I'm just dreaming that I can make an informed decision before spending my last coupon. It's not going to happen. This whole program has been sucked up into an informatoin vacuum. It is not just Dish, nobody is talking about the what, when, and where of their products. I almost wish I had been like the majority of buyers, just gone to the first store and got the only model they had, oblivious to the NTIA's claim of 136 other ones.
Hear, hear!
The more I've looked into this the more frustrated I've become.
At this point, I'm about ready to go for the Zenith DTT901. I don't need the timers of the DTVPal, since I don't record. And while I much prefer the program guide of the DTVPal, I'm not ready to give up on picture quality just for that, and as near as I can tell, the Zenith's picture quality is noticeably better than the DTVPal.
Add in questions of hidden smart cards, firmware problems that probably would require a factory exchange to fix, etc., I'm just not willing to jump in on the DTVPal at this point.
It's a shame, because in many ways the DTVPal seems the more adcanced unit. But the current tradeoffs involved just aren't worth it.
At this point my current short list is either the Zenith DTT901 or the Tivax STB-T9.