# Model 721 New Software



## boylehome

Does anyone know what was added to or what has changed in the software with the new release of L177 for the Model 721? Can the DPP Twin now work properly with it?


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## Big Bob

I see that a TV guide logo has been added to the guide


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## Bogey62

I see they screwed up the skip forward 30 second feature -- my 721 now seems to have about a 20 second skip ahead and the still frame advance seems to be quirky now.


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## rathergood

When trying to unprotected a recording, you get a prompt to enter your password. I'd much prefer the prompt to appear when someone tries to stop a protected recording.


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## Big Bob

Bogey62 said:


> I see they screwed up the skip forward 30 second feature -- my 721 now seems to have about a 20 second skip ahead and the still frame advance seems to be quirky now.


That was already broken. The new software did not cause the problem. Though I was hoping that it might solve it. I have been having the same problem for about a week now.


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## Jacob S

I assume this addes the new Dish Home am I right?


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## boylehome

I have noticed that the 721 doesn't self force the EPG data like is used too. Before L177, if my EPG contained old data or the, "No Information" blocks, I could <skip forward> and a bar would appear on the screen indicating the progress of the EPG download. Where did it go?


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## larrystotler

boylehome said:


> I have noticed that the 721 doesn't self force the EPG data like is used too. Before L177, if my EPG contained old data or the, "No Information" blocks, I could <skip forward> and a bar would appear on the screen indicating the progress of the EPG download. Where did it go?


My 721 has never really done that. It would always add to the guide as the hours were used up. I've never noticed it d/l the guide at night either.


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## boylehome

larrystotler said:


> My 721 has never really done that. It would always add to the guide as the hours were used up. I've never noticed it d/l the guide at night either.


I first noticed mine after pulling the power cord to reboot. The EPG data would be for 2 or 4 hours and everything else no info. It was similar looking to the 5xx series.


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## rcwilcox

but does it support DPP Twin?


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## TNGTony

Jacob S said:


> I assume this addes the new Dish Home am I right?


Not on mine yet! I have the newer software but no new dish home

See ya
Tony


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## JohnH

boylehome said:


> I first noticed mine after pulling the power cord to reboot. The EPG data would be for 2 or 4 hours and everything else no info. It was similar looking to the 5xx series.


It helps if you give it time to download the EPG data after doing a reboot.


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## rlegan

Well, I have not tried the single coax(with splitter) to a DPP twin, however, I see they have fixed an annoyance with a single coax (with splitter) to DPP 44 to DPP Twin. I used to have red marks and would get errors when exitting Check Switch. Now everything, that should be green is green and no more errors when exitting from Check Switch.


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## johnfmc345

This upgrade turned on the option to order HBO etc. thru the remote. You can now check your bill with the remote. To access the feature just go into the guide and go to a movie channel you don't subcribe to and hit select. It doesn't work from Dish home. I also noticed that under Dish Home we have lost several applications: Play-in Games and Sporting News. Hopefully when the new Dish Home comes all the features will work. I'd like to see the 6 screen view of the TBS games.


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## larrystotler

rcwilcox said:


> but does it support DPP Twin?


Unfortunately, I don't have one handy to check. And, I don't have my recevier even hooked up to take the download.


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## steveT

The L177 seems to be a major downgrade. My 721 has been working fine for over a year (I bought it soon after it was released, over 2 years ago now). Why did they mess with the FF and Rewind? The 4X FF has always been smooth, very easy to scan forward through content. Now it's choppy, like you're only getting a few frames per second. Why did they downgrade this feature?

The only other major change I can see (other than the strange placement of the "TV Guide" logo in the program guide), is the addition of "PVR history". Just why did they add a feature where I can see titles of programs I've already watched and deleted? That seems to be a complete waste of a programmer's time. What use is it?


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## ericha

I've noticed several things in L177:

-The skip foward now seems to be about 40 seconds, and the skip back is about 10 seconds (instead of ~32 & 8)

-The above mentioned TV Guide logo

-If channel 101 is locked, you can no longer get to it just by pushing the Dish Home button on the remote (you have to type in the password now)

-The games that used to be available in Dish Home are no longer there--you get a message that says they aren't available in this receiver yet!


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## larrystotler

steveT said:


> The only other major change I can see (other than the strange placement of the "TV Guide" logo in the program guide), is the addition of "PVR history". Just why did they add a feature where I can see titles of programs I've already watched and deleted? That seems to be a complete waste of a programmer's time. What use is it?


It might have been the start of NBR & suggestions and they deceded not to implement the rest.


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## ericha

Oh, one other thing--it also appears that the frame advance & skip back now is a longer interval. I haven't carefully characterized this, but it seems to be an entire group of pictures, instead of one frame.


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## PaulB

The behavior when you have a channel paused and there are two timers set to record has changed. In the past you would get a screen prompting you for a decision on which tuners to use, and no matter what you selected one of the timers wouldn't record. Now it automatically drops you out of the paused channel and records both timers. Not sure if it prompted anything on the screen at the time since I was trying to get the kids to bed. As far as I am concerned this is a major improvement.


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## finniganps

PaulB said:


> The behavior when you have a channel paused and there are two timers set to record has changed. In the past you would get a screen prompting you for a decision on which tuners to use, and no matter what you selected one of the timers wouldn't record. Now it automatically drops you out of the paused channel and records both timers. Not sure if it prompted anything on the screen at the time since I was trying to get the kids to bed. As far as I am concerned this is a major improvement.


I'll have to check this. If it's true, I agree, major improvement!


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## JohnMI

That would indeed be nice. I have that problem all the time actually.

On a side note, to mention it, I have L177 and have done quite a bit of jump-forward, jump-back timing. Mine appears to be what it has been: about 31-32 seconds forward and about 7-8 seconds backward.

Not sure why this is different for different people. Weird.

Also, I'm not sure how long this has been around since I hadn't pushed this button in a long time, but... On the remote, there is a red button (opposite the Dish Home button) that I'm not sure what it is supposed to be for. I know that, a long time ago, it did nothing. Now, it seems to do the PIP ON stuff except with an extra option. The PIP button rotates through three modes: off, small window, and large window. However, if I use the red button, it is like PIP except it has a fourth mode: a small picture of a TV (which I can see through) is put up instead -- with no actual picture in it. But, it keeps the second tuner active and valid like PIP normally does. So, you can swap to it -- keep things paused in it without losing the pause/position -- and so on. Very convenient!

Anyone know how long that has been possible? Probably not L177 specific -- but certainly new to me. Last time I pressed that button was probably like a year ago. heh.

- John...


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## larrystotler

The red button's ability to swap between 2 buffered tuners has been around since last year's L172 I think.


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## steveT

I haven't seen any change in the length of the new jump-forward and jump-back either (also about 31-sec forward and 7-sec back).

It's the nature of the 4X Forward and Frame advance that's changed. The 4X used to be very smooth, clearly keeping enough of the video frames in order to show fluid motion. Now it's choppy, like it's only keeping a few frames per second in the 4X scan. It makes it much more difficult to visually scan through material.

The frame advance is a downgrade as well. The frames are all there; why won't Dish let us see them in the Frame advance anymore? 

To me L177 just doesn't make any sense at all. Why can't Dish just come out and tell their customers what's in a software release, what features are being changed and why? At least then maybe I could see the justification for the downgrade.


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## JohnMI

steveT said:


> I haven't seen any change in the length of the new jump-forward and jump-back either (also about 31-sec forward and 7-sec back).


Yes, but several others said that they did have a change there -- I was referring to that. Just so there is no confusion. 



> The frame advance is a downgrade as well. The frames are all there; why won't Dish let us see them in the Frame advance anymore?


This has always been messed up for me. Frame advance seems to commonly skip frames -- and when I try to go backwards, it commonly does huge jumps and/or gets confused about where it is (i.e. one step back goes back several seconds sometimes -- but one step forward from there puts it back where it was plus one frame!)



> To me L177 just doesn't make any sense at all. Why can't Dish just come out and tell their customers what's in a software release, what features are being changed and why? At least then maybe I could see the justification for the downgrade.


Agreed. Plus, didn't the recent announcement about the multiple screen viewing in Dish Home specifically say that it supported the 721?? I'm tired of announced features that don't exist...

- John...


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## Bogey62

PaulB said:


> The behavior when you have a channel paused and there are two timers set to record has changed. In the past you would get a screen prompting you for a decision on which tuners to use, and no matter what you selected one of the timers wouldn't record. Now it automatically drops you out of the paused channel and records both timers. Not sure if it prompted anything on the screen at the time since I was trying to get the kids to bed. As far as I am concerned this is a major improvement.


Yes, I complained about that several times here and also to csr/techs at Dish, but they acted as if they never heard of the problem before (surprise). I gave at least two techs a detailed description of how to easily reproduce this bug, maybe it actually payed off? One csr actually told me that the "bug" was how the function was supposed to work! LOL.


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## Brikp

OK - this just started happening. I'm on SW 177 (Did my problems start 
with 176-177, I suspect so!) 


I'm not even sure where to start in describing the problem. 


Black screen, press guide, the channel highlighted is front panel 
input. Change channel, banner says 77 unk Unknown record channel or 
some such thing. 


This seems to be related to trying to record two shows at once. 


Once its not recording, watching live TV seems fine but I'm not 
absolutely sure of this yet. 


When I have this black screen and two timers fire one will record for 
just a couple of minutes, the other will record fine but not show a 
picture! 


yea, front panel reset, pulled card, etc. First Dish CSR said I had bad 
cables! HA 

Suggestions? Comments?


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## leemathre

I had a similar problem with my 721 several months ago. It was a bad tuner and Dish replaced the receiver.


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## Brikp

leemathre said:


> I had a similar problem with my 721 several months ago. It was a bad tuner and Dish replaced the receiver.


Did you have the extended warranty or did they do this becasue you were such a good, long time, customer?


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## leemathre

Brikp said:


> Did you have the extended warranty or did they do this becasue you were such a good, long time, customer?


I did not have the extended warranty. I guess they consider me a good customer.


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## Brikp

Well - I called Dish network again this AM. Went through the various troubleshooting steps. The rep said that others had reported same situation with model 721 and the 177 SW release. He was adding my steps used to recreate to the existing case and said they were working on a SW fix and that it was a known issue. He was able to gave me a two week credit on my bill starting the date I first started experiencing the problem. I told me to keep an eye out for the fix but did not have an ETA. I told him I would call back in 2 weeks (When my credit was over) if a fix had not been applied. I asked about a new receiver, he said, "no, you will have the same problem with a new receiver". he seems to say this with some authority and seemed certain the issue was on their side and a fix would come from them at some point.

Here is how I was able to recreate the problem today....

tune to channel 200
hit PIP
hit swap
tune to cspan
hot swap
(here I do not remember exactly what I did, hit guide probably or possibly nothing)
Main screen was black, PIP still played.
Hit swap, no response.
hit guide (guide opens, channel highlighted was channel 0, front panel input) guide video was black.
cancel
banner shows channel 77, center program info says "unknown record"
banner goes away, PIP still remains, cant switch to PIP
hit guide again
select a different channel
guide goes away
banner shows channel 77, center program info says "unknown record"
banner goes away, PIP still remains, cant switch to PIP
I can watch a recorded program, no problem

This weirdness also seems to happen when two recordings are scheduled.

Anyone else have this starting with L177? According to Dish, others have this problem too! Anyone ever heard of this common issue process?


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## derwin0

since the upgrade, my 721 decided to go screwy.
I was using a DPP Seperator to run 1 line to the DPP-44 switch.
Now, tuner 1 would not see any channels on transponder 16 of 110 (my Atlanta locals). tuner 2 would though.
I replaced all the cables, but still no go.
But when I removed the Seperator, and ran 2 lines to the DPP-44, I got transponder 16 on both tuners.


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## rcwilcox

But what about DPP twin support? Doesn't anyone know?


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## belador

rcwilcox said:


> But what about DPP twin support? Doesn't anyone know?


I just got my 721 hooked up to this LNB with the steperator a couple weeks ago...you have to make sure that the 721 has the L177 already loaded otherwise you have to do what I did, run a cable from the LNB ****DIRECTLY**** into the input 2 of the 721, let it take the upgrade, reboot it, rewire the inputs, do the switch check and it's all set.


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## rcwilcox

Thanks for the post. So you are using a DPP twin with seperator not a DPP44? Do you have a wing satellite hooked to the twin? ie 61.5?


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## belador

rcwilcox said:


> Thanks for the post. So you are using a DPP twin with seperator not a DPP44? Do you have a wing satellite hooked to the twin? ie 61.5?


That is correct.

No wing satellite thou.


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