# New to Dish and PVR, questions!



## Guest (Nov 26, 2003)

All,
We are getting ready to close on a new house and trying to decide what sort of satellite connection we want. We're still going back and forth between Dish and DirecTV. I was convinced I wanted DirecTV with Tivo until last night when I found out that DirecTV has a waiting list for Tivos that extends into January already.

I spoke with a Dish reseller who offered me the deal of a Dish PVR setup for $49.99 installed. I wanted to get some feedback on the option he presented though, as I'm not familiar with it... He told me that Dish has an entirely new hardware setup for a 2-room system with PVR (exactly what I need) where there is only one receiver, which would be in the main area (living room) and will have 2 tuners. Both of those tuners will be able to record different programs at the same time, or watch one and record the other. More importantly, I was told that somehow the receiver in the main living room would also feed the television in the master bedroom, and that the remote for the master bedroom was a non-IR type and would work from the bedroom to control the receiver in the living room...

Did I understand this right? They will not be able to get me installed until next week, so my other option is to buy the equipment from a Best Buy type outfit and install it myself, which I'm sure I could do. Any thoughts on that? Our house has at least one (I'm hoping two) coax cables already hanging on the outside of the house for whatever we hook up, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal to tie into that, right?

Thanks,
Ryan


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## AllieVi (Apr 10, 2002)

Ryan,

The DISH reseller correctly described the features of a product that DISH plans to market. It is not yet available, though, and no one outside of DISH knows when it will be available. I wouldn't schedule an installation until the product is actually released and in the installer's possession.

I recommend that you check out other posts about it on this and other satellite groups. The item you want is a model 522.


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## Guest (Nov 26, 2003)

AllieVI,
Thanks for the reply. I was wondering what model receiver he was talking about and they were closed when I tried to call back and ask... I wonder why he said he'd be able to install that service next Tuesday if it's not available yet...

Thanks again,
Ryan


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## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

RyanRiley said:


> All,
> We are getting ready to close on a new house and trying to decide what sort of satellite connection we want. We're still going back and forth between Dish and DirecTV. I was convinced I wanted DirecTV with Tivo until last night when I found out that DirecTV has a waiting list for Tivos that extends into January already.
> 
> Thanks,
> Ryan


That isn't necessarily true. You can walk into a Best Buy, Circuit City, or visit any number of Internet dealers to get a DirecTivo for a good price without waiting until January.

Go and see a demo of each unit before you make up your mind.


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## AllieVi (Apr 10, 2002)

Karl Foster said:


> That isn't necessarily true. You can walk into a Best Buy, Circuit City, or visit any number of Internet dealers to get a DirecTivo for a good price without waiting until January.
> 
> Go and see a demo of each unit before you make up your mind.


Ryan asked about a product that has two independent outputs that can be controlled separately. I wasn't aware that the DirecTiVo had that capability.


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## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

Not to get into a p***ing contest, but his original statement in the first sentence was that he couldn't get a DirecTivo until January. 

We are all well aware that only the Dishplayer 522 will have dual outputs.


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## Bob Haller (Mar 24, 2002)

Sadly the 522 is likely going to have bugs, and lacks name based recordings.

Historically ALL new E DVR boxes have had bugs when new.

Go read about the various dish bugs here before signing up, so you know in advance what to expect.

Also the DVR VOD fee is $5 per box, Direct Tivo $5 OPER ACCOUNT, so adding another receiver will likely increase your costs.


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## navy8ball (Mar 23, 2002)

put this into your train of thought. which company offers locals in your area?this could be a deciding factor.also the programming if your into sports or not and each company gets some channels that are not offered by the other.


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## Bertschb (Nov 27, 2003)

Karl Foster said:


> That isn't necessarily true. You can walk into a Best Buy, Circuit City, or visit any number of Internet dealers to get a DirecTivo for a good price without waiting until January.
> 
> Go and see a demo of each unit before you make up your mind.





navy8ball said:


> put this into your train of thought. which company offers locals in your area?this could be a deciding factor.also the programming if your into sports or not and each company gets some channels that are not offered by the other.


I just bought a DirecTivo with two tuners from BestBuy for $99. It's also in stock at CC and several other locations. Easy to get. I don't want to get into a pi**ing contest either but several companies make hardware for DirecTV. DISH has JVC. The DirecTV satellites are positioned so you can get ALL of their programming with ONE 18x20 dish. To get all the programming DISH offers you may need a SuperDish which is much larger, and doesn't work in all parts of the country. I've never heard anybody say the Dish DVR is better than TIVO. TIVO is universally considered the best DVR. If you disagree you are outnumbered 50 to 1. DISH hardware tends to be more buggy and troublesome. I know several people with DISH and their remotes stop working, they have to reboot their receivers periodically, the program guide doesn't work right, etc. I'm not saying all of the equipment is bad. Some folks never have any trouble. But, users have more trouble with DISH hardware than DirecTV (check this or any other forum).

The programming from both companies is almost identical so (assuming you can get locals from both) it really comes down to hardware. DirecTV wins that contest by almost every measure. Again, just read the threads from any forum you want and you'll hear all about the hardware issues with DISH.

I'm not saying DISH is a bad choice. If you can get the programming you want and you end up with hardware that works you'll be very pleased with DISH. If you've never used a TIVO you'll love the DISH DVR. However, make sure you can get locals from both providers and then spend 30 minutes on any DBS forum of your choice. Don't take my advice, take the advice of the rest of the hundreds of people who share their experiences.


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## AllieVi (Apr 10, 2002)

I've experienced the DirecTiVo and agree 100% that it's a more desirable product than the comparable DISH offering. If anyone is moving to satellite and finds everything that's important to them to be a tossup, I'd definitely recommend DirecTV.

The only reason I remain a DISH customer is my ability to receive east coast feeds on all receivers at my west coast residence. If that capability didn't exist, I'd switch.


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## Guest (Dec 1, 2003)

Thanks for all the responses. I compared both of the systems and did end up signing up with Dish. The dish itself and the 522 receiver were both installed yesterday afternoon. There is some sort of problem still with the initial software download. The installer said all of the other installers for that Dish retailer were having the same problems yesterday with all of the 522 boxes. He is supposed to come back out today if it ends up being something they cannot fix remotely. 

The problem yesterday afternoon is that it saw the satellites just fine, but would hang up at 'Acquiring satellite' when doing the initial program download. This morning it finally did (apparently) finish the download and gave the message that it was upgrading the memory and to leave the box alone. After a few minutes, the box rebooted, but when it came back on the green and blue lights (tuner 1 and 2) were flashing, along with the red lights (recording) flashing steadily along. Eventually, the red lights stopped, but the last I heard from the wife, the blue and green were still flashing with a black screen on the TV. I can't wait to get home from work this afternoon and see what's going on and get someone on the phone if it's still not working.

By the way, when comparing the two systems, the biggest thing that made me go with Dish was the fact that I could use the receiver in one room, and record 2 different programs at the same time (or record 1 and watch 1), or use it in 2-room mode and not have to have an extra receiver in the bedroom. Let's just hope it really ends up working that way!!

Thanks again,
Ryan


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## Karl Foster (Mar 23, 2002)

You might want to read the review of the 522 in at satelliteguys.us before you make that decision....


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## sifuhall (Oct 30, 2003)

> TIVO is universally considered the best DVR.


Nope, most people consider replay tv to be leaps and bounds ahead of tivo.

Perhaps you should limit your statement to dvrs with built in receivers?


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## jerryyyyy (Jul 19, 2002)

A big difference between the two is foreign language programming. E* is vastly superior and is the only choice for many languages.


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