Dish to Direct questions

[Bodo Fenrirsson]

The ONE good thing about DIRECTV is its "Cutting Edge" beta program where you can download beta software to your DVR's & receivers(mainly the HD ones) almost every Friday & Saturday night. It's always fun to find out what new thing they've come up with for your HD DVR & HD receiver,like You Tube & Pandora.

 

[dfergie]

Or things broken... (not really that much for me).

 

[scoobyxj]

I too have just recently switched from E* to D*, and can say the speed isn't quite there in the D* equipment. However I will say after about a week it has sped up considerably. My HD receivers (not sure the model numbers) have the new HD UI, and it's nice. My HR34 is still on the older UI (I unfortunately missed the CE update for the new UI this weekend, and as a new customer think I should actually wait and get used to the equipment before I go trying out beta software first anyway), and it's just not as clean looking. Not having three hours of programming in the guide is a bummer, but the lay out of the hour, and a half D* guide, is light years ahead of the E* hour, and a half guide. You almost don't even notice. I will say that I do not like the remote lay out. It just seems that the most commonly used buttons (volume & DVR controls) are too far apart on the remote. However with time I'm sure I'll get used to it.
After playing around with the recording options I can say there are more configuration options than the 722 I had. Which after I set up the defaults to my liking is nice. Something I miss from the 722 is the ability to record from the beginning of a program. or show. I also wasn't big on the 30sec SLIP either, but after reading the CE threads I found a cheat code to change it to a SKIP. I also think the HD picture is better on the D* receiver and the highest resolution my TV is capable of displaying is only 1080i. There is a few channels that we watch that are not in HD on D* that where on E* there are a few that are HD on D* that weren't on E*. Having HD on all my TV's is really nice, and having the ability to watch the DVR on any TV is awesome. If you start recording the live feed you're watching, and then access it from one if the remote HD receivers you can pause/stop or rewind just like you where watching it on the main DVR unit. Overall I think D* has this Whole Home DVR thing heading in the right direction, and the others (cable & E*) has a whole lot of catching up to do.

 

[dfergie]

The thing that is really cool with Directv is, if the channel you have been tuned to is on when you turn your dvr on, you can still buffer back a bit...

 

[Coach Knight]

Thanks, everyone! Your input is much appreciated. I especially like hearing from those who have made the switch and hearing their comparisons.

Tip: If you are one of the 3 or 4 Bobcats fans that exist, you will need to "move" to Lexington (or anywhere within 75 miles of Charlotte) to get Bobcats games. I don't know if Dish showed Bobcats games outside the 75 miles (knowing Dish, I doubt it). Very minor thing, I realize, but it surprised me when I switched from evil TWC. Of course, you'd lose Raleigh locals, but you can get all of them with the AM21, all of the Raleigh subchannels are all in there except 30-3 and 30-4.
Speaking of locals, the AM21 people speak of is a dream. It's far from perfect since it doesn't scan for signals, but I love it. It's not as good as the Dish Network OTA system, but it's better than nothing. Greensboro locals are a complete JOKE compared to Raleigh, the AM21 fixes that for me since the only Raleigh local I would have in Alamance County is WTVD. I dont have it since I "moved" to Lexington, but the "move" gets me WSOC Charlotte, too.

Just to clarify...Direct does have Raleigh locals, correct? I think you meant you lost Raleigh locals due to your "move" but I just wanted to be certain (it's early). I can't imagine they wouldn't have locals in an area this large. Personally, not really a Bobcats fan...nothing against them...not really that big of an NBA fan, just watch a few games from time to time and some playoffs. I honestly can't even say how Dish handles those games.

 

[JUCJ85]

The thing that is really cool with Directv is, if the channel you have been tuned to is on when you turn your dvr on, you can still buffer back a bit...

I love that, I was watching a channel, can't remember, the other day, turned it on and was able to rewind back like an hour, pretty cool.

 

[dfergie]

I love that, I was watching a channel, can't remember, the other day, turned it on and was able to rewind back like an hour, pretty cool.

I wish it was like Replay, how ever much HDD space you have was how much was in the buffer.

 

[bondoo0]

I just switched on Thursday (from a 722 to H25/HR24/HR34). It is a bit slower, but I haven't noticed it much, and the access to all recordings anywhere in HD is awesome (as well as being able to record 7 things at once since we watch everything from DVR, not live).

The interface seems a bit less polished to me, but I think part of it is that I was just used to Dish's layout and style.

The only real negatives are there is no way to, to see how much time is left while playing back a recording (on Dish, I could just hit cancel, and it would show a banner with the time left, on Direct I have to pause to see this. The other issue is Autorecord (like a Dish pass), I'm not seeing a simple way to limit channels. I think it's done with some of the boolean logic mentioned in the CE thread, but haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it doesn't appear to be as slick as Dish.

 

[StanUbankit]

I just switched on Thursday (from a 722 to H25/HR24/HR34). It is a bit slower, but I haven't noticed it much, and the access to all recordings anywhere in HD is awesome (as well as being able to record 7 things at once since we watch everything from DVR, not live).

The interface seems a bit less polished to me, but I think part of it is that I was just used to Dish's layout and style.

The only real negatives are there is no way to, to see how much time is left while playing back a recording (on Dish, I could just hit cancel, and it would show a banner with the time left, on Direct I have to pause to see this. The other issue is Autorecord (like a Dish pass), I'm not seeing a simple way to limit channels. I think it's done with some of the boolean logic mentioned in the CE thread, but haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it doesn't appear to be as slick as Dish.

I have an hr24 and if you press the "play" button while viewing a recorded program it shows how much time is left on the progress bar at the bottom of the screen.