$1,000 Dish HD Package

nitstalker

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Mar 9, 2004
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Has anyone gotten or know of anyone that has gotten the $1000 dollar Dish HD package? After my run in with the incompitent (sp?) Voom Installer and telling him to get lost, I am still without any HD service. I was looking at the package that Dish offers that includes the HD monitor... I am curious as to how good the monitors are? I know that they are made by RCA which usually is pretty good. I called RCA and they cannot provide any information on the monitors because they are a 'special model made exclusively for Dish Network'... Dish ppl couldnt give too many specs on it either...

Anybody know about these? It seems like a sweet deal to get the equipment and monitor for a grand... cant buy anything remotely close to that price in stores...

Thanks

Stephen
 
nitstalker said:
Has anyone gotten or know of anyone that has gotten the $1000 dollar Dish HD package? After my run in with the incompitent (sp?) Voom Installer and telling him to get lost, I am still without any HD service. I was looking at the package that Dish offers that includes the HD monitor... I am curious as to how good the monitors are? I know that they are made by RCA which usually is pretty good. I called RCA and they cannot provide any information on the monitors because they are a 'special model made exclusively for Dish Network'... Dish ppl couldnt give too many specs on it either...

Anybody know about these? It seems like a sweet deal to get the equipment and monitor for a grand... cant buy anything remotely close to that price in stores...

Thanks

Stephen

Stephen,
I've posted responses to this question here and in other discussion lists about this deal. Search "HD in a Box" or "Dish $1000 Deal".
I bought this combo (with the 34" direct view monitor) back in Janurary.

I've been very satisified with the monitor. The 811 has been the bugger as you'll see from many threads around here. However the recent 266 download helped my unit a lot. Dish still has a long ways to go in terms of HD, both in hardware and programming but so does the competition.
As for this "deal" though, in my opinion, it's currently the least expensive way to get into HDTV and if you're OK with being a Dish customer, there's not a better deal out there.

You'll no doubt hear a lot of garbage from people about RCA but most don't back it up with specifics - especially about this particular unit. Personally I've found it to be a good TV so far. It provides excellent PQ, has plenty of features and even good sound for when you don't want to run it through your audio receiver.

As for reliability - I haven't had this unit long enough to know but my last set was a 32" RCA 4:3 that I'd had for almost 6 years and it's still working great for my brother-in-law now.
WaltinVt
 
I have had bad RCA TV's that start to fall apart at 5 or so years old. One thing breaks on it and then another. I wouldn't buy an RCA TV again, unless they make some big imporvement on the quality. You must take into account that this package cost only $1000, they had to cut corners somewhere. I paid 2 times that just for my HDTV, that is the same size as that one, and yes it is a CRT also.
 
I'm still using a 25" RCA monitor/tv that was purchased in 1982. It's been moved cross country and another 8 times in the last 5 years. It still works great! Which is part of the reason I purchased a 61" RCA Scenium in January. It works great, and I am not expecting problems. Should there be any, I expect the 5 yr warranty to cover it for quite a while.
 
I bought the HD in a Box back in late Feb... I see alot of you have problems with RCA, Rca has had some problems with their TV's, but I've had several RCA products and for the exception of one 27" TV that had a bad tuner, most of them worked great. On the other hand I know people that have spent $3000.00 on there TV's, and six months later complaining because its broke!! So it doesn't matter which TV you get because all TV's can break!

The corners they cut, lack of information, and NO PROTECTIVE SCREEN!(on the 40") when I bought mine I wasn't sure about this until I got it installed, two days after my install and one day after ordering a protective screen my five year old son decided to scratch my screen. Well first of all I called Dish Network, they had no idea how I could order a new screen for my TV, they gave me some numbers for my local service centers, they couldn't order a screen because it was not a model number they knew. (DISH HD40-300, is not the real Model number, no one knows what this Model number is) Anyways, I called Thompson directly, they said they have had a lot of questions the 40" RPTV and the 34" TV, but they had NO information. I had to do my own research, I found out that the TV's appearance was from the G.E. D40GW10 (no longer in production), but the features didn't match up, (Auto convergance, etc...) I found out that the features where from the RCA D40W20! Anyways after doing the research I ordered a replacement screen as if I had the RCA TV,(wasn't sure if the G.E. was 1080i, didn't know if that mattered, but I didn't want to take a chance) The screen I ordered was exactly the same as the one thats in my TV, same number on the top left corner.

Over all, besides the 811 having some bugs, I like my HD system, for $999.00 You can't beat it. I know a lot of people like to buy expensive TV's, because they think expensive=GOOD, thats not always the case, you can spend very little and get a GOOD TV/on the other hand you can spend a lot and have nothing but problems. Spending a lot of money doesn't always keep you from having problems.

If you are thinking about buying DISH Networks HD in a Box, you will have to decide on your own, if you like expensive stuff you probally won't be satisfied, but if you don't care this would be a good deal. For me, I think for the price this TV is worth it. The only thing to remember, if you cancel within a year you will have to pay the $240 early termination fee.
 
Stephen,
That last post is exactly what I mean about non-specific degradation of a product. He may have some good, valid reasons for saying what he did but chose not to share them or reference a previous post where he had.

On the other hand, Tonyp56 gave you some useful information.

I think some people have a thing about someone getting a better deal. Human nature I guess.

WaltinVt
 
A 34" RCA HDTV can no doubt be purchased for under $1000 in almost any retail store. Philips and Samsung certainly can. Since the 811 and Dish gear is FREE to new subs (and to returning subs under DHA), I see no reason to rely on poor Dish customer service and support, when you can deal directly with manufacturer support when buying any of the above brands from the retail channel.

BTW, for a few hundred $$ more, you can get a Sony 30 or 34 HS510. The picture is breathtaking. I compared all of the lower-priced 30-34 inch models, and the Sony was easily the best picture. However, many people do report excellent results with the Philips, which is very reasonably priced. From my own personal experiences with Samsung, I would not buy another Samsung product. But, that's me.
 
waltinvt\ said:
Stephen,
That last post is exactly what I mean about non-specific degradation of a product. He may have some good, valid reasons for saying what he did but chose not to share them or reference a previous post where he had.

Walt, you need to look at Rolltide's signature line, the search function is your friend. Rolltide has posted in other threads about his purchase of the Dish 34" set, his problems with it and his return of the product. Sometimes folks just get tired of saying the same thing over and over again. As for the 811 there are more then enough post about that box, it even has it's own forum section due to the questions/issues/concerns/problems with that box
 
I was thinking of doing the same thing, I spent a few hundred more for a 34 inch Phillips and I love it. HD is awesome with it. Also I was turned off by the dish deal because I heard it was only good with Dish so if you canceled your service it wouldn't work with what you moved to.
 
Run away from this tv screaming. I purchased one in january of this year. The tv died after 3 days. It had a bad power supply. It took over 3 months from dish to credit my accout for the price of the 850.00 rca tv. After going through 4 csr s that wanted me to return the tv to dish at my own expence I emailed ceo@echostar.com and got help after only a couple of days. Rich at the main dish office was a God send. I kept the 811 and love it. The problem with rca is that the repair center had the tv for 3 weeks befor the called and told me the part was out of stock in the U.S. and it would be several months befor the part would be in. I went with a mitsubishi 42313 at Bestbuy for about 1000.00. The image quality is every bit as good as the RCA and the big advantage is that its still working after 3 months. Good luck.
 
Just for reference beings we're talking about warranty service. I've posted this elsewhere as well. My Philips has a small glitch - or maybe it's due to the 921 - I still don't know. They couldn't find anyone to come look at it. I offered to swap boards if they'd send them. got a call a few days later from the trucking company asking me when they could deliver my new, upgraded, HDTV. :D BTW, it's still in my garage - haven't had enough people here at one time to move it into the house!
 
waltinvt\ said:
Stephen,
That last post is exactly what I mean about non-specific degradation of a product. He may have some good, valid reasons for saying what he did but chose not to share them or reference a previous post where he had.

On the other hand, Tonyp56 gave you some useful information.

I think some people have a thing about someone getting a better deal. Human nature I guess.

WaltinVt

Sorry I didn't have anytime to post exactly all the problems that I had with my HD in the box. I am so sorry that work called me out of the office and I didn't have time to post more . I was only trying to help you not make the same mistake that I did.

Spend $500 more and get you a 55 inch Mitsu :)
 
ROLLTIDE said:
Sorry I didn't have anytime to post exactly all the problems that I had with my HD in the box. I am so sorry that work called me out of the office and I didn't have time to post more . I was only trying to help you not make the same mistake that I did.

Spend $500 more and get you a 55 inch Mitsu :)

And I apologize to you. Had I been paying more attention I would have realized that you had previously posted on this monitor. It's just one of my pet peaves when people say something without apparently sighting any reasoning to back it up. You're not one of them and I do apologize.

That aside, I hope I'm one of the lucky ones when it comes to this monitor. So far it's been great and when I checked everywhere in my area (limited because it's in Vermont) back in Janurary, I couldn't come close to getting into HDTV for the $999 Dish was asking.
Although I can't really speak for it's reliability because I've only had it for 15 weeks, I can say that this tv has as good a picture as anything I saw in any of the stores.
WaltinVt
 
rad said:
Walt, you need to look at Rolltide's signature line, the search function is your friend. Rolltide has posted in other threads about his purchase of the Dish 34" set, his problems with it and his return of the product. Sometimes folks just get tired of saying the same thing over and over again. As for the 811 there are more then enough post about that box, it even has it's own forum section due to the questions/issues/concerns/problems with that box

You're right and I have apologized to him. Thanks for picking me up on it.
WaltinVt
 
waltinvt\ said:
You're right and I have apologized to him. Thanks for picking me up on it.
WaltinVt

I was just trying to make sure that Rolltide's response wasn't taken the wrong way and a flame war wasn't going to start.
 
Wow guess this one is a hot blooded topic... Yeah I know opinions are like -------... With any brand name you mention you will have people screaming that is a piece of junk... not just tv's but cars, appliances, condoms, etc... It is inevitable that something is going to break... just get it fixed... Ive had an RCA 27" for 6 years no probs... in my bedroom is an old RCA that has the old dial tuner on it and works fine aside from having to blow out the tuner with compressed air once in a while....

My major question was really about what the picture quality is like as compared to say a JVC or Mitsi of equal size....
 
I've had the 34" monitor since the end of december and I have only good things to
say about the picture quality and features on this set. I've also seen these other brands in the showrooms and I can honestly say it compares with best! Now, the other
part of the "Box" is another story, the 811 STB has been a big letdown, but some of the issues seem to be improving. All in all, it is a great value.
 
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