLNE TV 6, WJAR TV 10 etc.). For fun I tried to add an analog ch 6 manually. It would not show up in the guide. I tried another channel number and that worked. Fortunately none of the P/N locals are on channels I need. I just found it weird that the former owner's locals got stuck on the receiver (this is one of the internal smart card receivers so it probably would not be possible to just do a card-swap to fix this issue).


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## CABill (Mar 20, 2005)

I bought another DBSTalk member's 942 in late Feb and had definite issues with locals. Not issues that make sense to me. Analogs really screwed things up, so I just left all analog channels off. The local channel map down for Sacramento's 13-00 should have been KOVR, but would always appear in the Guide as Analog channel 11 - KARE. The EPG info would show the schedule for that Minnesota channel, but if you selected it, you got the sat locals for KOVR-13 as you should (but bad Info). If it was really Analog, there shouldn't have been any guide info.

Edit - I think it was Digital 13-1 KOVR that showed as 11-1 KARE, not the sat locals. Memory isn't what it used to be. My email to the seller mentions sat locals and -00 though.

Additionally, there were a couple of oddball digital channels that I "couldn't delete", and a repeat of the problems I had initially years ago if I did a scan for analog locals - the guide filled with lots of 255-00 entries and the like. Not much life left in analogs to care that they are missing, and most problems got better (not all solved) when I activated the receiver on my account. Mostly, Guide entries didn't match entries on some of the other screens. Until this week, it was only used to record OTA digitals with "Digital Service" manual timers and I haven't paid much attention to the oddities.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

See my thread in the general forum: "Out of the blue...a 622".

I called tech support re: the OOM Providence locals showing up in the all chan guide. I'm certain I declined another RA but a 622 showed up on my doorstep anyway.


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