# Vip211k, Disable Menu overlays ? Is it possable ?



## DavidinCT (Aug 27, 2009)

I'm a Windows Media Center junkie, I know it very well and have worked on them in part of my jobs in the past.

I want to connect a Vip211k Dish box to my Home theater PC with Windows 7, but, I want to disable all the menus, guide, etc on the box to have a seamless experience on the HTPC.

Is it possable to disable all the menus down to the point where I can put in a channel number, hit enter and get no on-screen feedback accept for the channel changing ?

Is there a service menu or something on the box to enable me to do this ?

Thanks for your help !!!!


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

DavidinCT said:


> I'm a Windows Media Center junkie, I know it very well and have worked on them in part of my jobs in the past.
> 
> I want to connect a Vip211k Dish box to my Home theater PC with Windows 7, but, I want to disable all the menus, guide, etc on the box to have a seamless experience on the HTPC.
> 
> ...


No there isn't.


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## DavidinCT (Aug 27, 2009)

Does dish make a current box (one that will get all the HD channels) that will be able to do this ?


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

DavidinCT said:


> Does dish make a current box (one that will get all the HD channels) that will be able to do this ?


No, all E* receivers are going to pop up the program info any time you change the channel. At least, I'm fairly certain there's no way to turn that off.


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## DavidinCT (Aug 27, 2009)

puckwithahalo said:


> No, all E* receivers are going to pop up the program info any time you change the channel. At least, I'm fairly certain there's no way to turn that off.


There is no hidden system menu or anything like that in any current dish box that would have this option ?

There has to be something...


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

There isn't any known, or intended, way to do what you are asking.

That said, I'm not even sure I entirely understand the desire... though certainly we all have our own preferences about things.


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## DavidinCT (Aug 27, 2009)

Stewart Vernon said:


> That said, I'm not even sure I entirely understand the desire... though certainly we all have our own preferences about things.


Look up Windows Media Center for HTPC, it's a software that comes with windows Vista/7 that gives you More options than you could ever dream of for a DVR. Everything from Blu-ray to music to TV all in one box, with TONS of free 3rd party addons to do hulu, youtube, etc. I have a dedicated Home theater PC, that I have used for this for a long time, it's awsome. Once you play with one and see what it offers, it's got major WOW factor.

I am looking to use this box with a HD-PVR (a Component video import video PC tuner), to get HD from the dish into it. As Media Center has it's own guide, overlays for everything, I want to disable the overlays so I don't see both....

See my point ?

With that being said there has to be some type of hardware or a way to mod one of these boxes to do that....(Note:I'm NOT looking for free tv, only to get the box to work like I want to)


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

DavidinCT said:


> Look up Windows Media Center for HTPC, it's a software that comes with windows Vista/7 that gives you More options than you could ever dream of for a DVR. Everything from Blu-ray to music to TV all in one box, with TONS of free 3rd party addons to do hulu, youtube, etc. I have a dedicated Home theater PC, that I have used for this for a long time, it's awsome. Once you play with one and see what it offers, it's got major WOW factor.
> 
> I am looking to use this box with a HD-PVR (a Component video import video PC tuner), to get HD from the dish into it. As Media Center has it's own guide, overlays for everything, I want to disable the overlays so I don't see both....
> 
> ...


Its a software issue not hardware.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Given that explanation, I can at least see why you might want to do it... but yeah, we're back to the software on the receiver... and doubtful Dish will design a workaround like that.

More likely would be if Dish worked with Microsoft (as rumored in the past) to develop a special card for use in an HTPC for Dish reception.

I really don't see them doing or allowing this sort of thing on their normal receivers.


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## jhwenger (May 28, 2009)

Considering that the morons at Dish engineering won't even let you disable the "feature" that shuts the receiver down every day or let you dismiss the screen saver with anything but the "select" key (which you can't transmit with IR) I doubt that they will do anything to make the receiver more user friendly.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

jhwenger said:


> Considering that the morons at Dish engineering won't even let you disable the "feature" that shuts the receiver down every day or let you dismiss the screen saver with anything but the "select" key (which you can't transmit with IR) I doubt that they will do anything to make the receiver more user friendly.


You used to be able to disable the shut down, but then people wouldn't turn their receivers off ever and software would get out of date and a slew of issues would follow as a result. It was a financial decision to remote that capability.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

puckwithahalo said:


> You used to be able to disable the shut down, but then people wouldn't turn their receivers off ever and software would get out of date and a slew of issues would follow as a result. It was a financial decision to remote that capability.


Yep, and you also run into those scenarios where you can't jump from firmware A to firmware Q directly... so they no longer ship with firmware A but rather with firmware H... but if you've been out-of-the-loop on updates and somehow stayed at firmware A, it might be difficult for you to take that firmware Q update that fixes or adds something you want.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

Stewart Vernon said:


> Yep, and you also run into those scenarios where you can't jump from firmware A to firmware Q directly... so they no longer ship with firmware A but rather with firmware H... but if you've been out-of-the-loop on updates and somehow stayed at firmware A, it might be difficult for you to take that firmware Q update that fixes or adds something you want.


All too true.


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## DavidinCT (Aug 27, 2009)

Stewart Vernon said:


> Given that explanation, I can at least see why you might want to do it... but yeah, we're back to the software on the receiver... and doubtful Dish will design a workaround like that.
> 
> More likely would be if Dish worked with Microsoft (as rumored in the past) to develop a special card for use in an HTPC for Dish reception.
> 
> I really don't see them doing or allowing this sort of thing on their normal receivers.


Yea, the Dish/Microsoft thing, the latest news posted to sites is that the project was suspended/canceled. Not exactly sure on the full details but, Nothing like that coming soon. Sad to say....

I'd be willing to cut a pin on a chip on the board if it would do what I need here. Don't care about what box it could be done with as long as it could get the current HD channels on it with no overlays.

This is going to drive me nuts because if I can't get this disabled someway, I might be shopping for a new provider, that is how important my Home theater PC is to me (never mind the $$ invested in it) all I want is more HD in it....


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## jhwenger (May 28, 2009)

How about a message that says "a mandatory update is ready, please turn your receiver off to obtain the update"?

What is their possible rationale for only allowing the "select" button to dismiss the screen saver? TIVO cannot transmit the "select" button. If you could just re-channel the receiver I wouldn't have to sit up every night and manually cancel the power cycle. Almost as STUPID as having to press channel up or down when you accidentally land on a non-subscribed channel due to an IR-blaster error.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

jhwenger said:


> How about a message that says "a mandatory update is ready, please turn your receiver off to obtain the update"?
> 
> What is their possible rationale for only allowing the "select" button to dismiss the screen saver? TIVO cannot transmit the "select" button. If you could just re-channel the receiver I wouldn't have to sit up every night and manually cancel the power cycle. Almost as STUPID as having to press channel up or down when you accidentally land on a non-subscribed channel due to an IR-blaster error.


A couple things.

1) The power button will also dismiss it.

2) Is it really E*'s fault that Tivo doesn't make their unit capable of sending that signal? Or their responsibility to make it compatible with Tivo?

3) You can set a timer on the 322 to fire when the Tivo is set to record and the timer will turn the 322 on (as well as tuning it to the correct channel), dismissing the screen saver. Same goes for all E* units that have that screen saver.


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