"You might have already made your decisions, but figuring out what equipment to get is not easy at all! And to complicate matters, if you're willing to wait a little, you may be able to get exactly what you want instead of a poor compromise. "
Very well said. Indeed, I consider myself a very well educated A-V consumer, have always done my own Dish installs, etc. Yet I am finding the current choices perplexing and unsatisfying. So much so that I am getting more and more comfortable with the idea of sitting this one out and just staying with a Dish 500/300 setup and my old, non Dish Pro receivers for a while. I had planned to get an 811 to replace an old 4000, but the more I look at it the more I sense it's just a marginal upgrade from the 6000 (which I already am using in a projector setup), particularly as respects the guide software, always Dish's weak spot. I haven't bought an HD ready TV set yet anyway, and one thing we all know is that the price of those sets is in serious free fall. Six months from now I will get more for less. Moreover, I use my 4000 for home distribution. With the 811, I would need to get an external modulator -- an unnecessary irritation.
Meanwhile, as respects DVRs, I'm loathe to invest now in a standard definiton DVR (particularly with the monthly fee), yet I'm also loathe to plunk down $1000 for the 921, particularly since it too seems to have old generation software.
Then there's all the uncertainty with the Superdish itself. Can we install it or not? Will we get a "type 1" or a "type 2" dish? Does it NEED to be ground mounted on a pole -- a larger pole than many of us use now, at that? This will be an additional installation charge, surely. Are the adapters for non-Dish Pro receivers going to be part of the "free" install? How about the switches? I have seen no clear indication from Dish -- only speculation. It's not even clear whether we will need it for some of the HD channels (including ESPN -- by far the one I most want). I believe I read somewhere that the current HD pack channels will NOT migrate from 110. And I find it ridiculous that Dish has no current solution for Superdish buyers who also want international channels from the wings.
All in all, I'm thinking maybe I should put my new toy money in a DVD-recorder now, and wait until Dish has a coherent path forward before changing my satellite setup at all.