# Worried about 622



## Harold Brown (Mar 11, 2007)

I am not looking to buy or lease a 622 until they workout the required phone line hook-up (I have Vonage). However, when I read the posts it kind of scares me into thinking the thing doesn't work. I have visions of my wife calling me all day long at work asking me how to fix the TV. Obviously this is probably not the case but what in general can I expect to happen if I were to buy one. I have a Toshiba 62" 1080i DLP TV with HDMI.

Thanks,

Dish customer since 2000
3 DVR receivers
SW-64 Switch


----------



## Ken Green (Oct 6, 2005)

If your DVR's are 625's, they're very similar to the 622 interface.


----------



## isuzudave (Sep 29, 2006)

Harold Brown said:


> I am not looking to buy or lease a 622 until they workout the required phone line hook-up (I have Vonage). However, when I read the posts it kind of scares me into thinking the thing doesn't work. I have visions of my wife calling me all day long at work asking me how to fix the TV. Obviously this is probably not the case but what in general can I expect to happen if I were to buy one. I have a Toshiba 62" 1080i DLP TV with HDMI.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> ...


I have Vonage and two 622s. What needs to be worked out?


----------



## SanDiegoinHD (Oct 19, 2006)

FWIW - I have the 622 and no phone line hookup. This was not clearly explained to me by Dish or the installer, and I was upset. After it installed and update it would not turn back on for me.

I called them up and stood my ground. They apologized for the inconvenience and immediately credited my account.

That last statement was pure fiction for entertainment purposes.  

They just added 4.99 per month to my bill. I have just been paying it. I don't have access to my phone line from the receivers location, and do not feel like buying the RCA wireless adapters.


----------



## Harold Brown (Mar 11, 2007)

isuzudave said:


> I have Vonage and two 622s. What needs to be worked out?


Vonage is not hooked to my whole house and I use both phone outputs because I have 2 phone lines. I would have to hook up a splitter and run a phone line on the floor from one room to another. Not doing that. On the electric outlet I already have the TV, Sat, DVD player, power supply for the SW-64 switch, and receiver. I don't need anything else plugged into that outlet. I have cabinets to make everything nice and neat and I don't what a bunch of wires going from one wall to the next.

I really don't like the land line phone home approach. I use wireless devices throughout my house for phones, cameras and internet.


----------



## Harold Brown (Mar 11, 2007)

kdg454 said:


> If your DVR's are 625's, they're very similar to the 622 interface.


Thanks, but I was referring to the list of problems that I see everybody having (i.e., reboots, loss of recorded data, HDMI not working, etc.). The posts make it seem like only a small percentage of people use the receiver with no problems.

Harold


----------



## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

This is where people come to complain. What do you expect to read here? No one comes here and says life is wonderful, when in fact it is wonderful for most people. In addition, only a small percentage of Dish customers even know this forum exists. Don't take the posts here as anywhere near what most customers experience.


----------



## Harold Brown (Mar 11, 2007)

ChuckA said:


> This is where people come to complain. What do you expect to read here? No one comes here and says life is wonderful, when in fact it is wonderful for most people. In addition, only a small percentage of Dish customers even know this forum exists. Don't take the posts here as anywhere near what most customers experience.


Well, the sticky posts indicates that only 41% of the people participating in the poll say they have no problems and the 622 works fine. That number seems low to me and that is what I am talking about, not the requests for help specifically. That is why I asked my original question. If you read it I think you will find my question quite reasonable. By the way the forums are here as information/experience exchange not just complaining (which I know that is all some people ever do).


----------



## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Harold Brown said:


> Well, the sticky posts indicates that only 41% of the people participating in the poll say they have no problems and the 622 works fine.


That remains 41% of people who felt like answering a poll in a sub-forum where most people come FOR help (although the number of people coming TO help is appreciated). I answered the first couple of those polls but after a while it gets to the question of how many times do I have to vote to say mine is working. Those noticing problems are more likely to participate - especially if they want a fix.


----------



## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

As James explains... many (if not most) folks come to these forums for the first time because they are having a problem and seeking answers. You do not see thread upon thread about how "my receiver worked perfectly today" because when it works, there's no need to say/ask anything and there would be so many "hey mine works too, cool!" threads the forum would be buried.

Think about things in forums logically, and see how/if they apply to you. Also consider that you are looking in a presumably biased place for unbiased answers.

You wouldn't, for instance, go hang around a doctor or hospital waiting area to research whether or not you should do something... right? Undoubtedly you would find a lot of sick/injured people who would likely to tell you now to do whatever they had just done that landed them in the waiting room!


----------



## TNGTony (Mar 23, 2002)

I've had my 622 for two months now. Not one single problem. There are things I'd like updated or changed, but no technical problems for me. I have not participated in any polls either.

See ya
Tony


----------



## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Harold Brown said:


> Well, the sticky posts indicates that only 41% of the people participating in the poll say they have no problems and the 622 works fine. That number seems low to me and that is what I am talking about, not the requests for help specifically. That is why I asked my original question. If you read it I think you will find my question quite reasonable. By the way the forums are here as information/experience exchange not just complaining (which I know that is all some people ever do).


Actually the two numbers that I would look at are the first two.. THis is the people that have no problem and the people that are having minor one or if they have a major one there is a reasonable work around. That number is more like 83%. One of the things that the polls do no reflect is that the 622 was real solid with audio on L3.60 and took a big hit with L3.63. It was improved with L3.65 but there is still some work to be done to get the audio reliability up to what some would consider acceptable levels.

You can also see this with the Votes on is L3.65 better than the previous version.

Ofcourse the pool is not scientic by any means but I consider a finger in the wind to provide some form of feedback as to how the E* team is doing with the people that participate in the 622 support forum. I usually post the poll about a week into the release and I urge all to provide feedback (including James and Tony ). It is not a matter of why vote to say yet mine is till working but to indicate both that your receiver is working to your expectations and to all give and indictation of your current software is a step up from your previous one. Also allows some tracking from version to version.

I look around a bit more Harold, I am sure you would find there is a lot of peole happy with the 622. Most of the pain points I have seen center around unable to get a certain OTA channel, Guide info, or some audio issues (largest being Dish HD local based). The OTA issues, You can find by searching for OTA in the title and if you could see if people in your area are reporting them. The audio issues, Well once again search for audio and see if you see people form your area reporting audio drop out. Other than that, the rest of the issues usually are unique in nature.


----------



## steveT (Jul 12, 2002)

Harold Brown said:


> Well, the sticky posts indicates that only 41% of the people participating in the poll say they have no problems and the 622 works fine. That number seems low to me and that is what I am talking about, not the requests for help specifically. That is why I asked my original question. If you read it I think you will find my question quite reasonable. By the way the forums are here as information/experience exchange not just complaining (which I know that is all some people ever do).


Without any solid stats on the entire population of Dish customers, it's a crap shoot. I was one of the first to purchase a 721 (first dual-tuner DVR) when it came out, and I was one of the lucky ones. After a few initial bugs, that 721 worked for ~4 years like a champ. Best piece of home theater gear I ever owned.

But it finally lost its mind about a month ago, and I switched to the 622. Now I'm in the other camp, experiencing just about every problem you see in these threads. I don't know if it's 2%, 20%, or 50% of people having these problems. I do believe most people just live with what they get, without pushing back on Dish too much.

So the question you have to ask yourself is, do you feel lucky?...


----------



## Aridon (Mar 13, 2007)

The first mistake is taking any internet poll at face value. The section of the population it has participating in is so small any result is scewed regardless of the site so it is best to ignore them totally.

Sites like this tend to be filled with not only technicaly savvy individuals but the true enthusiests that want to max out or get the absolute most out of their system. The side effect is these customers can be demanding and vocal when things don't work the way they want. Look at the slight delay in the patch and the reaction from some for an example.

My 622 has worked nearly flawlessly. I've had an issue with the pause live tv feature skipping back to real time 2 or 3 times but while that is annoying it will get fixed hopfully very soon. Still doesn't take away much from a great machine.


----------



## steveT (Jul 12, 2002)

Aridon said:


> The first mistake is taking any internet poll at face value. The section of the population it has participating in is so small any result is scewed regardless of the site so it is best to ignore them totally.
> 
> Sites like this tend to be filled with not only technicaly savvy individuals but the true enthusiests that want to max out or get the absolute most out of their system. The side effect is these customers can be demanding and vocal when things don't work the way they want. Look at the slight delay in the patch and the reaction from some for an example.
> 
> My 622 has worked nearly flawlessly. I've had an issue with the pause live tv feature skipping back to real time 2 or 3 times but while that is annoying it will get fixed hopfully very soon. Still doesn't take away much from a great machine.


Aridon, I know how you feel, I felt that way with my 721. Just picture though how frustrating it is for the true enthusiasts that visit dbstalk.com, to not be able to watch one hour of TV without 30-40 picture breakups, 20-30 audio dropouts, 5-10 minutes worth of no audio whatsoever, and sound out of only 2 of 5 speakers when it is working. That's how bad it is.


----------



## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

If that is how bad it is for you steveT across all channels then something is wrong with your 622 or something happened during the swap out that is causing issues. Picture breakups in the quantity of 30 to 40 separate times an hours is about a factor of 20 over my experiences. 

If you are mainly having issues on your Dish HD locals, I can understand that and there is some definite localized issues with the Dish HD locals. Based on posts and my personal experience, I believe alot of progress has been made but I also still believe there is still work to be done.

If you are having that extreme of a case and that wide spread. I would suggest trying to root cause. Check your signal strengths at times you are seeing this issue. Look at the specific transponder signals during these break ups. If you are not seeing any jumping around then start looking at possible heat related issues. 

If the quantity of the issues you are seeing is accurate, something is wrong in your install and some trouble shooting is needed. This is not normal. What I suggest is getting some dish readings on the channels that are having the issue and create a detailed thread with your experiences. This way people can provide some feedback. I do remember reading some of your posts, but I don't recall the details of your experiences other than what you are seeing as a viewer. More details of what your box is saying would be helpful here.


----------



## steveT (Jul 12, 2002)

Ron, thanks for the comments. I'm only seeing this level of problem on the locals, but probably 90% of what I watch is the local networks. The few shows I've tried recording on networks like HDNET, for example, have only had audio/video problems ~5-10 times per hour. Actually it seems like the majority of these problems are only on HD channels. Most of the SD channels don't exhibit any of those problems, other than the fact that the overall picture quality on the SD channels is much worse than it was on my 721 (which I still have hooked up, and can compare quality from old DVR recordings...)

Since I haven't received any response yet from that dish quality email address after 9 days, today I'm going to call and demand a replacement receiver (I definitely regret letting the Dish rep talk me into leasing a unit, which I figured would be a refurb, rather than buying a new unit like I've done in the past.)

After I swap it out, I'm going to try checking the readings as you mention. If things don't improve after that, or after L4.01 downloads, then I'm either going to downgrade to a non-HD receiver, or switch to Verizon FIOS. I'll post an update when I have new info. Thanks again for the help.


----------



## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

SteveT...

Thanks for the update... I mentioned this first with the 622 was released and guess it is good to mention now. The Dish HD locals represents a paradigm shift (Moving to MPEG4) with both content delivery and receivers. What I think we are seeing here is growing pains from the shift. Hard to tell if it is in the receiver itself or the stream.. 

Well hopefully L4.01 will arrive and we can level with the latest. I would definitely continue applying pressure to Dish about what you are experiencing but also I would check those strengths and make sure we are not dealing with two issues here. As a test.. Check out HDNet and DiscoveryHD. If you are getting 5 to 10 issues an hour I would think something is wrong. On those channels I rarely see a glitch.


----------



## Cardini (Aug 14, 2002)

I am VERY happy with the 622. Had mine since 2/14/06. I've experienced very minor issues. On the whole its been very stable. There I said it. I dind't come here to complain or ask ofr help. I feel very good now.


----------



## ahmerhussain (Mar 13, 2007)

I have no issues with the 622, but rather DISH issues bewcause of thier lack of support for the features this box may have.

1) The USB is unused, Dish could possibly make a contract with Apple for iPod use, or sue the port for external storage.

2) The lack of use for the Ethernet port, you could probably download the files off the DVR and watch them on your MCE box of Front Row Mac.


----------



## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Actually the USB port is used for PocketDish and will be used for External USB Drive Support. 

As for downloading files off your DVR to a PC. Due to copyright issues, I doubt you will see this being offered by Dish in the near future. 

As for #3. I removed it because of the no bash rule in the support forums.


----------



## rustamust (Feb 22, 2006)

I received my first 622 on 5 Feb. and it worked flawless until 7 Mar. when turned on in AM and pressed guide which only showed about 1/3 of screen and froze up. I did a front panel reboot and it never came on so power cord reboot with same result 3 times. Called Dish and had replacement 9 Mar. took less than 20 mins. to activate and not a single problem since then, no dropouts, no missed or lost timers and I love it. The 211 I have is 14 months old and was only rebooted for audio sync about once a month and still going strong. Both are wired with component and optical, PQ both HD & SD is great.


----------



## steveT (Jul 12, 2002)

Ron Barry said:


> SteveT...
> 
> As a test.. Check out HDNet and DiscoveryHD. If you are getting 5 to 10 issues an hour I would think something is wrong. On those channels I rarely see a glitch.


I did record an hour of HDNet on Monday night, and watched it last night. It exhibited the same major audio dropouts that the local CBS does. Audio goes away completely for a minute or so, during which all you hear is the occasional "bloop". Did that twice in an hour, and the video broke up 4 times in the hour. Forgot to check levels though, which I'll do before replacing it.

So I called Dish about getting the replacement; it took awhile, because now they told me they were aware of the Dallas local problems (last few times they told me they weren't, so maybe enough people have finally complained). No timeframe on resolution. They finally agreed to replace my receiver; 3-5 business days before it gets here, which was surprising. Seems like most people get them in 1-2 days.


----------



## JAMES877 (Mar 14, 2007)

I switch to dish network from time warner cable last week. I am also a former dtv sub(sd only). I can honestly say that the picture quality with the 622 both hd and sd r superior to both twc and dtv. I have a Sony grand wega Kdf-42we655.


----------



## ScottsFJ40 (Feb 27, 2007)

I have also recently switched to Dish. We had Cox for our cable company. The picture quality of both SD and HD are far superior to what Cox provided. As for the 622, it has been working perfectly for just over 1 month now. It is also a far better DVR than the SA 8300 we had with the cable company.


----------

