I thought I'd post what's happened since my earlier questions and decisions.
My E* HD DVR (vip622) was installed today, and I'm extremely happy with it. It's everything I want. As a reminder, we've been E* users for 7-8 years(?), so a lot of our comfort level is defined by what we're used to. The only reason we switched to D* was to get the Tivo name-based programming. That seems to be handled nicely in the 622.
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Our main compaints with D* were slow guide display, no caller ID, and no UHF remote. As has been discussed here, these would be solved by upgrading to the H20 (we had the H10). We purchased our H10 from Costco and I didn't research the unit, just assumed that it was the latest and greatest. I'm a bit surprised at Costco for this.
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I have mentioned this several times, I cannot believe the amount of times I am seeing DISH people bash D*'s HD DVR, by compairing it to D*'s OLD DVR with DISH's BRAND NEW ONE.
Of course you will like it better and pioint out all the things DISH DVR has over the D* old one, granted, D*'s is not out yet, but I think it is unfair, If DISH's DVR was not out yet and D* had a BRAND NEW DVR I am sure,it too would have features that the DISH did not.
I for one would make sure I was comparing two units that were of the same generation.
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I made several calls to D* in the process of of cancelling my service. I didn't want it cancelled until E* was reinstalled, but they kept cutting off my programming prematurely. I should have just waited until the E* unit was up and running. One of my complaints with D* customer service is that not once did someone ask why I was unhappy with the service. If they had, they could have told me that the H10 was obsolete, and maybe offer a free upgrade to keep me as a customer, maybe offer a month or two of free programming. We had selected the Platinum (everything) package, so I would think we'd be customers worth keeping. I see D* as the "AOL" of satellite services. They're only interested in "getting" customers, not keeping them.
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They should have dealt with this much better than they did, sorry you didn't get help, I think I would have tryed calling back, for some reason, no two reps have the same information, this goes for D*, DISH and Cable as well, no two people interpet the info the same...No sure why that is.....
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The other big compaint I had was with the installer company. The D* installer took down my E* dish and replaced it with the D* dish. But he took my multi-switch, so when we wanted to swtich back to E*, we couldn't. During a 3-day period, I made 8 calls totalling several hours (mostly on hold), talking to 6-8 people, all of whom lied to me. They wasted a lot of time for themselves and me by refusing to return or replace or even to admit responsibility for a $35 multi-switch. The company is LA based and is called Connect Television.
Can you believe I'm trying to keep this short?
Lastly, let me mention a couple of the smaller niceties of E* that we didn't get with D*. We really missed (in our 10-day sentence with D*) the ability to jump forward by 30-seconds in the DVR. I see this as an attempt to force us to watch the commercials (is D* the "Fox News" of satellite systems?). Also, fast-forwarding lacks all of the speed options of E*, which has a super-high speed of 300x alllowing you to quickly navigate through a long recording. And what is D*'s jump-to-end good for? It doesn't even take you to the very end (if you really wanted to go there) so you still get to watch the last 30-second commercial.
Also, in the E* program guide, you'll see a red dot by any show that's scheduled to record. We missed that little feature in D*.
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Thanks for all your help and for allowing me to rant. Everyone has their own opinions about the things they like. I know D* is the more popular satellite system and I have to wonder why. Perhaps, it's just that most people just learn to like what they're used to. Having been exposed to both systems, we're very happy to be back with E*.