# No Name Based Recording for 921 or older Dish DVRs (as of right now...)



## Mark Lamutt

OK, so most of you by now have probably heard the rumors coming primarily from SatelliteGuys that the 921 will not be getting name based recording...

If you feel the need to discuss the rumors, please keep them contained in this thread. 

I've already sent out the messages to most of the people that I have contact with looking for confirmation or denial. I will post as I can what I hear.


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## Scott Greczkowski

Mark thank you for looking into this.

Just for the record here is a FULL copy of the email I was sent by Dish Network. (Mark you can edit the headers if you wish, I just want to show this is a real email) 



> Return-path: <[email protected]>
> Envelope-to: [email protected]
> Delivery-date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 15:26:01 -0500
> Received: from satellit by main.satelliteguys.us with local-bsmtp (Exim 4.43)
> id 1Cf2CW-0006Sp-6x
> for [email protected]; Thu, 16 Dec 2004 15:26:01 -0500
> Received: from [204.76.128.253] (helo=mailout3.echostar.com)
> by main.satelliteguys.us with esmtp (Exim 4.43)
> id 1Cf2CV-0006Sk-Q5
> for [email protected]; Thu, 16 Dec 2004 15:25:53 -0500
> Received: by riv-exchcon.echostar.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
> id <Y59HWRYY>; Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:26:13 -0700
> Message-ID: <[email protected]>
> From: DishChat <[email protected]>
> To: "'[email protected]'" <[email protected]>
> Cc: DishChat <[email protected]>
> Subject: FW: Question for the chat
> Date: Thu, 16 Dec 2004 13:26:11 -0700
> X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19)
> X-Antivirus-Scanner: Clean mail though you should still use an Antivirus
> X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.0.1 (2004-10-22) on
> main.satelliteguys.us
> X-Spam-Level:
> X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.5 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,HTML_80_90,
> HTML_MESSAGE autolearn=ham version=3.0.1
> X-Antivirus: AVG for E-mail 7.0.296 [265.5.4]
> Mime-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=======AVGMAIL-41C1F5786A3B======="
> 
> *Scott,*
> 
> *At this time, there are no plans **to** upgrade 921 receivers with Name Based recording. This feature will be implemented in 522 and all DVR receivers going forward*
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> DC
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> *From:* Scott Greczkowski [mailto:[email protected]]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, December 15, 2004 10:59 AM
> *To:* DishChat
> *Subject:* Question for the chat
> 
> 
> 
> On an earlier chat this year it was announced that the 921 would also be getting Name Based Recording and it was announced this would happen before the end of the year.
> 
> 
> 
> So the question is when will the 921 get name based recording?
> 
> Also when will channel 6045 be made available to subscribers? This is the Sirius Rap Channel.
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Scott
> Nationwide Satellite


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## TNGTony

So I guess us 721 owners are screwed too. Oh well!

See ya
Tony


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## kzosat

Ya know, as much as I want NBR, I also see problems with it since the guide is wrong half the time anyways and I end up recording X-mas specials (parts of them) instead of my show.


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## mwgiii

My problem, if this is true, is the way Dish treats its "high-end" customers.

I don't have a problem with the firewire. I wasn't planning on archiving.

I don't have a problem with the 921 price drop, that happens in electronics (even though an almost 50% drop hurts my feelings).

I do have a major problem with having to subscribe to locals to get guide data when I can get my HD locals OTA.

I do have a major problem not getting NBR. 

The 921 is Dish's "flagship" receiver. Most of its users have AEP + HD pack (I also have the Multi-sport pack and additional receiver fee plus ESPN Gameplan and several PPVs per month). But the 921 is treated by Dish like a "red-headed step-child". The lowly 111 receiver has better software (Open TV).

This whole ordeal is leaving a very bad taste in my mouth. I understand Dish needing to add new subscribers, but it will take 5 or more new subscribers to at AT60 to equal what I pay if/when I head out the door.


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## Scott Greczkowski

I am now seriously believing this is NOT a rumor. I have spoken to a few Echostar emplyees who do not want to be identified who have confirmed the news.

Also the fact that Mark has not posted anything from his contacts speaks volumes to me. The silence speaks many words.

It is now Noon so for the benifit of all Dish Network DVR owners I have decided to get an official statement from Echostar on this matter. I have sent the below email down to the press folks at Echostar asking for a statement.

I will post whatever they send back.



> Good morning guys,
> 
> On the March Edition of the Consumer Tech chat it was stated that "Name Based Recording" would be available on ALL Dish Network DVRs by this summer (2004)
> 
> Yesterday Name Based recording was made available to the 522.
> 
> I sent in an email asking when we would see Name Based Recording on the 921 and was sent back the following response.
> 
> "Scott,
> At this time, there are no plans to upgrade 921 receivers with Name Based recording. This feature will be implemented in 522 and all DVR receivers going forward"
> 
> Would you please clarify what's going on an issue a statement on the future of name based recordings on all Dish Network DVR's.
> 
> I look forward to your replies, Happy Holidays!
> 
> Scott


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## tweaver999

I agree 100% ... I have almost all that Dish offers, I have been a user/tester of the 921 for 9 months now. The 921 should be a leading factor for all of their high-end customers... yet they seem to put it last on the list of priorities along with the 921 customers... To have their top-of-line product still not stable enough for 75% of their best customers trust its function... is mis-management and terrible PR. I have pretty much given up that the 921 will ever be better than what it is now... Tivo/DirectTV look to be the way we are being forced to go. I have stayed with E* ONLY because I have all of the remote networks from NY and LA. The 2 tuner concept was a plus.... BUT, I am very close( I have started the conversion process ) to giving up and going thru the remote locals approval process again and I WILL by 2 Tivo/HD recorders if I really decide this is something I need to do. I still have my older ReplayTV SD recorders and from the guide to their superior recording functions( by theme,name,time,etc), plus "commercial advance" , the 4 year software is so much better than the 921 it is pitiful. Tell Charlie that. I am going to try and email this to E* also... not that it will do ANY good.

tom weaver


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## Mark Lamutt

Confirmed from my sources as well.  

Of course, you all well know that Dish management has changed their minds before, should the upswell among users be strong enough...


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## Scott Greczkowski

Thank you Mark for working on this. I appreciate the time you spent.

As much as I may have looked like an ass, I was really hoping you would have came back with a different answer.

The question is what do we do now...


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## Mark Lamutt

Me too, Scott! 

Upswell is what the users do, to the standard email addresses, phone numbers, etc. Be heard!


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## Mark Lamutt

BUT, I want to pass along something else before everyone assumes that this means that the 921 is dead. IT'S NOT DEAD! I've been told parts of the 921 development plan for the coming year, and there is an extensive list of bug fixes (obviously) AND NEW FEATURES that are planned out until at least the end of Q3 of 2005. 921 development is not stopping dead here as soon as the L211 bugs are fixed. It will be continuing for at least the next 9 months.

We've lost NBR (for now anyways), but we haven't yet lost the 921.


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## AVJohnnie

Scott Greczkowski said:


> The question is what do we do now...


Do without, I suppose...


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## cleblanc

This is the last straw for me. This is on top of the local guide fiasco which we have not gotten back any official response from Dish. They even deny a problem exists. I have sent numerous emails to Dish about this and have gotten no response. I don't expect that they will ever publicly acknowledge the local guide issue or what they intend to do, nor do I expect they will admit that NBR is a dead issue on the 921. Especially after they promised it on a tech chat. They have really treated the 921 owners very shabbily and I don't even see any new HD channels on the horizon. What really pisses me off is they always have room for international channels and the ability to upgrade the cheapest low-level receivers. I will be switching my service as soon as I can and give my $100 a month that I pay elsewhere. This is very disheartening to me since I have been with Dish since the beginning with a model 2000 receiver.


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## mwgiii

Well, I sent an e-mail to ceo, Charlie, & Jim Defranco.

I doubt it will help, but at least it makes me feel better that I tried to do everything I could do before I look at other options.

BTW, my e-mail was very similar to my post above.


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## mwsmith2

Mark Lamutt said:


> Upswell is what the users do, to the standard email addresses, phone numbers, etc. Be heard!


Yeah, it just *sucks *that we have to stage a revolt to get what they promised. :nono2: I've lurked in these forums since last november, but I can't see for the life of my why we have to scream bloody murder to get what they said they would give us.

Mamma always told me "Say what you are gonna do, then do it".

I think I need to send my maw over to dish and have her yank on their ear.

Michael


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## Scott Greczkowski

Its unfortunate that Dish Network treats its loyal customers this way.

No one forced them to go on the tech chat and announce that NBR was coming to ALL DVR's, they went on TV and did it on their own.

Its also unfortune that if we want them to listen we must yell at them, sending them email may or may not work, it is easy for them to delete messages they don't want to answer. (Which just shows how much they value you as a customer)

I suggest that perhaps its time we get the press involved.

I urge everyone to email [email protected] who is the editor of SkyReport. In your email to Michael Hopkins tell him why your upset, give facts and figures and tell him why you are upset, also tell him you are a SatelliteGuys or DBSTalk member.

Let's get the PRESS alerted to whats going on here.

We have the voices when we use them all together then listen to how loud we can yell.


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## DonLandis

Complain all you want but the reality is you speak with your $. As long as the constant back peddling on promisses made continue to have no affect on their revenue stream, they will continue to stop fixes one by one until they see a decline in revenue. 
Mark while I respect what you have told us you have been told by E* will be in the works for the coming year, what guarantee have they given you what they told you is not just more of the same promises that will be broken when they decide to? 
As you know, from the beginning I never believed they would have OTA guide data that works and certainly not NBR like the TIVO for the 921. It was just to fool us into buying into it and waiting for them to offer. 

The fact of life as a DishNetwork early adopter is becoming very clear- If you want what they dish out to you, then continue sending in your money. Be a sucker for the 942 as well. If you want TIVO like features, don't buy an E* receiver and wait for them to keep their promises. Just buy the TIVO and be done with it.

Scott, you have the right idea, get the press involved. This must begin to affect their PR credibility. 

All I can say is everything they have done since the Dishwire fiasco has given me assurance to make radical changes to my DBS budget for next year. I don't know what I will be keeping at this point but it will be about 10% of what I am paying them now. At this point the cost of adding more HD capacity to my TIVO makes far more sense than keeping my Dish AEP. The change for me will take place shortly after CES.


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## SAEMike

What do we do now?

Cable, cable cable. 

Too bad DirecTV is not an option up here.


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## Scott Greczkowski

Don,

I agree that you should vote with your $$$ however I also feel that if you just leave Dish you are not making a big enough differnce. Dish will just sign up another customer to take your place and treat them the same way. No sweat off their back and they will even laugh at you and tell you if you want to come back it will cost you $25 for the privilidge.

I think getting the press involved is the best way because now the word gets out of whats really going on and future customers thinking about Dish Network may think twice about signing up.

I also want to mention one thing and I hope no one comes down on Mark Lamutt for any of this, I don't believe you will see him as vocal as me about this. He has too much going on to be the loudmouth, me on the other hand has always spoken my mind and I have no problem whatsoever about telling the truth of whats going on and I am not affraid of offending or upsetting anyone at Dish Network with my comments, as I am not out to make friends at Dish, I am here to help other consumers get the most from their satellite service.


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## David_Levin

Maybe Dish figures that it'll take another 6 month to get NBR, and 6 months after that they'll be swapping out 921's for MPEG4 boxes.

of course, I think it'll probably end up 2-3 years before we see any mpeg4, and will therefore be using our 921's for awhile yet.

My dream has an mpeg4 card for the 921 (but then my dream also has DishWire, a 2nd hard drive in the 921 expansion bay, and NBR).

Thanks Echostar, you never cease to disappointment.


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## tech_head

Hi,

I guess, I be cancelling my 921 purchase. Install is suppoed to happen tomorrow.
It sucks and I've told Dish that to screw current loyal customers is not a good thing.
NBR is, if available on the 522; makes it available to new customers only. If you are an existing customer you can't get a 522 from Dish.

Thanks, Dish for the screw job.

Tech


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## DonLandis

Right, Scott- actually, I was trying to point out both are needed.
I do hope we get together at CES. Maybe we can at the AVS party if there is one. Should be interesting hearing the story of MPEG4 from those at Dish who took such a strong position against it last year.


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## xsailor

I realize this a another broken promise but for me a minor one. I have never used nbr so therefore I don't miss it. It would be nice to have but again very minor. What I really want to OTA downmapping for (1) neighboring DMA's and (2) not requiring locals subscription (like the 811). Hopefully "coming soon"!


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## Skates

Well, when this whole 921 fiasco started, I cautiously went ahead with my 921 purchase with the idea that it would be the last piece of Dish equipment I would buy for quite a while.

I decided to sit back and see what happens over the next year or two. That's what I'm doing. And every day it just gets worse.

I have to admit I hadn't really looked at HD receivers from the cable companies, but I've now seen Comcast's and Time Warner's offerings, and both those boxes are impressive. Heck, even my girlfriend's DVR from Time Warner does NBR (a Scientific Atlanta box).

So I say to Dish...we all have our limit. Push us too far and there are other options...


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## Scott Greczkowski

Just got this from Marc Lumpkin of Echostar



> Hi Scott, yes, we plan to implement name-based recording on new DVRs going forward and will include that software feature with the 522 DVR. We will have several new DVR models available in 2005. Stay tuned for more info on those.


To which I have replied back...



> What about the older models, 921, 721 and 50x series? These were all mentioned on the Tech Chat in March as getting this feature. Does this mean those plans have been dropped?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Scott


I will post any reply I get when I get it.


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## moviegoerman

Mark Lamutt said:


> BUT, I want to pass along something else before everyone assumes that this means that the 921 is dead. IT'S NOT DEAD!
> {snip}
> 921 development is not stopping dead here as soon as the L211 bugs are fixed. It will be continuing for at least the next 9 months.
> {snip}
> We've lost NBR (for now anyways), but we haven't yet lost the 921.


Mark,

I've been listening to you since I got my 921 in July... My claims back then that the 921 will never amount to anything but a bunch of bugs has been proven more and more in the days since the L211 post. The 921 was DEAD before it even shipped. It was never completed to the specifications listed on the box or the sold vaporware from the Charlie Chats!

I speculated that the OTA guide would never be implemented properly. You said, "oh, but it will... just WAIT!". You had weeks of playing with the OTA guide implementation and said it was going to be great! Let's just say, the OTA guide implementation that was implemented was a total HACK and does not give you a true OTA guide for your local channels. I'm still not sure how you can't see these issues before it's released, but I know you've done your best to find them.

You've also made claims on all the previous threads that we will be getting named based recording SOON (since I've been listening in July). Now, we find out that NBR is just like OTA guides and the infamous Firewire port.

You keep people hanging on to the product and get people to run out and get more of them when even yourself has shown that you've not been happy with the recent events (forced LIL subscriptions and OTA guide implementation). I'm not sure why you didn't see this coming since you do get all the code to ALPHA test weeks or months before it's given to us BETA testers! That's right, Beta testers... I don't feel like we're treated as customers. Especially, not customers that have paid over $1000 to get this product.

I've waited months (from July to December) to see if your claims that they would fix the 921 were actually true. Now, they've dropped the NBR feature, created a half baked OTA guide that requires you to subscribe to locals, and it is got more bugs than L288 in some areas. The 921 is still a very buggy box and doesn't perform up to a high end HD DVR. I know because my Tivo 10-250 does perform, does have OTA guides supported, and does have NBR.

I can understand your loyalty to Dish and you've been very helpful to the forum in answering many questions. I'm sure plenty of people appreciate all your efforts (as do I). However, I don't feel like we're being told the truth all the time. Actually, it seems you're having trouble telling us what you really think lately for fear of upsetting your relationship with Dish which I can totally understand. I think at a minimum we all expect to be told the truth even if it hurts. But, at the same time, all the recent truth has brought out is that we've been lied to the entire time.

You're claim today is we've lost NBR and Firewire and who knows what will be done with the OTA guide implementation... I'm sure OTA guide is probably one of the things on the list to do since it has not been well received at all. You're biggest claim is the 921 isn't dead yet. You say it's got 9 more months of life (at least).

My GOSH MAN! 9 months left after it's been release for 1 year (still buggy as hell) is ridiculous. Basically, it is DEAD! My claims still remain the same. Customers should not expect anything but bugs from the 921 because the Eldon team is a very poor development staff directed by very poor management. Actions speak louder than words and they can't get anything to work without breaking something else. I still claim that NBR will never come to the 921. I still claim that the OTA guide won't be fixed anytime soon. It will always be a half-baked solution causing all the 921 customers grief.

All I can see for the 921 is a more releases to correct the obvious flood of bugs. I don't see any new features being implemented. Especially, if you say new features are the ones we've been promised 2-3 years ago when the 921 was first started being talked about.

So, the hope over the next 2-3 years is too look forward to a VERY dead box once Dish decides to implement MPEG4 because they don't have the money to do that right and put up enough satellites to support the HD bandwidth.

Dish is constantly nickle and dimming it's customers while at the same time providing less and less as it promised to it's high end customers. For myself, the 921 has been a disaster. I think most of the people at Dish know it's a disaster but will never admit it publicly. Then again, maybe they have... They lowered the price from $1000 to $500 because it hasn't been selling like it should and everyone has complained about spending that much for a very buggy box. At $500 it is costing Dish money to produce the box! Their actions seem to show that they don't even care about fixing the 921, or worse, they just have no clue how to fix the problem. All they want to do is dump it and move on.

Dish is so focused on increasing SD locals. How does that look for a company saying it's a leader in HD. Lots of talk with plenty of hot air. Their actions say, "We're going to build our SD locals because most of the people that subscribe don't want HD, don't want a 921, and don't have the money to be on the bleeding edge..." i.e. We're not going to focus on the minority of our customer base (i.e. 921, HD, high end consumers) because we just don't make enough money off of them. It's not cost justifiable to dump more money into a losing box. It's better to kill it and come out with a cheaper one. Let's face it, Dish did a good job marketing the 921 but a very poor job on delivering what they sold. They prevented me from leaving on the HOPES of the 921 future to come...

DirecTV on the other hand, said very little about it's HD solution, but delivered a very stable, reliable and fully functional DUAL OTA/Satellite HD DVR to market. Their actions speak volumes compared to Dish's talk.

I've been a VERY happy customer with my DirecTV Tivo (10-250). Yes, it's got a slower guide. But the damn thing works! There's plenty to be said for not watching jitter pictures, missing timers, screwed up guide information, and on and on and on... I've also notice the guide on L211 is much slower than L288. Not sure why, but it must have something to do with the OTA HACKS! The only appealing portion of the 921 was a fast guide. Lacking fast and proper OTA guide information just keeps the 921 on the track as the 2nd most screwed up receiver (compared to the 6000 and all it's bugs that customers have had to deal with).

I whole heartedly expect Dish to quietly fix the 921 and promote a replacement receiver to solve the problems and deliver what was originally promised. I don't expect anything new from the 921. I'd be happy if it just did what it was supposed to do out of the box, but I think I'm hoping for too much. I lost hope after seeing the overhyped L211 release.

At this point, I expect to use my 921 as an additional OTA tuner until I'm ready to throw it off the roof. That will probably happen in 2005 after I feel I got some of the use out of it for the money I put into it.

I feel the best leader in the market today for HD is DirecTV. I'd like to say Voom is there, but they don't have a DVR and they don't have the money to really grow into a future leader. Dish is continuing to show it's customers they aren't ready for HD and they have decided to go to the lower/mid range market because they know it's a large revenue stream that they can get for very little cost. They've already mastered the legalalites of licensing local networks in SD. Too bad they aren't doing anything for local HD channels.

I know you're probably going to disagree with most of what I'm saying. I know you have an interest in protecting Dish and the 921. I respect your position and what you do. I don't however feel that the 921 is alive and kicking. It's more like flopping and dying before it ever left the hospital. Someone needs to just pull the plug on the life support system. I disagree with most of your claims in the past and I feel I've been proven right. I'd like to think Dish will come around and make good with their high end customers, but I just don't see it happening. I don't feel they are wanting to be the leader in HD like they used to be the leader in satellite TV years ago. They were known for better quality, cheaper prices, and better support. They've lost everything they were ahead in. Their receivers are lower quality, cost more, and support is non-existent (from Dish representatives).

I would like to see my 921 just work without having to worry about it. I'd like to see the features that were sold out of the box to be implemented. I'd like not to feel I'm being lied to anymore. Just tell us the truth and let's move on. *The 921 is DEAD!*


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## mwgiii

moviegoerman,

Mark has been doing an outstanding job for us (the consumer). He cannot disclose everything he knows because he is under a confidentiality agreement with Dish. I am sure that there is some form of penalty if he goes too far in his remarks.

My opinion is Dish tells Mark that a problem or feature will be fixed, but then Dish changes their mind and Mark is blindsided by Dish's actions.

Remember, Mark is just the middle man and tells us what he can. I think sometimes Dish jerks him around as much or more than Dish jerks their customers around.


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## Mark Lamutt

Brian, actually I don't disagree with most of what you just said (in a very long-winded fashion...) 

I tell you what I can, when I can, and yes, a good amount of it is what I'm told myself. I did hype L211 because for me it was, and continues to be the MOST stable release that my 921 has ever seen. I sit here dumfounded, with no idea why your 921s aren't running as well as mine is. For the life of me, I can't get mine to show the jittery video, can't get any of my OTA stations to fail, and can't get mine to spontaneously delete my recorded events. And I've been trying every night since these things started coming up. Maybe I don't have the same 921 as you all do. Maybe mine's a pre-production unit that was built better than yours were. I just don't know.

And I say that the 921 isn't dead yet because there are scheduled 7 or 8 more software releases for it. If it were completely dead, we'd see one more then that'd be that. 

I was as surprised as all of you today when I got the confirmation about the NBR not coming to the 921 and the rest of the older DVRs. I'm pissed about it just like the rest of you are because that's the one thing that I've personally wanted for a very long time. But, I'm a little less emotional about it than Scott is, and certainly less emotional about it than a lot of you are. That's partly my nature, and partly because I'm doing a job here (or at least still trying to...)


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## Scott Greczkowski

7 or 8 releases in 9 months? How many software releases have they done in the last year?


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## tech_head

Hi All,

I'm new to the forum.
I'm a hardware engineer (ASIC) and have done software in the past.

It's amazing to me that a company that has a box based on Linux can't get it right. The only reason that I have decided not to cancel my 921 install is because, if nothing else I want the capacity. On the other hand it is reprehensible that a company will sell a box and will reserve features for new subscribers while blowing off the existing customer base.

Like cell phones, it's not cheap to acquire a new customer. The cost of getting a new customer can be figured out by what a company charges for early temination. I suspect that Dish has a lot of customers like me that have no further obligation to stay a customer.
So my guess, is, like the cable companies, until they get a mass exodus from loyal customers they won't get a clue.

With that being said, I have looked at the options and will continue to do so. I plan to keep Dish for now, but I dumped cable out of my house two years ago because I didn't like being bent over. 

Kent


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## dtanderson

DirecTV is starting look better everyday  I was happy with Dish but with each passing day, I am leaning more toward switching. The fee per PVR instead of account, no name based recording, etc...


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## Scott Greczkowski

I just got this back from Marc Lumpkin



> The focus is on the new models going forward.


My question to him was...



> What about the older models, 921, 721 and 50x series? These were all mentioned on the Tech Chat in March as getting this feature. Does this mean those plans have been dropped?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Scott


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## TowJumper

Mark:

You are doing an excellent job. I have likewise seen very little problems with my 4 month old 921 since 2.11. The last release was a godsend for me in that my wife can see locals OTA in the guide and get the guide data (we have locals via sat) remaped for her easy access. Prior to 2.11 she never watched her shows in HD OTA, now she does regularly.

HOWEVER, NBR not coming to my 921 and 721 - the top-of-the-line that I can BUY, is simply a horrible business decision. Dish needs to be careful here because as more and more local DMAs broadcast the HD (or even just digital) OTA signals at full power, we do not need Dish locals and alternatives like Voom and DTV become much more appealing. 

It used to be the case that since analog OTA sucked so badly, Dish needed to have the locals for market penetration, now, since Digital TV OTA looks MUCH BETTER (!) than Dish locals via satellite, and are easier to receive in perfect quality, than the old analog, consumers will be happy to migrate from Dish and to its competitors because Sat locals will not mean squat. Since locals have been Charlie's one horse show - he will be in trouble. Thats why Charlie talks about HD Locals, but the numbers can not add up for him to deliver it - no freakling way, and why bother if HD OTA is available by then. He is going to need to learn a new act.

For example, I have two stations in my tiny DMA that deliver Digital OTA (often HD) MUCH better than my Dish Locals. Two others do digital but at limited power. I imagine within a year, we will have no use for Sat Locals. And this is in a 100+ DMA i.e. small city. We will be perfectly free to go with Direct or Voom (if they last that long) and tell Charlie to go jump - my run with Dish from '96 will have run out. 

Going to be interesting to see this one playout, I doubt I will be able to watch it on my 921 though.


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## Altaman

What I don't understand here is that consumers in the U.S. are allowing this to happen to them. Things like the firewire not being implemented, OTA not working as advertised, NBR that was promoted but now apparently not coming.

The U.S.A is known as the lawsuit capital of the world, why are you people allowing it to happen? Get a class-action lawsuit going to get your money back on undelivered functionality! This is one area where it seems the consumers of E* have an excellent case, why not fight them? It does not matter that you paid $1000 or $100, they advertise a product and they have a responsibility to provide it.

That being said, at least you american's have a HD-PVR...as a Bell Expressvu customer, I can't get one for anything and it looks like we won't for some time to come. If E* is going to be promoting new HD recievers at CES, you can bet that people are not going to buy a lame duck 942 either in the U.S. nor in Canada.

Alt


----------



## mwgiii

The only people who make money in a class-action lawsuit are the lawyers. That is why they always file them.

If Dish settled for $25 million, the lawyers would get $8 to $12 million and 5 million Dish customers would split the rest. 5 PPV coupons.


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## Cyclone

I think that the bigger picture here is that Dish is going to move forward with plans to replace all of the existing STBs Further development of these receivers is a expense that their plans are at odds with.

I for one do not feel screwed. I never expected a good NBR system for the 921/721. I did think that it was going to happen for the 501/508/510 just because there are so many of them. But if Dish is going to a "lease" business model for STBs, and they want to migrate their entire customer base to MPEG-4 hardware (both SD & HD), then they are going to start the move to cut the expenses to existing hardware to a "maintence" plan. Just bug fixes and finishing up loose ends. 

I know some may claim NBR to be a Dish Advertised feature, but it realy wasn't. It was never listed in ads or press releases. Just a mention on a tech forum show, which we all know has about as much weight as 50 HD superdish channels. 

I just hope that the 921 does finally get its OpenTV support.


----------



## ClaudeR

TowJumper said:


> Mark:
> 
> You are doing an excellent job. I have likewise seen very little problems with my 4 month old 921 since 2.11. The last release was a godsend for me in that my wife can see locals OTA in the guide and get the guide data (we have locals via sat) remaped for her easy access. Prior to 2.11 she never watched her shows in HD OTA, now she does regularly.


My wife would watch the OTA HD if it wasn't jittery - she has to wath the dish SAT feed in SD :nono2:

Mark, I'm a dish and 921 newbie, but I have followed the follies over the years, we all know that it takes a few years for dish to get software somewhat reliable. It would be AMAZING if the MPEG4 tuners showed up in 2005, so I can see myself getting at least my 1 year commitment out of it. With a PCI bus, they can add whatever they want. I am mostly pleased with the box, but only because I paid $200. If it was any more money, I would have a 522 now.

Too bad there is not enough HD content yet.


----------



## sgt940

Ok, I have not posted my bugs as I thought 211 was the answer to all problems, under 189 my unit was very stable, under 211 the manual stop does not work, the caller id stops working until a reboot and last night I had a call while watching a HD OTA program and after 20 minutes tried to back up to watch from the beginning, when I backed up to the start and than hit play it would go back to the beginning of the hard drive 1.5 hours early, nothing could get you back to a specific spot in the que. the delay time kept showing 1,549 minutes delayed. SO I NOW HAVE A UNSTABLE UNIT AGAIN. Posting the problems is not worth the effort. MARK I HAVE ONE QUESTION IS DISH HOME ALSO NO LONGER AN OPTION? Based on this I will take action to recover my money and it won't be via words in this form. Charter cable is releasing thier HD DVR this month, enough said.


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## bluegreg

What is old about the 921?

I agree with all the above comments. I still enjoy dish. Won't get tivo.
I will bug the hell out of dish till I get satisfaction.
either free locals or discounts for service or free upgrade equipment.
They owe it to me an others.


greg


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## boylehome

I want my NBR. Having said that, I do realize that this would mean that there would be a least one year of heartache due to bugs with the software. Hopefully there is a rosy future.


----------



## jsanders

Name based recording isn't all that hard to get working in a simple fashion. I could do it inside of a month I am sure, and that is being very generous. The local OTA guide remap they did could be done inside of an afternoon for basic functionality. I don't know why it took them a year to get around to it. None of this stuff is that difficult, it doesn't require a large investment in coding time either. Hey, their beta testing is free too, right?? What it boils down to is maybe $5k after taxes to pay the salary of a programmer for a month to do it. It just shows you how little they are willing to invest in their customer base.


----------



## Jacob S

Dish Network is probably doing one of the following:

Not putting NBR on any previous DVR's because....

(a) They want to get consumers to take the lease deal when signing up for service or upgrade to a DVR that has NBR which requires consumers to lease it.

(b) They are waiting for MPEG-4 DVR's to come out before coming out NBR on them in which all of these may be leased anyways.

(c) Dish Network is not able to do so but if that is the case then why would they have announced it as possible earlier?

(d) They are afraid that there will be issues with these particular receivers if they get the feature or they just dont care if they get added or not.


----------



## fox200

I tell you what I can, when I can, and yes, a good amount of it is what I'm told myself. I did hype L211 because for me it was, and continues to be the MOST stable release that my 921 has ever seen. I sit here dumfounded, with no idea why your 921s aren't running as well as mine is. For the life of me, I can't get mine to show the jittery video, can't get any of my OTA stations to fail, and can't get mine to spontaneously delete my recorded events. And I've been trying every night since these things started coming up. Maybe I don't have the same 921 as you all do. Maybe mine's a pre-production unit that was built better than yours were. I just don't know.

Mark,

I have to agree with you, my 921 is stable with L211. Everything I try to do 
with it works fine. I saw a thread that talked about the manual stop button
not working with L211. If you push manual record, you have to select "manual user stop" under options first and the recording stops everytime when you want to. But you know this.
Seems some people here would rather bash instead of learning how to use the new software first. And I don't care about NBR.


----------



## Ron Barry

jsanders said:


> Name based recording isn't all that hard to get working in a simple fashion. I could do it inside of a month I am sure, and that is being very generous. The local OTA guide remap they did could be done inside of an afternoon for basic functionality. I don't know why it took them a year to get around to it. None of this stuff is that difficult, it doesn't require a large investment in coding time either. Hey, their beta testing is free too, right?? What it boils down to is maybe $5k after taxes to pay the salary of a programmer for a month to do it. It just shows you how little they are willing to invest in their customer base.


Estimate for Shoe horning NBR into an existing code base of an embedded system taking 1 month?? That is a SWAG if I ever saw one. Hmmm Well you have your right to your opinion, however I personally feel it is way off. I personally would never give out an estimate without knowing the architecture, development environment, and existing code base, but that is me.


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## Cyclone

I will say one thing.

This $5/mo VOD fee is feeling pretty lame now.

I kinda understood it before, thinking that NBR was around the corner and that my 510/921 would be close to other PVR services. I'm now feeling kinda used.


----------



## jsanders

fox200 said:


> I've been trying every night since these things started coming up. Maybe I don't have the same 921 as you all do. Maybe mine's a pre-production unit that was built better than yours were. I just don't know.


I'm glad your 921 is working as advertized fox200! If you want to try something, I've got an experiment for you which could lead to lots of problems if you try it. Go through each OTA channel you receive, and try to pause and skip back and forth. Hopefully you will find one that won't do it. If you do, try to do a manual recording on it. Let it record for a few minutes and do a "Manual stop" on it!  Now, try and play back what you just recorded. I would be greatly interested to know if you have problems after that point in time. Normally I would say, "Don't try that at home folks!", but if you feel daring let us know.


----------



## fox200

jsanders said:


> I'm glad your 921 is working as advertized fox200! If you want to try something, I've got an experiment for you which could lead to lots of problems if you try it. Go through each OTA channel you receive, and try to pause and skip back and forth. Hopefully you will find one that won't do it. If you do, try to do a manual recording on it. Let it record for a few minutes and do a "Manual stop" on it!  Now, try and play back what you just recorded. I would be greatly interested to know if you have problems after that point in time. Normally I would say, "Don't try that at home folks!", but if you feel daring let us know.


jsanders,

I'm about 35 miles north of you and I know about the KRON 4-01 problem, but
that is a problem with the broadcast signal not the 921. However, 4-02
HDNet 2002 broadcasts are very nice and have perfect DVR function.

fox


----------



## jsanders

WeeJavaDude said:


> Estimate for Shoe horning NBR into an existing code base of an embedded system taking 1 month?? That is a SWAG if I ever saw one. Hmmm Well you have your right to your opinion, however I personally feel it is way off. I personally would never give out an estimate without knowing the architecture, development environment, and existing code base, but that is me.


Eh? Maybe you can enlighten me with what you mean with "SWAG", not sure what you mean by it. The dictionary defines it as:

n 1: valuable goods 2: goods or money obtained illegally [syn: loot, booty, pillage, plunder, prize, dirty money] 3: a bundle containing the personal belongings of a swagman v 1: droop, sink, or settle from or as if from pressure or loss of tautness [syn: sag, droop, flag] 2: walk as if unable to control one's movements; "The drunken man staggered into the room" [syn: stagger, reel, keel, lurch, careen] 3: sway heavily or unsteadily

Anyway, we do know a bit about this environment. It is not an embedded controller. It is a PC running a little less than 1GHz with an NVidia graphics chip set, PCI cards, some RAM, a 250GB HD, USB, etc.. It is running a variant of linux on an x86 architecture. The toolset is probably gcc, probably debugging with gdb - standard unix/linux tools. If they are lucky, they have something like insight or DDD running ontop of gdb, but I doubt it. The hard part with their environment is the GUI stuff. They don't have something like GNU, KDE, or QT with interface design tools to do the work for them, so that is a bit more tedious. Even if it was an embedded controller, it isn't hard to do a cross compiler with binutils, newlib and stdlib. With those tools, you even get floating point math if you want it. It isn't trivial to roll your own like that, but it isn't that hard either.

That gives a basic framework for the environment. As far as implementing the code to do name based recording, there are two ways to do it. The first, which is very simple is to have the user browse through the guide (using existing code), and select a program as normal. There are several choices when the user now selects the program, something like, "Tune to this event", "Record this event once", "Record this event M-F", "Record this event Daily", "Record this event Weekly". Add a radio button, "Record this event when it is aired". Now, maintain a linked list of all of the selections with this type, "Record the event when it is aired". In this linked list, have a structure with a couple of elements, the program name, and/or the station. You get this information from the existing program guide that the user selected. A very basic version of this would just be to do something like this:

void handleProgramChangeEvent(guideStruc *progInfo) {
NBRlinkPtr = linkHead;
do {
if (strncmp(progInfo->progName, NBRlinkPtr->progName, kMaxNameLength) == kMatch) {
RecordProgram(NBRlinkPtr->progName, progInfo->channelNo, progInfo->startTime, progInfo->endTime);
break;
}
NBRlinkPtr = NBRlinkPtr->nextLink;
} while (NBRlinkPtr != NULL)
}

This program would have to be called every time a program is about to change. Again, not too hard to do. When you pop up the banner guide, you will notice that it tells you how much time you have left, right? That banner guide also tells you the next show, right? That is all the information you need to call this function. Do something like this:

if (timeLeftInCurProgram == k3Minutes)
handleProgramChangeEvent(nextProgram);

Not a big deal is it? Of course, there are edge cases it might not handle well, although it would do "supersized" episodes just fine.

Ideally, you want to take the guide from the satellite and create a linked list sorted by time slot and channel with relational links to program info. You also want to create a new linked list that sorts the guide alphabetically by program name with links to call letter (channel #) and time slot. That will allow you to create timers in advance and allow the user to search by program name in a very fast manner. You don't need anything fancy. You can create your own heap if you want to maintain your own memory in the event it isn't provided in your 'crude' environement. That isn't hard. It isn't hard to build linked lists to do this, and you have the unix file system. You can dump it to the hard drive using fopen(), fwrite(), fclose, etc.. This isn't that processor intensive, so you could probably even get away with an in-efficient bubble sort when building your linked lists. It is rather environment independent stuff.

So, yes, I say I could get something like a basic NBR working inside of a month. Feel free to explain why you think it would take longer.

I apologize for the code looking ugly, this message board software takes out white space.


----------



## jsanders

fox200 said:


> I'm about 35 miles north of you and I know about the KRON 4-01 problem, but
> that is a problem with the broadcast signal not the 921. However, 4-02
> HDNet 2002 broadcasts are very nice and have perfect DVR function.


Ah ha! So, are you gonna try it?  Yea, it is a problem with the station, and I tried recording and the playback of a 4.1 recording has left me with lots and lots of problems ever since.


----------



## FaxMan

Mark Lamutt said:


> ....
> 
> I sit here dumfounded, with no idea why your 921s aren't running as well as mine is. For the life of me, I can't get mine to show the jittery video, can't get any of my OTA stations to fail, and can't get mine to spontaneously delete my recorded events. And I've been trying every night since these things started coming up. Maybe I don't have the same 921 as you all do. Maybe mine's a pre-production unit that was built better than yours were. I just don't know....


Is it possible (programmers feel free to chime in) that the software updates don't actually overwrite every piece of code and every file?

If so, is it possible that an earlier beta had some good code that replaced some 188 code during its load and wasn't replaced with the final 211 load?

I.E. you got some good interim code, or a driver, or a dll (or unix equivalent) that was skipped in the final release?

Maybe all of the beta boxes are doing great and that's why everybody was so hyped about it. Maybe a file by file or line by line comparison needs to be made between a box like your and a box like jsanders...

Just a thought...


----------



## chuckbernard

All I can say is that this 921 is the biggest waste of a money and effort in my lifetime. What a waste of $1000. I don't care how much you earn, a $1000 is still a lot of money.

I have spent more than 20 years developing software in the telecom and EDA industry. I know enough to recognize when a product is being developed by a company that has no software development process, no test plan, and no quality control.

If there ever was a poster child of a dysfunctional development team the 921 is it!

That being said, it has become so comical in nature that I can't even be angry. I'm just not sure what will make me feel better; smashing it with a hammer or throwing it in a closet until it becomes valuable to hackers on ebay in a few years. 

I thought that I could be happy with this thing until I visited my friend and saw what a TIVO is capable of. I spent the money because I believed what they were telling us. Now that these features will never come it's time to spend my $100+ per month on another service. After the new year or after the Superbowl I'm gone.


----------



## SimpleSimon

sgt940 said:


> ... SO I NOW HAVE A UNSTABLE UNIT AGAIN. Posting the problems is not worth the effort. ...


My sentiments exactly.

Their fixes don't.

Their features aren't.

It's all just a $#!tload of software design flaws.

Ignoring what the executives and managers have done wrong, which is everything, the software design of the 921 is total crap, and the more I find out about it, the more convinced I am of this fact.

I'm a little like Chuck B. - been around the block for a while. I was doing software design and programming for a Siemens telephone exchange in the mid '70s. We were beta testers of the Intel 8086. We designed our own high-level programming language (CHILL), and of course the compiler for it.

When we had a bug, we didn't know if it was the code, the language spec, the compiler, or the frelling CPU!!! I saw all of the above.

Average time to a given bug fix was 3 man-days. THREE MAN-DAYS. And this was for telephone software. Much more complex than satellite TV (think about the input events and necessary outputs of a 1000 line unit). Plus we were required to not only have 99.5% reliability, but to have graceful failover.

State of the software arts 30 years ago was nothing like now - and yet these turkeys can't even get a simple list display to work right. Worthless.


----------



## Curmudgeon

jsanders said:


> Eh? Maybe you can enlighten me with what you mean with "SWAG", not sure what you mean by it.
> 
> SWAG = Scientific Wild Ass Guess.
> 
> You've obviously led a very sheltered life. :lol:


----------



## Big D

Curmudgeon said:


> jsanders said:
> 
> 
> 
> Eh? Maybe you can enlighten me with what you mean with "SWAG", not sure what you mean by it.
> 
> SWAG = Scientific Wild Ass Guess.
> 
> 
> 
> or stupid wild ass guess
Click to expand...


----------



## TonyB

Big D said:


> or stupid wild ass guess


I belive that it originally was "Scientific Wild Ass Guess".


----------



## ClaudeR

How about a modchip that can be installed with its own startup console and underground software from jsanders? 

Maybe E* can make the software public domain, taking coding suggestions from E* testers. It has worked well for lunix.

They probably do not have a dedicated programmer team per box type, maybe they just work on one model at a time - hence the long leadtimes between updates.


----------



## AVJohnnie

Scott Greczkowski said:


> I just got this back from Marc Lumpkin
> 
> Quote:
> The focus is on the new models going forward.


Why in hell should we believe that any new models will be any better than what we are being forced to contend with now? Come on now guys -- For me at least, this is a no brainer decision... ITS TIME TO MOVE ON!

I think the only true satisfaction these 921s will provide us is when they are used as evidence at the class-action proceedings.


----------



## WildBill

Perhaps dropping NBR is a Dish ploy to divert attention away from their local- subscription-to-get-guide extortion scam. Of course, now they need a new ploy to divert attention away from dropping NBR. How about an increase in the HD package rate based on new offerings you won't be able to see with your 921? That should do it!


----------



## Cyclone

I was thinking a $5/mo Remote Control Rental fee, and an additional $5/mo DVR Remote control fee.


----------



## dfergie

Cyclone said:


> I was thinking a $5/mo Remote Control Rental fee, and an additional $5/mo DVR Remote control fee.


 Dont forget the 5$ fee for using the little antenna on the back...


----------



## sgt940

fox200 said:


> I tell you what I can, when I can, and yes, a good amount of it is what I'm told myself. I did hype L211 because for me it was, and continues to be the MOST stable release that my 921 has ever seen. I sit here dumfounded, with no idea why your 921s aren't running as well as mine is. For the life of me, I can't get mine to show the jittery video, can't get any of my OTA stations to fail, and can't get mine to spontaneously delete my recorded events. And I've been trying every night since these things started coming up. Maybe I don't have the same 921 as you all do. Maybe mine's a pre-production unit that was built better than yours were. I just don't know.
> 
> Mark,
> 
> I have to agree with you, my 921 is stable with L211. Everything I try to do
> with it works fine. I saw a thread that talked about the manual stop button
> not working with L211. If you push manual record, you have to select "manual user stop" under options first and the recording stops everytime when you want to. But you know this.
> Seems some people here would rather bash instead of learning how to use the new software first. And I don't care about NBR.


First off I don't dish bash, I have been a customer of Dish since the very first year they were in service. L189 was perfectly stable in everyway on my unit, 211 is not for what ever reason, manual stop does not work whether you use manual record to start a recording a timer on OTA or a Timer on SD, to stop a recording you must go into the PVR screen. Caller id which has been perfect for me since the first upgrade in February now stops intermittently and requires a reboot. Skip forward and backward keys that I never had any issues with including OTA on all channells is now eratic and can take you any where in the buffer with one push. Guess I was the lucky dog under 189 and now paying the price under 211. I wish i had the option to revert all the way back to the factory load and than reload 211 from scratch, I have a feeling this might fix everything.


----------



## moviegoerman

sgt940 said:


> I wish i had the option to revert all the way back to the factory load and than reload 211 from scratch, I have a feeling this might fix everything.


I'm not sure if the 921 works the same way, but I think the 721 will go back to factory settings if you did the following steps.

1. Shutdown the receiver and remove the power cord from the wall outlet.
2, HOLD/PUSH the power ON button the front of the receiver.
3. Plug in the real power cable into the wall outlet at the same time as holding/pushing the ON button.
4. Wait for the next software to update. Maybe, try a manual check for updates.
5. Make sure you get a good HARD reboot (remove power for at least 10 seconds) after the new software comes down.

I'm not sure if that will work, but if you want to risk losing your programs and settings, then you can try it. Good luck...


----------



## Rotryrkt

I tried this method on my 921, Brian, no go! All mine did was a usual hard reboot and back to regular programming. I too wish there was a way to dump the software and force a reload of only the newest version. Surely someone has figured this one out on the 921.


----------



## srrobinson2

jsanders said:


> Eh? Maybe you can enlighten me with what you mean with "SWAG", not sure what you mean by it.


Serious [or significant or stupid or scientific, etc.] Wild A$$ Guess

I'm with WeeJava and would want to know more about their enviornment and architecture before making a broad sweeping generalization (BSG  ) about how long it would take.

I do, however, agree that implementing NBR seems like a reasonable task. I also agree that taking a year to fix some of the problems we've all faced is unacceptable. I've tried to theorize potential programming scenarios that would have caused delays like this, and I continue to come up blank.

I've been in the IT business for more than 15 years and spent my first 10 programming and my last 5 or so managing programmers, so I do know a bit about this topic.

Here's a suggestion: move the 921 source code to an open source base and let us work on it.


----------



## moviegoerman

srrobinson2 said:


> Here's a suggestion: move the 921 source code to an open source base and let us work on it.


You know that will never happen... If it did, then we would implement Firewire, NBR, OTA Guides, Home networking, large drive arrays, web scheduling, etc. We would make it a real media center. Better yet, why don't they just sell the tuner cards and we can use MythTV...

http://www.mythtv.org/

Obvious reasons why not:

1. Content providers would threaten to stop providing Dish with content.
2. Piracy of content (see 1)
3. Easier to break Dish's encryption and no need to pay for a subscription.
4. They'd rather sell you a high priced non-functional box!
5. You have no choice as a consumer.

Pirates make it impossible for us consumers to have the best devices for our own personal use. Then again, RIAA and MPAA doesn't help it either. They could allow it with the proper protections in place. It's all about the $$$.


----------



## jsanders

srrobinson2 said:


> I'm with WeeJava and would want to know more about their enviornment and architecture before making a broad sweeping generalization (BSG  ) about how long it would take.
> 
> I've been in the IT business for more than 15 years and spent my first 10 programming and my last 5 or so managing programmers, so I do know a bit about this topic.
> 
> Here's a suggestion: move the 921 source code to an open source base and let us work on it.


I made a case for why I thought I could do a basic implementation of name based recording in a month of work (no season ticket). I described what the environment is, based on what we have learned over the last year. I explained the concept of how to do it, and where to patch it in. I wrote a small subroutine to show how the concept works. I also explained that this code is very much environment independent. Existing code interfaces to the hardware, NBR code has no need to do that.

Programming timers requires three things, a channel to tune to, a start time, and a stop time. In a basic sense, all name based recording does is find occurances of a program name, and set up a timer to record a specific channel at a specific window of time, the timer code already exists and guide data already exists, all that is needed is a translator. There are a couple of ways to do it. You can either poll through the programming guide and set up timers on the fly, or you can sort the guide database by name and extract the information and set up timers, or you can crawl through the guide data as it gets recorded and set up timers based on matches found. What is so hard about that?? I even did an example with a linked list, that would fulfill SimpleSimon's problem with a limited number of timers. BTW, that suggests they used an array instead of a linked list.

So, what *specifically* then, do you want to know about the environment and architecture, and how do you expect these things effect the code you write? I was specific about why I thought it was possible, you need to at least be specific on why you think I made a Broad, Sweeping Generalisation.

What type of programming did you do in the IT business btw?


----------



## ocnier

I'm curious now, with the proverbial guantlet of frustration thrown officially down with everything but the 522 (which is lease), why doesn't dish release a press junket or something stating "hey, we're not doing this but here's what we're gonna do.... like give you the option of going to 942 lease or equivalency reciever for free for trade in so we don't have to support it (921, etc..)anymore". I mean that's not a perfect solution, but it pushes their lease business model further and allows them to maintain some semblance of loyalty base from subs. I think that would be a win-win situation for both sides. I just don't get e*'s logic. :shrug:


----------



## BuckeyeChris

ocnier said:


> I'm curious now, with the proverbial guanlet frustration thrown officially down with everything but the 522 (which is lease), why doesn't dish release a press junket or something stating "hey, we're not this but here's what we're gonna do....


I couldn't agree with you more! If Dish were to come out with a press release and/or Web site announcement on the new NBR/EBR and Season Pass features and what their proposed schedule is for roll-out (or no roll-out) for other receivers, they would quell a lot of the confusion and frustration from customers.

I am dismayed that such an important upgrade for the 522 has not even merited one mention on their Web site. Instead, their customers are left to rely on back channel communications through third party Internet discussion sites which may or may not be true. My employer would fire anyone who did such a thing; that's not the way you communicate effectively to your customers. Did their marketing department take the entire month of December off for the holidays?


----------



## lenny

I just mailed the following message to [email protected] Let's see if I get a response. I mentioned that I heard EBR was going to be on the 921 on a Charlie Chat but reading some posts it may have been a Tech Chat. The Chat's become a blur sometimes.

To: [email protected]
Subject: EBR for receivers other than the 522.

I've been a long time customer because Dish Network has always been good to it's customers, had great customer service, and had great programming.

I've always had your top of the line receivers from the 5000 series way back when then added your 6000 receiver then added your Dishplayer 7200 then added your 500 series DVR's.

I then added the 921 back in October for $1,000. Then you dropped your price by almost 50% less than a month later and I was irritated since I couldn't return my unit or get the difference back. I've been working with customer support to try and get my caller id working correctly but I'm not getting anywhere. I've been working with other people to try and correct a video jitter problem that L211 introduced into my receiver.

Now I find out that you are not even going to add Event Based Recording to your current top of the line receiver. This was promised in Charlie Chats and thru your other advertising vehicles. This is one of the reasons I purchased the 921. So now I paid $500 more than most people for the receiver and I
won't even get EBR? If I can't believe the CEO of a company when he speaks then that is a terrible state of affairs.

Why are you mistreating your customer base like this? As you can tell by my account (my phone number) I've been with your company a very long time. I've also had AEP along with the locals, superstations, and other programming. I have many rooms so I also have your maximum of 6 receivers so I'm spending over $125/month for service.

I truely hope you reverse your decision dealing with not implementing EBR on the 921. I can't believe that I just spent $1,000 on a receiver that is now no where near the capability of a Tivo and never will be.

With the direction you're taking I'm now researching moving to
DirecTV. I now feel I am being mistreated and mislead by your company. This is to my amazement because I've been a long time high end customer. What is also depressing is I don't see any reason why you're mistreating your current customer base like this. Especially your high end customer base since they typically spend many dollars per month for your services such as myself.

I have alot invested with Dish Network but when I move to DirecTV the equipment will be free or close to it and I'll most likely be paying less per month and it will be less aggravation. Ebay bidders can have all my Dish Network equipment after that point.

I'm truely saddened that a great company like yours has become like this.

Sigh,
Lenny
My phone number again.


----------



## John Walsh

I have been patient as hell with the 921. On my 4th one. My locals are OTA and I can't sub to my locals with dish so I have no mapping. That I am not happy with at all but I didn't get too upset over. Now no NBR....... I am really F$%#ing pissed off. Eight years with dish and this is how I (we) get treated. I am trying to watch the Jets game right now on my local OTA and it keeps dropping our - signal is 108 or so but I lose the picture. So I flip over to the SD channel to watch it and my wife is giving me **** about spending $1000 on a unit and I can't even watch HD on it. 

I hate lawsuits but I don't see any way that dish will dodge a lawsuit on this unit. 

I guess its time to start looking into Direct for a sub to all channels and packages for Six TV's. I don't care how much I spend- I just want the stuff to work properly


----------



## moviegoerman

It's nice to see more loyal subscribers finally realizing what Dish has been doing...

I'm sure you'll be happy with your DirecTV Tivo 10-250, but you'll have to spend another $1,000+ to get into HD again. I made this move only 2 days after purchasing my 921. It cost me a bunch to do it, but I know I made the right choice. I can't imagine what this fall season would be like with a single HD tuner, no guide, and missed programs with all the flury of bugs.

I was a loyal customer for years, but the 921 was my last straw. Maybe the lawsuits could cover the switch costs too... We wouldn't have to pay for all the disconnect/connect fees and new hardware if it wasn't for the 921 making it impossible to get HD content delivered reliably.

At the minimum we should be able to recover the costs that Dish has directly made on us. i.e forcing us to pay for content we don't need in order to use the 921 and boxes that just don't work. There might be a little something extra for some of us that shelled out the $1000 and then watch the price cut in half without a method to return them. Other good news on the Tivo... Go buy is Tivo, if you don't like it, You can RETURN IT!

You will have to let us know how you like your Tivos... I know mine has been great except for the slow guide, but with NBR (YOU DON'T NEED A GUIDE THAT OFTEN!). At least I get all my OTA locals (with a guide!), NBR, never missed a show yet, and just the most pleasant experience of not having to hand hold a piece of crap to see what bugs the next release will bring.

I will say the only choice we have as consumers is not to pay... I've removed all of my programming except for LIL and one channel. The 921 for me has just been an additional backup tuner for my lean mean quad tuner machine (i.e. 10-250) when you need to record 3 HD shows OTA (it does happen).

If anyone does know of a good attorney, then I think we could pursue them in court. We would need the numbers (not sure how many). The first ones to file are usually the first ones to get their money back. I know one guy that works on consumer "credit" class action lawsuits (on consumer's behalf), but I don't know if he would be willing to take the case.

It might be nice get get another forum on here where people can gather to recover their 921 Dish losses. I'm sure Mark would appreciate not having to listen to us... Unless Mark wants to be the owner and manage that forum too... We know he's a glutten for punishment.  I think he's so tired of us complaining, but it's the only forum we can voice our experiences where hopefully someone at Dish will read.

If there's enough interest, then maybe Chris will open up a forum just for us 921 converts... It doesn't mean you get rid of us though Mark...  We still own the boxes until Dish buys them back...


----------



## ClaudeR

I've also been getting dropouts OTA with over 100 signal, doesn't come back until I go to a Dish channel, then back.


----------



## John Walsh

Brian
You know I usually just lurk around here and I have been reading your loooong post for quite some time now and to be honest I would get quite annoyed with you but have bit my tongue.

Now I see where you are coming from and I mostly agree with points you have made in the past. I have wanted E* to give us a great product for so long I have been blind to reality. I have seen enough. They are incapable of producing great receivers. They do have great ideas but just can't bring it all to the table


----------



## lenny

I just got off the phone with someone from the ATS and TPS groups. She said that there has NOT been a final decision on EBR on the 921. She mentioned that since the 921 and 522 are on the same platform it would be possible to have EBR on those receivers. Since the 5xx series receivers are on a different platform EBR will probably not happen on those receivers.

So now I'll wait a short while for a final word from E* on this issue before I look into moving to D*. But, at least there is some hope for us 921 users.

Hopefully Mark and Scott got bad info and I'm sure they hope they did too. But, maybe their info was good, but E* is rethinking their decision, I could only hope.

Lenny


----------



## ocnier

lenny said:


> I just got off the phone with someone from the ATS and TPS groups. She said that there has NOT been a final decision on EBR on the 921. She mentioned that since the 921 and 522 are on the same platform it would be possible to have EBR on those receivers. Since the 5xx series receivers are on a different platform EBR will probably not happen on those receivers.
> 
> So now I'll wait a short while for a final word from E* on this issue before I look into moving to D*. But, at least there is some hope for us 921 users.
> 
> Hopefully Mark and Scott got bad info and I'm sure they hope they did too. But, maybe their info was good, but E* is rethinking their decision, I could only hope.
> 
> Lenny


Sorry Lenny, but i think you got bad info, I wish my gut told me otherwise but the ship has sailed (even with the apparent leaks in the hull). !pu****!


----------



## richardlazar

This is the most important feature that presently gives TIVO and Direct TIVO an edge over Dish. When I tell users of TIVO I can't create a Seasons Pass, they LAUGH at me, and tell me they live by that feature.

PLEASE implement this for my brand new 921. I don't want to have to purchase another DVR just to get this working.

BTW, the latest sofware upgrade IS GREAT and the new features seem to work well for me. My hats off to the development team - I wish I could send them some donuts for their efforts!

Richard
Los Angeles


----------



## lenny

ocnier said:


> Sorry Lenny, but i think you got bad info, I wish my gut told me otherwise but the ship has sailed (even with the apparent leaks in the hull). !pu****!


Trust me, I know where you're coming from, I guess time will tell, but I'm an optimist, so I'll hang onto this thread of hope for a *short* while. Let's see if I/we get an *official* response from E* on this issue.

Hope......sometimes good.....sometimes bad,
Lenny


----------



## Chris Blount

If any lawyers are reading this thread, I have a copy of every Charlie Chat and Technical Chat since last May. Contact me if it will help.


----------



## boylehome

Chris Blount said:


> If any lawyers are reading this thread, I have a copy of every Charlie Chat and Technical Chat since last May. Contact me if it will help.


And this forum is chuck full of evidence.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

lenny said:


> I just got off the phone with someone from the ATS and TPS groups. She said that there has NOT been a final decision on EBR on the 921. She mentioned that since the 921 and 522 are on the same platform it would be possible to have EBR on those receivers. Since the 5xx series receivers are on a different platform EBR will probably not happen on those receivers.


They are not on the same platform. Boy I wish that were the case, I would love for the 921 to have the 522 user interface. 



> So now I'll wait a short while for a final word from E* on this issue before I look into moving to D*. But, at least there is some hope for us 921 users.
> 
> Hopefully Mark and Scott got bad info and I'm sure they hope they did too. But, maybe their info was good, but E* is rethinking their decision, I could only hope.


We can only hope and wish but im affraid that we would have more luck believing in a bunny that goes around and gives all kids candy on Easter. 

I don't believe we have received bad info, my info comes from Management, and was backed up by Marc Lumpkin who is the official Echostar spokesman.

Lenny[/QUOTE]


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

lenny said:


> Trust me, I know where you're coming from, I guess time will tell, but I'm an optimist, so I'll hang onto this thread of hope for a *short* while. Let's see if I/we get an *official* response from E* on this issue.
> 
> Hope......sometimes good.....sometimes bad,
> Lenny


We *DID* get an official response from Dish Network, please search for the emails from Marc Lumpkin here in this thread.


----------



## Chris Blount

boylehome said:


> And this forum is chuck full of evidence.


Yep, remember the May Charlie Chat?

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=27294

Look at the first question from David.


----------



## jsanders

Chris Blount said:


> If any lawyers are reading this thread, I have a copy of every Charlie Chat and Technical Chat since last May. Contact me if it will help.


Hmmm. I wonder what would have happened if there were some lawyers that bought and used the 921 and were on this board..... :kickbutt: :ewww:


----------



## lenny

Scott Greczkowski said:


> We *DID* get an official response from Dish Network, please search for the emails from Marc Lumpkin here in this thread.


Ah, this is my ignorance since I didn't know Marc Lumpkin is an official E* spokesman I must've missed that. Sorry about that. Well I guess my thread of hope was just snipped. 

Also, you're knowledge is much more extensive than mine. You stated in a previous post that the 522 and 921 are not using the same OS/platform (which I assume was linux). I can't believe the ATS/APS person said they were if they're not. Geesshhhh that's irritating. That person said she does read these threads and I told her I'm *lenny* so let's see if I get any response from her on this. Scott, you know what platform/OS each receiver is so I can present this information when/if I'm contacted again.

Sigh.... OK, maybe the next step are lawyers. I was looking back at the other posts you made in this thread. It seems you stated that we all let [email protected] know how disgusted we are. Do you still feel that's the case? If so, I'll forward my letter I sent to Charlie (which I posted here) onto him.

Thanks Scott for setting me straight,
Lenny


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

You can email Charlie, but chances are very good you will never get a reply.

I invite all unhappy to email SkyReport, its time for the public to know whats going on.


----------



## BuckeyeChris

Scott Greczkowski said:


> We *DID* get an official response from Dish Network, please search for the emails from Marc Lumpkin here in this thread.


Scott,

Why does E give its official response through back channels on the Internet? No offense to you and your Web site, which do a _great job_ in disseminating information, but professionals give out official press releases through either their corporate Web site or their marketing department. I should know, I work in the communications department of a very large corporation.


----------



## Tool408

Scott Greczkowski said:


> Mark thank you for looking into this.
> 
> Just for the record here is a FULL copy of the email I was sent by Dish Network. (Mark you can edit the headers if you wish, I just want to show this is a real email)
> 
> [/font][/size][/font]


Scott could never be so wrong with your invalid source(s).

I know who he is talkin about and I can reassure. they're restricted by our IT group.

FYI Scott was removed from the Beta program as a burden and a risk to the beta test program.

Scott has no "reliable sources other than our 'known hacks'." within the company.

Nice try Scott. You'll always be fooled and 2 steps behind!

HA!


----------



## boylehome

BuckeyeChris said:


> Scott,
> 
> Why does E give its official response through back channels on the Internet? No offense to you and your Web site, which do a _great job_ in disseminating information, but professionals give out official press releases through either their corporate Web site or their marketing department. I should know, I work in the communications department of a very large corporation.


I've pondered this question myself. I see them as a large city with a small town mind set.


----------



## lenny

Tool408 said:


> Scott could never be so wrong with your invalid source(s).
> 
> I know who he is talkin about and I can reassure. they're restricted by our IT group.
> 
> FYI Scott was removed from the Beta program as a burden and a risk to the beta test program.
> 
> Scott has no "reliable sources other than our 'known hacks'." within the company.
> 
> Nice try Scott. You'll always be fooled and 2 steps behind!
> 
> HA!


Mmmm, OK, now I don't know what's going on (and maybe others are also confused). Since Mark seemed to get the same info as Scott and Scott was one of the first users in the forum I was assuming he had the same connections Mark did. I do trust Mark's information.

Gee, I just wish E would come out with an official statement thru an official outlet. If Dish people are really listening can you please get your mgmt to do this soon.

Lenny


----------



## boylehome

lenny said:


> Gee, I just wish E would come out with an official statement thru an official outlet. If Dish people are really listening can you please get your mgmt to do this soon.
> 
> Lenny


Could it be a result of law interpreters huddling in reverent awe not knowing the best/right answers?


----------



## SimpleSimon

Tool408 said:


> Scott could never be so wrong with your invalid source(s).
> 
> I know who he is talkin about and I can reassure. they're restricted by our IT group.
> 
> FYI Scott was removed from the Beta program as a burden and a risk to the beta test program.
> 
> Scott has no "reliable sources other than our 'known hacks'." within the company.
> 
> Nice try Scott. You'll always be fooled and 2 steps behind!
> 
> HA!


Yeah, maybe Scott isn't a beta tester - because he's willing to tell it like it is. And maybe HE doesn't have the inside sources, but others around here DO.

My personal take on this is E* is trying to save the money and not do it, but if they get nailed over it (which it seems they are), then they'll recant.

I'm a born and bred capitalist, but if this is true, it's nothing but PURE GREED, without a care about anyone - which of course seems to be how E* treats customers and retailers, so I won't be surprised if it turns out to be true.

Finally - remember that a class-action lawsuit does NOT have to be limited to a single issue. Throw DishWire, OpenTV, Internet Access, and everything else into the mix, too.


----------



## jsanders

Tool408 said:


> Scott could never be so wrong with your invalid source(s).
> 
> I know who he is talkin about and I can reassure. they're restricted by our IT group.
> 
> FYI Scott was removed from the Beta program as a burden and a risk to the beta test program.
> 
> Scott has no "reliable sources other than our 'known hacks'." within the company.
> 
> Nice try Scott. You'll always be fooled and 2 steps behind!


Hmmmm.... Tool408, from Denver, CO, with seemingly enough knowledge to see that Scott is "2 steps behind!" Why would that be? His sources are what you term "our 'known hacks'"?? Are you trying to identify yourself as a Dish employee, explaining that you and the rest of Dish have known hacks to keep Scott fooled and two steps behind? You use the word "our" twice. "Our" hacks, and "our" IT group. If you want to give credibility to your statement, then you need to identify how you know such things. Are you from Dish? If you know better than Scott, then what actually is the truth then? We REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want to know. An honest dialog is the first step to repair the damaged relationship between Echostar and its customers. Please, just talk to us.

Thanks in advance if you can help reach that end Tool408.....


----------



## jsanders

To the Dish emplyees reading this message board:

If you read the messages on this board, you no doubt see that 921 customers are upset. 

In the end though, we all want the same thing. We want to see Echostar be a successful company. We all share this common goal. Wasn't that the goal of the "Official Dish DVR-921 Support Forum"? The goal, if I understand, is to provide feedback, and in some limited ways 2-way communication, to speed up the development cycle for the 921. 

I congratulate Dish for setting up this forum with Mark Lamutt, I think it has been helpful in living up to its charter.

The 921, unfortunately, has been a plagued project. The 921 has, unfortunately, been many, many, many magnitudes worse than any product I have ever bought. 

Hopefully, we have learned some valulable lessons from all of this. First and foremost, outsourcing the development to a geographical location that can't receive real world signals is not a good idea. It is also a bad idea to re-invent the wheel each time a new product goes through development. This will become more and more important over time, because the products become more and more complicated. It is also more expensive to re-write the code for each product. Now, compare the Dish 921 with the DirecTV HR10-250. The Tivo was not plagued with the same problems the 921 was. Why? Do you think they re-write the Tivo code every time they come out with a new Tivo? Absolutely not! The Tivo people have been working on their code base and refining it for years through their entire product line. They didn't need to invest as much in development to get it right. The 921 was based on the 721, which is the right idea. That wasn't the major problem. Most of the problems we have had were dealing with recpetion of terrestrial signals! So, ideally, the 921 team should have consisted of a group of people that made the 721 and people with ATSC experience from the 6000 and 811 teams. Outsourcing was a mistake, and Echostar has paid for it.

Why not learn this lesson and make the 921 a great product. When the 921 works, capitalize on the investment by using it as the basis for the next product. You don't need to re-invent OTA guides or Name based recording for all of the different receivers if they share a common code base. Maybe it is worth considering a delay for the 942 until MPEG-4 decoding is commercially feasable, and fulfill the promises that were made for the 921. Learn from the mistakes that have been made.

It is in our best interest to see Echostar be successful. If you want to save money, and cut costs, captializing on a common code base is a great way to do this. It also makes customers happier, with a stable, common experience.


----------



## DonLandis

jsanders-- Ditto!

Unfortunately your logic is about 4 years too late. E* is well into a myriad of products that are islands. And, they are continuing to proceed along the same path of creating island products. It's as if they allowed anyone out in the industry to build receivers without any common spec except to comply with security, aka smart card design. Notice how well each receiver uses the smart card. Everything else is FUBAR.

Nice summation and reality check, however. No offense but you make an excellent Monday morning Q-Back. Yes, it is Monday morning!


----------



## jeslevine

mwgiii said:


> My problem, if this is true, is the way Dish treats its "high-end" customers.
> 
> I don't have a problem with the firewire. I wasn't planning on archiving.
> 
> I don't have a problem with the 921 price drop, that happens in electronics (even though an almost 50% drop hurts my feelings).
> 
> I do have a major problem with having to subscribe to locals to get guide data when I can get my HD locals OTA.
> 
> I do have a major problem not getting NBR.
> 
> The 921 is Dish's "flagship" receiver. Most of its users have AEP + HD pack (I also have the Multi-sport pack and additional receiver fee plus ESPN Gameplan and several PPVs per month). But the 921 is treated by Dish like a "red-headed step-child". The lowly 111 receiver has better software (Open TV).
> 
> This whole ordeal is leaving a very bad taste in my mouth. I understand Dish needing to add new subscribers, but it will take 5 or more new subscribers to at AT60 to equal what I pay if/when I head out the door.


and when dish goes to mpeg 4 if they do not offer a reasonable upgrade for long term customers who have equipment that they paid a premieum for which cannot receive new programming, it will be time for me to look else where


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

Tool408 said:


> Scott could never be so wrong with your invalid source(s).
> 
> I know who he is talkin about and I can reassure. they're restricted by our IT group.
> 
> FYI Scott was removed from the Beta program as a burden and a risk to the beta test program.
> 
> Scott has no "reliable sources other than our 'known hacks'." within the company.
> 
> Nice try Scott. You'll always be fooled and 2 steps behind!
> 
> HA!


Ahh Tool,

Your such a tool. 

Man if you only knew who my reliable sources were 

If my sources are so bad how come again I break the news before anyone else? Would Mark Lamutt have mentioned there was going to be no name based recording?

Tool I guess you are just one of another Echostar employees who has their heads stuck up their asses and has no clue whats going on at their own company and doesn't care that the consumer is getting ****ed over.

Nice comany you work for man.

While you walk with blinders on, I will continue to work my best to help CONSUMERS get the most from their satellite systems and I will also work hard to break news first. (In fact I am working on something now that could blow the doors off at Echostar... something about operating inefficienties) 

Back to work.


----------



## Amphicar770

Heck I am still so peeved about the broken promise regarding Firewire that I have yet to get riled up over the broken promise regarding NBR. It boils down to a compete lack of integrity and a callous disregard for customers. DISH used to be the alternative to bad service and high prices of other providers such as cable, now they are becoming the poster child for poor service. What happened?


----------



## moviegoerman

John Walsh said:


> Brian
> You know I usually just lurk around here and I have been reading your loooong post for quite some time now and to be honest I would get quite annoyed with you but have bit my tongue.
> 
> Now I see where you are coming from and I mostly agree with points you have made in the past. I have wanted E* to give us a great product for so long I have been blind to reality. I have seen enough. They are incapable of producing great receivers. They do have great ideas but just can't bring it all to the table


 :righton: I'll take that as an very complimentary and astounding, "YES, you were right...". You're getting where I was a year ago. Add another year of delays and missed functionality and broken software, then you might be up to my level of frustration. :hair: I'm glad I've gotten a reaction out of you. You might have gotten annoyed with my posts, but that would be a normal reaction for someone, "Disillusioned with Dish". You've just put more validity on what I've been saying even though it can be tough to admit that we all messed up by sticking up for Dish for so long... I had to go through that same pain and realize where I went wrong.

I can't image you're pain as such a loyal customer with (FOUR 921's!!!). All I have to say is you have had plenty of hope to go out and get more of them after the first one. And, "What were you THINKING buying FOUR!!!"??? :uglyhamme You know, at this point, I just have to laugh at the situation, but I won't give up until I get resolution from Dish.

I know it's not easy to agree and see how Dish has been operating once you've sunk so much money into them. You almost feel that you can't be wrong and you have to convince yourself that you've got the best and it can't get any better. Dish wouldn't lie to me, OR would they??? There is no way I could be that big of a sucker. This is the point where we should sit around in a virtual support group and talk to help ease our burdened souls... :lol: I can't just leave this post a short one since I have so much to say when I say it (as usual)... :read: I know I take great pride in my long, but very descriptive posts... It's time for another story of how I rose from the illusion and found the light. I'm sure we all have our own stories and here is mine...

_[ fade into hazy daze ]_

It took me a while to realize it myself. I think my turning point was at the before summer (April/May?) Technical chat delayed from the skipped/missed Charlie chat. I can't remember the exact one, but it was a classic... Maybe Chris has the notes to that one. Its the one where every answer on fixing the 921 and adding features came from the product development manager of the 921. Same answer for any question... SHE said, "That's right, _______, that issue/feature will be fixed/completed by the next TEAM SUMMIT!!!" Their plan was to have it all fixed by June/July. It was obvious to me and others around me that there was no way in hell they were going to get this thing working. It was clear that the development manager had no clue on how to manage software or deadlines. They were totally date driven and not realistic about any dates. She was just telling her management what they wanted to hear. But, who cared, the customers have always bought into it. They'll do it again! And she's dodged another bullet.

I still was one with hope at that point. It would have been so much easier to just upgrade and get a 921 and remain on Dish. So, I went that route after watching some of my other co-workers jump on Tivo (cold turkey) and head for the hills (ex 6000 user). Another co-worker got a 921 back last January as a beta user and said it was working great for him by the time July rolled around. After a number of standard questions... Does OTA work? Answer=Yes. (At the time that meant locking into local channels.) Records OTA content? Answer=Yes. Reboot daily? Answer=No. It had been 6 months since the initial release, so I thought maybe they did pull a rabbit out of their hat and get it stable. So, I went out and got one!

I spent plenty of time/effort installing the DishProPlus 4x4 switch just so I could use my 721 and my 921 across one wire. That was one of the main factors for me staying compared to jumping. I then entered this forum after I was shocked that there was no guide info to setup timers for OTA content. It only took a day or so to get a confirmation that OTA guide was not supported and would be coming SOON... Well fellas, I knew exactly what that meant after seeing another co-worker go through the 6000 bugs, upgrades and waiting for it to work. Dish had been pushing the 921 as the end all solution for the last 2-3 years to solve all the 6000 problems + add dual tuner DVR support. It was obvious that the 921 had become the new 6000, but even less stable and not functionally complete.

My hope had finally ran out and so did I. I ran, didn't walk, to the nearest place I could find a HD Tivo (10-250) and put up an entire new system right next to my 921. I wasn't about to live without a guide and being forced to set up manual VCR like timers. I just spent a great deal of money jumping head first into HD and I wanted it all! Not a buggy recorder with no guide information. :mad2:

_[ fade out of the darkness ]_

I've been very skeptical/realistic since I got onto this forum and like I said... L211 has proven me right on many claims over the last 6 months. The 921 does not have a fully functional OTA guide. It still is full of bugs. And now, it seems the majority hot button... It will never have NBR/EBR... L211 was supposed to be the 921 savior for the Christmas season. Again, not to help ones that have it, but more to correct the problem and sell MORE.

Now, that we as consumers are starting to ban together, Dish should be afraid... _[ be very afraid ]_. It's been my goal from the start on this forum to either get a working 921 or at least feel I've helped some poor soul from getting stuck into the Dish quagmire of lies, deceit, and deception. And on that note, I know I have helped others (and sorry to say annoyed some too)... But, Mission Accomplished...

I know there are customers that love their 921's and it is working for them. i.e. one of my co-workers... but, even lately he's starting to see the problems and looking at other solutions. The main reason the 921 worked for him is because he didn't watch that much TV, he doesn't like OTA programming, etc. Basically, the 921 worked for him because he didn't use it the same way I did. For those customers that have been happy, then they should continue and enjoy it. I've only been trying to consolidate and correct what I see Dish doing to us as consumers.

If we ban together, they can't stop us... :group: We can be a force that can make Dish change. If you want a working, fully functional 921 as promised or your money back, then jump on the bandwagon and let's ride this thing all the way to Denver... Only the quiet ones will prevent it from happening. We need everyone's voice to sing out loud as ONE. :listenup: Again, John, Welcome aboard and thank you for increasing my hope in resolution...

:welcome_s


----------



## John Walsh

You are exactly right on your posts Brian and my post was meant as a compliment to you. BTW I didn't buy 4 921's, I bought one and it was DOA the replacement could not recognize the smart card (guess it wasn't so smart), the third actually worked for about 2 days then it stopped outputting one of the colors on the component video, fourth one is the one I have now.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

moviegoerman said:


> If we ban together, they can't stop us... :group: We can be a force that can make Dish change. If you want a working, fully functional 921 as promised or your money back, then jump on the bandwagon and let's ride this thing all the way to Denver... Only the quiet ones will prevent it from happening. We need everyone's voice to sing out loud as ONE. :listenup: Again, John, Welcome aboard and thank you for increasing my hope in resolution...


Great post! And getting everyone to ban together is what I am trying to do. If we make our voices hears we CAN make a difference. I have been in contact with two media outlets now. Let's make a noise, let's let the public know whats going on at Dish Network and why they may want to consider another company.

We hold all the facts. As I posted at SatelliteGuys.US no one made Dish Network go on their own tech chats and make these announcements and prmoises they never keep.

I know now quite a few are upset with me at Dish, one employe emailed me and told me a few might lose their jobs because I broke the news. My response to that is good luck to you on the unemployment line. If it takes the ranting and raving of me and about 25,000 SatelliteGuys and DBSTalk users to make Dish Network a better company and true expose them for who they are then I feel no sadness.

It's time we stood up and joined together as one voice, together we can work wonders.


----------



## Todd G.

I am with you guys. The fact that we won't be getting NBR and the way Dish implemented the OTA guide data really sucks. It is ridiculous to have to edit a timer to allow the recording of OTA. 

Todd


----------



## WildBill

What I see with Dish is typical of what I have seen repeatedly in organizations when 'bean counters' start making policy decisions. There is no vision or coherent strategy other than 'increase profits by lowering costs'. Let's go with proprietary hardware so we don't have to pay royalties (even though we have no experience developing DVR hardware). Let's outsource the software development because we got a cheaper bid (even though that team has little experience and cannot easily test all the features). Let's shortchange current HD customers by eliminating and cutting back on features because they are not worth the cost for so few of them. We'll focus instead on the larger number of new HD customers that will be available a year from now (even though we will create a firestorm of ill will in the process). 

I don't see much hope unless there is some real change at the top.


----------



## mwgiii

If you really want to get Dish's attention, find out who the stock analysts are that cover Dish's stock.

Fill them in on the 921 "high-end" customer revolt.

You think things are hopping at Dish now, just see what happens the first time Dish gets a call from an analyst asking about 921 problems and how customer defections might effect earnings. Talk about the S**T hitting the fan.


----------



## BobMurdoch

A little perspective.........

I am an E* subscriber. I get it for the programming combination I can get. Grandfathered Distants, AEP, HD Pack, Playboy/Exxtacy (monthly package), TV5 and RFI for my bilingual wife, and the Superstations. I've got a 921, a 510, 2 7200's, and a 4900 active on my account (along with two SW64s and all associated splitters). It doesn't hurt that I am a Mets fan who hates the Yankees and gets to deny giving Steingraber another $2 a month from me. Sirius channels just build my loyalty even further.

I got the 921 to give me a PVR that could record HD content. The firewire would have been nice, but I didn't own a DVhs deck as I feel magnetic tape is dead as a consumer medium. My core needs are being met with this receiver. I don't trust Eldon to build Name Based recording into this as I remember how screwed up the Dishplayer was when they tried to implement it. I already get goofy errors with midnight recordings, and I wonder what happens when the machine tries to add a third timer when two are already in place. A little effort once a week insures that I catch any time or day changes, which is a safer bet than relying on the 921 to not choke when conflicts arise.. 

I like my fast guide and the Tivo guide would drive me insane as I channel surf at high speeds a lot.

That being said, I DO wish that E* would stop outsourcing their flagships to others (The Dishplayer before and now the 921). What brainiac decided to contract a company who uses PAL broadcasts in their native country to develop an NTSC machine? I keep hoping that they would get their act together, but it isn't a deal killer for me. Simply, I can't get the programming package I want from Rupert (and I distrust someone who controls programming AND distribution to keep from gouging me pricewise).

Hey, if you want to earn a few millions for some lawyers and send a "message" to Charlie, go ahead. Enjoy your PPV coupons which you will get in 3 years. In the past three years I've gotten a $5 coupon from Jiffy Lube, a free year of MSN service (which I couldn't use, becuase I would have to cancel my existing service, lose my email address, and switch to Dialup. Yeah, hello. I'm just as frustrated as you all are, but let's keep focusing on nagging the bejesus out of them to get them to get to the "right" path.


----------



## TheBert

Well said Bob.


----------



## John Walsh

mwgiii said:


> If you really want to get Dish's attention, find out who the stock analysts are that cover Dish's stock.
> 
> Fill them in on the 921 "high-end" customer revolt.
> 
> You think things are hopping at Dish now, just see what happens the first time Dish gets a call from an analyst asking about 921 problems and how customer defections might effect earnings. Talk about the S**T hitting the fan.


here they are

Date Research Firm Action From To 
10-Dec-04 Goldman Sachs Initiated In-Line 
20-Oct-04 UBS Initiated Neutral 
14-Jul-04 CSFB Initiated Outperform 
8-Jul-04 CIBC Wrld Mkts Initiated Sector Underperform 
30-Apr-04 JP Morgan Upgrade Neutral Overweight 
29-Mar-04 Smith Barney Citigroup Downgrade Buy Hold 
15-Mar-04 Blaylock & Partners Upgrade Hold Buy 
10-Mar-04 Smith Barney Citigroup Initiated Buy 
19-Feb-04 Bernstein Downgrade Outperform Mkt Perform 
12-Feb-04 JP Morgan Downgrade Overweight Neutral


----------



## jsanders

Scott Greczkowski said:


> I know now quite a few are upset with me at Dish, one employe emailed me and told me a few might lose their jobs because I broke the news. My response to that is good luck to you on the unemployment line. If it takes the ranting and raving of me and about 25,000 SatelliteGuys and DBSTalk users to make Dish Network a better company and true expose them for who they are then I feel no sadness.
> 
> It's time we stood up and joined together as one voice, together we can work wonders.


Some people at Dish would probably be better suited doing different kinds of work, the ones that make decisions without a lot of forethought. I think a whistleblower is our friend though. They are the ones that see what is going on and see the necesity of change. I don't think that they should be given the boot.

I would love to see some sort of a customer union formed, with the intent of making Echostar a better company. To do that successfully, we also need to come up with a plan, not everyone just doing their own thing. I've got plenty of ideas actually. I don't think this website, or this thread is the way to do it. Is it possible Scott that you could create a new forum on your website where the troops could come up with a game plan?


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

I have been in contact with Charlie Ergen himself a few times today.

Charlie just sent over the following email...



> S,
> 
> Please send me a list of advertised features...(and the advertisement) for
> the 921...
> And highlight the ones that are missing.
> 
> c


So does anyone want to make a list that I can send him? Since most of the 921 stuff was talked about on Charlie Chats and Tech Chats if your lists includes dates and where it was said that would help a lot.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

jsanders said:


> I would love to see some sort of a customer union formed, with the intent of making Echostar a better company. To do that successfully, we also need to come up with a plan, not everyone just doing their own thing. I've got plenty of ideas actually. I don't think this website, or this thread is the way to do it. Is it possible Scott that you could create a new forum on your website where the troops could come up with a game plan?


Sure Jsanders, we can definately do that.  Check your PM box in a bit.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

I just got another note from Charlie...



> Got them already..just take the quotes (not out of context) and let me know
> the features we promised..i get a script from engineering so let me know..i
> assume you are saying nothing was printed that wasn't delivered?
> c


 Charlie wants quotes of what was said on Charlie Chats and Tech Chats. So please for you guys researching this please give exact quotes.


----------



## moviegoerman

All 921 users,

I've contacted a local attorney (in Georgia) who I've known and worked with in the past. He specializes in class action lawsuits on behalf of consumers. He will be looking into the matter and get back with my early 2005 to determine if there's enough of a case and interest to proceed.

He asked if we had any documentation to support our claims. I mentioned the Charlie Chat and Technical Chats that Chris is willing to supply. I've also pointed him to look into this forum and others for information about the customer complaints.

My initial claims I stated to him are:

1. We have sold a "Dish Network 921 DVR receiver" for $1000 with the expectations that certain features would be in the box or would get fixed and feel will never be delivered. i.e. OTA guide, EBR/NBR, etc.

2. Dish cut the price to $500 but hasn't compensated us for the loss of features.

3. Forced monthly payment of local satellite guide (LIL) information in order to get OTA (Over The Air) guide information feature.

4. The 921 isn't reliable for many users and prevents usage of the product with no way to escape the contracts or return the product.

5. Some consumers had to occur additional expenses to switch to providers that could provide a stable competitive solution.

I'm sure many of the claims will be generalized and classified (possibly by state) as we proceed. He explained that it might be each state having to file on behalf of the consumers in that state because of the difference of law between each state.

I don't expect any action to be quick, but I'm willing to see it through. I'll post more information at the beginning of the year after he has done his initial research. If there are other attorneys in different states interested, then please contact me directly and I can pass your information along.

:group:


----------



## BobMurdoch

Don't forget the printed materials handed out at the trade shows which showed the firewire capabilities............


----------



## tnsprin

BobMurdoch said:


> Don't forget the printed materials handed out at the trade shows which showed the firewire capabilities............


The PDF of this was available for a long time from their site. Says

"• 2 DISH Wire™ audio/video connection ports for
interface with select IEEE 1394 products"


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

You mean this PDF?

http://tinyurl.com/5jhmv


----------



## AVJohnnie

BobMurdoch said:


> Don't forget the printed materials handed out at the trade shows which showed the firewire capabilities............


Just go here: http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/products/receivers/HD/index.shtml on Charlie's website.

Click on "Compare ALL Receivers" on the left side of the page.

Note the last entry in the table of features under the "CONNECTIONS" section.

Probably should print yourself a hardcopy of the page -- I expect it will be revised or deleted before long -- Though it's been there at least since June/2004 when I decided to buy my 921.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

Thanks AvJohnnie.


----------



## ocnier

Good catch AVJohnnie! Way to go man!


----------



## Chris Blount

Here is a screenshot of the comparison chart just in case it should happen to "disappear".


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

The only part I don't like about tha is it says "Details are subject to change without notice" (The Spec Sheets however do not say that...)

Notice that the above says the 811 has a channel 3/4 modulator. 

I am sure someone is going to get yelled at for that page.


----------



## Jason Kragt

Below is a press release from Business Wire. I bolded the interesting part.

LITTLETON, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 5, 2003--EchoStar Communications Corporation (NASDAQ: DISH) announced today that the company's DISH Network(TM), America's fastest growing satellite subscription television service, will begin offering four channels of high-definition entertainment in a single, low-priced package Sept. 16.

Further establishing itself as the leader in high-definition initiatives, DISH Network will offer ESPN HD, Discovery HD Theater, HDNet and HDNet Movies in a new package for $9.99 per month or $109.89 annually, the lowest prices in the industry.

DISH Network also offers high-definition channels such as CBS-HD, HBO-HD, Showtime HD, and DISH-On-Demand pay-per-view HD movies.

DISH Network's entry-level DISH 811, designed as the first affordable high-definition receiver/decoder, will be available this fall at an MSRP of only $399.

DISH Network will further strengthen a high-definition product line that currently includes the popular model 6000 with the release of the DISH Player-DVR 921, available by the end of October. The first-of-its-kind high-definition digital video recorder (DVR) will carry an MSRP of $999. It will feature a 250-gigabyte hard drive capable of recording up to 25 hours of high-definition video or up to 180 hours of standard-definition content, or some combination of both.

The state-of-the-art DISH Player-DVR 921 contains all the features of DISH Network's complete line of DVRs, plus a dual tuner that allows the user to record two different shows while viewing a third pre-recorded show. The DISH Player-DVR 921 also includes a picture-in-picture feature on any TV. No other pay TV company offers the innovative combination of HD and DVR features -- including rewind, fast-forward, pause, and 30-second skip-ahead -- as the DISH Player-DVR 921.

Winner of the Best of Show in the Innovations Design and Engineering category at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the DISH Player-DVR 921 also offers:

*-- DISHWire connection for future downloading and storage of
content*
-- Electronic program guide with computerized search function
-- Throughput of 480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i resolutions
-- Slow motion and frame-by-frame replay
-- All DISH Video-On-Demand functionality.

With the DISH Player-DVR 921, DISH Network customers will enhance their enjoyment of sports programming on the new ESPN HD and HDNet and the exciting variety of movies and general entertainment on HDNet Movies and Discovery HD Theater.

For information on DISH Network and its products or services call 1-800-333-DISH (3474), visit www.dishnetwork.com or contact your local DISH Network retailer.

CONTACT: EchoStar Communications Corporation
Steve Caulk, 303-723-2010
[email protected]

SOURCE: EchoStar Communications Corporation


----------



## jsanders

Moviegoerman, if I understand right, you are not a 921 user anymore. It is easy for you to just move on.

As for the rest of us, what would you rather see? A dialog with E* and a roadmap to fix things, or wrangling with lawyers for years to come with the outcome being that your 921 still DOESN'T work, but you have a couple pay per view coupons while the lawyer buys his new house in the Hamptons?

I would rather see my box fixed! Lawyers don't try to get things fixed, they try to get settlements. Class action lawsuits don't benefit the consumer, and they weaken the company. The only one that benefits are the lawyers! 

We don't need talk of lawsuits on this forum, that is not its charter. We want to talk about solutions, not settlements! For every reaction, there is an equal and opposite reaction. We need to be pro-active, not reactive. I won't join any class action lawsuit, it is a waste of time. We need to consider any consequences for our actions too.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

Charlie still wants quotes (exact quotes...)

Here is the email I just got from him


> Give me the exact quotes on dishwire and dishinteractive..i know interactive
> is a downloadable feature that can be done in the future
> c


This was my reply to Charlie...


> Charlie, the link I just sent you had it there in clear black and white, also the origional spec sheet for the 921 also has it in there.
> 
> And again why should a subscriber have to wait a year or more (in the case of Interactive) for an advertised feature to work on a receiver they purchased?
> 
> When you buy a DirecTV receiver all features work out of the box. There is no wait a year or so for a software upgrade which will turn on this feature.
> 
> Scott


----------



## jsanders

Great, Charlie is asking us what things they need to do with the 921 that would fulfill our promises.

We can surely mention firewire, but it isn't going to happen. Boxes now ship without firewire ports. No hardware means it ain't gonna be fixed. It isn't reasonable to ask for that, regardless of how many press releases we can show stating that it was promised.

I think it boils down to just a few things:

OTA guide data, including sub-channel data, and functionality for those who subscribe to distant locals. This should not be tied to purchasing local channel subscriptions.

Name based recording.

OpenTV

I think those are reasonable requests that E* has the ability to fulfill given the current circumstances. I don't think it is too much to ask for, and I think the majority of the 921 users would be happy enough with this functionality.


----------



## Jason Kragt

Here is a link to a tech forum summary. It doesn't give an exact quote, but provides additional evidence supporting the assertion that name based recordings were promised for the 921.

http://www.chataboutsatellitetv.com/Tech_Forum_Summary_2-9-07-4996002-811-a.html

Here is a link to a tech forum that talks about feeding DishWire to a JVC HD VCR.

http://www.talkaboutsatellitetv.com/group/alt.dbs.echostar/messages/229505.html


----------



## Mark Lamutt

Charlie wants to hear the exactly what Dan Minnick said on the Q1 Tech forum from this year. Scott got him to the table, and now Charlie is calling the bluff. Time to show the cards. Vague promises aren't going to cut it - you need the specifics now.


----------



## moviegoerman

jsanders said:


> Moviegoerman, if I understand right, you are not a 921 user anymore. It is easy for you to just move on.


jsanders,

I am a current registered 921 owner and Dish subscriber. I agree we need to pursue all routes that lead to resolution. i.e. a working box. I've spent plenty of time waiting for a resolution that I don't think will ever come. That is when you pursue it legally. You don't have to join in but I don't think you'll get much resolution without banding together.

Lawsuits also get a quicker response to settling and resolving this issue. Class actions are made just for this purpose. i.e. when the consumer isn't getting treated right and all efforts so far have failed. I'm in that boat as a consumer. I don't expect Dish to fix anything. All you'll get is more vapor promises. I also don't expect them to reimburse me for my damages to date.

Legal settlements where Dish provides resoution can result in monetary and/or disolving the claim by providing a working 921 with the sold features and recovery of other named damages.

A working 921 isn't all that I seek at this point if others are also ready to pursue it. There will be plenty of talk to help resolve the problem. Legal will be one of them I see continuing. If you aren't serious about it, neither will Dish be. They will continue to act and do the same unless a proper amount of pressure is given. I'm ready for a fight... If your weak, then Dish will prevail and you'll be stuck with a 921 that doesn't do what you want. I'm ready for Dish to resolve my claims and complaints. You can resolve yours as you see fit, but I'll be pursuing all routes.

I've suggested another forum to focus on the issue and it seems others have agreed. I think Scott is willing to start something on his site. Once that gets going, then I would expect the conversation to move. Until then, here we all are together... Let's not forget we're on the same side.


----------



## jsanders

Mark Lamutt said:


> Charlie wants to hear the exactly what Dan Minnick said on the Q1 Tech forum from this year. Scott got him to the table, and now Charlie is calling the bluff. Time to show the cards. Vague promises aren't going to cut it - you need the specifics now.


I hope this doesn't turn into one of those discussions like, "That depends on what the word 'is' is." The promise was made, show of good faith is what is needed here. Just "Let your 'yes' mean 'yes', and your 'no' mean 'no'".


----------



## jsanders

moviegoerman, I don't like the idea of a class action lawsuit, but that does not mean I do not intend to not do anything about it.

I have a question for you though... Can you show me an example of a class action lawsuit where the customer was satisfied with the outcome? I personally don't recall any. I don't want PPV coupons myself.


----------



## Jason Kragt

What we need is for one of the broadcast engineers at Dish Network to "accidentally" re-run the Q104 and Q403 tech chats on channel 101 sometime this week!


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

I got him to the table not just on NBR but other features as well.

Also we must remember this is not just about the 921.

Chris do you have a way of capturing the audio from the July chat? That is what he is looking for.

As I said at SatelliteGuys, I have been contacted by a few lawyers however a lawsuit route is not the way I want to go. (Hell I haven't gotten my Pay Per View coupons from the last lawsuit yet)

BTW I don't know if you guys saw this, a SatelliteGuys member made it, I got a good laugh from it.


----------



## moviegoerman

jsanders said:


> moviegoerman, I don't like the idea of a class action lawsuit, but that does not mean I do not intend to not do anything about it.
> 
> I have a question for you though... Can you show me an example of a class action lawsuit where the customer was satisfied with the outcome? I personally don't recall any. I don't want PPV coupons myself.


I'm sure we all want different things. I don't want any PPV coupons either. You're assuming that would be the result. I want a fully functional working 921 or I'd much prefer Dish let me return my 921 for my $1000 refund. I could then stay a happy 721 customer...

Here's how I bet Dish willl proceed... They will ask what do we legally have to fullfill. They will ask what will it take to stop this revolt. Then they will probably make lots of promises where the Eldon team will continue to under deliver. When do you think the 921 will have firewire, EBR/NBR, OTA guide supported for all local stations without an added subscription? Even if Charlie decides he will implement those features I wouldn't expect to see it within a year from now. Still buggy and by that time, I can bet you their solution will be to spend more money and upgrade to the new box that solves your problem.

My impression was the group was frustrated and interested in pursing legal action to resolve their complaints. If there isn't a group effort, then it will be impossible to do it. Idle threats are meaningless if you have no follow through.

I still say we continue down all roads. Try to get Charlie to offically concede to what they will and won't do (with hard dates)! Then as those dates go by, let me know when you guys are ready to join in on the action...


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

moviegoerman said:


> I've suggested another forum to focus on the issue and it seems others have agreed. I think Scott is willing to start something on his site. Once that gets going, then I would expect the conversation to move. Until then, here we all are together... Let's not forget we're on the same side.


I agree with this. I have heard from a few who suggestion we move this talk off of DBSTalk, and I understand that with this talk Mark is worried this may ruin the work he is doing with dish and could possibly ruin this 921 forum and what hes doing in it. That is something I DO NOT want to happen. Mark runs a good forum.

If we moved the discussion and formed some kind of usergroup it would not be to promote SatelliteGuys but instead to protect what Mark has built here.

We are indeed all on the same side and we should work together. If we are to move mountains I must admit I can't do it on my own. I will need as much help as I can get.

I can pledge the resources needed to get this running, the server, the bandwidth and drive space.

We can do it, but again we must all work together.

What does everyone think?


----------



## Ron Barry

Here are some point on my perspective:

1) I am not a big fan of class action lawsuits. LIke someone mentioned earlier, we all know who gets rich when this route is taken. This is usually the first reaction that happens when these boards find out a direction change.

2) My guess is that given that they have some experience with adding NBR and know understand the amount of effort it will take to port it to the 921, 721, and 510 series. The 721 and 921 are based off the same code base by the 5xx series is a different code base. Doing a port into these different OS's and environments will not be an easy task. This is my guess why the decided not to do it. They would rather spend the effort on future receivers.

3) Software direction changes happen and features do get dropped all the time. Like Bob mentioned, this feature never was an advertised feature on the 921, 721, and 5xx. They did plan on adding it to these units as mentioned in the chats, but that does equate to promised features. The dishwire issues is totally different. I was also looking forward to this feature too and am very disappointed, but it does not suprise me given the MPEG4 direction and I could see them wanting to devote as much resources as possible to getting these receivers ready.

From what I can see it is obvious their was a decision of taking resources and devote them to either porting NBR to older receivers or place these resources on new receivers that will support NBR and MPEG4.

I would be willing to let this slide with a commitment that they provide "At no cost to their loyal customers" replacement receivers that support MPEG4 with NBR and to remove the $5 joke VOD fee. I think that would be an acceptable compromise that would allow Dish to concentrate on the future while minimize the concerns that a number of loyal customers have in terms of their investment.

Well that is my take. Hopefully this issue will get resolved with not too much bloodshed.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

I just got an interesting email from Charlie...

But first here is what I wrote him...


> From: Scott Greczkowski [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 1:11 PM
> To: Ergen, Charlie
> Subject: RE: Greeting from SatelliteGuys
> 
> Hi Charlie,
> 
> My guys are stilll putting stuff together. But in searching just
> found this one from your own companies press release on September 5th,
> 2003. Which states the following...
> 
> "Winner of the Best of Show in the Innovations Design and Engineering
> category at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the DISH
> Player-DVR 921 also offers:
> 
> -- DISHWire connection for future downloading and storage of content"
> 
> There you go once again in black and white.
> 
> Thanks again Charlie.


Here is his reply...


> Yes, we will do that through the usb port...are you assuming dishwire is
> 'firewire'..
> 
> c


I am stumped on this reply. Any ideas?


----------



## Ron Barry

jsanders said:


> Eh? Maybe you can enlighten me with what you mean with "SWAG", not sure what you mean by it. The dictionary defines it as:


It is an ancronym for Super Wild Ass Guess. Used in a number of development groups usually used when the figure is pulled out of thin air based on some level of experience but not nowing a lot about all the variables envoled in a particular task.



jsanders said:


> anyway, we do know a bit about this environment. It is not an embedded controller. It is a PC running a little less than 1GHz with an NVidia graphics chip set, PCI cards, some RAM, a 250GB HD, USB, etc.. It is running a variant of linux on an x86 architecture. The toolset is probably gcc, probably debugging with gdb - standard unix/linux tools. If they are lucky, they have something like insight or DDD running ontop of gdb, but I doubt it. The hard part with their environment is the GUI stuff. They don't have something like GNU, KDE, or QT with interface design tools to do the work for them, so that is a bit more tedious. Even if it was an embedded controller, it isn't hard to do a cross compiler with binutils, newlib and stdlib. With those tools, you even get floating point math if you want it. It isn't trivial to roll your own like that, but it isn't that hard either.


Yes, but like you just stated we don't know the tools or even the nature of the software architecture. NBR is being shoe horned into the code base. Depending on how good they did upfront architecture would be a determining facture on making a time estimate of the task. I stand behind my orginal comment. We don't know enough to make time estimates.

I would agree that the UI is the hardest part. Most embedded people neglect it it as being trivial. Well the UI would be part of this task for sure. You seemed to neglect it in your estimate.

We don't know if they have GDB available to them. Good assumption they do, but under their configuration it may or may not be useful to them. I am not a huge GDB fan but then again I work in the UI application layer so I am more happy with GUI based debuggers. I know one of our teams that is working on an embedeed environment under Linux is having to go the printf route. Not sure the details why, but they do. This kinda supports my argument in terms of making environment assumptions that effect estimates. Without a good knowledge of the environment both in terms of tools available, code base, widget set, etc a good estimate to deliver NBR on the 522, 721, or 921 could not me made. Yes maybe you can code up a framework for it in a month but to integrate it into these code bases would be a much larger task and lion share of the work (IN my opinion if I was to guess)



jsanders said:


> That gives a basic framework for the environment. As far as implementing the code to do name based recording, there are two ways to do it. The first, which is very simple is to have the user browse through the guide (using existing code), and select a program as normal. There are several choices when the user now selects the program, something like, "Tune to this event", "Record this event once", "Record this event M-F", "Record this event Daily", "Record this event Weekly". Add a radio button, "Record this event when it is aired". Now, maintain a linked list of all of the selections with this type, "Record the event when it is aired". In this linked list, have a structure with a couple of elements, the program name, and/or the station. You get this information from the existing program guide that the user selected. A very basic version of this would just be to do something like this:
> 
> << Removed Rest >>
> 
> So, yes, I say I could get something like a basic NBR working inside of a month. Feel free to explain why you think it would take longer.


Well maybe dish should hire you with a bonus to get it working in a month and a penality if you don't.  As they say the devil is in the details. Since I don't have any knowledge of Dish's code base could not even attempt to say if this should work or not. Personally I really don't want to hijack this thread so I will accept the fact that we disagree here. I would be curious how many man hours it took Tivo or Reply for their first implementation. That would be a good reference point.



jsanders said:


> I apologize for the code looking ugly, this message board software takes out white space.


I see a tab man.


----------



## moviegoerman

Scott Greczkowski said:


> I just got an interesting email from Charlie...
> 
> Here is his reply...
> Quote:
> Yes, we will do that through the usb port...are you assuming dishwire is
> 'firewire'..
> 
> c
> 
> I am stumped on this reply. Any ideas?


The only thing they have in common is that they both use serial communication to transfer data. The whole point to firewire integration was to support the existing D-VHS tape recorders. D-VHS tape recorders do not support USB. Dish's advertising on the 921 was the ability to archive a program to tape using existing D-VHS recorders on the market.

My guess the reason this was pulled is because that protocol doesn't have any copyright protections. I can't see Dish implementing what they promised without causing a bigger problem from their content providers.


----------



## moviegoerman

WeeJavaDude said:


> Here are some point on my perspective:
> 
> 1) I am not a big fan of class action lawsuits. LIke someone mentioned earlier, we all know who gets rich when this route is taken. This is usually the first reaction that happens when these boards find out a direction change.


I don't think anyone is a fan of class action suits. It is usually the last resort to have any effect where previous attempts don't provide any results. You only refrain from class actions if you still have hope. I've lost my hope in Dish to deliver a working 921 and I'd love to get out of the situation.



WeeJavaDude said:


> 2) My guess is that given that they have some experience with adding NBR and know understand the amount of effort it will take to port it to the 921, 721, and 510 series. The 721 and 921 are based off the same code base by the 5xx series is a different code base. Doing a port into these different OS's and environments will not be an easy task. This is my guess why the decided not to do it. They would rather spend the effort on future receivers.


I don't think you'll ever be looking at a port. Whatever is done with the 921 will be done by Eldon reinventing the wheel for themselves. Expect it not to work... Expect it to be full of bugs. Expect it to take over a year to get it.



WeeJavaDude said:


> 3) Software direction changes happen and features do get dropped all the time. Like Bob mentioned, this feature never was an advertised feature on the 921, 721, and 5xx. They did plan on adding it to these units as mentioned in the chats, but that does equate to promised features. The dishwire issues is totally different. I was also looking forward to this feature too and am very disappointed, but it does not suprise me given the MPEG4 direction and I could see them wanting to devote as much resources as possible to getting these receivers ready.


COMcast offers firewire DVRs to it's customers because it was legally mandated by the FCC after lots of complaints. Satellite providers aren't included for the same reasons Dish has problems getting locals everywhere. They don't get treated equally.



WeeJavaDude said:


> From what I can see it is obvious their was a decision of taking resources and devote them to either porting NBR to older receivers or place these resources on new receivers that will support NBR and MPEG4.


I don't think many resources are willing to move to Eldon to finish it...  It's always easier to start a new project instead of cleaning up the mess.



WeeJavaDude said:


> I would be willing to let this slide with a commitment that they provide "At no cost to their loyal customers" replacement receivers that support MPEG4 with NBR and to remove the $5 joke VOD fee. I think that would be an acceptable compromise that would allow Dish to concentrate on the future while minimize the concerns that a number of loyal customers have in terms of their investment.
> 
> Well that is my take. Hopefully this issue will get resolved with not too much bloodshed.


A free upgrade/trade-in to the newest receiver would be acceptable for me! A return policy for upset customers would be just as good until the new receiver is available. I don't have any faith in the 921 or the Eldon team delivering this product to market. They've proven time and time again, they are not the team to build a 921.


----------



## bbomar

moviegoerman said:


> The only thing they have in common is that they both use serial communication to transfer data. The whole point to firewire integration was to support the existing D-VHS tape recorders. D-VHS tape recorders do not support USB. Dish's advertising on the 921 was the ability to archive a program to tape using existing D-VHS recorders on the market.
> 
> My guess the reason this was pulled is because that protocol doesn't have any copyright protections. I can't see Dish implementing what they promised without causing a bigger problem from their content providers.


Standard USB would be pretty slow for this task at 12 megabits/sec. USB2.0
is as fast as firewire but I would be surprised if the 921 has a USB2.0 port
in it. I would settle for archiving on 2-layer recordable DVDs instead of
D-VHS if there is a USB2.0 port. Why would firewire have copyright
restrictions and USB not?


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

The USB port on the 921 is a 1.1 port not 2.0, I have verifed this with Mark Jackson and Dan Minnick.


----------



## bbomar

Scott Greczkowski said:


> The USB port on the 921 is a 1.1 port not 2.0, I have verifed this with Mark Jackson and Dan Minnick.


Well, HD archiving would take a little longer than real time, and hour SD
program maybe 15 minutes. I guess better than nothing but I would
still think that if copyright restrictions is the problem it would not make
any difference how, or how fast, you get the data out of the box.


----------



## moviegoerman

bbomar said:


> Why would firewire have copyright
> restrictions and USB not?


Firewire is unrestricted (just as much as USB) and that is the problem. No copy protection would make it very easy for pirates to get the original MPEG data stream. The content providers would not be happy with exact digital duplicates easily reproducible for uses of mass copying. You would see the PPV and DVD markets go down.

The only safe way to do archiving for consumers and providers is to have it copy protected. It allows us consumers to archive our programs for sole use purposes while also protecting the content providers from mass duplication.

The Dishwire is a spin on the Firewire word. It was meant to be an archiving solution for existing D-VHS tape recorders. Remember the special thing about the D-VHS would allow you to archive an HD program (not just SD). Currently, there aren't any HD-DVD recorders that support archiving from DVRs. The few that do exist cost plenty and aren't available in the USA. They are also still trying to narrow down an HD format for DVD recorders today.

I can't expect Dish to offer archiving unless it meets all parties needs. A proprietary solution to archive would be acceptable, but then not really what was sold either. I think this is a topic Dish would be considering but way too early to make a promise on any type of technology since it's so fluid.


----------



## Jason Kragt

Scott Greczkowski said:


> I just got an interesting email from Charlie...
> 
> But first here is what I wrote him...
> 
> Here is his reply...
> 
> I am stumped on this reply. Any ideas?


DishWire is not USB. If it were, then how could Charlie possibly explain this picture:

http://www.dbstalk.com/images/921/921_back_close-2.jpg


----------



## jsanders

Jason Kragt said:


> DishWire is not USB. If it were, then how could Charlie possibly explain this picture:
> 
> http://www.dbstalk.com/images/921/921_back_close-2.jpg


 !rolling


----------



## Altaman

Scott Greczkowski said:


> I just got an interesting email from Charlie...
> 
> But first here is what I wrote him...
> 
> Here is his reply...
> 
> I am stumped on this reply. Any ideas?


There product comparision chart specifically calls dishwire "Firewire/Ilink".

That brochure at 921 Brochure specifically says dishwire is for IEEE1394 products. I would ask Charlie if he is playing games or does he really want to satisfy the 921 customers that have not recieved the product they bought.

Alt


----------



## Chris Blount

For anyone who wants to hear for themselves, I've captured the audio from the July Charlie Chat and the May Tech Chat regarding NBR.

http://www.dbstalk.com/NBR-July2004CharlieChat.mp3

http://www.dbstalk.com/NBR-May2004TechChat.mp3


----------



## Karl Englebright

It never mentions the 921, does it?


----------



## John Walsh

Dishnetwork just needs to do something in good faith. I think that on the 921 we have three major gripes:

1) OTA mapping for those without subbing to locals

2) NBR

3) Firewire ports (dishwire)

I would love to have all of this stuff working properly as I am sure everyone would but 2 out of three would probably shut us all up. Since the dishwire is probably a copyright problem just give us the other two. Or better yet, as Brian has stated, give us a free uprgade or at the very least a generous concession when the next generation comes out I.E. 942 

Damn Charley, just show us you give a **** about us. We all know that you can smoke us at your poker games and we are not humored by the attempts to weasle out of any little loopholes. Can't you see how badly most of these people want to remain loyal customers of yours. How could we ever respect ourselves if we constantly get screwed over, I know for certain that Charlie Ergen does not get screwed over, he would never stand for such a thing.


----------



## jsanders

John Walsh said:


> How could we ever respect ourselves if we constantly get screwed over, I know for certain that Charlie Ergen does not get screwed over, he would never stand for such a thing.


Hmmmm. If that is true, then we should force Charlie to use a 921 as his primary receiver at home! Maybe that will motivate him.


----------



## moviegoerman

John Walsh said:


> Dishnetwork just needs to do something in good faith. I think that on the 921 we have three major gripes:
> 
> 1) OTA mapping for those without subbing to locals
> 
> 2) NBR
> 
> 3) Firewire ports (dishwire)


I'd like to add to the list:

The reason we purchased the 921 was for HD. It was sold as the thing to do if you want to get HD from dish. The 921 will be useless for HD when MPEG4 becomes their HD standard. The new 942 is being delay for MPEG4 while also not adding those features into the 921. I thought I was spending lots of money for a product that would be around longer than a year or less.

There are so many things that have made the 921 obsolete before it's even been delivered in working order to customers that have paid a hefty price. This is why I want a refund or a replacement DVR that does work. I think the refund would be the best! Let someone else who wants a 921 get it as a refurbished unit.

As content grows and your $1000, 921, will not be able to receive the new HD channels, How will you all feel? They're investing in the 942 as the replacement to fix NBR, and MPEG4. They 921 hardware won't be compatible. Will you feel taken advantage of at that point? How about when Dish starts selling the 942 above $1000 again? Will you rush out and buy that one too? What will it take for everyone to understand that the 921 is already obsolete on Dish's radar?


----------



## MikeW

Chris..It seems to me that the March or April Chat had Charlie talking about NBR and it wasn't solicited by a call-in. Do you have either of those months?


----------



## jsanders

moviegoerman, I don't think MPEG-4 is the issue here. When the 921 was released, they never promised it would be MPEG-4 compatible. The whole issue that we are discussing right now are broken promises. 

I think John Walsh is right. If they Do NBR, and fix the OTA guide for real, along with make the unit stable, that would be good enough.


----------



## moviegoerman

jsanders said:


> moviegoerman, I don't think MPEG-4 is the issue here. When the 921 was released, they never promised it would be MPEG-4 compatible. The whole issue that we are discussing right now are broken promises.
> 
> I think John Walsh is right. If they Do NBR, and fix the OTA guide for real, along with make the unit stable, that would be good enough.


So, I take it you will be cool with OTA Guide and NBR on a HD receiver that can't recieve any new HD channels?

I know it's additional to the complaints we have of trying to get a working box, but by the time you get it, it won't give you what you need. You'll still need to get a 942 or something else to record all the HD channels Dish offers after they go to MPEG4.

It's along the same lines that this receiver was sold to be used as an HD DVR, but they have already decided to make it useless just after they have unloaded the majority of their inventory. Hence, the price drop... They realize it's dead and they don't want to be holding a bunch of them. Why would you want one too???

I'm just arguing that we should be able to get returns for a receiver that delivers what Dish originally sold. An HD DVR! Not a soon to be obsolete SD tuner... I'd so much rather get off the boat today compared to waiting for it to sink deeper.


----------



## Mark Lamutt

Scott Greczkowski said:


> I agree with this. I have heard from a few who suggestion we move this talk off of DBSTalk, and I understand that with this talk Mark is worried this may ruin the work he is doing with dish and could possibly ruin this 921 forum and what hes doing in it. That is something I DO NOT want to happen. Mark runs a good forum.
> 
> If we moved the discussion and formed some kind of usergroup it would not be to promote SatelliteGuys but instead to protect what Mark has built here.
> 
> We are indeed all on the same side and we should work together. If we are to move mountains I must admit I can't do it on my own. I will need as much help as I can get.
> 
> I can pledge the resources needed to get this running, the server, the bandwidth and drive space.
> 
> We can do it, but again we must all work together.
> 
> What does everyone think?


Scott,

I never thought I'd say this... 

I'd appreciate it very much if you would take this off of my hands, over to your site. You are in a much better position than I am to lead the charge on this. I started this discussion here to collect all of the complaint threads into one location. However, the direction that the discussion has taken is beyond the scope of the support forum.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

Thanks Mark, I will get something setup in the morning, never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be conversing with the CEO of Dish Network all day.

Also thanks to Chris who uploaded the chat audio to me.


----------



## ClaudeR

How about mentioning the USB keyboard support? Internet access?


----------



## Jacob S

Eventually they will have to swap everyone's receivers out anyways for MPEG-4 and they KNOW that customers are NOT going to be willing to shell out the money again. They also know that HD is the wave of the future along with DVR but to combine them both together is pretty steep right now.

I am surprised someone has not figured out a way to opensource this to put software onto the satellite receiver through the satellite in port but that may open up another can of worms due to this possibly causing other things to be possible as well.


----------



## Chris Blount

MikeW said:


> Chris..It seems to me that the March or April Chat had Charlie talking about NBR and it wasn't solicited by a call-in. Do you have either of those months?


No Sir. My archive only goes back as far as May.


----------



## chuckbernard

John Walsh said:


> Since the dishwire is probably a copyright problem just give us the other two.


They could have allowed us to expand the system with an external hard disk through the firewire port without any copyright problems at all. All they would need to do is encrypt the data using the unit's serial number and sim card numbers to make up the key. The data would be useless for other devices or even another 921. At least we could keep increasing the system storage when cheaper and larger Firewire drives became available.

At least they wouldn't have to kill the port entirely. And, this could be done with a single programmer in less than a month! Including the testing!


----------



## DonLandis

bbomar said:


> Standard USB would be pretty slow for this task at 12 megabits/sec. USB2.0
> is as fast as firewire but I would be surprised if the 921 has a USB2.0 port
> in it. I would settle for archiving on 2-layer recordable DVDs instead of
> D-VHS if there is a USB2.0 port. Why would firewire have copyright
> restrictions and USB not?


The E* Dishwire was designed to offload the hard drive content to a DVHS VCR via the IEEE1394 port.

As stated by both Angela Warren 3 years ago and Mark Duffy two years ago, the "Dishwire" is just a name that E* coined because "FIREWIRE" and I-Link" are both trademarks of Apple and Sony. That precludes them from using those names. In addition the Dishwire should not be called by the specification of IEEE1394 because it was not specific to the end use. "Dishwire" was. The use is a one way output with deck control for dumping the content to tape.

The reason why this became an issue is because E* was a licensee of the 5C agreement. They felt it was in their best interest to be a 5C licensee to show content providers they would comply with copy protection according to the only standard for such IEEE1394 in the industry, 5C. In the 5C license agreement, it is very specific as to how any IEEE1394 can be used in a Pvr / DVR product. It was precisely this compliance as spelled out in the 5C agreement that gave them trouble in implementation that caused them to stop spending resources on and quit.

Unfortunately, many if not all the early proponent consumers were like myself. WE bought the 921 primarily because it was promised to do this, first before it was released, then 30 days after it was released. and then it was promised for March delivery and then in April, the rumors were leaked that Dishwire was to be dropped permanently. WE found this out by some owners receiving their repaired 921's being returned from E* with tape over the Dishwire ports. There was never any official announcement until later last summer during a Q/A session on Charlie Chats. They tried to make it sound like it was copy protection and content providers fault. Fact is they had the license to do it, they just couldn't write the software to implement it.

Someone also tried to float a rumor that it was dropped because the Dishwire ports leaked RF and the Federal Communications Commission failed the product on emmissions. This was a totally false story and from a technical viewpoint, just plain silly. The FCC denied this was the case, Inside contacts I had laughed hysterically at the notion. Unfortunately, technically challenged individuals often grasp onto stuff like this. The more bizzarre the better for them. The truth is often not dramatic enough. The truth in this case is E* just decided not to keep their promise to deliver Dishwire to specs under their 5C license agreement.


----------



## ocnier

Wow Don, that was best summation I have seen yet concerning the Dishwire issue.


----------



## DVDDave

moviegoerman said:


> So, I take it you will be cool with OTA Guide and NBR on a HD receiver that can't recieve any new HD channels?
> 
> I know it's additional to the complaints we have of trying to get a working box, but by the time you get it, it won't give you what you need. You'll still need to get a 942 or something else to record all the HD channels Dish offers after they go to MPEG4.
> 
> It's along the same lines that this receiver was sold to be used as an HD DVR, but they have already decided to make it useless just after they have unloaded the majority of their inventory. Hence, the price drop... They realize it's dead and they don't want to be holding a bunch of them. Why would you want one too???
> 
> I'm just arguing that we should be able to get returns for a receiver that delivers what Dish originally sold. An HD DVR! Not a soon to be obsolete SD tuner... I'd so much rather get off the boat today compared to waiting for it to sink deeper.


I just got off the phone with advanced tech support. She said they have no information about a move to MPEG4 or reason to believe that the 921 will be incompatible with new HD content. I asked her to note in my account that I am not returning my 921 on that basis and that, if it turns out that Dish knows something about future incompatibility that they are hiding from their customers, this would be a clear basis for a lawsuit. She said she would enter my concern into my account notes.

She also said that advanced tech support does not monitor this site and has no knowledge whatsoever about MPEG4. This is not to say that I believe her. I just figured any documentation we can generate now will help protect us later.

--Dave


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

DVDDave said:


> I just got off the phone with advanced tech support. She said they have no information about a move to MPEG4 or reason to believe that the 921 will be incompatible with new HD content. I asked her to note in my account that I am not returning my 921 on that basis and that, if it turns out that Dish knows something about future incompatibility that they are hiding from their customers, this would be a clear basis for a lawsuit. She said she would enter my concern into my account notes.


You should have told her to watch the Charlie Chat reply where Charlie talks about this.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

A big thank you to everyone who has helped out in this discussion, because of the flood of feedback you have got Dish Networks attention!

As you know I was in discussions with Charlie Ergen all day yesterday, and while nothing yet has been resolved, we can all hope and continue to beat on the doors of Echostar until we get some kind of resolution.

I have sent Charlie Ergen the transcripts of everything that was said about name Based recording over the past year. There is no doubt whatsoever that Dish announced Name based recording would be coming this past summer to many Dish Network DVR's. There is no reason why we shouldnt be upset because of another false promise from Dish Network.

We have the proof, now Charlie has the proof, will he do the right thing? Or will he look like a fool to the over 25,000 people that visit both DBSTalk and SatelliteGuys.US? The ball is in his court now.

Out of respect to Marks fine 921 forum here at DBSTalk and with the blessing of Mark and Chris we will be weaning the discussion off of the forums here at DBSTalk and will continue the discussion on SatelliteGuys, this way the 921 Support Forum can once again be the 921 support forum.

The direct link to this discussion at SatelliteGuys is http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=39655 we hope you will continue to voice your opinion on this matter, if we want to make a difference we need to continue to make our voices heard.

Once again thanks to Mark and Chris for their permission to move te discussion off of DBSTalk.

Happy Holidays to all!


----------



## BobMurdoch

On an unrelated note, it is gratifying to see both sites working together this well towards a common goal. Sometimes it is difficult to realize that competitors are colleagues as well, and can work together for the common good. Kudos for putting egos and past differences aside in this matter (and hopefully future ones as well). Both sites are invaluable tools to the users, and this level of cooperation raises the stakes and makes your combined efforts capable of overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles.


----------



## deweybrunner

Scott, when you had your conversation with Charlie, did you mention the thousands of dissatisfied customers that must sign on for locals just to get ota guide that the 811 now has free? Thanks for all yours and Mark's help. Dewey in Tampa


----------



## tnsprin

moviegoerman said:


> Firewire is unrestricted (just as much as USB) and that is the problem. No copy protection would make it very easy for pirates to get the original MPEG data stream. The content providers would not be happy with exact digital duplicates easily reproducible for uses of mass copying. You would see the PPV and DVD markets go down.
> 
> The only safe way to do archiving for consumers and providers is to have it copy protected. It allows us consumers to archive our programs for sole use purposes while also protecting the content providers from mass duplication.
> 
> The Dishwire is a spin on the Firewire word. It was meant to be an archiving solution for existing D-VHS tape recorders. Remember the special thing about the D-VHS would allow you to archive an HD program (not just SD). Currently, there aren't any HD-DVD recorders that support archiving from DVRs. The few that do exist cost plenty and aren't available in the USA. They are also still trying to narrow down an HD format for DVD recorders today.
> 
> I can't expect Dish to offer archiving unless it meets all parties needs. A proprietary solution to archive would be acceptable, but then not really what was sold either. I think this is a topic Dish would be considering but way too early to make a promise on any type of technology since it's so fluid.


The dishwire in question did include protection as did several earlier such as panasonic. That is not why it was pulled.


----------



## moviegoerman

tnsprin said:


> The dishwire in question did include protection as did several earlier such as panasonic. That is not why it was pulled.


If you have any evidence for any of our claims of why features (Dishwire or NBR) were pulled, then please post them to the other thread:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=39655

I'm trying to gather all the evidence for all of our claims, not just NBR. Any information would be helpful. i.e. brochures, official press releases, charlie/tech chats, etc. Thanks...


----------



## tnsprin

moviegoerman said:


> If you have any evidence for any of our claims of why features (Dishwire or NBR) were pulled, then please post them to the other thread:
> 
> http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=39655
> 
> I'm trying to gather all the evidence for all of our claims, not just NBR. Any information would be helpful. i.e. brochures, official press releases, charlie/tech chats, etc. Thanks...


I don't know why it (DISHWIRE) was pulled, but the chips envolved did support the necessary firewire protections (5c).


----------



## passing_ships

moviegoerman said:


> If you have any evidence for any of our claims of why features (Dishwire or NBR) were pulled, then please post them to the other thread:


 May I respectfully urge everyone to stop discussing litigation. I don't feel that we have exhausted all our options, and talks of lawsuits changes the tone of the discussion to an adversarial one prematurely.

I am as grieved as you for what I perceive to be E*'s arrogance or ignorance of how it is treating us. However, I think we still have a chance to get them to change their mind - after all, its just a SMOP (small matter of programming) :hurah:. It is software that can be fixed or rewritten and we need to keep the pressure on E* to do one or the other. Maybe they just need to hand the problem to a better development team.

Talking about litigation merely shuts down all channels of communication and only makes lawyers happy. You have the right to do what you want, and it sounds like you want a refund. I sincerely hope that you get it. I don't want a refund - I want the 921 to do what I bought it for, so please don't drag the rest of us down your path - some of us would like to continue to try to get E* to change its mind through dialog.

Thanks.


----------



## deweybrunner

Passing ships, I agree with you 100! Give them a chance to right the ship. Even though i paid 1000. for mine, I am 99% happy with the unit. I had Tivo for over five years, with name base recording. I'll bet I did not use that feature three times, and I could care less about firewire, however, I feel we were misled with the ota guide charge of 5.99 a month when we do not need to subscribe to locals, especially when the 811 is free. I like my 921, yet I am very upset at this additional charge for ota guide.


----------



## boylehome

This is about customer satisfaction and, "you get what you pay for." I paid the full amount for my first 921. and the going price for my second 921. I'm not getting what I paid for and I'm not satisfied. If the 921's were a lease program then I guess we could have different recourse. For some it's been a year now and the 921 ins't up to speed. It should have been 100% when it first sold. Between Dish and me, it is a business, customer relationship. As a customer, there are consumer rightes and they do vary in different states. If legal action is required to bring about resolve, then legal action has my vote. Usually taking corrective measures when needed can increase professionalism and improve the products. There is also relief for the customer who is not satisfied with an expensive product isn't performing to standards or that doesn't function as promised.


----------



## passing_ships

boylehome said:


> If legal action is required to bring about resolve, then legal action has my vote. Usually taking corrective measures when needed can increase professionalism and improve the products. There is also relief for the customer who is not satisfied with an expensive product isn't performing to standards or that doesn't function as promised.


 By all means pursue legal action to redress the wrong done to you. That is your right as a consumer. If a number of you want to file a class action suit together, that too, is your right.

My humble plea is for you to not do that in this forum where a number of us are intent on continuing to work the issues and reach a resolution that does not require legal recourse. From our point of view, E* is making progress with fixes, albeit slowly with frequent regressions, and occasionally makes ill-conceived decisions such as the ones you quote. The former can be fixed with a better engineering team and the latter with a change in the management team.

I would very much like to keep the dialog with E* as open and as productive as we can. E* used to have great customer relationships once. I have been a customer since they began service. It would not be impossible for them to have that again and would make excellent business sense for them to do so.

Thanks.


----------



## boylehome

passing_ships said:


> My humble plea is for you to not do that in this forum where a number of us are intent on continuing to work the issues and reach a resolution that does not require legal recourse. From our point of view, E* is making progress with fixes, albeit slowly with frequent regressions, and occasionally makes ill-conceived decisions such as the ones you quote. The former can be fixed with a better engineering team and the latter with a change in the management team.
> 
> Thanks.


Very reasonable. Yes, this is a technical information forum.


----------



## xsailor

Thank goodness ... a voice of reason (finally)!


----------



## BobMurdoch

Amen.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

Just an update, we gave Charlie the quotes from the Chats he wanted, and now we have not heard from him again..

In my opinion, his silence speaks volumes on how he feels about current Dish Network customers. Kind of sad actually.


----------



## passing_ships

Scott Greczkowski said:


> In my opinion, his silence speaks volumes on how he feels about current Dish Network customers. Kind of sad actually.


 ...or that he is actually working the issues through his management chain - something that can take a while in large companies.


----------



## Scott Greczkowski

passing_ships said:


> ...or that he is actually working the issues through his management chain - something that can take a while in large companies.


Hey could also write back and say hes looking into it or something. I gave him everything he asked for, now the ball is in his court.


----------



## BuckeyeChris

Scott Greczkowski said:


> Just an update, we gave Charlie the quotes from the Chats he wanted, and now we have not heard from him again..
> 
> In my opinion, his silence speaks volumes on how he feels about current Dish Network customers. Kind of sad actually.


It _might_ also mean that he and his staff are on holiday vaction, just maybe?


----------



## NukeBug

I just recently (3months) got the 921 after living with DirecTV and a separate TiVo which the wife and I loved and miss 
I must say that I am APPALLED at the bugs and how Dish treats their high end customers.... If I was not under contract, I would have already jumped ship to direct and a new Tivo. I think a lot of you must not have ever had a real DVR like Tivo or you would ALL be so mad that you would drive them to Charlie's house and dump them on his driveway. There is soooo much to be desired, NBR and OTA Guides are some of the simplest!

Mark me down as a future UN-subscriber!


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## BobaBird

I too am anxiously awaiting the answer I want to hear but if you'll all take a moment to look at a calendar you may notice that today is the day after Christmas. The man has a family he probably wants to spend time with. He might even take a some extra time off. Frankly, I was surprised to get a response as close to Christmas as we did.


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## Avillant

Last night I was at a friends home that has a non-HD DIRECTV Tivo. We set it up to record 60 Minutes from 7pm to 8pm. As we expected, the football game ran over by about ten minutes. The Tivo still recorded from 7pm to 8pm so we got the last ten minutes of the game and lost 10 minutes of 60 minutes. I was under the impression that Name Based Recording took care of time shifts like this and would actually delay recording until 60 minutes actually started and would record the whole show.

If this isn't what Name Based Recording does, what is the big deal about it??
Perhaps the non-HD DIRECTV Tivo does not have it???

Tony


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## jsanders

Avillant said:
 

> Last night I was at a friends home that has a non-HD DIRECTV Tivo. We set it up to record 60 Minutes from 7pm to 8pm. As we expected, the football game ran over by about ten minutes. The Tivo still recorded from 7pm to 8pm so we got the last ten minutes of the game and lost 10 minutes of 60 minutes. I was under the impression that Name Based Recording took care of time shifts like this and would actually delay recording until 60 minutes actually started and would record the whole show.


The name based recording is only as good as the electronic programming guide. The guide doesn't handle "unscheduled" delays. Think of it this way, if a show is running overtime, how do you tell the programming guide how long the delay is going to be??? Nobody knows how long it is going to take, so you can't program the programming guide to compensate for something like that.

You are no doubt probably thinking about supersized episodes which are an extra ten minutes or so. Those are scheduled in the guide, and the Tivo has no problems dealing with them, Dish doesn't have a problem with them either, so long as the guide is accurate.


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## TonyB

I too was under the impression that the tivo nbr did in fact handle such things as games that run beyond their scheduled time. Doesn't the program signal contain the info about the program - and the recorder looks for a "match"?


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## TowJumper

My parents have a Tivo unit (not DTV) and it is smart enough to realize when a show has been rescheduled on the program guide, i.e. record a 9PM show that has been rescheduled to 10 PM IF the show time is changed in the guide. It does NOT adjust for games running late etc - this is from what I have seen of their Tivo.

This is still an improvement of course over the current Dish time based that would record the 9PM show dutifully in spite of the program guide clearly showing it has been changed to 10PM.



TonyB said:


> I too was under the impression that the tivo nbr did in fact handle such things as games that run beyond their scheduled time. Doesn't the program signal contain the info about the program - and the recorder looks for a "match"?


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## Avillant

jsanders said:


> The name based recording is only as good as the electronic programming guide. The guide doesn't handle "unscheduled" delays. Think of it this way, if a show is running overtime, how do you tell the programming guide how long the delay is going to be??? Nobody knows how long it is going to take, so you can't program the programming guide to compensate for something like that.
> 
> You are no doubt probably thinking about supersized episodes which are an extra ten minutes or so. Those are scheduled in the guide, and the Tivo has no problems dealing with them, Dish doesn't have a problem with them either, so long as the guide is accurate.


Then why are you all making such a fuss about Name Based Recordings?? I just don't understand! If it would take care of events such as I mentioned in my first reply, I could see why you would want it. As it is, I just don't care. I really would like to see them give us a decent program guide that they didn't use to grab another $5 from us.

Tony


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## lionsrule

I COMPLETELY agree with your questioning WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL WITH NBR!!!
Seems to me this forum is FULL of whiners.
I challenge someone to explain WHY NBR will "change the way you watch tv" versus the current PVR software. Jesus, get a life people.


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## jsanders

Avillant said:


> Then why are you all making such a fuss about Name Based Recordings?? I just don't understand! If it would take care of events such as I mentioned in my first reply, I could see why you would want it. As it is, I just don't care. I really would like to see them give us a decent program guide that they didn't use to grab another $5 from us.


I would like a decent program guide too, one that doesn't cost me $6/mo to get. I think that is on, or near the top of the priority list. However, I still want name based recording. It is not hard to implement, and it does add more functionality than what we have. Down the line, I'm sure Tivo and Dish will figure out how to adapt for sports programs that run overtime. I personally don't watch sports that much, so that is a lower priority fo rme.


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## BuckeyeChris

lionsrule said:


> I COMPLETELY agree with your questioning WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL WITH NBR!!!
> Seems to me this forum is FULL of whiners.
> I challenge someone to explain WHY NBR will "change the way you watch tv" versus the current PVR software. Jesus, get a life people.


I'll agree with you that there are some whiners on this board that will never be satisfied. But to me, and a lot of others, the big deal with NBR is the Season Pass feature that continuously searches the Guide for my programs and records them.


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## FaxMan

BuckeyeChris said:


> It _might_ also mean that he and his staff are on holiday vaction, just maybe?


Or, maybe preparing their offer for VOOM


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## 4HiMarks

I have to agree that NBR doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. I have two antennas pointed in opposite directions to pick up both Balt. and DC stations, and I only get EPG data from DC, plus I have to manually flip an A/B switch anyway, so I better be aware of when programs get shifted around. Then the "recommendations" that TiVo makes based upon your viewing habits actually creep me out a little. I'd just as soon they didn't collect that information.

-Chris


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## henderson

If you have never had NBR you don't know what you are missing. I have a generation 2 Tivo (old one) - the season pass manager is the bomb. The fact that it can track first runs vs. reruns (and only record first runs) is great. It will move your shows to a new night if the schedule changes, and will automatically start recording new shows from season to season without ever changing the timer. I am absolutely livid that NBR has been shelved. I have a friend with dish and a less expensive sd reciever who got NBR last month!!! I will be jumping ship when my contract is up if they don't have a change of heart on this one. Why would I buy another Dish reciever when they have not taken care of me with this one?


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## 4HiMarks

So how does that help me? As an example, a few weeks ago the Redskins-Eagles game was a Sunday night ESPN game. Because it was on cable, the Washington area ABC station (WJLA) was allowed to show it OTA. This pre-empted the regular Sunday night ABC schedule, including Desperate Housewives and Boston Legal. They were shown as scheduled on the Baltimore ABC affiliate though. 
1) I don't get Baltimore LILs. I am in the DC DMA even though I am almost exactly equi-distant from both cities. 
2) I was out of town from 12/2 until late that night (12/12), and was actually in the air during the time under consideration.
3) Someone needed to be physically present to flip the switch from the DC to Balt. antennas, provided the recording was scheduled in the first place. 

I knew this was going to happen before I left, so I scheduled the recording ahead of time, but I still needed someone to flip the switch for me as there were other shows I wanted to record from DC stations before then. 

If I was depending on NBR or a season pass, I would have been SOL. As it was, I had a friend bringing in my mail anyway, so i just had him flip the switch too. Problem solved. 

-Chris


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## TowJumper

You are correct NBR will not switch antennas for you.


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## TowJumper

I can see we need to break this down a bit.

For the record Name Based Recording allows allows events to be recorded based on the Name of the event. If the program guide is correct, yes CORRECT, meaning not INCORRECT, it will record the Named event. 

If you tell NBR to record Desperate Housewives, it will do so whether the show is televised at 9pm or 10pm - as long as the guide is correct. Last week my timer for DHW (for uh, my wife) was off by an hour because the lame TIME based 921 could not adjust, eventhough the guide data was correct.

ONCE AGAIN, NBR will NOT feed your cat, lower the seat after you pee, make your kids lunch etc.

Given these limitations, NBR is a still a compelling feature - if you can not see how, then you are your name must be Charlie or you are an ostrich.

No one is saying NBR will sort your socks for you, but get real folks, it is a nice feature that was promised and is now not going to happen for those of us that OWN 721 921 etc. Dish is screwing us, no doubt about it. 

Sure we can live without it, but we don't have to given the marketplace... Charlie?


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## henderson

Well said TowJumper. There is a market place out there - and equipment that is offering this NBR feature with HD. If Dish cannot step up and do what they promised we do have other options.


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## Sundance

If someone would just license the ReplayTV software most of this would be solved. The Replay is still Superior to all of them except for the lack of HD.


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## AVJohnnie

TiVo goes mobile starting Monday

TiVoToGo, set to launch Monday, will give users their first taste of TiVo untethered. No longer confined to TiVo recorders in the living room or bedroom, subscribers will be able to transfer recorded shows to PCs or laptops and take them on the road.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6778135/


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## Ron Barry

TowJumper said:


> No one is saying NBR will sort your socks for you, but get real folks, it is a nice feature that was promised and is now not going to happen for those of us that OWN 721 921 etc. Dish is screwing us, no doubt about it.


I have both a 721 and a 921. I too was looking forward to this feature. However, I don't recall Dish ever promising this feature. Yes they did mention that they have planned on porting it and expected it to be on these units. I guess if one considers it being talked about and a CC or TC as a promise then I guess it could be taken as that. I personally don't consider it a promise. I personally would consider the Firewire more of a broken promise.

As far as it being a desired feature, Yes it is in my opinion. What it gives is the ability to dynamically react to schedule changes and provides additional intelligence into the receiver to more accurately capture the recording the user desires. That in itself makes it desirable. The point about it not being able to flip a switch makes no sense. The current recording mechanism does not do this either. What NBR does is improved the units ability to adjust without manual intervention. Does it catch all? No!!! I don't think anyone claimed it did. But what it does do is help in most cases and that in itself gives it value.

I have said this before. What I personally would like Dish to do is take the resources it would take to port this to the 50x, 721 and 921 code bases and use them to get the next generation receivers up and running and give the existing users a free upgrade path with 1 yr commitment. If they want to not spend the effort to add this feature and put the effort on future receivers, I think they a good comprimse would be providing a low cost (free if possible) upgrade path.

Oh.. And take the damn $5 VOD away or at least make it per account.


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## ftingdal

Just to add to the confusion, I got the following back from an E-mail that I sent to their Tech-Talk forum. She states that all DVRs are supposed to get software upgrades to enable NBR and DishPass. Doesn't anyone have a higher level contact at Dish Network so we can get a more definitive answer? Sounds like there's a lot of contradiction going on over there.

Thanks,
Fredrik.

Dear Mr. Tingdal,

Thank you for your email correspondence. At this time all of the DVR based receivers are supposed to receive software upgrades to enable to Dish Pass and name based recording feature. However at this time I am unable to provide you with a release date specific to the 921. Please continue to watch the Technical Forums, Charlie Chats and visiting DishNetwork.com for updated information.

Sincerely,

Jolene S.

Technical Support Supervisor

Dish Network

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Wednesday, December 29, 2004 6:45 AM
To: TechForum
Subject: Equipment/Software

Show: Tech Forum

Name: Fredrik Tingdal

Subject: Equipment/Software

Message:

We've heard a lot about Name Based Recording from EchoStar in the last

year, including statements that the feature would show up in the 921 in

2004. Needless to say, the feature is not there and I've read in various

forums that the feature is not going to be added. Since this is your

premier reciever, I am a little surprised that it wouldn't get this

feature. Can you please provide an official position on this feature and

the 921, including a timeframe for when the feature is going to be

delivered (if at all)?


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## jsanders

WeeJavaDude said:


> I have said this before. What I personally would like Dish to do is take the resources it would take to port this to the 50x, 721 and 921 code bases and use them to get the next generation receivers up and running and give the existing users a free upgrade path with 1 yr commitment. If they want to not spend the effort to add this feature and put the effort on future receivers, I think they a good comprimse would be providing a low cost (free if possible) upgrade path.


A free upgrade is the ONLY way they could get me to upgrade. There is NO WAY I will pay dish for another machine with this fiasco I've been through with the 921, if they don't fix the OTA guide info and do NBR. It just tells me that dish can't be trusted. Trick me once, shame on you, trick me twice, shame on me. Echostar has its head in the sand if they think 921 users will blindly go out and buy the 942 in a few months given the way they have treated us.


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## passing_ships

ftingdal said:


> Just to add to the confusion, I got the following back from an E-mail that I sent to their Tech-Talk forum.


 Maybe Jolene accidentally leaked a new decision by E*. Let's see if they announce anything at the CES show....


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## henderson

Has anyone heard anything new on this? Or has anyone else received an email or anything saying NBR would be rolle out for 921's?


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## Scott Greczkowski

I asked again at CES, again the answer was NO NBR was coming to the 921.


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## jsanders

Scott Greczkowski said:


> I asked again at CES, again the answer was NO NBR was coming to the 921.


Did anyone ask them about fixing the OTA guide data?


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## Scott Greczkowski

Well folks...

WE DID IT!

On tonight's Charlie Chat, Charlie announced name based recording was indeed coming to the 50X series.

And while no word if NBR will ever come to the 921, I should note that it was never promised on the 921.

Thank you to everyone worked TOGETHER and made our voice heard. Charlie listened and is doing the right thing. I thank Charlie Ergen for working with me on this issue, I do appreciate the CEO taking his time to learn about why we were upset and doing something about it.

See fols what happens when we work together, we should all be proud of getting Dish to budge, we can all say WE DID IT!


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## klaatu

I thought Charlie only mentioned the 510 and 522 for NBR on the Chat.


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## Jacob S

The software for the 510 is about the same as it is on the 501 and 508 just as the software on the 721 and 921 are similar (although I'm thinking with more differences between those two since one is SD with less hard drive storage than the High Def 921). In the past they would release software to the more expensive receivers such as the 721 before they would the cheaper ones but it does make sense how they would release it to the 50X/510 models since there are many more of those on the market than the 721/921.


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## boylehome

Scott Greczkowski said:


> Well folks...
> 
> And while no word if NBR will ever come to the 921, I should note that it was never promised on the 921.


As I recall, some months back, NBR was going to be added to the 921 and it would most likely be included in the last of three software updates, these updates that were late to come and are still expected. Was NBR promised for the 5xx series?


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## henderson

For the 921, they said "later this year".
__________________
Mark Lamutt
[email protected]
Official Dish Network DVR-921 Internet Community Liaison

The above is a post from Mark from May 13th on an earlier thread.
It WAS promised for the 921 - as early as last May. :nono2:


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## Mark Lamutt

Well, at this point, I'll believe it when I see it. Charlie may have been "mistaken" again last night...he's been "mistaken" too many times in the past.


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## Scott Greczkowski

I just got confirmation on NBR on the 50X series and an email from Charlie.

Charlie also had this to say.

"i do want you to know that i appreciate constructive ideas on how we can improve. we may not always be able to execute the ideas but there is no doubt our customers know what they want better than we do."

Again thanks to all who made their voice heard!


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## henderson

Scott Greczkowski said:


> I just got confirmation on NBR on the 50X series and an email from Charlie.
> 
> Charlie also had this to say.
> 
> "i do want you to know that i appreciate constructive ideas on how we can improve. we may not always be able to execute the ideas but there is no doubt our customers know what they want better than we do."
> 
> Again thanks to all who made their voice heard!


That is great for people who have 50X series..... where does that leave us 921 folks? Hung out to dry.


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## ebaltz

and Charlie said, when talking about NBR that "...so if a football game runs over, it will take that into consideration..."

That is completely false isn't it? Hasn't that been discussed prior in this forum and the determination been made that NBR can't know when a football game ends late?


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## Ron Barry

If this is the case, it leaves out both the 721 and the 921 folks. Like Jacob said, these units have a smaller customer base, but are also high end user models. It will be interesting to see if NBR arrives on the 508, but I will be suprised if we see it..... 

If it does appear on the 508, another slap on the 921 and 721 people. Personaly I don't think Charile promised NBR on any units, however he did state that they would move them to other DVRs including 721 if I recall.


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## BobMurdoch

At this point my 921 is fairly stable for me (I lose a King of Queens to ZBR occasionally, which I cover with an SD version of CBS-W). I'm worried that name based will just screw things up even further. I tend to check in here daily, so any screwy network tricks get caught by SOMEONE here and posted. (Even those 4 minute long Sopranos episodes have been caught by a few).

Desperate Housewives has been the latest offender to start packing in a few extra minutes of ads, so an extra 10 minutes of recording solves the problem.

As for Charlie's response, I'm happy that they are at least conversing with Scott (an us indirectly). I do agree that constructive criticism can be useful. We tend to ratchet the pissedoff meter up to 11 for EVERYTHING though, and they tend to tune us out after a while, so I would hope that we all do everything we can to make sure he knows how upset we are with some out decisions while not coming off as unreasonable. The idea is to motivate them towards positive change, isn't it?


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## RobbinMerritt

Scott Greczkowski said:


> I asked again at CES, again the answer was NO NBR was coming to the 921.


It's too bad Dish didn't pass the word along to all it's CES booth people. The guy I chatted with told me that NBR was still being worked on for the 921. I thought it sounded too good to be true.

Not seeing the 921 in their booth was very dis-heartening to say the least.


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## Jacob S

I think when a product first comes out and its a higher end model like the 721 it has priority but once it is out for a while then that is it. Remember a while back when we were told that the 721 would be getting its last major software update? I think NBR would be great for being the last update.


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## KrazyEd

As far as a few extra minutes goes, it seems to be happening more often.
You can see it in the guide. I think the reason is to keep us from using our
PVRs. I was setting up a Replay the other day, and noticed SEVERAL programs
scheduled to go over 1 or 2 minutes. At least with the 921, we can record
overlapping shows. They give us the chance to record OVER the time, but,
no option to record only PART of a show. I would like to record only the
opening of some talk shows, or, trim off the end of others.
It would be nice to be able to start a show a minute or two late, rather
than lose it completely. By the way, the show that follows the long one, is
usually a minute or two shorter.


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## BobaBird

KrazyEd said:


> At least with the 921, we can record overlapping shows. They give us the chance to record OVER the time, but, no option to record only PART of a show. I would like to record only the opening of some talk shows, or, trim off the end of others.


Create the timer from the EPG or Search results, then select the program again. You will be taken to the timer list with that program at the top of the list but unselected. Select it, then choose edit, then Set Time. Adjust start and/or stop times as needed. Create timer. Useful for catching only part of a show or for capturing consecutive shows on the same channel as a single event.


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## Jacob S

Sometimes it has the start early/end late grayed out not allowing you to edit it depending on how you access it.


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## henderson

Scott, 
Who did you talk to at CES that said no? I saw a later post where someone was told they were still working on it at the booth. Just curious - between the ces and the email quoted earlier on this thread it seems people are getting conflicting answers. Thanks.


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## TVBob

I emailed the Charlie Chat, asking "Will the DVR-921 ever support name-based recording?".

10 days later, I finally received a "response":


> From [email protected]
> 
> Thank you for your e-mail. There is currently no information regarding your inquiry. Please stay tuned to the monthly Charlie Chat on channel 101 every month ...
> 
> If you have any further questions please call our Customer Service Center ...
> 
> Your business is greatly appreciated and we thank you for allowing us to be of assistance to you ...
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Daniel B.
> DISH Network eCare


:nono2:
Well, I tried. I sure wish _someone_ at Dish would give us an answer. "We haven't decided yet" would be better than total silence on this issue.


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## BobMurdoch

Yeahhhhhh. Thanks for that "assistance", Danny B.


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## Michael P

I would like to ba able to edit recordings after the fact. Then I could start 5 minutes early and end 5 minutes late and lop-off the fat afterwards. Is there such a feature on TIVO or Replay?


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## TVBob

Michael P said:


> I would like to ba able to edit recordings after the fact. Then I could start 5 minutes early and end 5 minutes late and lop-off the fat afterwards. Is there such a feature on TIVO or Replay?


Good idea -- you could also use it to delete commercials. 

The ReplayTV cannot edit a recording to delete sections of video. I don't think the TiVo can do it either, but maybe the Pioneer TiVo DVR-810H-S with the DVD burner has this capability. You'll have to register on that site to download the manual. 

The Sony RDR-HX900 DVD Recorder with hard disk can easily delete sections of video from any recording, but despite it's 160GB hard disk, it's really not a DVR because it can't pause live TV.

Wouldn't it be great if Dish would use the empty bay in the DVR-921 for a DVD burner/player? It would be the only satellite receiver/DVR on the market with a built-in DVD burner for archiving.

But now we're getting way off topic (name based recording).


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## Jacob S

Being able to put the recordings to your computer with the new Tivo to Go software would allow you to edit that out but not on the Tivo itself. I wish there was such a DVR that would allow someone to edit their recordings.


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## Allen Noland

I got the same basic reply to universal HD qustion.


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## William_K_F

Also would be nice to delete the part already watched on a long recording to fre up space until you finish watching the show.


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