Damn POS 921!

[Scott Greczkowski]

I tuned in late to Sportcenter, but I had my trusty (cough cough) 921 set to record the show.

I got tired of watching the show so I went into my DVR list so I could see what the opening looked like.

I am greeted with the following message on my screen when I try to play the show back.

"ATTENTION (679)

The event you selected was not recorded. Please delete this even. It is not viewable."

Man what a POS this 921 is. GRRRR!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Bizzach]

HA!

I just got pissed at my 522 - The beginning of Viva la Bam came on, and I set it to record the entire event. After watching another show, I went to watch Bam, and it hadn't recorded any of it... Even though the red light on the front of the box was on!
Technology... gotta love it!

 

[SimpleSimon]

I've said the same thing Scott. Haven't had one of those for a couple of software releases, tho. If you're satellite only, it'd be a good idea to find my thread on this over on the DBSTalk support forum and add to it.

 

[stratguy]

Do you guys think the 942 (I think that is the new model) is going to be any better as in more stable or will it have to go through the beta testing like the 921?

That is what they are doing isn't it? It just seems like they wanted to get a new HD/DVR out as quickly as they could without beta testing it with a small amount of testers.

Now Scott I know that you know more about this than I do so this is really a question/observation rather than a statement.

I just think maybe I'll wait until they fix all of the bugs on the 921 or go for the new model when all of the bugs are ironed out of it.

 

[BFG]

Hey Scott since you got one of those free anyways, if it's such a burden you can forward it to me

 

[tonyp56]

Do you guys think the 942 (I think that is the new model) is going to be any better as in more stable or will it have to go through the beta testing like the 921?

That is what they are doing isn't it? It just seems like they wanted to get a new HD/DVR out as quickly as they could without beta testing it with a small amount of testers.

Now Scott I know that you know more about this than I do so this is really a question/observation rather than a statement.

I just think maybe I'll wait until they fix all of the bugs on the 921 or go for the new model when all of the bugs are ironed out of it.

They worked on the 921 for about a year, I think that would have been enough time to weed out the problems, they also spent about a year on the 811, when they released them they had and countinue to have problems like: dark video issues, (few hour guide and then the downloading information from satellite crap, its fixed now but it wasn't when I first got mine on 3-1-04), NO Dish Home, 120 max capacity Fav list, and the list goes on. There isn't any excuss for this! I would say the 942 (or what ever they are calling it) will not be any different. I don't understand why they do this but they do. And what bugs me is this stuff that their receivers are having problems with are stupid and minor bugs.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

They worked on the 921 for about a year, I think that would have been enough time to weed out the problems

Actually the 921 has been worked on for the last 4 years. Hell they even showed the 921 at CES two or three years before it was available.

 

[Cascade]

Anybody wanna buy a ReplayTV 5040 with lifetime and a 120hr upgrade?
j/k

 

[tonyp56]

Actually the 921 has been worked on for the last 4 years. Hell they even showed the 921 at CES two or three years before it was available.

For the general public, (thats me) I only first heard of it at CES last year, and shortly after started hearing about it from CC's and Tech Forums.

That just makes my point stronger, For instance the 301's, when I first switched to Dish, it bugged the *%$@ out of me when I would try to look at the guide and always would get the downloading information. Coming from Directv were you could jump three days ahead with no Downloading info screens every five minutes. (Once in a great while you would get that screen on DTV, but it was more like once a week if that) anyways my point is, you would think Dish would know that their customers wouldn't like getting bugged every time they tried to look at what was coming on, like they should of known that customers would like to have a DVR that records when you tell it to, and a 921 and 811 (along with others) that has Dish Home enabled when Dish released them, the ability to save as many channels as you want in the Fav list not 120 total between all four user adjustable lists, no dark video issues, and all of the other problems between Dish Networks receivers, (DVR's, standard, etc...) They should have fixed/enabled these problems before ever releasing these receivers. These problems to me at least are minor, but just like a minor paper cut it at least gets on everyone's nerves. Its big enough though that I read at least one new post about a problem with the 811, 921, 522, etc. everyday I come here or dbstalk.

 

[TheForce]

'Actually the 921 has been worked on for the last 4 years. Hell they even showed the 921 at CES two or three years before it was available.'



The 921, yet unnammed, was first shown at CES2001. It was a concept prototype with limited software control. Eldon Director of the project, Angela Warren was the presenter. The actual hardware was not in any finished form. It was an open chassis inside an RPTV cabinet. At CES 2002 it was first shown in prototype STB form. with expected ship date of October 2002. In September, E* marketing made a decision to retool the box for additional features, including larger hard drive and new video output formats, like DVI. At CES2003, additional hard drive capacity to 250G was announced. It wasn't released until December 2003.
So, officially from first presentation of an unnammed HDTV PVR to first retail sales of the 921 was from January 2001 to Dec 2003. 4 years?

 

[stratguy]

'Actually the 921 has been worked on for the last 4 years. Hell they even showed the 921 at CES two or three years before it was available.'



The 921, yet unnammed, was first shown at CES2001. It was a concept prototype with limited software control. Eldon Director of the project, Angela Warren was the presenter. The actual hardware was not in any finished form. It was an open chassis inside an RPTV cabinet. At CES 2002 it was first shown in prototype STB form. with expected ship date of October 2002. In September, E* marketing made a decision to retool the box for additional features, including larger hard drive and new video output formats, like DVI. At CES2003, additional hard drive capacity to 250G was announced. It wasn't released until December 2003.
So, officially from first presentation of an unnammed HDTV PVR to first retail sales of the 921 was from January 2001 to Dec 2003. 4 years?

Well to tell the truth there is no reason to split hairs on the number of years. The point is that it should not have been any years or even days of problems

Would you put up with those kind of problems with your new TV or say your new Computer and I could go on and on.

There is absolutely no reason for any company to release a product with known bugs and problems. They had to know about these issues. That's just about the whole thing in a nut shell! Never sell beta hardware for the finished product.

 

[John Kotches]

There is absolutely no reason for any company to release a product with known bugs and problems. They had to know about these issues. That's just about the whole thing in a nut shell! Never sell beta hardware for the finished product.

I'm sorry, but nothing involving software would ever ship if it was about waiting for perfection.

Also, no matter how much software is tested in a lab (we go through 3 phases of testing (standalone, integrated, independent)) users will find a bug by doing something so unuusal that you can't build a test case for it.

I'm not defending Dish, as certainly some of the 811 and 921 bugs should not have made it to the field, but to expect no bugs (known or unknown) or problems (known or unknown) is a bit too much to ask.

A better question to ask (IMO) is why do the dates always slip for software releases?

Cheers,

 

[rad]

I'm sorry, but nothing involving software would ever ship if it was about waiting for perfection.

Also, no matter how much software is tested in a lab (we go through 3 phases of testing (standalone, integrated, independent)) users will find a bug by doing something so unuusal that you can't build a test case for it.

I'm not defending Dish, as certainly some of the 811 and 921 bugs should not have made it to the field, but to expect no bugs (known or unknown) or problems (known or unknown) is a bit too much to ask.

A better question to ask (IMO) is why do the dates always slip for software releases?

Cheers,

Perfection, no, but what E* send out on new products no way. Just compare the number of bugs that have been reported on the DirecTivo HO box vs. the 921. You would think the Tivo would have more bugs since it's more complex in software and hardware. But looking over on Tivocommunity it looks like th biggest issues are lost audio on HDNet and some boxes have no logo's. Even if you look at the 811 and it's issues vs. the various D* HD boxes, again the E* 811 has more reported bugs. I don't think folks want perfection, just a lot better job of QA on their hardware before sending out to customers what other companies would be calling beta products.

 

[AJF]

I think that part of the problem with fixes for the 921 stems from the fact that it already has a replacement coming out later this year (942). Plus, I think it's the last box that Eldon will be doing for E*. And, relatively speaking, there are very few 921's in use right now.

So I doubt that there is much priority, enthusiasm, or resources to get the 921 fixes done ASAP.

 

[stratguy]

I'm sorry, but nothing involving software would ever ship if it was about waiting for perfection.

Also, no matter how much software is tested in a lab (we go through 3 phases of testing (standalone, integrated, independent)) users will find a bug by doing something so unuusal that you can't build a test case for it.

I'm not defending Dish, as certainly some of the 811 and 921 bugs should not have made it to the field, but to expect no bugs (known or unknown) or problems (known or unknown) is a bit too much to ask.

A better question to ask (IMO) is why do the dates always slip for software releases?

Cheers,

Hi John, maybe you didn't understand all of my points. I can name 100's of products that are software based in one way or another that works fine on the final release.

I do not blame the software writers/developers such as you must be or at least know one, but I am complaining about the dish network Big Guys telling each other at the big "board meeting " oh what the heck we need some new customers/revenue so let's go ahead and release the 811/921/xxx/xxx or any others so that we can get them numbers up. If you have ever been on the inside of a big or even little corporation you would know that the main thing that governs their decisions are Numbers numbers numbers! They actually think it's alright to put out shoddy products just to bump the numbers.

I hope I have in no way offended you or any one else in the business that is not my intentions. I just want to add my 2 cents. I worked for one of those big companies and I was just big enough to set in on those number meetings that is where I learned this info. I worked for the largest internet provider in the USA and before someone jumps on that I don't know if they are still number one but after a few mergers they were at that time they were the biggest.

Bob

 

[Tahoerob]

FWIW,

My 921 has worked fairly well. The most common problems are fixed with each update. It records the sat HD & SD channels well. It even does my occasional OTA recording well too!! The OTA reception has been stable from the combo of software updates & my upgrading of antenna on roof.

At this point, my only complaints are no OTA guide and no LIL for SD locals. Also, I would like more HD nets especially UPN & WB. (my worse OTA).

 

[SimpleSimon]

I agree with stratguy - I don't think Eldon would've released the POS 921 if they could've avoided.

That being said, my observations tell me that the basic software design of the 921 is a POS - and that can only be blamed on the designers/developers. Two cases in point:

1. internal database corruption problems (probably due to memory leaks and overruns - but we've had protected storage capabilities in these boxes for many years - it just has to be used.
2. timer edit dialogs changing data that was not modified by the user (day of week changing on a "random" basis).

I could go on, but why bother?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I think that part of the problem with fixes for the 921 stems from the fact that it already has a replacement coming out later this year (942). Plus, I think it's the last box that Eldon will be doing for E*. And, relatively speaking, there are very few 921's in use right now.

So I doubt that there is much priority, enthusiasm, or resources to get the 921 fixes done ASAP.

Exactly, why do you think so few boxes are being shipped out by Dish, they are just shipping them out to say they are shipping them. When in reality they are waiting for the 942 to come out, a box which will probably not be sold, instead it will be a lease only box. This way if you leave Dish your box does not end up on Ebay.

 

[rad]

Exactly, why do you think so few boxes are being shipped out by Dish, they are just shipping them out to say they are shipping them. When in reality they are waiting for the 942 to come out, a box which will probably not be sold, instead it will be a lease only box. This way if you leave Dish your box does not end up on Ebay.

Scott, if that's true does that mean that E* is basically letting cable and D* take any customer that wants a HD PVR and doesn't care that they're loosing them? Since the 942 was announced just last month how long do you think it will take to actually get any numbers out in the customers hands?

 

[AJF]

Scott,

Were you a beta tester on the 921 ( I know, some would say it's STILL in beta testing) ? If so, how long after you were given the unit did they start to release them to the general customers ?