10 reasons not to get a 942 until summer

[BFG]

I found this posted at DBSTalk, I would give you guys the link to the thread over there, but it doesn't seem to be there any more. So here's what was there:

Over the weekend I was at cousins house who is one of the Linux programers for Project Cowboy (the DVR 942).

After asking some questions and getting to use the box my advise is to wait until summer to get one.

This is just an other Tell it like it is review (some reviews I think are too soft and dont list all the CONS).
Call it rumors if you want, but I think you should know that bad parts so you can make up your own mind on buying now.


THE CONS- This is why I think you should wait . . .

10. Caller ID bug, when someone calls and the list is full, the screen goes blank till you reboot.

9. TV2 Bug, for some reason on friday nights if you record, the 2 Star Gates, 1 battle star, and also Star Trek on UPN, Timers do not always fire do to an over load issue. All timers then lock up.

8. Sleep bug- seems that if you turn the unit off it does not aways wake back up, or it crashes, there is a fan problem with sleep, it should always be on. Heat sensor issue?

7. Beta Testers- there were only a couple of dozen, not enough.

This is due to work loads already being diverted for the new 942 replacement that is Mpeg 4 (Project code name: Media Center Plus ).
This means any customers buying it will be beta testers.
As you can see from above there are known bugs, they are NOT Telling you all of them, I could only find out some couple.

6. Dont pay full price. Only those that buy under the lease plan will get the upgrade protection option.

5. Dont pay full price, existing customers will for sure be able to lease by summer, the legals guys have a draft.

4. DP 34 switch issue, seems that if you have two of these switches the 942 locks up every week or so.

3. Wait till Summer when the Mpeg 4 upgrade plan will be announced. Trade ins on the lease plan sure will be nice and it will match Direct TVs plan if you buy into it. They wont announce it till then as there is not enough stock of 942s, EVERYONE will want one then. Well worth getting this new type of lease (called Lease Plus)

2. Good Trade in Discounts on the 921 this summer, dont need to say anything more do I?

1. And the number one reason to wait. Its just not ready yet.
Since they did a press release that says Q1 they can not back out due to Stock trading rules. They could do an other press release saying its late or mention it in the quarterly earnings reports, but that report is too late.

I did find later that he did post it on our site here, but under a different name http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=58736

But I've closed that thread to keep the discussion here.

 

[Stargazer]

My number one reason: MPEG-4 receiver will be out. Thats the only reason I need to wait. I figure the MPEG-2 HD DVR's will drop in price since they will want to push MPEG-4 HD DVR's and sell the MPEG-2 ones as a large storage SD DVR since they will probably do away with all HD channels in MPEG-2.

 

[korsjs]

thanks for posting this. very insteresing.

why would dbs talk want to hide this from their veiwers??? would not this benefit their members?

 

[Stargazer]

It looks like someone copied and pasted BFG's post and put it in another thread:

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=58736

I wonder what the purpose of that was for?

 

[BFG]

Well it really wasn't my post either.

I put it on this site when I noticed it somewhere else but later was deleted.

So maybe this is the same guy that had his post deleted and was reposting it here, (edit: that turns out to be the case)

Either way all good

 

[BFG]

Yeah, It's still sad that dish continues to release boxes and actually expects the users to deal with the boxes. Heck when you call about problems now, they say it's a bug and a fix will be out, WTF? I don't think that happens at D*

Either way I'll still be recommending folks that want an HD-DVR to either go with D* or cable.

 

[John Corn]

I have 1 REASON why I want to buy a 942........because I want one!

 

[Sean Mota]

My number one reason: MPEG-4 receiver will be out. Thats the only reason I need to wait. I figure the MPEG-2 HD DVR's will drop in price since they will want to push MPEG-4 HD DVR's and sell the MPEG-2 ones as a large storage SD DVR since they will probably do away with all HD channels in MPEG-2.

I agree. MPEG-2 Receivers that are not upgrable is a hard sell. Bryan thanks for posting this.

 

[Stargazer]

Thats one good thing about VoOm, they made their receivers upgradable to MPEG-4 (as Dish Network and DirecTv should make all of their receivers). VoOm should have made their receiver MPEG-4 to begin with but I do not think everything was available to do so when they first come out with their service which would have further delayed it but maybe they would have been better off to delay to save upgrade costs.

 

[Mark_AR]

My opinion FWIW

I read the whole 942 review and it looks like they took the better parts of the 522 and smashed a 921 into a sleeker case.

I still don't understand the move to a metallic shiny shells. Any ambient light reflection might cause it to be annoyingly noticable as is my 921 and DVD player. My black box 522 is nearly invisible in the rack.

A lot of the 942 screenshots look like the 522 menu's and that sorta makes sense now in hindsight. I was quickly taken off 522 beta testers because I also had a 921 and the software they send via phoneline could have uploaded to the 921. Anywho, not related in any way, but.... back to now...

It looks like I'll need an HDMI to DVI adapter for my TV and one 'SUPPOSED' to be included.

I'm not sure how bright the LED's are on the front, but in my darkened HT, I don't need anymore 'lights' than necessary. (minor issue cuz tape fixes almost everything)

There are a some positive things about the 942. Dishpass and NBR. I like and use that quite a bit since it was released in the 522. It keeps me from remembering to record an event or missing shows because I didn't look in this weeks guide.

In closing, without actually having my hands on one, I'm sitting out all the rush until I find out more about the upgrade own/upgrade lease issues and mpeg4.

What chaps me is that they knowingly sold 921's at $999.00 even if they could be obsolete in 18-24 months.

If they want to give me one (942) to 'test' I'll bite now, otherwise... zzzzzzzz

It will take one heck of an offer to cause me to shell out any MORE money to Dish for purchasing hardware.

 

[BobMurdoch]

I agree..... I hate the silver box trend right now. I guess they got bored with black but I prefer my equipment to fade into the background. Grey jumps out at you.

Here's to hoping that it goes away (or they give you a choice like Refrigerators).

Blame Sony. Their grey Wega flatscreen analog tube TVs sold well at a premium so of course the grey bezel color was the hook. NOT!

Meanwhile everybody started copying them and now everyone has these grey TVs which VOILA, now need grey receivers to color coordinate.

 

[BFG]

hehe, you just profiled me

 

[korsjs]

it seems like more ane more companies are offering silver products. i like the black better.

 

[markdl]

Since this just got deleted by DBStalk I figured it should be posted here at a site that wont hide things from it's members
-BFG


Originall posted at dbstalk by scottchez:

Over the weekend I was at cousins house who is one of the Linux programers for Project Cowboy (the DVR 942).

<snip>

Bryan, I'm not sure where the confusion has come into play here, but this post wasn't and hasn't been posted at DBSTalk by scottchez (or anyone else that I've seen). Scottchez confirmed this for me. If it had been posted, it certainly wouldn't have been deleted. Rather I would have debunked it.

And, count me in on the "I really don't like silver components" as well...much prefer black.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

So please debunk it, sounds like some valid concerns from whoever wrote it.

Count me in on wanting it in black.

 

[vurbano]

Cons:

1. Only 1 OTA tuner.
2. No mpeg4

 

[A_Noland]

Well it really wasn't my post either.

I put it on this site when I noticed it somewhere else but later was deleted.

So maybe this is the same guy that had his post deleted and was reposting it here, or else just someone copying my copy that doesn't know the search feature.

Either way all good

Not really "All good". This wasn't posted at dbstalk, and if it had, it would NOT have been deleted. Please Correct your source.

Oh -Wait. The original message was posted on this site at 2:33pm.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=58736

BFG copied it from that thread and reposted (in the wrong forum) at 2:41pm. That has got to be embarrassing.

 

[markdl]

OK, as requested by Scott, the debunking:

Since this just got deleted by DBStalk I figured it should be posted here at a site that wont hide things from it's members
-BFG

Pure FUD designed to stir the pot up again, when we're all trying to get along...

Originall posted at dbstalk by scottchez:

Not according to scottchez.

10. Caller ID bug, when someone calls and the list is full, the screen goes blank till you reboot.

Not that I've seen, and I have quite a few entries in my callerid list.

9. TV2 Bug, for some reason on friday nights if you record, the 2 Star Gates, 1 battle star, and also Star Trek on UPN, Timers do not always fire do to an over load issue. All timers then lock up.

This has been my exact Friday night timers setup for several weeks, and each and every timer has fired each and every time (except for my new episodes only timer of Enterprise which didn't fire for the last 2 weeks because the epsiodes weren't "new" based on the definition of "new" timers).

I can and will tell you that I have never had a timer fail to fire unless the specific NBR rules caused it not to fire (duplicate event, already recorded, not "new", etc).

8. Sleep bug- seems that if you turn the unit off it does not aways wake back up, or it crashes, there is a fan problem with sleep, it should always be on. Heat sensor issue?

This was a problem for about 3 days back around Christmas when it was fixed. Hasn't resurfaced since then.

7. Beta Testers- there were only a couple of dozen, not enough. This is due to work loads already being diverted for the new 942 replacement that is Mpeg 4 (Project code name: Media Center Plus ).
This means any customers buying it will be beta testers.
As you can see from above there are known bugs, they are NOT Telling you all of them, I could only find out some couple.

Ok, definitely a matter of opinion here. I have a pretty good idea how many testers there actually are for the 942. At any given time, you could make the argument that there are NEVER enough testers on a product. I'm certainly not going to claim that every bug was caught in testing, because undoubtably they weren't. But I do believe that the big ones were caught and squashed.

6. Dont pay full price. Only those that buy under the lease plan will get the upgrade protection option.

I seriously doubt this will end up being true. But, the decision hasn't been made, and probably won't be for some time to come. Historically, as I said in my review, there have been upgrade paths made available for purchasers of equipment when the technology changed, forcing equipment upgrades. There's no reason to believe that there won't be this time. This doesn't apply for a 921->942 upgrade because the technology hasn't yet changed. But, there may very be offered an upgrade path from the 921 to the 942 as well. Or, probably more likely, an upgrade path from the 921 to whatever MPEG4 DVR comes along, in addition to a different upgrade path from the 942 to whatever MPEG4 DVR comes along.

5. Dont pay full price, existing customers will for sure be able to lease by summer, the legals guys have a draft.

This is true, in that they are working on a deal so existing customers can lease the 942, and is stated in my review. Somewhere around the first of May is the last date that I've heard thrown around.

4. DP 34 switch issue, seems that if you have two of these switches the 942 locks up every week or so.

Absolutely, patently untrue. I have 2 cascaded DP34 switches, and my 942 doesn't lock up due to switches, or anything else for that matter.

3. Wait till Summer when the Mpeg 4 upgrade plan will be announced. Trade ins on the lease plan sure will be nice and it will match Direct TVs plan if you buy into it. They wont announce it till then as there is not enough stock of 942s, EVERYONE will want one then. Well worth getting this new type of lease (called Lease Plus)

Same answer as #5.

2. Good Trade in Discounts on the 921 this summer, dont need to say anything more do I?

As I said in my answer to #6, maybe. We'll see.

1. And the number one reason to wait. Its just not ready yet.

Sheesh, nothing like pure opinion that can be argued until the cows come home...My opinion is that it's a damn site more ready than the 921 was, or the 522 was, or even the 501 was. And, while that is my opinion, it's a little more qualified than one from someone who hasn't used one.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I don't know Mark, I still want one of these even though I have been burnt by the 921 thing. Am I nuts.

Thanks for Debunking.

I wasn't around most of the weekend, so I didn't see where it was first posted, nor do I really care.

 

[bippi]

They need to go back to a faux woodgrain, silver, and black...circa 1975.