811 Still has terrible OTA problems

[babakanoosh]

The 264 release fixed some guide issues but made new ones. My biggest problems are OTA related.

1. Now, when I switch from an OTA to satellite channel it has to retrieve all the guide info which takes a few minutes. I have also actually had it hang during this process requiring a POR.

2. While watching OTA channel it sudenly gets "broken up" (on all OTA channels). I believe what is happening is the 811 is retrieving guide info and the CPU cannot keep up with both functions. If I switch to satellite chaneel and let it do #1 then back to OTA, it is fine.

3. OTA tuning/locking is still not as good as 6000 was. I think this is hardware in the 811 and will never be fixed by software or replaced by Dish if they fix it. I'm surprised more people don't yell about this unless most just don't bother with OTA (my suspicion).

4. I get no responce form Dish to emails and phone calls are useless if I can get through at all with this Viacom crap.

I have 9 months to go on my contract. The 811 alone is enough for me to drop Dish, this Viacom thing just reinforces it. I can't wait. I will have 2 choices, D* and my cable company has just started HD. A friend of mine is experimenting with stand alone OTA receivers if cable doesn't carry all locals in HD.

 

[DarrellP]

Sorry to hear about your problems, we went through similar issues with the 6000 when it was new. A rule of thumb that I've learned after being a Dish customer since 97 is: Don't buy any Dish equipment until it's been on the market for at least a year if you want a product that is half-way stable. If you have the patience, hang in there, they will fix the issues.

 

[GaryPen]

I'm a little irked about the 811 with DishPro not receiving the 148 bird. I'm even more irked by E's lack of action or discussion of the issue.

 

[GatorNut]

811 Issues

I'm glad that I decided to go with the DHP, where I don't buy any equipment and I don't have any commitments.

My 811 box is a piece of junk in my opinion and was shipped way before it should have been. Mine can't seem to successfully load the Program Guide. Most of the time, after several attempts at loading and a power up soft reset that doesn't help any, I have to actually unplug it, wait awhile, and plug it back in. Sometimes that works. The other major problem is that while watching HD, the picture freezes up and the audio drops out about every 5 minutes. It doesn't recover until I change the channel. It is extremely annoying. I haven't read that others are having this problem, so I'm wondering if I have a bad box. It only does this on HD programming. My signal is strong and my connections are good, so I don't know what else to try to keep this thing from freezing up.

My program guide also gets all wacked out and displays the wrong shows in various channel slots. It gets the shows all scrambled up. None of these problems happen on my 522 box. It seems to be pretty solid. Of course, it doesn't receive HD.

...and that is without OTA. I'll install my OTA antenna this weekend. I can't wait until the new crop of problems arises!

The price was right though...free. If I had paid anything, I'd be livid.

Scott

 

[sprite1741]

I'm glad that I decided to go with the DHP, where I don't buy any equipment and I don't have any commitments.

My 811 box is a piece of junk in my opinion and was shipped way before it should have been. Mine can't seem to successfully load the Program Guide. Most of the time, after several attempts at loading and a power up soft reset that doesn't help any, I have to actually unplug it, wait awhile, and plug it back in. Sometimes that works. The other major problem is that while watching HD, the picture freezes up and the audio drops out about every 5 minutes. It doesn't recover until I change the channel. It is extremely annoying. I haven't read that others are having this problem, so I'm wondering if I have a bad box. It only does this on HD programming. My signal is strong and my connections are good, so I don't know what else to try to keep this thing from freezing up.

My program guide also gets all wacked out and displays the wrong shows in various channel slots. It gets the shows all scrambled up. None of these problems happen on my 522 box. It seems to be pretty solid. Of course, it doesn't receive HD.

...and that is without OTA. I'll install my OTA antenna this weekend. I can't wait until the new crop of problems arises!

The price was right though...free. If I had paid anything, I'd be livid.

Scott

I won't even attempt OTA with mine, fortunatly I have the tuner built in to my HDTV, and it seems to work fine, but I really don't care much for OTA at this time. But I do care about my dish.

My 811's program guide says no info available if I leave the box off too long. Sometimes overnight is enough, sometimes even a few hours later it is lost. Takes a few minutes after I turn it on and I get the info back. I'am being patient on waiting for the dark video problem to be resolved, but it's really noticable if I see a program that I have on DVD, then I realize how poor the picture really is off my 811. That's my biggest gripe right now, how could they make a high definition box with such a poor picture. Dosen't dish realize the type of customer who buys the 811, buys it because they want the best quality pic they can get?

As far as the 811 being junk, I can say it sure looks nice sitting on top of my TV, with it's cool blue power on light, I just wish it worked.

 

[babakanoosh]

I got the DHP in December. At that time all the equipment was free but there was a one year commitment. I have seen the program guide loading problem, loops forever, have to do a POR (hold power button on receiver for more than 5 seconds). I have also seen the program guide "whacked out". A few months ago I had HD channel dropouts/lockups but the seemed to stop after Dish replaced by Switch (DP34).
I called Dish today about the OTA problems. The advanced tech I talked to said they had no record of any outstanding OTA problems (baloney, I have called at least 3 other times about this). She also said, (NOW GET THIS) the program guide fixes in 264 that supposedly had the 811 store 2 days of program guide, doesn't alsways work! Thus we have the program guide loading issue.

Tomorrow I am going to call/email the ceo@dishnetwork.com again. Last time I did this I talked to someone (he called me!) and it was a meaningful discussion. He said they knew of the OTA problems but didn't have a fix date. Of couse I might have problems getting through with the Viacom adventure.

I have never seen such a pooly performing product as the 811 and a company as unresponsive to these problems as Dish. Could you imagine if any other technology product you had (TV, car, refrigerator, computer, etc) had analagous problems. There would be recalls and plenty of returns.

I'm glad that I decided to go with the DHP, where I don't buy any equipment and I don't have any commitments.

My 811 box is a piece of junk in my opinion and was shipped way before it should have been. Mine can't seem to successfully load the Program Guide. Most of the time, after several attempts at loading and a power up soft reset that doesn't help any, I have to actually unplug it, wait awhile, and plug it back in. Sometimes that works. The other major problem is that while watching HD, the picture freezes up and the audio drops out about every 5 minutes. It doesn't recover until I change the channel. It is extremely annoying. I haven't read that others are having this problem, so I'm wondering if I have a bad box. It only does this on HD programming. My signal is strong and my connections are good, so I don't know what else to try to keep this thing from freezing up.

My program guide also gets all wacked out and displays the wrong shows in various channel slots. It gets the shows all scrambled up. None of these problems happen on my 522 box. It seems to be pretty solid. Of course, it doesn't receive HD.

...and that is without OTA. I'll install my OTA antenna this weekend. I can't wait until the new crop of problems arises!

The price was right though...free. If I had paid anything, I'd be livid.

Scott

 

[WeeJavaDude]

The 264 release fixed some guide issues but made new ones. My biggest problems are OTA related.

1. Now, when I switch from an OTA to satellite channel it has to retrieve all the guide info which takes a few minutes. I have also actually had it hang during this process requiring a POR.

2. While watching OTA channel it sudenly gets "broken up" (on all OTA channels). I believe what is happening is the 811 is retrieving guide info and the CPU cannot keep up with both functions. If I switch to satellite chaneel and let it do #1 then back to OTA, it is fine.

3. OTA tuning/locking is still not as good as 6000 was. I think this is hardware in the 811 and will never be fixed by software or replaced by Dish if they fix it. I'm surprised more people don't yell about this unless most just don't bother with OTA (my suspicion).

4. I get no responce form Dish to emails and phone calls are useless if I can get through at all with this Viacom crap.

I have 9 months to go on my contract. The 811 alone is enough for me to drop Dish, this Viacom thing just reinforces it. I can't wait. I will have 2 choices, D* and my cable company has just started HD. A friend of mine is experimenting with stand alone OTA receivers if cable doesn't carry all locals in HD.

Regarding #3, my OTA is a lot better on my 811 than on my 6000. I have mapping issues as described before but as fair as tuning and keeping lock my 811 is performing better than my 6000. I use OTA all the time so I think your suspisions might not be accurate. My take is mileage may vary depending on conditions.

I am not seeing #1 an #2 on my 811.

 

[WeeJavaDude]

I won't even attempt OTA with mine, fortunatly I have the tuner built in to my HDTV, and it seems to work fine, but I really don't care much for OTA at this time. But I do care about my dish.

My 811's program guide says no info available if I leave the box off too long. Sometimes overnight is enough, sometimes even a few hours later it is lost. Takes a few minutes after I turn it on and I get the info back. I'am being patient on waiting for the dark video problem to be resolved, but it's really noticable if I see a program that I have on DVD, then I realize how poor the picture really is off my 811. That's my biggest gripe right now, how could they make a high definition box with such a poor picture. Dosen't dish realize the type of customer who buys the 811, buys it because they want the best quality pic they can get?

As far as the 811 being junk, I can say it sure looks nice sitting on top of my TV, with it's cool blue power on light, I just wish it worked.

What type of connection are you using on your 811. With DVI my and HD the picture is rather nice. It did get darker with 264 on my TV and seems to be most apperient with SD quality. Compared to my 6000 with my 60" Sony GW the picture is a bit better IMHO. Also, In general HD quality at the source is a mixed bag. Some of it is rather nice and others are bad transfers which makes it hard to evaluate PQ with HD. Same thing goes with DVDs. LOTR is amazing on my GWII while Mrs. Doubtfire is horriable.

Not saying there is not a problem, just that other variables come into play when acheiving the best PQ. In my opinion, seems there is some issue with shadows and dark scenes. I watche a bit of the horse racing on HDNet last night and the picture was amazing..

 

[sprite1741]

What type of connection are you using on your 811. With DVI my and HD the picture is rather nice. It did get darker with 264 on my TV and seems to be most apperient with SD quality. Compared to my 6000 with my 60" Sony GW the picture is a bit better IMHO. Also, In general HD quality at the source is a mixed bag. Some of it is rather nice and others are bad transfers which makes it hard to evaluate PQ with HD. Same thing goes with DVDs. LOTR is amazing on my GWII while Mrs. Doubtfire is horriable.

Not saying there is not a problem, just that other variables come into play when acheiving the best PQ. In my opinion, seems there is some issue with shadows and dark scenes. I watche a bit of the horse racing on HDNet last night and the picture was amazing..

I use DVI, but also have component so I can switch between, I really see no difference between component and DVI. The HD is ok, not sure if it is as good as it could be. Some HD content is outstanding and some is just ok, so it may be an issue with the source programming as opposed to the 811. My major complaint is SD quality, like you said shadow detail is lacking and most scenes are too dark, night scenes are horrible. It is most aparent on the movie channels for some reason. I use s-vid and composite for SD because I don't like the soft image of SD upconverted by the HD output. I didn't have this problem at all untill I iinstalled the 811. If the next software update doesn't fix it, it will be time to get the old box out and unplug the 811 until they get it right. 90% of my viewing is SD and alot of that is the movie channels.

When I look at OTA, DVD, VHS or my old Dish box everything is perfect, so have something to compare it to, and it will evident that the 811 is the problem, and I think it can be fixed if they get their act together at Dish. Just a matter of waiting and waiting.

 

[GatorNut]

Interesting. I compared my DVI and component outputs for HD on my 106" screen with BenQ 8700 projector, and I notice a pretty big difference with DVI. It is noticeable crisper and more 3D. I also noticed a big difference between setting the output to 1080i vs 720p. My BenQ is a 720p projector, but the HD picture is better if I set the 811 to 1080i. I don't understand it, but I'm going with 1080i and the better picture.

You are right about the varying HD quality. Discovery HD and sports on HDNET and ESPNHD are usually incredible. Some of the older movies and shows on HDNET are just so so. I'd say not quite as good as DVD quality, but still pretty clear and in widescreen format which is nice.

This 811 box is definitely making me pull my hair out. I'm hoping Dish can solve some of my problems quickly or I may have to cancel.

 

[scott5626]

I am really on the fence about buying a DVI cable for my 811. Some say no difference some say there's quite a change. Anybody else have any opions.

 

[WLong]

DVI vs. Component is night and day. Component is nice but it is still an analog connection, which requires a conversion.

DVI is digital. DVI is good.

 

[scott5626]

DVI vs. Component is night and day. Component is nice but it is still an analog connection, which requires a conversion.

DVI is digital. DVI is good.

But Rear projection tv's are anolog and the conversion has to take place somewhere in the chain.

 

[WLong]

Not all RPTV's are analog.

http://www.hitachi.us/tv/browse/projection/16-9digital_mon/65T500.shtml

Here is mine, and per the specs, its Digital.

 

[Carl B]

DVI should provide a better HD PQ w/ fixed pixel display DTVs. DLPs, plasma, and sometimes LCD/RP will have better HD PQ with DVI than component. Anything else and component will be equal or better than DVI for HD PQ.

Generally the same applies to SD PQ, but w/ SD the source material is so variable that you may not be able to see any difference at all.

I have a DLP/RP w/ DVI and that give me the best HD and SD PQ of any combination I've tried. I very satisfied w/ the results.

 

[sprite1741]

I think he means the component cables feed an analog signal to the TV, where the DVI feeds a digital signal to the TV. I use the DVI all the time, the component cables look good, but in theory the DVI should give the best PQ, and in practice I am sure it does. The diffence is not that great on my 65 in. set probably because of the 811 and it's problems. If I look real close I can see a slight improvment with DVI so if you have the connections go for it. There is a slight delay when I switch inputs so a perfect A/B comparison is not practical in my case. It seems to take the pic a moment to lock in.

My DVI cable was only $20, so it's cheaper than a good set of component cables. I am planing on removing my component connection and using them on my other set for DVD. They are monster brand and the set I want to replace are cheapies. Go with DVI.

 

[snathanb]

Not all RPTV's are analog.

http://www.hitachi.us/tv/browse/projection/16-9digital_mon/65T500.shtml

Here is mine, and per the specs, its Digital.

No, it's not. That's marketing speak for "it will accept digital in, and we'll even do some digital processing internally".

I just read the specs... one of the features is "Super Contrast CRT".
CRT= Cathode Ray Tube=Analog. Any TV using picture tubes is analog.

 

[waja]

No, it's not. That's marketing speak for "it will accept digital in, and we'll even do some digital processing internally".

I just read the specs... one of the features is "Super Contrast CRT".
CRT= Cathode Ray Tube=Analog. Any TV using picture tubes is analog.

What viewable light source is not analog? I believe all display devices will need to output an analog signal at some point to accommodate our analog vision.

 

[snathanb]

What viewable light source is not analog? I believe all display devices will need to output an analog signal at some point to accommodate our analog vision.

Well.. of course. But, as far as the industry nomenclature goes, there are two families of Projection TVs, Analog and Digital.

Analog projection TVs have small, really bright picture tubes that are reflected onto the front screen. They are, by far, the most common.

Digital projection TVs have a small LCD panel that is projected on the the front screen. Kinda of like the original LCD panels you could place on top of an overhead projector.

 

[waja]

Well.. of course. But, as far as the industry nomenclature goes, there are two families of Projection TVs, Analog and Digital.

Analog projection TVs have small, really bright picture tubes that are reflected onto the front screen. They are, by far, the most common.

Digital projection TVs have a small LCD panel that is projected on the the front screen. Kinda of like the original LCD panels you could place on top of an overhead projector.

It depends on the industry were are discussing. If we are talking about DTV, then we are referring to the digital signal that is sent to the TV. A digital set is one that can accept and process the digital signal. WLong was quoting this industry.

If the industry is display devices, then you have CRTs, LCDs, Plasma, LCOS, DLP as the main players and I agree that this industry makes the analog/digital distinction as you have stated. This being that if you can individually address a pixel, then the device is digital. scott5626 and your industry.

Also, an LCD panel is projected by using a very bright analog light bulb in front of the LCD panel and shining the light on to a mirrored surface.

But, I think the real issue is whether or not a CRT-based HDTV can display a better quality picture using a digital signal vs an analog signal.