connect external hard drive to 222?

[ncramer]

Forgive me if this has been answered in another thread... i searched but didn't find anything confirming it either way... but i am thinking about switching back to Dish and i used to have a vip211 and connected an external hard drive to it to turn it into a dvr. it appears that this receiver is no longer available from Dish and has been replaced by the vip222, which i know has a usb port on the back. Did Dish ever activate the external hard drive dvr connection feature on the 222?

 

[whatchel1]

222 is a no no on HDD.

Forgive me if this has been answered in another thread... i searched but didn't find anything confirming it either way... but i am thinking about switching back to Dish and i used to have a vip211 and connected an external hard drive to it to turn it into a dvr. it appears that this receiver is no longer available from Dish and has been replaced by the vip222, which i know has a usb port on the back. Did Dish ever activate the external hard drive dvr connection feature on the 222?

The 211k is still available and it is almost the same as the 211. The 222 doesn't work w/ an ext HDD. Some problems that we were informed as to exactly what they were. Some have stated that there have been 2 version and one would not work so they never enabled the other version to reduce confusion.

 

[jsq]

Charlie even said in one of his chats, last winter, that the 222 EHD feature was coming in a month. I'm still waiting, as they talked me into this receiver due to the cheaper monthly fee.:rant: I sure would like to have 2 211's now instead, (same monthly price as my 222k now that they have decided to jack up the receiver fee's) but don't want to pay the $100 or more, and sign a new contract.

 

[KAB]

222 will never have it. They could not get the 211 software to work with it without having to develop another.

 

[Lazybird000]

that might be true

 

[DishSubLA]

Charlie even said in one of his chats, last winter, that the 222 EHD feature was coming in a month. I'm still waiting, as they talked me into this receiver due to the cheaper monthly fee.:rant: I sure would like to have 2 211's now instead, (same monthly price as my 222k now that they have decided to jack up the receiver fee's) but don't want to pay the $100 or more, and sign a new contract.

Yes, I remember that Chat. I think it was the big BBQ NFL Tailgate party, but Jim kept trying to interrupt Charlie when Charlie he was trying to say that the 222's would soon work like the 211's. It was funny! Jim talking over Charlie saying, "No, no. Now we . . . " and Charlie still telling us about the DVR record function coming to the 222's and being drowned out by Jim.

It may NEVER come. While it is speculation, a few us feel that the problem is with Dish's decision to use the USB 2.0 as the connection for the external HDD for dual tuner recording. USB 2.0 just doesn't have the bandwidth to handle a dual tuner experience like the 722 (K). We think they keep hitting a wall. At best, USB 2.0 could provide a diminished dual tuner experience compared to the internal HDD dual tuner DVR's

Dish should have provided an eSATA port, like every other box manufacturer has such as TiVo (back in 2006), Moxi, Motorola, Scientific Atlanta, all of whom manufactured those boxes at about the same time as Dish. I think Charlie cheaped out on this one. I don't know if we will ever see external HDD recording on our 222 (K)'s, and I have them and bought them with the expectation of saving some dough on DVR box fees. I've just about accepted they may never function as DVR's.

 

[jsq]

I've given up also, when I get the energy, I am going to try and get 2 211's, instead of the 222. Then I can have 2 more dvr's , and HD on another T.V. for the same monthly price. I think it will cost me over $100 and also have to sign a new contract. The money isn't whats stopping me, it is the damn 2 year contract.

 

[kikenovic]

maybe they should focus on getting it to work on only one tuner, at least you could record while watching something else.

 

[RickDee]

If you restricted it to one tuner, you would probably have to disable TV2 output. Then people would complain because they have a dual tuner, but can only use TV1 output.