622 DVR Limitations on Recording from OTA Antenna Stations

[woljr]

I am new to DISH and the 622 DVR.
While recording an event from the Digital Off Air antenna the 622 will not let you watch any of the other Channels from the off air antenna while a recording is in progress. The 622 was recording on Channel 7. 1( CBS) and when I tried to watch other digital channels 21.1, 4.1 or 13.1 a screen came up telling me I would have to cancel the recording on 7.1 to watch these other digital off air stations.

Have others experienced this unfortunate feature ??

I depend on off air digital to receive all my locals in HD.

I confirmed this with a DISH tech expert because this feature is not mentioned in their operating guide.

Luckily I have a second digital off air tuner I can use while a recording is in progress.
If you have an old VOOM receiver it is an excellent HD receiver for OTA channels.

 

[garys]

There is only one tuner on the OTA. Therefore, if you are recording an OTA channel, you cannot watch another OTA channel. There is nothing wrong with your receiver.

 

[mrhph]

garys is right, there is only 1 OTA tuner, so when you use it for recording you cannot switch to another OTA channel. Same for satellite channels, if both of your sat tuners are used for recording, you cannot switch to a 3rd sat channel. This is not an "unfortunate" feature, it is just the way it is.

As for your particular case, you can get around the problem by subscribing to locals, if available, then you can change to another local channel off the satellite while recording off OTA.

 

[cocoon]

I don't know DishNetwork can't virtualize the one OTA input like the DirecTV HD Tivo does. That is my only complaint about the 622. They sorta make up for it by allowing it record one OTA program and two satellite programs at same though. I guess it's a good thing I have 2 machines that can record OTA.

 

[noremac]

...virtualize the one OTA input ...

Huh?

 

[JohnL]

I don't know DishNetwork can't virtualize the one OTA input like the DirecTV HD Tivo does. That is my only complaint about the 622. They sorta make up for it by allowing it record one OTA program and two satellite programs at same though. I guess it's a good thing I have 2 machines that can record OTA.

Cocoon,


What is the world are you talking about, "Virtualize" a tuner?

Tuners are Hardware and as such you can't make ONE tuner behave as two, as it is still just ONE TUNER.

The DIRECTV receiver you are talking about has TWO HARDWARE BASED ATSC tuners.

The Dish Network VIP622 has ONE HARDWARE BASED ATSC Tuner.

The only other options for Dish Subscribers is; 1) hope that Dish adds their local HD channels to the satellite stream then and only then could you possibly record two or three local channels at the same time. 2) You could either depend on your HDTV's built-in tuner (if it has one) to view Live Local HD when you are recording another Local OTA HD feed on the VIP622's only ATSC OTA TUNER, or get a secondary ATSC tuner and connect it to your TV if it doesn't have a built-in OTA ATSC TUNER.

John

 

[cocoon]

I kinda suspected I would be called out for using the term "virtualize" but thats what DirecTV/Tivo calls having 2 tuners with 1 input so I used their term for their machine.

 

[garys]

Seems some companies like to use terms like that so people think they are getting something special.

 

[gbs]

I have seen a few VOOM 550 receivers on EBAY for cheap. Do I need a password to make the OTA tuner work or will it work as is. The ones I have seen say the card is included and that the receiver will boot to the VOOM menu. Do I risk getting stuck with a receiver that has a balance due and have a cheap boat anchor instead of an OTA tuner?

 

[Pepper]

Shouldn't matter about balance due, the key is that it was previously active. A "new" box can't be activated since there's no VOOM signal anymore.