# Why so many difference from user to user with 188 ?



## gsartori (Jul 13, 2004)

I see a lot of people unhappy with 188 and I'm sure they are so for a reason. I don't have though all these problems, my timers are working, I have weekly, daily and random timers and I don't miss a single program, I also set my starting and ending to zero (thing that everybody advise not to do) and it is working. 
Is it possible that Echostar has different versions of the 921 out there? I work in high tech and I designed computers for a large part of my life, I frankly can't understand all this lack of uniformity in the 921.

Regards
Gabriele


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## Scooters (Mar 15, 2003)

Interesting... I was just thinking the same thing. I have a problem with one local that I can't "rewind" while watching live and I'm really looking forward to a program guide for my off-air locals. Other than that, my 921 is doing pretty good.

It sure beats switching inputs between my 6000 for HD and 501 for PVR. I'm finally back down to 1 remote and my family doesn't feel like they are in a NASA coundown sequence to switch channels! 

I don't understand why some of us are doing fairly well and others can't get anything to work!


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## bytre (Sep 10, 2003)

My 921 is also relatively well behaved. Rarely crashes, is recording things when I ask it to (including OTA).


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

gsartori said:


> I see a lot of people unhappy with 188 and I'm sure they are so for a reason. I don't have though all these problems, my timers are working, I have weekly, daily and random timers and I don't miss a single program, I also set my starting and ending to zero (thing that everybody advise not to do) and it is working.
> Is it possible that Echostar has different versions of the 921 out there? I work in high tech and I designed computers for a large part of my life, I frankly can't understand all this lack of uniformity in the 921.
> 
> Regards
> Gabriele


I think that the 921 is made in different lots and by more than one manufacture. I really think that it is related to the parts that are used. Mine worked pretty well shortly after the L188 upgrade but for whatever reason, it just started to pull the L187, L186 whammys. Something is causing data corruption to a very minor degree. The problems kind of lie in wait then pop up when least expected, like a couple of hours to a day after the reboot. If your not having problems with yours, I would love to trade with you.


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## KrazyEd (Oct 8, 2004)

I am now on my FOURTH 921. Each worked fairly well for the first couple 
weeks, then, began going south quickly. My most recent unit has worked
for the longest. Even had Advance Tech calling me each morning to see
if everything was working ok. No MAJOR issues so far.
I believe that Dish finally figures that the 921 is ready for the public.
Yesterday, I saw a JVC Brand 921 on the shelf at Fry's Electronics here in
Vegas. If they are going to sell it over the counter, they MUST feel that the
problems have been minimalized enough to allow for end users to pick them
up from the store. I am sure they would not risk upsetting a major retailer
with massive returns or complaints. Well, we Can HOPE anyway.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

KrazyEd said:


> I am now on my FOURTH 921. Each worked fairly well for the first couple
> weeks, then, began going south quickly. My most recent unit has worked
> for the longest. Even had Advance Tech calling me each morning to see
> if everything was working ok. No MAJOR issues so far.
> ...


If the PIP works for the HD for these receivers, I hope that E* will swap out all the 921's with (described as) inferior chips.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

To all who are confused as to why the 921 works differently in different locations with what seems to be the same software/hardware.

You need to ask yourself: Well, what is different?
Let me suggest a few:

1. Antenna configuration (satellite) There are several varieties of switch configurations available for us to select from. I would not assume that all of these, especially the newer ones are totally bug free when it comes to switching.
2. Distributionof the sat signal. Somewhat related to #1 but in some cases people do have several receivers connected and others have just the 921. It is assumed that all 921 owners do have two coax feeds to sat 1 and sat 2.
3. OTA antenna- I would suspect that this is mostly related to signal quality which is a combination of proper strength and lack of multipath. We can't be sure that all 921 owners operate with optimum signal quality and we do know that poor quality will result in initial timer failure if there is "no OTA signal" when the timer is set to fire.
4. Now let's look at the OTA stations- VHF and UHF- When both are present do all owners use combination UHF and VHF antennas? 
5. Do all the stations send PROPERLY configured PSIP tables for the FCC required fixed data? Lack of this or improperly configured tables can cause a myriad of strange 921 failures. 
6. Are any stations experimenting with optional parts of the ATSC signal that the 921 and other receivers do not properly recognize or handle? How about Broadcast Flags? As a lay person you cannot assume that all broadcast stations follow a set standard for their signals. Extreme variations have been documented here in the area of PSIP inconsistencies, audio channel placement in the mux, and program data for the guide info. just to name a few. 
7. Caller ID- It is a well known issue with caller ID data that some phone systems handle this differently than others. We have equipment here that does phone line switching and sets up ring codes for the different lines. This same equipment will filter caller ID and all caller ID's must be routed around this equipment. Phone companies also have inconsistent phone networks and each can have adverse effects on caller ID data on the phone lines. Even noise on a phone line can drop the parity bits on caller ID and cause it to fail. Once you begin to handle data on a phone line the line must be assumed to be perfect in all respects including signal to noise. If not failure both consistent and intermittant can occur.
8.Finally, 188 errors may still be caused by operator usage in how the timers are set up. I still have more faith in setting my pads to 0 as opposed to default 1 and 3 minutes. I believe and have not documented it that the pads can be a cause for timer failure if the tuners and signals are maxed out during the pad times. I know Mark has stated this has been fixed in an earlier software release but I still have rare timer failures when recording adjacent shows on different channels when the pads overlap. Set them to 0 and skip a minute and the adjacent recordings never fail. But this is just my experience and I have not set up an actual test procedure to document in data form how it really does fail.


OK, these are just a few of the DIFFERENCES between owners of 921's that can be cause of continued failures when using what is considered same 921 hardware and same software versions. I'm sure there are others. But as has been noted in the past, NOT all 921's are the same. I would suspect that this difference is more a cause of total hardware failure than buggy operation except for the sat switch and possibly the caller ID as in when it was answering the phone but who knows without actual testing in each location.


The bad news is that when OTA guide is released we can add to the above list. I can tell you as a HDTIVO owner that the HDTIVO fails all the time with OTA Name Based recording due to program inaccuracies. In fact, our PBS station is impossible to record anything on the TIVO, Yes it will record but the results do not match what was selected.


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## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

boylehome said:


> If the PIP works for the HD for these receivers, I hope that E* will swap out all the 921's with (described as) inferior chips.


What makes you think they're changing this behavior? And why the heck would they change this now, when they're just starting to approach stability? The unit doesn't support PIP when viewing an HD source, and that's pretty much how it is. No newer hardware configuration of the same model is going to address this.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

There's no way that the Broadcom chip has been replaced in 921s being made now. Not a chance - that would require a core level software change that wouldn't be compatible with previous versions.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Mark Lamutt said:


> There's no way that the Broadcom chip has been replaced in 921s being made now. Not a chance - that would require a core level software change that wouldn't be compatible with previous versions.


Back to the drawing board. Scrap the current inferior products by swapping with ones that will work with the HD to which that is what the receiver is for.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> To all who are confused as to why the 921 works differently in different locations with what seems to be the same software/hardware.


Hi Don, how goes it? Good points in your post. You have stated in previous posts that you also have the HR 10-250. Does this receiver have PIP for HD?

John


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

Slordak said:


> What makes you think they're changing this behavior? And why the heck would they change this now, when they're just starting to approach stability? The unit doesn't support PIP when viewing an HD source, and that's pretty much how it is. No newer hardware configuration of the same model is going to address this.


Because they should, but most likely they never will; I'm looking forward to stability, but I haven't seen it yet; Your right, now no newer hardware configuration of the same model is going to address this. PIP is a feature of the 921. The 921 in designed for HD, SD and OTA. I, and I'll bet like most, we bought the 921 for the DVR, HD, and HD OTA features, SD was not a high priority for buying the 921. SD will be here until the cows come home. HD is going to be slow in growing. Simple expatiations need to be high, I don't think that any of us should expect less. If it's something that could work it should work. This isn't unreasonable, especially to us the consumers/users. When I ordered the 921, it was supposed to have dish ports. When I got my 921, guess what, there wasn't any. The 921 was no small investment, not for me anyway. Why would a high end product be less then what it is expected? Doesn't Charlie E. tout the 921 as a high end unit?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

boylehome said:


> Hi Don, how goes it? Good points in your post. You have stated in previous posts that you also have the HR 10-250. Does this receiver have PIP for HD?
> 
> John


It doesn't even have PIP for SD.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

jsanders said:


> It doesn't even have PIP for SD.


Hi jsanders, I'm asea on this one. Mine seems to work with SD even if I'm viewing a recorded SD program. I rarely use the SD on the 921 as I have a 721 for SD programming. Please explain?


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

boylehome said:


> Hi jsanders, I'm asea on this one. Mine seems to work with SD even if I'm viewing a recorded SD program. I rarely use the SD on the 921 as I have a 721 for SD programming. Please explain?


You asked if the HR10-250 did PIP. It doesn't do it for SD, it doesn't do it for HD.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

jsanders said:


> You asked if the HR10-250 did PIP. It doesn't do it for SD, it doesn't do it for HD.


I just finished looking at the HR12-250 user manual on-line. You are right, it doesn't have it. It doesn't look like it has caller ID. With exception to a couple of things, the 921 does have some pretty nice features. Only if the 921 and its features worked properly all the time. If the next two software updates do work, fix bugs, and we finally get into names based recordings, then the 921 will really be worth the while. I still want the PIP with OTA and HD, but like the dish wire, far to reach.


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## jsanders (Jan 21, 2004)

boylehome said:


> I just finished looking at the HR12-250 user manual on-line. You are right, it doesn't have it. It doesn't look like it has caller ID. With exception to a couple of things, the 921 does have some pretty nice features. Only if the 921 and its features worked properly all the time. If the next two software updates do work, fix bugs, and we finally get into names based recordings, then the 921 will really be worth the while. I still want the PIP with OTA and HD, but like the dish wire, far to reach.


I bought an HR10-250 the first week it came out. I returned it because I couldn't deal with the paradigm shift. The HR10-250 is very good at mining through the program guide and picking out stuff you like. However I found the HR10-250 to be almost useless when it comes to live viewing. The guide was sooooooo slow it was unuseable. If I hit the guide button, the guide would appear and then take what seemed like ten seconds for the shows would populate in the time slots. Every time you scroll up or down, this slow populating process would happen again. The guide was an overlay, no preview window in the upper right hand corner. The remote was lame. It had a volume button for your stereo, but no power button for your stereo! Commercial skip ahead needs to be programmed in, it's not default. The industrial design was a joke! It was the exact same case and remote as their $100 tivo. Not stylish looking like the 921. For $1000, I expected some better cosmetic work than the $100 model. The fast foward doesn't go 60x or 300x. Not sure about frame by frame, pretty sure it didn't do 1/15th and 1/4th speed. There was more stuff, but it isn't worth mentioning.

The bottom line is that if you liked only watching stuff the Tivo records, then it has an advantage. If you liked watching recorded stuff and live stuff, the 921 seems to have an advantage. If the 921 gets name based recording, it will be even better.


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

jsanders said:


> I bought an HR10-250 the first week it came out. I returned it because I couldn't deal with the paradigm shift. The bottom line is that if you liked only watching stuff the Tivo records, then it has an advantage. If you liked watching recorded stuff and live stuff, the 921 seems to have an advantage. If the 921 gets name based recording, it will be even better.


Good information. Unlike the 921 the other has expansion for another hard drive and I guess the port or ports do work for DVD creation. I think in time the inventors will improve and most likely add other kudos. I need to remember that the 921 is pretty knew technology. Thanks for the information.


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