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Politely disagree

I sure wish I could figure out why some people seem to be able to use OTA DVR with the 921 "reliably" and so many others cannot. To break it down, there are really no variables with respect to how these things are installed, connected and used when speaking of OTA. Therefore, my 921 should perform exactly the same whether it's installed in my home, or in somebody else's home. However, my 921 has proven itself to be the single most unreliable electronic device I've owned in the past five years. Since I purchased for Dish directly, I have 30 days in order to either return the 921 for a refund or keep it. Mine will be returned on Friday.

My DVR is used primarily to schedule the recording of content that I cannot view during it's normal airing. In many cases, I'm not at home or am busy. Therefore, if the unit is not completely reliable, then to me it is not acceptable at all. While I do have issues of how E* supports the 5xx series of DVRs, I have had an extremely low incidence of shows not recording as scheduled. I HAVE had issues where the timing was off due to schedule changes, which TiVo would have corrected and the Dish DVRs do not. I'm OK with that (with the exeption of Dish starting to charge for a useless and unethical VOD fee, which they deliberately market with misleading statements). The 921, on the other hand, may or may not record. It may or may not lock up. It may or may not completely crash. I have no confidence that it will work properly at any given time. To be honest, these conditions are only when I try to use functions related to OTA. So, if Dish had HD locals (like my cable company does) this would not be an issue at all. But the don't, and won't. Not for a LONG time.

I do agree that the PQ of the 921 is wonderful, and that the overall value - IF IT WORKED - would be great. That's why I bought it. Since the 921 has already been discontinued, since they acknowledged that there are still outstanding issues they're trying to fix, since they haven't fixed them in the last year, since it's somewhere around $500 or so depending on where you buy it, since they have no local HD content - period, since their customer service has degraded so far (never got through on the phone in less than 35 minutes in the past 7 times I've called over the past week), and since I demand HD DVR, I am dropping dish completely and moving to cable this Friday, with a scheduled 1pm install.

Jumping at this time saves me a BUNCH of money ($549 to start with, and monthly savings every month after), gets me HD locals, and positions me where if Dish ever gets their head out of their posterior, I will get incentives to move back at a lower cost and with better equipment. In the meantime I'll get almost three times the HD content at a lower cost, with the only negative that I'll have to deal with some analog stuff which I rarely use anyway. And it sends a message to Charlie that not everyone will accept poorly designed, poorly tested, and poorly supported equipment at premium prices for limited programming.

For those of you who are having absolutely no problems with your 921, I am certainly envious. I really love the (missed) potential of the unit. I hope your luck holds out. For those of you who accept a 921 that works "most of the time" I don't get it. Most of the time is OK for aspirin. Not for consumer electronics. For those of you who have not yet installed a 921, you know where I stand.

What about Cable SD Quality

Thanks for the replys guys. I am still not sure I should pay $550 for something that it appears my cable company leases for only $12.95 upcharge a month. Does anybody know how many lines of resolution a digital cable signal has versus the Dish SD signal?

Thanks,

Stu

stuhuff said:

Ok Guys, I am really nervous about this now...I have a 921 installation setup for this Thursday but after readiing this forum for the past couple of days I am wondering if I should send it back and get digital cable with HD and PVR capabilities.

Does anybody here actually have a 921 that is working as advertised?

Is the SD quality on DISH better than "digital cable" quality? I am struggling to see why I should stay with DISH Network...does DISH beat cable at ANYTHING?

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The 921 is buggy. It seems to work, but surely not as well as my 4900, 501 or my gf's 510. I have a love hate with it, HD is awesome and the OTA is great I get like a dozen + OTA HD channels and love it with the DVR, but the damn receiver is buggy, hangs drops sound and all sorts of other things. Cable is not an option for me as I think their customer service is way worse than even Dish has gotten. So it is D* or E*. Well I don't want to gamble $999 on D*, but am willing to play with $549 for a year or so. Also the usablilty of the 921 was designed by Microsoft Rejects. You go back into a DVR event that you stopped and it defaults to START OVER, the 5xx defaulted to RESUME which is logical. The Early start and run over options are nice, but give me a way to set a default for them so I don't have to keep resetting them. Hitting cancle from a receorded event that you stopped brings you to the DVR menu and the pciture of current content is suppoed to be in a PIP type windoes, but the window is there, but the picture never scales to the PIP size so you see a few inches of the upper right frame. Get my point? The 921 must not have gone through very extensive usablity testing since many of these thinsg are solid, reproducable and very obvious. Also mine seems to lcok up form time to time requiring a power off and sit for 2-3 minutes before the DVR or Menu buttons will work again. I get randon audio drop outs on HD channels via bird or OTA. I hear D* HD-DVR is much more solid, but if they sold it for even $650 I might consider it, but $999, nope!

I would return the unit you got from Dish. THen run out and buy one for 489.00 at your local Costco ( we are down to 15% of buy) and buy one before they run out. Keep it indefinatly to see if they iron out the bugs. Or I will tell you my plan. I am going to keep my box and Costco purchase record. When 942 comes out, I may return or wait till mpeg 4 box comes out and return to Cosco. ( our return policy states it is ok to return your product at ANY time if you are unhappy with it)> Gives you total buyer protection!
FYI< my Voom box works great for locals too. Guess I am maybe just lucky that my locals and OTA work so well with 921. Maybe its becasue I have no other markets then whats on the OTA guide available. Possibly that is was the box has a hard time with??

Customer Service?

Some direct comparisons:

Every time I've called Dish in the past three weeks (so many problems with the 921 that it's been in the double digits) I've been on hold for REALLY long periods of time. My problems have NEVER been solved. I've ALWAYS been put on hold a second time to talk to a "senior" representative who handles 921s (and who is without exception always clueless, and provides absolutely no value at all). If the 921 fails (assuming I were to keep it rather than return it as planned) I need to pay $30 for a swap, and it'll take days at a minimum. If I want another HD TV I need to buy another 811 or 921.

I've called Adelphia twice. I've been on hold a maximum of 7 minutes total. If necessary, I can stop at a local office 10 minutes from my home. If my equipment (which I didn't have to buy) fails, I can get it swapped out within 30 minutes Mon-Sat. No extra charge. If I want another HD set, no charge. My other two DVRs are ALSO HD DVRs. Oh, and I get NBR and season pass on everything, along with dual tuners with everything. At a lower cost.

So, which customer service is worse?

kluken said:

The 921 is buggy. It seems to work, but surely not as well as my 4900, 501 or my gf's 510. I have a love hate with it, HD is awesome and the OTA is great I get like a dozen + OTA HD channels and love it with the DVR, but the damn receiver is buggy, hangs drops sound and all sorts of other things. Cable is not an option for me as I think their customer service is way worse than even Dish has gotten. So it is D* or E*. Well I don't want to gamble $999 on D*, but am willing to play with $549 for a year or so. Also the usablilty of the 921 was designed by Microsoft Rejects. You go back into a DVR event that you stopped and it defaults to START OVER, the 5xx defaulted to RESUME which is logical. The Early start and run over options are nice, but give me a way to set a default for them so I don't have to keep resetting them. Hitting cancle from a receorded event that you stopped brings you to the DVR menu and the pciture of current content is suppoed to be in a PIP type windoes, but the window is there, but the picture never scales to the PIP size so you see a few inches of the upper right frame. Get my point? The 921 must not have gone through very extensive usablity testing since many of these thinsg are solid, reproducable and very obvious. Also mine seems to lcok up form time to time requiring a power off and sit for 2-3 minutes before the DVR or Menu buttons will work again. I get randon audio drop outs on HD channels via bird or OTA. I hear D* HD-DVR is much more solid, but if they sold it for even $650 I might consider it, but $999, nope!

Click to expand...