UPDATE: I contacted DIRT and they are gonna look into this more. Could be maybe phone reps just wanting to generally sell/upgrade crap and that the 922 is not being systematically eliminated.
I own my 722k also, but since they still charge you the EXACT same fees whether it's leased OR owned, there's only one advantage now to owning your receiver. The only advantage left to owning, is that you wouldn't have to sign any sort of contract for 2 years or whatever it is. However, most people would keep the system longer than that, and you'd then be off contract anyway...
Do not want a contract. Any attempt to contract is an instant deal killer. It's such a PITA when you have a lease on an apartment and contracts for services and they don't line up. You move and then they get you for longer, etc. Big PITA. It'll be different when I buy a house but that's a few years down the line.
Also, needing (or more specifically having to pay for) a pro install for the HWS seemed to be the actual cost. The dish is literally about 10 feet away from the receiver, the signal comes in on a flat cable through the front door. Manager signed off on my install, it's grounded to the best of my understanding of those requirements. I've got all the coax tools, a spool of wire and I can go buy another flat cable if that's what the install really is. Or if it's because the Joeys use Ethernet, this apartment is wired for Ethernet in all the rooms, as well as Coax isolated from the cable TV network.
While what she said was technically correct, like you discovered, it does not work the same way with the Hopper system as it did with the old ViP TV1/TV2 setup. With a Hopper, you will have to have a "Joey" receiver at each additional viewing location, up to three Joeys per Hopper (or 6 with a Hopper 3). The benefit is that they will be in HD (if you have/want an HDTV in the additional locations) and you can view all recordings on the Hopper from each Joey; however, the downside is that each Joey carries an add'l monthly receiver fee.
She actually made it sound like the Hopper base unit had TV1/TV2, but if I wanted any more than that, then I would need Joeys. That sounds really wrong so I didn't go through with any deal.
I live alone but I have a guest room in the apartment, family or friends will stay over. I can change the 922 over to Duo mode, bam, my guest room has it's own TV now. No extra fees. I'll pay for programming, that's fair (relatively). Not for extra boxes to sit unused most of the time. Bedroom does not need HD
Crap?? There are many here who feel the VIP series is still after all these years better than what some cable uses. My 612's are great and just about trouble free. What kind of updates would you feel they should be getting that the memory and processor could handle?
There still remains a bug where on every 4th or so daily reboot, the little PIP picture in the guide will be rendered in the bottom left corner instead of the top left corner. Literally this bug has been there ever since I became a customer, I have exchanged the 922 a few times for other reasons. I know there's been one or two software updates since then. This cannot be that difficult of a bug to fix! I don't think you need to double the memory just to draw the video in the right place since it does get it right most of the time! Tons of little bugs like this, I've reported, they are just never fixed. The primary functionality does generally work (it records stuff, and you can typically watch the recordings).
I agree that E* equipment is infinitely better than the cable crap (which is why I always used TiVo on cable). However I have not used the X1 so I can't speak as to that system.
And it is my understanding TIVO series 3 can no longer be activated, if not already active.
I have a lifetime S3 (I understand not activating S1 or S2 but on the TiVo forums we couldn't really figure out why they would stop activating newer S3's). They just added MPEG-4 support for Comcast to the later model S3's. They have a decoder chip, it was just never used until now.
