# What was DISH worst receiver



## kcolg30 (May 11, 2010)

I started with DISH on a 2700 system. What has been the worst receiver and (support and hardware wise) that you long term users have had.


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## tampa8 (Mar 30, 2002)

Dishplayer.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

The once mighty and then abandon for years, then discontinued with 30+ bugs, 508 receiver.


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## Mr-Rick (Dec 1, 2004)

7100 hands down. No other receiver came close. When the 7100 aka dishplayer came out some had to be sent back because they just would not work. Then a reboot literally took 10 minutes. The fact it even lasted as long as it did was because it was the first DVR for dish. The menu's and keyboard were great. The ability to use WEBTV with it was nice. At the end of the product cycle, it became more reliable.

Anyone who was a retailer back then will never forget it.

The model 1000 with its horrible menu system and limited RAM made this the ugliest receiver ever made by DISH. But it served a purpose in the very beginning, a $99 receiver for that extra room. Better than nothing.


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## boba (May 23, 2003)

Mr-Rick said:


> 7100 hands down. No other receiver came close. When the 7100 aka dishplayer came out some had to be sent back because they just would not work. Then a reboot literally took 10 minutes. The fact it even lasted as long as it did was because it was the first DVR for dish. The menu's and keyboard were great. The ability to use WEBTV with it was nice. At the end of the product cycle, it became more reliable.
> 
> Anyone who was a retailer back then will never forget it.
> 
> The model 1000 with its horrible menu system and limited RAM made this the ugliest receiver ever made by DISH. But it served a purpose in the very beginning, a $99 receiver for that extra room. Better than nothing.


7100/7200 and 1000 were also my first thoughts and 7100/7200 won out by a hair.


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## tampa8 (Mar 30, 2002)

Blowgun said:


> The once mighty and then abandon for years, then discontinued with 30+ bugs, 508 receiver.


From my experience I can't agree. All three of mine were rock solid IF you did a hard reset, (I used a timer each night) every day. Yes, there was a glitch with going fast forward/reverse that never got fixed, as well a couple of other things, but in no way as bad as the Dishplayer.


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## dlt (Feb 21, 2007)

I think it was the 721, it froze up, needing rebooted which took forever, many software upgrades that never solved many issues, bad hard drive, I went through 4 721's, everyone of them was hard drive failure.


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## CeeWoo (Dec 1, 2008)

Blowgun said:


> The once mighty and then abandon for years, then discontinued with 30+ bugs, 508 receiver.


I must've been lucky...used one, problem free, for years


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

dlt said:


> I think it was the 721, it froze up, needing rebooted which took forever, many software upgrades that never solved many issues, bad hard drive, I went through 4 721's, everyone of them was hard drive failure.


Neah, the drives was OK, it's 'paranoid' behavior of 721's software - any glitch and the 'paranoiac' did reformatting.


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## DicknVal (Mar 30, 2002)

Why, oh why, does everybody always pan the DISHPlayer? We bought one the day it came out and sadly gave it up when DISH pulled the plug on it. In all that time it never gave us even one second of grief and we liked it better than any we've had since.

We did put in a bigger HDD 'cause 8 GB was a tad small, but that's what was available when they built it.
Since then we've gone through three 508s and now have three 722Ks and a 222K. They are/were all good, but they weren't none of 'em a DISHPlayer!

Too bad Charlie and Bill couldn't play nice together.


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## n0qcu (Mar 23, 2002)

The absolute worst was the *921*.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

tampa8 said:


> From my experience I can't agree. All three of mine were rock solid IF you did a hard reset, (I used a timer each night) every day.


That's not the definition of rock-solid if you have to unplug it every night so that it works properly. 



tampa8 said:


> Yes, there was a glitch with going fast forward/reverse that never got fixed, as well a couple of other things,


I'd say there's more than a couple of things. Bugs such as STB reboots during recording. Not coming out of standby. White screens. Guide data getting lost. Timers not firing due to guide update and receiver not finding all timer events. Screen corruption due to collectively too many air times. Returning from edited timer can sometimes go to "Unknown timer". Receiver gets stuck after pressing Help button, instead of Cancel. "Episode" and "Originally Aired" always incorrect in non-live mode. Loss of all timers. Poor use of UI space.

Pause not working immediately after pressing. Frame advance and back getting stuck. Rewind and fast-forward no longer smooth. At the end of recording the record buffer isn't saved. Long recording delay between back to back timers. "Today" button not always taking you to today. Lock icon no longer functions. Wrong information display when Right button pressed and different favorites list. Unexplained priority skips. Progression gauge doesn't always display in rewind and fast-forward.

Wrong recorded description when the same shows airs back to back. Recordings don't always stop and eat all available space. Returning from a timer edit dumps you into the Daily Schedule several days early. Daily Schedule entries 8 days or more shows garbage or past recorded events when Info button is pressed. Etc. And, this is with the current firmware that took about 20 months to be released.



tampa8 said:


> but in no way as bad as the Dishplayer.


While certainly not a long term user as others, my relationship with DISH goes back over 10 years. While I have had several receiver replacements during that time, the only DVR model I've had is the 508 receiver. I can't compare the 508 to any other model. Hence why I wasn't making a comparison, only offering my experience. Is the 508 the worst? Probably not, but it's certainly up there on the list. 



CeeWoo said:


> I must've been lucky...used one, problem free, for years


Well, if I had stopped using the 508 four years ago I might have the same opinion. I used a 508 receiver from the time it was originally released, all the way through to it's recently announced EOL. I've seen it all.


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

I haven't really had any of those problems with my 508.

It's old now and does some weird hangs and reboots, but I think it has a couple of bad spots in the HDD or something like that. 

I won't be upgrading though. I refuse to pay a monthly HDD fee and will cancel Dish when they drop the current credits for it.

I buy a refrigerator, I don't pay a monthly fee to use it.

I buy a stove, I don't pay a monthly fee to use it.

I buy a couch, I don't pay a monthly fee to use it.

I buy a table saw, I don't pay a monthly fee to use it.


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## CeeWoo (Dec 1, 2008)

Blowgun said:


> Well, if I had stopped using the 508 four years ago I might have the same opinion. I used a 508 receiver from the time it was originally released, all the way through to it's recently announced EOL. I've seen it all.


I stopped using mine a couple months ago. Upgraded my system to a 211k at the EOL announcement because I wanted HD in the bedroom 
Like I said, maybe I was just lucky with the 508


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

They just employ simple tactic - the 508 or any cannot be used without their service, so they would milk you dime and nickles and the "DVR fee", "mirror fee", "account fee" etc

If you bought a chain saw, you never interact with manufacturer (exclude warranty issues).


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

DicknVal said:


> Why, oh why, does everybody always pan the DISHPlayer? We bought one the day it came out and sadly gave it up when DISH pulled the plug on it. In all that time it never gave us even one second of grief and we liked it better than any we've had since.
> 
> We did put in a bigger HDD 'cause 8 GB was a tad small, but that's what was available when they built it.
> Since then we've gone through three 508s and now have three 722Ks and a 222K. They are/were all good, but they weren't none of 'em a DISHPlayer!
> ...


I used a Dishplayer until they turned it off. It had some neat features. Including the ability to pause until the drive filled. With a large drive it could pause for hours. The previous channels window where you could see thumbnails of the last several channels tuned with whatever one was highlighted being in motion with sound.

I liked the interface and the remote.

The 721 was OK too. Sort of the SD version of the VIP 612.


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## Diana C (Mar 30, 2007)

The Dishplayer was both the both the best and the worst reciever.

It was the best because it was the first DVR, and had many cool (and still unmatched) DVR features, and hands down the best looking guide ever built.

It was the worst because it was the most delicate device ever built. ANY anomaly in data, power, temperature, etc., and it would crash, freeze, delete all recordings or fail to record as scheduled (and sometimes all of the above).

I had 3 Dishplayers at one point, and I loved them.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

n0qcu said:


> The absolute worst was the *921*.


*AMEN!!!* I had 10 of them. Fortunately E* replaced each one for no charge even though the warranty had long since ran out.

Another lemon was the 1000. The one I had the displeasure to install was bad out of the box. It did not have any way to control it without a remote and even with the remote they did away with the manual switch to switch the RF output from ch3 to ch4. That was a big problem here because we had a local ch3 with it's tower in the neighborhood. The only way to switch the RF to ch 4 was using the video outputs, but if your TV had a video input you would not need to switch the RF modulator. Someone was not thinking clearly when that one was designed.


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## bnborg (Jun 3, 2005)

I would say the 722, because the cooling "design" is one of the poorest I've seen. It's the only one I had to to have replaced (twice). It seems obvious the designer did not have a clue about fluid dynamics.

I do not remember what the first ones I had were, but it was before leasing, before HD and before DVR's. The next were 510's. I also bought a 508 and I loved it. I modified it so the drive was external and swapable.

The 722k has additional ventilation holes on the bottom, at least. It seems ok as long as I have it on a laptop cooler.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

bnborg said:


> I would say the 722, because the cooling "design" is one of the poorest I've seen. It's the only one I had to to have replaced (twice). It seems obvious the designer did not have a clue about fluid dynamics.
> 
> I do not remember what the first ones I had were, but it was before leasing, before HD and before DVR's. The next were 510's. I also bought a 508 and I loved it. I modified it so the drive was external and swapable.
> 
> The 722k has additional ventilation holes on the bottom, at least. It seems ok as long as I have it on a laptop cooler.


It was 622 from beginning ... with actually no-air-flow-disign-knowledge-at-all. 
I did that analysis a couple years ago, proposed changes, did implement it (picture posted) and the 622 still running cool as a brick. I'm afraid E* cannot afford to pay royalty if it's designed out of house.


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## bnborg (Jun 3, 2005)

P Smith said:


> It was 622 from beginning ... with actually no-air-flow-disign-knowledge-at-all.
> I did that analysis a couple years ago, proposed changes, did implement it (picture posted) and the 622 still running cool as a brick. I'm afraid E* cannot afford to pay royalty if it's designed out of house.


It seems they can't afford to pay a qualified engineer either.

I could go on about clueless designers, especially with computer cases. But that is beyond the scope of this thread.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

tampa8 said:


> Dishplayer.


The Dishplayer


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

The 811 was what pushed me back to DIRECTV, what a turkey.


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## skew (Jan 23, 2008)

I am going to vote the 922 it has to be the mother of all empty promises. The 922 is sold as their best but has less features than their worst. Plus you get to pay extra every month for the privilege to own a fine POS like it  Oh but wait Dish will be coming out with an update to add some cool stuff in a couple of months I have been reading that line for 18 months LOL


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## Jon W (Jan 27, 2004)

7100/7200 Dishplayer. Despite having a great looking interface it just didn't work. Because of it we switched to DirecTV for several years before reading enough good reviews to come back to a vip722


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

SayWhat? said:


> I haven't really had any of those problems with my 508.


I can't imagine that your 508 shows the "Episode" and "Originally Aired" in non-live mode correctly. As well as displaying the correct recorded description for the second pair of back-to-back shows. Or, that the correct information is displayed when the Right button is pressed, with a different favorites list. These are known bugs with at least all of the 5xx receivers.

As for many of the other bugs I mentioned, I suspect that certain conditions must be met before making themselves known. For example, I currently have 43 timers and after a guide update the Daily Schedule can show as many as 200+ events. Even though the receiver allows this, it's possible that there are memory issues. Which might explain the corruption/garbage characters in the description that are often displayed after the 8 day mark in the Daily Schedule. Which, as events pass, the description returns to normal.

I remember a few years back I had to delete the timer for "How its made" because the Science Channel would air the show 50+ times a week. Even though I set the receiver to record only NEW episodes, combined with the other timers, I noticed the receiver would become more unstable after a guide update.

Given the above, if anyone wants to test their 508 with a particular bug I mentioned, let me know and I'll write the instructions. If the conditions are there, the bug should show up.



CeeWoo said:


> I stopped using mine a couple months ago... Like I said, maybe I was just lucky with the 508.


With all due respect, I think the bugs were there. We have two 508 receivers and both exhibit the bugs I described in my earlier post. Also, numerous times when I was visiting friends who also had 508 receivers, they would allow me to test their receiver and sure enough, their receiver also showed the same behavior. Perhaps the casual user doesn't notice the bugs? Or, maybe it's revision specific, don't know.


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## CeeWoo (Dec 1, 2008)

Whatever you say
:lol:


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## Transplanted Yankee (Oct 18, 2010)

tampa8 said:


> Dishplayer.


+1


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

I wish I also didn't notice the bugs. :lol:


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

The Dishplayer was the best AND worst receiver they ever made.

The best? User upgradable, clean interface and very functional. In the guide you pressed one button to record a program, press 'Record' again to set up a repeating timer - lots easier then the current way of having to confirm and select so much. A "Live Pause" buffer that was only limited by the size of your hard drive.

The worst? 

They never handled the Daylight/Standard time switch correctly even after 8 years of trying.

Bugs that required entry of lots of 'secret codes' that ended up wiping out your timers.

Crashes for no apparent reason.

Timers that mysteriously didn't fire.

But the worst one had to be this.. I paid the $99 lifetime upgrade for PVR service - a one-time fee. One day, a few years ago, my Dishplayer said to call Dish to activate PVR features. Basically, my 'lifetime' service seemed to expire. Ok, another bug, right? Calling Dish resulted in not finding ANYONE who knew what to do - even after elevating the issue a couple of times. It took 2 'elevations' to find someone who had HEARD of the 7100/7200. And what did HE tell me? That there was nothing they could do.

In the end I decided it was time to do the HD upgrade and Dish worked to give me a good price and rebated some of my monthly fees since I wasn't able to get what I was paying for until the new installation (which had to wait for two snowstorms).


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## Stalky14 (Feb 18, 2005)

No hardware buttons. No favorites lists. No S-Video. No memory to hold guide data beyond the next hour or two. I don't think you could even switch around the guide channel display order.

The only things it had going for it were internal volume control, and it was the design missing link between the 3000/4000/5000 series and the 2700/3700/4700 series.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

By its number, it looks like as a first model ...


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## Skeeterman (Jun 24, 2003)

I would not knock the 508 as the worst receiver. I have a 508 since 1999 and it works just fine. Never had a problem with it. I did have it deactivated this past June when I leased a 211. Couple months ago I installed a Dish 500 on the workshop/two car garage and re-activated the 508 for this dish. My dog now gets the opportunity to lay on his favorite blanket and watch Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin.


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

As I clarified, the 508 receiver is my worst receiver. This wasn't always the case as selected earlier firmware versions were better. Having said that, to say that the current firmware for the 508 is void of problems is simply wrong. It takes only casual observation to notice some of the irritating bugs I mentioned in post #26.


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## gregsgoatfarm (Mar 9, 2009)

I just keep waiting for the phone call: "Your 508 is due to be decomissioned and replaced by xxxxxx on 12/12/12. Will someone be home to administer last rites?"

And it was my first receiver. I'm still not unhappy with its performance other than no HD capability.


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## CeeWoo (Dec 1, 2008)

Blowgun said:


> As I clarified, the 508 receiver is my worst receiver. This wasn't always the case as selected earlier firmware versions were better. Having said that, to say that the current firmware for the 508 is void of problems is simply wrong. It takes only casual observation to notice some of the irritating bugs I mentioned in post #26.


I'm guessing some of us have not been nearly as casual as you have then...even though we used it quite intensively for many years:hurah:


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## Blowgun (May 23, 2008)

CeeWoo said:


> I'm guessing some of us have not been nearly as casual as you have then...even though we used it quite intensively for many years:hurah:


What?


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## sgt940 (Jan 9, 2004)

I have had them all and 921 hands down and not thrilled with my 922.


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## bobl (Jan 17, 2004)

Hands down the 921 was the worst! It caused me to switch to DirecTV for the DirecTivo HD. I went back to Dish 21 months later for the 622 (hated the slowness of the DirecTivo HD even though it was very reliable).


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## kickineasy (Dec 8, 2011)

Back in the days of single tuners. I can't remember the model


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

kickineasy said:


> Back in the days of single tuners. I can't remember the model


Doesn't count here. Try to recall the model ...


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## Jon W (Jan 27, 2004)

Former Dishplayer owners: remember the endless codes we had to enter to keep it running. I remember the "jenny code" 8675309


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## unpluggedtech (Dec 8, 2011)

You get your electricity for free?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

unpluggedtech said:


> You get your electricity for free?


Wrong thread, wrong forum ... Try again.


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## unpluggedtech (Dec 8, 2011)

1000	for the second rooms, cheap and a really crude GUI	
2000	usually private labeled	
3000	The original primary receiver	
4000	rock solid UHF, Dolby digital	
5000	the first sat with a local off air optional card	
6000	the first HD satellite receiver	
2700	a slicker 1000	
3700/3800	the new primary receiver, 3800 had more guide memory	high failure rate, just random loss of satellite
4700/4900	the UHF version, 4900 had more guide memory	
411	HD goes MPEG4	
211	like the 211 but with an Ethernet port	
211	a dual HD/SD receiver one wire cool	
211k	a 211 but cost reduced, no off-air	
7100/7200	Lets play with Microsoft, the first sat DVR	very cool, and you could access the internet on dial-up, Wow but reboots were often and painful
501	Dish launched DVR	
508	and the hard drive gets bigger	
510	bigger hard drive still but now you gotta pay a monthly DVR fee	
522	a dual output DVR, can you say multi-room	every one we ever sold failed
625	a better version of the 625	
301/311	finally a new base receiver now DishPro stacked LNB, 311 more memory	reliable, rarely failed
322	a dual 311, two tuners one wire	
721	dual tuner, DVR, rarely seen duck	DVR's were taking off, large cheap HD failed often 
921	dual tuner HD DVR MPEG 2	An HD DVR, wow entered the market at $1000, could not keep them on the shelf
622	along came MPEG4, lots of channels, and an off-air tuner built in	initial models high early failure rate on drive, HDMI output failed on first years production
722	enlarged the hard drive, settle down the platform, still solid	
722k	k - code name for cost reduced eliminate the off-air tuner, 2-way remote	
922	Sling enabled, 1G Hard drive, new GUI	still failure prone, early models constant rebooted, doomed to obsolescence


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

unpluggedtech said:


> 1000	for the second rooms, cheap and a really crude GUI
> 2000	usually private labeled
> 3000	The original primary receiver
> 4000	rock solid UHF, Dolby digital
> ...


Just a couple corrections, but by and large was correct initially


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## scooper (Apr 22, 2002)

Another correction - the 4700 became 4900 through a software update, and I think the same can be said about the 3800 / 3900. 

I have personally started with the 4700 (updated to 4900), 2700 (wasn't a bad 2nd receiver, just no UHF), 510 (did a swap of the 2700), 625. I got a DishProPlus Twin LNB with the 625, and as long as I had a working Dishpro receiver, it was OK with the 4900. Then I went back to a single 4900 until I got tired of messing around with the Dishpro /Legacy adapters (fried 2 of them). Dish swapped the 4900 for a 311 - except for the lack of the UHF and maybe the Dolby Digital - it's not a bad receiver.

Also - the 722K and 222K and 922 have an optional , 2 tuner OTA module.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Almost full list of all dish devices - so you are saying ALL of them worst ?

[what is left out: 111, 811, 512, 612; adding to that: two pairs based on same design: 301/501 and 322/522; k - models share same one chip design (BCM740x), what killed use of R5000-HD.]

Well, it was disastrous trend ...


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

unpluggedtech said:


> 1000 for the second rooms, cheap and a really crude GUI
> 2000 usually private labeled
> 3000 The original primary receiver
> 4000 rock solid UHF, Dolby digital
> ...


You forgot one: the 942, which attempted to fix all the bugs of the 921.


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## mwdxer (Oct 30, 2013)

The 2700 I used until I bought the 211k. It still worked well when I took it out of service. It had running for over 10 years. But being MPEG2,no HD, I like the 211k better. With the OTA tuner and the outboard hard drive. I have had good luck with the two Dish receivers.


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## RAD (Aug 5, 2002)

Hated the 6000 I had with the OTA card, watched an OTA channel too long and then went to the guide it needed to reload.


Sent from my iPhone using DBSTalk


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## Grandude (Oct 21, 2004)

For me the 921 was worst as it left a $950 hole in my wallet. Was the reason I didn't sucker into the 922.
I actually liked my 721.


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## Paul Secic (Dec 16, 2003)

tampa8 said:


> Dishplayer.


Ddishplayer by Microsoft. Awfull!


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## volkl (Jun 17, 2007)

I had many of the receivers, and liked them all.

Saw the 7100 in a tv repair store on the shelf and asked them what was it. They said a broken receiver. Offered them $ 10, took it home and resoldered a broken board path, installed a 120 mb hd, and she worked!

Really loved the interface and never missed a recording. It had a 30 sec skip which TiVo for D* does not.

Got so pissed off when a rep from E* telephoned me to tell me I had to accept a replacement receiver for it because it was being eliminated, I cancelled Dish.

The keyboard was great for typing in searches.

There was even software available on a yahoo group for copying recordings off to a computer. Very nice.

-V


Sent from my iPad using DBSTalk mobile app


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## lee635 (Apr 17, 2002)

No worst receiver for me. Started with a trusty model 3000, then a very reliable dishplayer for many years, and now a 721 that had to be sent back once for a glitchy hard drive, but no other problems. Really, no "worst" receiver in the bunch...


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## jimbo2k (Dec 1, 2012)

For me it was the 811. Daily I had to crawl behind my set to unplug and replug to reboot. when i complained and wanted an upgrade to an mpeg 4 set for free they told me no. When I quit, they pestered me for a week to come back , even offering what they had refused. So I went to cable for four years and the picture quality (were talking 480 and early 720) was vastly superior to that of the 811. I am now on my third 622 and this will be the 4th time I will have lost all my data on the dvr. Much as I like Dish, some cable systems are offering internet and similar tv package for less than $100, with a $400 kicker. Jim


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

P Smith said:


> By its number, it looks like as a first model ...


The first model was the 2000. I have not seen many of those. My 1st was the 4000. Ironically the 1000 came after the 4000, a sort of precursor to today's Joey in that it was designed to be a 2nd receiver for bedroom TV's.


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

I can't say it's the "worst" feature because others have had much more serious problems... But the idea that for SEVEN YEARS I had to manually re-do all my timers on my DIshplayer 7100 TWICE a year - every time the clocks changed.. That was frustration! Nowadays we'd call that a #FirstWorldProblem 

Now, with my Hopper/Joey setup, my main complaint has been how few shows actually transferred over on the EHDs from my days of having the 621.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

djlong said:


> I can't say it's the "worst" feature because others have had much more serious problems... But the idea that for SEVEN YEARS I had to manually re-do all my timers on my DIshplayer 7100 TWICE a year - every time the clocks changed.. That was frustration! Nowadays we'd call that a #FirstWorldProblem
> 
> Now, with my Hopper/Joey setup, my main complaint has been how few shows actually transferred over on the EHDs from my days of having the *621*.


that is something new ! 621 ? perhaps 612 ?


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

P Smith said:


> that is something new ! 621 ? perhaps 612 ?


I don't know why I keep mis-typing that... But my 612 never had to have a Jenny code (8675309) or a power of 2 reset code (32768) entered into it.


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