sat box died

   / sat box died #31  
Sure wish we could beat the Directv addiction. :laughing: They are really good at billing us to a point were I want to drop the service but will not. :D

Yep, they periodically raise the price and I call to tell them I'm going to cancel and go back to Dish and they give me a one year "discount". So I never really know; may be going back to Dish next month.:laughing:

Of course when I bought this house, the realtor said Charter Communications provided cable service in this area. Well, I went to their website and it showed no service in this zip code. So I sent an e-mail asking if they had service here and when I didn't hear from them for a week or so, I went ahead with Centurytel. And a couple of weeks later, Charter finally sent an e-mail saying that they did provide service here. And now I get a junk mail advertisement for Charter Communications at least once a week. I'd actually rather have cable than satellite, but for the 3 years my mother was in a nursing home, they had Charter and the service was so unreliable that I've been reluctant to try them.
 
   / sat box died #32  
As unreliable as the Dish equipment is, I recommend you always keep the maintenance agreement. I had a VIP622 DVR, it went bad, was replaced with a VIP722, it went bad, went bad again and again. Replaced 4 times in a years. A royal pain, but has not cost a penny so far.

I can say that I hate the VIP722 and can't wait until Directv has their multiple TV thing going good AND has TIVO.

I am also mad at Dish because I missed some football games when they were in "negotiations" with Fox Sports and they frankly didn't care what the customers thought about it - they are all about gigging their customers while not wanting to pay anything for their programming.

I had Directv 10 years and had NO trouble with them or their equipment - only changed to Dish because the HD DVR is supposedly better. But when Directv gets back together with TIVO that should change.

Double ditto. I also ran DirecTV many years until they wanted to charge me a small fortune to upgrade to an HD DVR while they were giving them away to new customers. I fired them and went to Dish Network. I too had several problems with VIP622 receivers, but at least they were all replaced without hassle (I always keep the "maintenance" contract on my sat TV service, it's proven worth it over the years). With Dish I still could only have HD to one receiver, though, which was a constant irritant in my house with 55" LCD in the den and a 42" LCD in the living room.

However, like about a zillion other Oklahoma Sooner football fans, Dish's recent Fox Sports standoff ticked me off so bad I fired them and went back to DirectTV. They lost a TON of customers in my area during that debacle, because Fox Sports Southwest is just about the favorite football channel in the state. Playing hardball with Sooner football fans was a huge error on Dish's part. As a bonus, for the same money I got DirecTV's new multi-room HD system, and I'm a very happy camper now, with independent HD receivers for both rooms. Only the main unit in the den has a DVR, but the second receiver can independently access and control it for both record and playback. This is a GREAT setup (finally!) and it works like a charm, at least for my two TV's. My wife can now watch her chick flicks in HD in the living room while I watch my Sooners get their butts kicked during road games.

Don't have any experience with TIVO, but my current DirecTV DVR seems fine for what I need, and I've had no problems with it. I can highly recommend DirecTV's multi-room HD setup, I love mine. But I also recommend paying that extra $6 a month to cover your butt for anything that happens. After all, if you're coughing up $80 or $90 a month for TV anyway, I can't see $6 a month being worth the hassle involved when something craps out, and electronics is electronics, it WILL fail on occasion.
 
   / sat box died #33  
Picker, how would you compare the existing Directv HD DVR to the VIP622 you had on Dish? I had TIVO (nonHD) on Directv before I switched to Dish, and it was great. Never have liked this Dish DVR much, I tend to lose programming due to conflicts that it doesn't warn you about. Plus the thing has bugs and just flat doesn't record sometimes and for no apparent reason. The software is quirky at best.

What I can say is that Dish HD quality is very good. Some have said its better than Directv.
 
   / sat box died #34  
Picker, how would you compare the existing Directv HD DVR to the VIP622 you had on Dish? I had TIVO (nonHD) on Directv before I switched to Dish, and it was great. Never have liked this Dish DVR much, I tend to lose programming due to conflicts that it doesn't warn you about. Plus the thing has bugs and just flat doesn't record sometimes and for no apparent reason. The software is quirky at best.

What I can say is that Dish HD quality is very good. Some have said its better than Directv.

I'm pretty picky about HD quality, and I can't see any difference in the quality of the actual HD signal between DN and DTV. IMO, differences seen are related to the display rather than the input signal from the two services. I had a 42" 720P Vizio for the past couple of years. It was ok, and I couldn't really tell any difference on it when I switched services. However, shortly after that, I bought a new 55" Vizio LED/LCD that runs 1080P @ 240 Hz refresh rate and the difference was immediately noticeable with the 55". Much sharper and "crisper", smoother color blending and rendition, and no frame to frame jerkiness during action scenes and football games, something I had apparently subconciously learned to live with before. Don't know if the improvement was due to moving from 720P to 1080P or 60 Hz to 240 Hz refresh rate, or both--or just a higher quality display in general--but it IS certainly noticeable.

As for the DVR's, the DTV DVR software has so far seemed to be bulletproof and works exactly as expected every time, where I also had similar problems with the VIP622's software before. The remotes work differently, which took a little learning curve, but once that was over it was clear sailing. At first I liked the Dish remote setup better, but now that I'm used to the DTV version the change is no big deal.

I'm a sports fan, and one other unheralded feature of DTV has been a REAL bonus: If, for instance, I select a basketball game in the guide that's been blacked out in my area, it will automatically offer to hunt for that same game somewhere else in a non-blacked out area. And most of the time it finds it on some obscure channel like 676-1 or whatever that I almost never watch. IMO this is clever programming, and I love it.

The HD signal on the original 42" 720P Vizio (now moved to another room) is about the same as it was before--very good but not excellent, while the display on the new 55" is amazing. Overall, for me, moving back to DirecTV has been a total win-win, especially when I can now simultaneously watch HD on an independent receiver in another room (or several rooms if I want). Dish Network simply refused to upgrade their systems to allow that, and it was a constant irritant to us. Being restricted to standard def TV anywhere else in the house was a real thorn in the eyes once we got used to HD.

Dish has made a financial decision to delay (and delay, delay, delay) in investing in the next level of home equipment (HD in multiple rooms), and that's their choice. Now I've made my choice. :)
 
   / sat box died
  • Thread Starter
#35  
Well, the box worked a couple weeks, then started rebooting again, only now it wouldn't restart for a couple days. Called Dish, they recommended I get the maintenance agreement, then they will replace the box at no cost, else it will cost me $50. While on the phone with them, I actually got the box to come back on, but they are sending me a new one anyways. Less than an hour later, it died again. I'll have a new box tomorrow or friday. Looks like the maintenance agreement is worth the money.
 

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