I was happy and tuned to my guide to try watching the Olympics, but guess what, NO LOCAL OTA channels in the guide. The only way to get the OTA channels is to be subscribed to Dish Network and pay a HD Enabling fee (unless you subscribe to one of their HD packages)

Look no local OTA channels in the guide after I scanned them in.



Another interesting thing I found in the menus (and one of the most exciting discovery) was found in the Record Plus setup screen...



See that ERD setup button? Thats where things get exciting...
ERD stands for External Recording Device. What does that mean? I don't know could it be possible now or in the future to use external devices such as USB hard drives with the 622? From this screen below, I believe so, and I don't think this screen is for the PocketDish as there are screens for that under the MultiMedia setup screen. I guess we will find out soon enough.



One thing I noticed after going through the menus was I hit the DVR button and went to my recordings again and now I had 2 recordings, one showing me how to use my DVR features and another telling me about Club Dish.



Now as I was getting ready to activate my 622 I had the 622 tuned to channel 101 (which REALLY needs to be updated) anyways while tuned to channel 101 I noticed on of these "Enhancements" that we talked about earlier. It looked like this...



Pressing Select on the remote took you to a special Dish 101 Open TV application (which was not available on the 942)



Nice application but it needs some updating, look at what I mean below.

Ok now, we have been through the menus, as you will notice we did not post them all only the ones which are different then found on the 942.

The next step was actually activating the 622, when I called and told them I had a 622 I was immediately transfered to TECH SUPPORT. I got tech support and told them I had a 622 I wanted to activate, the person on the phone said she was surprised as she didn't think the 622 was out yet. I told her I had one sitting here in front of me, she told me she didn't have a walk through to activate it so she basically said "Do you think the box is setup correctly and working?" I answered yes and she said good.

With my receiver ID number and smartcard number the 622 was activated in a few short minutes, however the new HD channels were not on, I told her I wanted the Platinum package, and she added it and then told me my monthly charge would be $172.98 a month, she forgot to take off the VOOM package, the HD package and also she was charging me for all the Pay Channels and the HD enabling fee, after explaining to her what the Platinum package consisted of she quickly fixed the error.

I have to be honest it was probably the best experience I had with a CSR, while she messed up she was very pleasant and tried her best to be helpful.

By the time I got off the phone all the HD channels were coming in. The picture quality look as good as it did on the 942, with no testing equipment I would say it is just as good.

I would say the over the air tuner on the 622 is BETTER then the 942 as now I can tune stations I could not pick up before and I am staying locked on channels that I had trouble with.

So far in the time I have had the 622 it has performed flawlessly.

I regret that I am unable to test how the MPEG4 reception is on the 622 which for most is the main reason most want a 622. The reason for this is because there is not any REAL MPEG4 signals being transmitted that I can receive.

Many think the new channels (ESPN2HD, Universal HD and the new VOOM channels are MPEG4, they are not, they are actually standard MPEG2 channels which can only be seen by the new MPEG4 receivers.

I understand talking with 622 beta testers that MPEG4 is still not where it should be yet, with a few reporting slow channel changing of mpeg4 channels, frequent pixelation, blockiness and out of sync sound. It is believed that these issues are with the encoders and not the receiving equipment. (This is the real reason why the new channels are not being sent in real MPEG4)

My overall thoughts on the 622 so far is "I LOVE IT!" this is everything that the 942 should have been, fast powerful and with all the features active out of the box.

With that said there are somethings I would like to see work on the 622 which are not available on the 622, for example I would like to see all OpenTV applications available on the 622, stuff like the games and Karaoke plus the great interactive news applications which are found on older systems.

Now that we have looked at setting up the 622 let's take a look under the hood on the 622!