# Dreading leaving Dish.....



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

I've really been happy with Dish's high def package. I like the 722 DVR too, and I think Dish's consumer service has been fab. I've found Dish to be an infinitely easier company to deal with than D* too, and I've I've saved a few $ with their programming packages.

Its just too bad that the sports programming is lacking My main goal in having a DBS system to begin with is getting access to hockey games. And, while E* does have Center Ice, there just is too little HD programming. Watching games in SD in this day and age seems almost primitive to me.

Anyway, I am signed up with a D* install in a few weeks but I hate, hate, hate the thought of leaving a company I like to go back to a company I dislike.

Oh well. Not that anything people can say will help me with this rant. But, I just wanted to say that I think Dish is the clear choice over D* for those of you who are NOT sports enthusiasts. It just a much more human company with far nicer DVRs and software.


----------



## Matt9876 (Oct 11, 2007)

+1 not a sports fan, will be with Dish for the foreseeable future.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

you're lucky! Dish rocks.


----------



## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

I've had D* before and was happy with them, with just one exception, their HDDVRs. Prior to the HR24/H24, the lot of them were and are crappy. Slow response to the remote to the point you want to throw them through the window!! My opinion, of course, and the reason I switched back to Dish.

I think you'll be happy with them as long as you don't get something other than the HR24 HDDVR or H24 HD receiver.

You'll be missing some movies though...


----------



## finniganps (Jan 23, 2004)

Yeah, I always tell sports fans that are willing to pay extra to get the games to not even bother with Dish...that is simply not their strong point. I'm not a huge sports fan, so I appreciate the value I get with Dish and that is why I have been with them for over 10 years.


----------



## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

I have said this in the past, and your post brings it up. I would consider moving to Direct if I could use, EchoStar DVR's. NFL Sunday Ticket would be worth if if I had, PiP, with easy swap, real DLB with buffer warning, autotune. Plus all the other advantages of EchoStar's DVR's.


----------



## CoolGui (Feb 9, 2006)

I think that if out of market sports is what you want and you are willing to pay for it, DirecTV is certainly the way to go. Personally I just want my local teams / RSNs in HD and often I am not able to get it. There is no licensing or legal reasons they cannot, just the fact that they don't think enough people want to watch it for them to keep bandwidth for the HD feed about 1/3 of the games. This really annoys me. That being said, I haven't switched yet, really there is no better alternative to me when I take into account price, HD channels and hardware. Honestly if Dish would just give me a full time FSHouston (HD) and CSS I wouldn't really have anything to complain about. I know CSS might not be available to them, so it's not a big deal, but I'm pretty sure since they play the FSHouston games, there is no licensing issue, they just need to make that channel available full time to make me happy. Until then I'm going to keep checking my options to see if I can get what I want.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

GrumpyBear said:


> I have said this in the past, and your post brings it up. I would consider moving to Direct if I could use, EchoStar DVR's. NFL Sunday Ticket would be worth if if I had, PiP, with easy swap, real DLB with buffer warning, autotune. Plus all the other advantages of EchoStar's DVR's.


Personally, I've never loved Echostar's DVRs. They're OK, but the interface is nowhere near as elegant as my old DirecTIVO unit. It has been stable as heck though. For me, the real appeal of Dish is the good support, fair pricing, and reasonable packages.


----------



## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

E91 said:


> Personally, I've never loved Echostar's DVRs. They're OK, but the interface is nowhere near as elegant as my old DirecTIVO unit. It has been stable as heck though. For me, the real appeal of Dish is the good support, fair pricing, and reasonable packages.


The interface could be refreshed, and has been on the ViP922.

Still for me, Autotune, DLB, PiP, the mulitple ways of recording a show you are watching, I use this one alot, creating lots of 1-2 minute recordings of scores and hits, being able to have multiple EHD's on a DVR, is over the top benefical, as each family member has thier own EHD, and throw in, being able to record 2 SAT and 2 OTA, shows all at the same timel, make moving to Direct and giving up those features, plus a few others would be really hard.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

Autotune and PIP, for me, are not useful features (and, again, keep in mind I am saying FOR ME and my personal conditions). Never use either.

I don't use dual buffering much either, but was under the impression that D* now had some form of it anyway:

http://support.directv.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2472

Either way, I don't think the buffer feature on the E* DVRs is nearly as useful as it was in the TIVO.

The EHD feature of the DISH unit is another plus. D* does allow for external EHDs (via ESATA) but that replaces the DVR's internal drive - so, you can't use both HDs at once.


----------



## 3HaloODST (Aug 9, 2010)

Yeah I'm not a sports fan and whatever sports I do watch are local and I just tune them in OTA. I think that overall DISH is a better value and they give me more HD channels that I DO watch than D* would. I agree with GrumpyBear I love the autotune especially.


----------



## CoolGui (Feb 9, 2006)

3HaloODST said:


> Yeah I'm not a sports fan and whatever sports I do watch are local and I just tune them in OTA. I think that overall DISH is a better value and they give me more HD channels that I DO watch than D* would. I agree with GrumpyBear I love the autotune especially.


I'm not sure where you are located, but it must be nice to get your local teams OTA. I remember back in the 80s and before they had all the MLB and NBA games on local OTA, but at some point the cable RSNs started buying the contracts, and I never get a game on a local OTA station now unless it's the rare time that one of the networks picks it up. For NFL it's not a problem, they have all their games on the networks/espn. However here they do have some informative local sports news and high school / college sports on FSHouston that are often not even picked up by Dish.


----------



## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

E91 said:


> Autotune and PIP, for me, are not useful features (and, again, keep in mind I am saying FOR ME and my personal conditions). Never use either.
> 
> I don't use dual buffering much either, but was under the impression that D* now had some form of it anyway:
> 
> ...


Direct has a something similar. You just have to activate it 1st. No swap button. Not sure how Tivo did dual buffers, the only thing I would like on Dish's buffers would be a longer time. The idea of having a buffer wiped out by a accidental channel change, with no warning is crazy though.


----------



## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

GrumpyBear said:


> Direct has a something similar. You just have to activate it 1st. *No swap button.* Not sure how Tivo did dual buffers, the only thing I would like on Dish's buffers would be a longer time. The idea of having a buffer wiped out on a accidental change channels with no warning is crazy though.


Could you clearify your no swap button comment? To activate Double Play, their version of dual live buffers, is you press the down arrow, then to swap between the two buffers/tuners you press the down arrow again. I do agree that it's too easy to dump a buffer by mistake and wish that there was a user configurable option to give a warning before dumping the buffer.


----------



## TulsaOK (Feb 24, 2004)

GrumpyBear said:


> The idea of having a buffer wiped out by a accidental channel change, with no warning is crazy though.


I assume you don't skip back a few seconds to avoid this from happening.


----------



## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

Kent Taylor said:


> I assume you don't skip back a few seconds to avoid this from happening.


Actually I do skip back, or just pause an then swap over. Cable(Time Warner that I know for sure of), Direct, not sure about Tivo, if you press a channel number or arrow up or down to change the channel, it just changes the channel, no warning and the buffer is gone. One of the features of the EchoStar DVR's I couldn't give up.
As for Double Play, I thought you had to press the down arrow, twice in row to activate it. Not that worried about key strokes, but I thought you had to do something twice to activate it, and then just down arrow, to move between them. EchoStar remotes, and I believe its because they included PiP, and not just DLB, have a clearly defined button called swap. Makes it just to easy, to actually use your PiP, and DLB features.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

GrumpyBear said:


> Direct has a something similar. You just have to activate it 1st. No swap button. Not sure how Tivo did dual buffers, the only thing I would like on Dish's buffers would be a longer time. The idea of having a buffer wiped out by a accidental channel change, with no warning is crazy though.


With TIVO, the buffer is active all the time. So, if you come home at 8:25 with the TV set to channel 2, you can rewind and see a half hour of programming. Also, the buffer is active while you are watching a recorded show. I found the buffering setup with TIVO infinitely more useful than my 722.

I'm pretty sure that DirecTIVO units would not warn you before switching channels. I hate that feature on my 722 though. Annoying to continually get those pop up messages, even when I am not interested in the contents of the buffer.

Honestly, I'm less impressed by the E* units than you are. I do appreciate how stable the unit has been though and I like the EHD. Otherwise, it is inferior to my old Tivo box in every way. For me the main advantage of the E* units is E* itself.

Having been with both D* and E*, I can't believe that anybody would rate D*'s support or overall service higher.


----------



## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

lparsons21 said:


> I've had D* before and was happy with them, with just one exception, their HDDVRs. Prior to the HR24/H24, the lot of them were and are crappy. Slow response to the remote to the point you want to throw them through the window!! My opinion, of course, and the reason I switched back to Dish.
> 
> I think you'll be happy with them as long as you don't get something other than the HR24 HDDVR or H24 HD receiver.
> 
> You'll be missing some movies though...


That sounds like U-verse's remotes-- very slow. I guess I won't go with Directv. Besides they're more expensive.


----------



## 3HaloODST (Aug 9, 2010)

Paul Secic said:


> That sounds like U-verse's remotes-- very slow. I guess I won't go with Directv. Besides they're more expensive.


Yeah apparently both DirecTV and U-verse use Windows CE. That's probably why they're both slow.


----------



## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

GrumpyBear said:


> The interface could be refreshed, and has been on the ViP922.
> 
> Still for me, Autotune, DLB, PiP, the mulitple ways of recording a show you are watching, I use this one alot, creating lots of 1-2 minute recordings of scores and hits, being able to have multiple EHD's on a DVR, is over the top benefical, as each family member has thier own EHD, and throw in, being able to record 2 SAT and 2 OTA, shows all at the same timel, make moving to Direct and giving up those features, plus a few others would be really hard.


Autotune is the best feature ever! In 1999 when I first got Dish, I had a Dish Player and it had Auto tune. Being disabled it has been very helpful!


----------



## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

E91 said:


> With TIVO, the buffer is active all the time. So, if you come home at 8:25 with the TV set to channel 2, you can rewind and see a half hour of programming. Also, the buffer is active while you are watching a recorded show. I found the buffering setup with TIVO infinitely more useful than my 722.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that DirecTIVO units would not warn you before switching channels. I hate that feature on my 722 though. Annoying to continually get those pop up messages, even when I am not interested in the contents of the buffer.
> 
> ...


To each his own. I remember when the 622 came out, and a friend had bought his Tivo(he still has it). Tivo, had a pretty interface but that was about it. Except when powered off, or in standby mode, Dish's buffers are both active at the sametime, because both buffers are always live, its one of the reason I set autotunes for the news in the morning, shows during the day, News/Weather evening, if running late, I can just rewind an hrs worth of TV, I don't have to worry about, or even think about changing a station so its own when I get home, the Autotunes take care of it.

In a family of 4 people, the Buffer warning comes in to handy, and hands down a great function, to warn you that there is a show buffered, instead of just changing the station, lets you swap over and save somebody's show, or ask 1st. 
Both of my 722's when watching a show, always buffer for an hr the background tuner, when I am watching a recording. Only the active tuner doesn't keep a buffer. Pretty easy to hit swap, watch a recording, and the channel you were watching, before you started watching a recording, can be paused the entire time, or just rewind it. Its not like both Buffers are flushed empty while watching a recording.
Like I said, Tivo had and does have a pretty interface, other than that, EchoStar DVR's have to many more useful features. DLB, PiP, Autotune, Buffer warning, multiple EHD's, OTA tuners, the ability to record 4 HD shows at the sametime, and a remote that every button's function is actually labeled on the remote.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

GrumpyBear said:


> To each his own. I remember when the 622 came out, and a friend had bought his Tivo(he still has it). Tivo, had a pretty interface but that was about it. Except when powered off, or in standby mode, Dish's buffers are both active at the sametime, because both buffers are always live, its one of the reason I set autotunes for the news in the morning, shows during the day, News/Weather evening, if running late, I can just rewind an hrs worth of TV, I don't have to worry about, or even think about changing a station so its own when I get home, the Autotunes take care of it.


Tivo's buffers are both active at the same time too (as I recall). And, the buffers don't get erased when you watch a recorded show, and they're active even when you are not watching the set.

With the E* box, I go to turn on the unit and I have to wake it up and there are no buffers. So, I don't see how "autotunes" is going to help.

Or, I go to watch a pre-recorded show and it wipes out the buffers. for these reasons, I find the buffers to be fairly useless.



GrumpyBear said:


> Both of my 722's when watching a show, always buffer for an hr the background tuner, when I am watching a recording. Only the active tuner doesn't keep a buffer. Pretty easy to hit swap, watch a recording, and the channel you were watching, before you started watching a recording, can be paused the entire time, or just rewind it. Its not like both Buffers are flushed empty while watching a recording.
> Like I said, Tivo had and does have a pretty interface, other than that, EchoStar DVR's have to many more useful features. DLB, PiP, Autotune, Buffer warning, multiple EHD's, OTA tuners, the ability to record 4 HD shows at the sametime, and a remote that every button's function is actually labeled on the remote.


I totally disagree with you about the features. TIVO's search features are about a 100 times more useful than E*'s DVR. Its easier to set season passes, easier to find what you want to watch.

Just as an example, last year I tried to get the my 722 to automatically record every New York Islander game. That is a task TIVO handles without a single hiccup. The 722, however, filled my hard drive with 8 hour empty blocks of time labeled "Upcoming game: New York Islanders versus...." I learned that I had to search on the games and then manually select it because the 722 was not sophisticated enough to do it on it's own.


----------



## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

Dish DVR's, when in standby, wakeup and both tuners go live when you set a Autotune. Go to bed at 11pm, let the DVR go to standby, or the DVR will go into standby, after the nightly updates, have a Autotune set for 5am, the machine goes live, changes the watched tuner to the channel you want, and the background tuner is buffering the last channel it was on as well. 
Tivo's interface, is Prettier, Season settings and Searching is easier, something we hadn't talked about. I know many Tivo users that ended up with hrs and hrs and hrs of useless shows as Tivo was picking what it thought you wanted to watch, so you have to be just as careful when setting up recordings on Tivo as well.

I don't use Dish Pass to setup recordings, only onetime in 4 plus years, just easier to find the show in the guide and set the options. I will do a search with the # button, to find a show I just missed, find it, select it, set the options I want, via the guide. 
Wife and Kids love using the Sling Guide to do searchs, and setting up timers that way, with Sling Guide you do get the, once, all, new options. You can't set autotunes though. 

I have been using Sling Guide for searching. Its fast, easy to use, searchs on, actors, shows, you name it. Finding a show to watch, is to easy, rather through the DVR button, or via the SlingGuide interface, maybe because I use folders and groups, but finding what I want, or what the anybody else wants, is pretty easy. 

DLB function, Autotune, PiP, EHD's, Buffer warning, OTA, 4x Recording, being able record this point forward, even when you rewind a show, or record the entire show, and the the other functions, vs a Pretty interface, I will take the more useable functions.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

GrumpyBear said:


> Dish DVR's, when in standby, wakeup and both tuners go live when you set a Autotune. Go to bed at 11pm, let the DVR go to standby, or the DVR will go into standby, after the nightly updates, have a Autotune set for 5am, the machine goes live, changes the watched tuner to the channel you want, and the background tuner is buffering the last channel it was on as well.
> Tivo's interface, is Prettier, Season settings and Searching is easier, something we hadn't talked about. I know many Tivo users that ended up with hrs and hrs and hrs of useless shows as Tivo was picking what it thought you wanted to watch, so you have to be just as careful when setting up recordings on Tivo as well.
> 
> I don't use Dish Pass to setup recordings, only onetime in 4 plus years, just easier to find the show in the guide and set the options. I will do a search with the # button, to find a show I just missed, find it, select it, set the options I want, via the guide.
> ...


Again, we're going to have to disagree. For me, the better search features, more intuitive handling of the buffer, and easier to navigate interface made TIVO far easier. I'd take TIVO over anything that D* or E* has to offer.

I had DirecTIVO for three or four years and the 722 for two. I never once can remember thinking "Boy, that is really stupid.." when using the TIVO. I have that thought all the time with the 722.

Going from TIVO to a 722 is a lot of what happened when I switched cars. I had an Acura with this elegant, easy-to-use, touch screen navigation system. It was a lot of fun to use and I kept finding myself saying "gee, that is clever as hell."

I eventually traded in the Acura and bought a BMW. The BMW Idrive system is not bad, but the interface could use some work and I find myself going through too many clicks to get to some submenu. All the features are there, and maybe some the Acura didn't even have. So, it isn't really a question of sheer power and features - its more about the interface.

The Acura system was elegant and fun to use - the BMW, not so much. That is how I feel about TIVO vs. the 722.

The caveat here is that I've not used a 922 - and I understand it has some nicer interface elements. Also, Dish did give me a slingbox (I am part of their pilot program) but I don't use the Sling interface at all.

And, regardless of which DVR is the best, I still prefer DISH overall.


----------



## shadough (Dec 31, 2006)

I'll throw in my 2 cents. Been w/ E* for nearly a dozen years and AM a sports fan. I've enjoyed having Distant networks for most of the last decade, course I should clarify that I'm a football fan and dont watch baseball or hockey. Or even NBA, do watch college b-ball though. DNS (distant network service) has been very usefull for watching NFL games and the NCAA tournament in March. And now (thru AAD) with DNS from 4 cities (NY, LA, sanfran, Chicago) my tv will be filled w/ games. So I'm not going anywhere  I'm still.....crawling...into the realm of HD. Just bought a vip222k, my 1st and I guess I'll wait until E* will allow me to lease a 922, whichever century that will be. So the "not having it in HD" is not terribly important to me.

As for the DVRs, I do like them for all the reasons mentioned previously. Love pip. Love being able to rewind a channel back 2 hours. And I definitly apreciate the BUFFER WARNING. Having previously been a 721 user, when they 1st came out, there was no buffer warning. If i had something paused for a couple hours, and if someone sat on the remote or dropped something on it, or someother way a button got pressed, the channel would change and I'd lose the program (or buffer). That got changed w/ a firmware update later on and today we have the 'warning' message. Heck my 721 could stay paused on a channel for up to 1 day. I've tried doing it w/ my 522 but it loses part of the broadcast somewhere along the way. Plus, having those SXM channels is convenient also, and being able to use the DVR features on them. So w/ my commitment w/ AAD, I'm firmly entrenched in DIsh network.


----------



## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

DirecTV is not installing Tivos. The HD DVRs work different than the Tivos. Lots of people still have their old Tivos and love them. I am not familiar with them at all so I like what I have.
Good luck with the switch.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

jimmie57 said:


> DirecTV is not installing Tivos. The HD DVRs work different than the Tivos. Lots of people still have their old Tivos and love them. I am not familiar with them at all so I like what I have.
> Good luck with the switch.


Eh? Where did anybody say DirectTV was installing Tivos? If Direct TV had HD Tivo boxes I'd be with D* right now.

I do still have a few DirecTIVO boxes around. But, they're all SD with MPEG-2 decoders.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

3HaloODST said:


> Yeah apparently both DirecTV and U-verse use Windows CE. That's probably why they're both slow.


The HR24 is supposed to be as quick as the VIP series, but I guess I'll find out.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

shadough said:


> I'll throw in my 2 cents. Been w/ E* for nearly a dozen years and AM a sports fan. I've enjoyed having Distant networks for most of the last decade, course I should clarify that I'm a football fan and dont watch baseball or hockey. Or even NBA, do watch college b-ball though. DNS (distant network service) has been very usefull for watching NFL games and the NCAA tournament in March. And now (thru AAD) with DNS from 4 cities (NY, LA, sanfran, Chicago) my tv will be filled w/ games. So I'm not going anywhere  I'm still.....crawling...into the realm of HD. Just bought a vip222k, my 1st and I guess I'll wait until E* will allow me to lease a 922, whichever century that will be. So the "not having it in HD" is not terribly important to me.
> 
> As for the DVRs, I do like them for all the reasons mentioned previously. Love pip. Love being able to rewind a channel back 2 hours. And I definitly apreciate the BUFFER WARNING. Having previously been a 721 user, when they 1st came out, there was no buffer warning. If i had something paused for a couple hours, and if someone sat on the remote or dropped something on it, or someother way a button got pressed, the channel would change and I'd lose the program (or buffer). That got changed w/ a firmware update later on and today we have the 'warning' message. Heck my 721 could stay paused on a channel for up to 1 day. I've tried doing it w/ my 522 but it loses part of the broadcast somewhere along the way. Plus, having those SXM channels is convenient also, and being able to use the DVR features on them. So w/ my commitment w/ AAD, I'm firmly entrenched in DIsh network.


FWIW, I still think DISH offers superior customer service in addition to being a better deal overall.


----------



## BNUMM (Dec 24, 2006)

E91 said:


> The HR24 is supposed to be as quick as the VIP series, but I guess I'll find out.


I install both Dish and Direct. The HR24 is faster. The MRV is fantastic.


----------



## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

I've seen an HR24 at a friends, I don't know if I'd say faster, but it is as fast for sure.

MRV is one of those things that can be handy for some, not so handy for others. In my case, MRV has zero value. My son and I record a lot of shows, none duplicated. It wouldn't have any value because of that.

In fact to do what I do, I'd need 3 HDDVRs from Direct to do what I do with 2 from Dish.


----------



## paja (Oct 23, 2006)

E91 said:


> FWIW, I still think DISH offers superior customer service in addition to being a better deal overall.


That could be a real debateable statement. One of the reasons I dumped DISH back in fall 2008 was the horrendous customer service. The worst I've ever encountered in the field of television.


----------



## E91 (Oct 7, 2008)

paja said:


> That could be a real debateable statement. One of the reasons I dumped DISH back in fall 2008 was the horrendous customer service. The worst I've ever encountered in the field of television.


Oh, I know it is a matter of opinion. I've personally been very happy with DISH's service - but I understand that is just my experience. You are not alone in your take, at least not on this board. There are certainly a number of poster here who share you view.


----------



## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

lparsons21 said:


> I've seen an HR24 at a friends, I don't know if I'd say faster, but it is as fast for sure.
> 
> MRV is one of those things that can be handy for some, not so handy for others. In my case, MRV has zero value. My son and I record a lot of shows, none duplicated. It wouldn't have any value because of that.
> 
> In fact to do what I do, I'd need 3 HDDVRs from Direct to do what I do with 2 from Dish.


I bought a 722k, to go with my 622, just a few months ago, as the upcoming fall season I need to record 3-4 different shows at the sametime, in a few different hr blocks on several different days. 
MRV is cool, but for us, its just easier to record all on one TV, and move things to a EHD and watch later at liesure. We have mulitple EHD's one for each family member and this just works/ Loads better for our house as well, gives much more Flexibilty over MRV. Several of the shows different family members like to watch several in a row, or lives are just so busy with work and school, so wait until there are 3-4 episodes to catch up on at thier leisure, and I or somebody in the house, just moves the shows to the Target drive during the week/weeks, keeping the internal drive pretty empty.

I would need 4-5, maybe even more, Direct DVR's to do what I do with just a 722k and a 622, between the recordings timers and the space requirements.
Come Sept, I will probably get a 922k, and idle the 622, except for when we fire up the RV. Family is driving me crazy as they want to watch thier shows and recordings on thier laptops, and I have been holding off until the Sling Extender was released.


----------



## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

GrumpyBear said:


> MRV is cool, but for us, its just easier to record all on one TV, and move things to a EHD and watch later at liesure. We have mulitple EHD's one for each family member and this just works/ Loads better for our house as well, gives much more Flexibilty over MRV. Several of the shows different family members like to watch several in a row, or lives are just so busy with work and school, so wait until there are 3-4 episodes to catch up on at thier leisure, and I or somebody in the house, just moves the shows to the Target drive during the week/weeks, keeping the internal drive pretty empty.
> 
> I would need 4-5, maybe even more, Direct DVR's to do what I do with just a 722k and a 622, between the recordings timers and the space requirements.
> Come Sept, I will probably get a 922k, and idle the 622, except for when we fire up the RV. Family is driving me crazy as they want to watch thier shows and recordings on thier laptops, and I have been holding off until the Sling Extender was released.


Guess I don't understand how it's easier to manage your environment then using DirecTV's MRV. To me it looks like you have to make sure you have whoever's EHD connected to the DVR that needs to record their program. Then if they want to watch it on another DVR they need to disconnect it from that DVR, move it, and then reconnect it. Don't see where that's easier then hitting play on a HD receiver, selecting the recording and playing it.

You really would need 4 to 5 DirecTV HD DVR;s to do what you do now, that would be 8 to 10 concurrent recordings, that's more then you can do with your 722K and 622 (4 DBS and 3 OTA for total of 7 concurrent max). For space that would also be 2GB to 2.5GB using just the internal drives, if you needed more you could go with the external eSATA drives, 2TB is the max pre HD DVR so that would be 8TB to 10TB of recording space.

As for the family watching recordings on their laptops, as long as it's on your internal network you can do that with DirecTV2PC, and that's free, no need to buy something else.

If what you have now works for you, that's great, again just don't see how all the EHD moving and management is easier then MRV.


----------



## BNUMM (Dec 24, 2006)

The last job I did had 10 HD TVs. We put in 2 HR24s and 8 H24s. This job would have require 10 612s.


----------



## bnborg (Jun 3, 2005)

BNUMM said:


> The last job I did had 10 HD TVs. We put in 2 HR24s and 8 H24s. This job would have require 10 612s.


Either way it's ten satellite devices.

Seems like six of one and half a dozen or the other to me.


----------



## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

BNUMM said:


> The last job I did had 10 HD TVs. We put in 2 HR24s and 8 H24s. This job would have require 10 612s.


Must've been a rather large family.:eek2:


----------



## BNUMM (Dec 24, 2006)

phrelin said:
 

> Must've been a rather large family.:eek2:


Not a large family. It was a large home on Lake Michigan with a guest house. The additional receiver fees were considerably less than if we had put in Dish with 10 DVRs. Also, I believe upfront costs were less. We have seen an increase in DirecTv installs since the MRV came out.


----------



## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

I would have used 211's with EHD - wouldn't have a 612.


----------



## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

RAD said:


> Guess I don't understand how it's easier to manage your environment then using DirecTV's MRV. To me it looks like you have to make sure you have whoever's EHD connected to the DVR that needs to record their program. Then if they want to watch it on another DVR they need to disconnect it from that DVR, move it, and then reconnect it. Don't see where that's easier then hitting play on a HD receiver, selecting the recording and playing it.
> 
> You really would need 4 to 5 DirecTV HD DVR;s to do what you do now, that would be 8 to 10 concurrent recordings, that's more then you can do with your 722K and 622 (4 DBS and 3 OTA for total of 7 concurrent max). For space that would also be 2GB to 2.5GB using just the internal drives, if you needed more you could go with the external eSATA drives, 2TB is the max pre HD DVR so that would be 8TB to 10TB of recording space.
> 
> ...


You only have to have the EHD plugged in, when moving shows to it or when you want to view a show thats on it. You don't record to the EHD. It would be really crazy on Thursday nights when between 8pm and 9pm, I record 7 different shows, and only 1 of the 7 is a show everybody watch's. Being able to record 3 or 4 shows at a time, really eliminates having to spread shows and timers between 4-5 DVR's, and having 2 TB's of personal storage each 8TB's total, eliminates having to spread Recording over 4-5 DVR's. Watching a recording from a EHD is really easy, and you know exactly were your shows are at.

I have monitored MRV for 2yrs now, when it was 1st talked about, and have pushed the benefit. Wife and I have monitored how many times we have had to move a EHD from one room to another, and its less then 3 times a year, and since we added the 722k, and decided to add the 922k, we haven't been able to even forecast a time were we would have to move a EHD from room to room. Its nice knowing I can though, for just Archiving if I want.

As we only have 3 TV's, and the Gameroom TV doesn't have a Reciever connected to it, its for Xbox360, Gamecube, WII, Netflix, and very rarely MNF, were its fed via component from the Bedroom ViP622, the Kids EHD's are out in the livingroom, and except for being moved from one shelf and into the docking tray, the don't go anywere. EHD's are more flexible, as everybody has a personal EHD, if needed they can be moved to a different DVR. Everybody gets to choose what shows they want to keep on thier EHD. I don't have to have 2-3 more recievers than I have TV's connected, to get the same Recording space, and the same amount of timers.

Moving shows to the EHD is pretty simple, slow, but simple, and I have all timers set to personal groups, so movings shows to the right drive is really Simple. So when somebody wants to watch a show, that has been archived, they put thier drive into the $30 docking station. Takes about 30 seconds or so, between putting one drive in, and putting the other drive away. This has elimintated all problems of somebody deleting somebody else's show. When I or somebody sees the internal Drive with around 25hrs of HD recording time or less, people move shows off to a EHD's, and this all happens in the background.

I have 8TB's of EHD storage now, and factor in the 622 and the 722k, I am around 9TB's of total space with just 2 DVR's. Next month, when I add the 922k, I will have just under 10TB's, with just 2 DVR's. Would need 5 DVR's with with Direct for that kind of space.

For PC support wife wants it for mainly inhouse, kids want it for remote, and I hear about this all the time now. I will be buying a 922k in Sept, and will have the ability to record 8 shows, and have 10TB's of Space with 2 DVR's. I hope the Sling Extender comes out before Xmas as I would like that for the Gameroom TV.

MRV would be useful if I had more TV's or if I didn't live in an area where I had OTA, and needed help with recordings. Right now I only have to worry about setting up Timers on 2 DVR's, its pretty easy to know were we want them, 2 DVR's 8 simultaneous Timers, lots of Flexiblty. Putting in a EHD to watch a show or movie somebody wants, isn't difficult, and everybody knows where thier shows are at, and thats whats important. I don't have to worry about spreading timers between 5 DVR's. I don't have to manage HardDrive space on 5 DVR's, I don't have to have more HD DVR's than I have TV's. Nobody has to worry about an accidental deletion of thier recordings. When we fire up the RV, as the wife and kids did for the last 2 weeks, they can take thier EHD's with them, connect them to the soon to be retired 612, and watch thier recordings while going down the road, at the Mother-in-Laws house, or out camping in the evenings when its raining outside, ruining the campfire.


----------



## Eskimo (Aug 2, 2010)

I'm with the OP, just for different reasons. I love the Vip722 that's been serving us faithfully for 2 years now with it's fast response.. However..

MRV is a big deal for us. I like to watch motorsports down in the theater room, and dish wanting to charge me $200 for another DVR was ridiculous. Plus, the bedroom TV was only getting SD signals.

For the same $200 (and a cheaper overall bill for the next 2 years), I'm getting 2 HD DVR's (1TB of storage total), a HD receiver, internet connection, and I can watch a show recorded on any DVR on any TV, in HD.

Bad timing on the HD locals too.. I've been getting told for 2 freakin years "soon" on HD locals, and only now is it going to be a reality on Dish.


----------



## GrumpyBear (Feb 1, 2006)

Eskimo said:


> I'm with the OP, just for different reasons. I love the Vip722 that's been serving us faithfully for 2 years now with it's fast response.. However..
> 
> MRV is a big deal for us. I like to watch motorsports down in the theater room, and dish wanting to charge me $200 for another DVR was ridiculous. Plus, the bedroom TV was only getting SD signals.
> 
> ...


Except for the ViP922, what DVR is costing you $200? There are plus's for MRV. With the Fall Season and Football season here, way to much to give up for a sometime use feature. 2 Vip 722k's do way more than 4-5 Direct DVR's.


----------

