If you think E*'s boxes suck...

[OoTLink]

You should see the ones comcast gives out lol.

This is *all* I have to say:

(note how it's 2x bigger than the *dual tuner* 322 lol)

Frets:
1. The OSD is crappy. At the bottom it's not easy to see, at the top it takes up way too much space, isn't translucent, doesn't have much info for its size, and is very un-refined
2. The channel guide is upside down (channel numbers ascend downwards instead of upwards), and there's no way to change it that I can find
3. Favorites lists aren't quite as nice..
4. Menu system has no hotkeys whatsoever (so much for Menu 611, boy I miss that)..
5. The box is old, the installer tried to give me a *USED REMOTE* -- EEWW! People do nasty things and don't necessarily wash their hands after such and before touching the remotes! No no NO! The office switched it with a new one no prob though..
6. Did I say the box is old? It must be at least 6 years old.. it's OLD. It has no svideo which the cable company says is only available if you have a DVR ($10 a month extra PER tv), or HDTV service ($5 more a month but it kills the promo pricing)..
7. The remote is huge and yet the only useful buttons take up 1/3 of the bottom.

Needless to say, I was pretty darn disappointed.. you know that if it wasn't for the 6 month promo this service would cost *SEVENTY TWO DOLLARS A MONTH*..

So it's 60 a month with cable internet for now, and we're moving before that promo ends so I'm game..

You can rest assured I'll be getting dishnet service again in our other house when we move over there The boxes are beautiful, the service is very nice (even with CSR roulette at least they do what they say they'll do).. and well, there are many more options, not to mention I'm not forced to use a 6 year old box.

Then again, I'm not cancelling the dish service just yet, I'll wait over the weekend and see how this all pans out, right now I'm interested in the ondemand stuff, but if it sucks I'll just cancel the TV and see what the internet alone costs, if that's too much I'll just pull back up my DSL line lol.

The things I do to save a buck *sigh*

Oh yeah, if you wonder why I got cable internet - it's because my DSL just went out of contract and when that happens they jack the rate up until you re-up for another year, since we're moving I don't want to do that.

 

[mdonnelly]

...
Oh yeah, if you wonder why I got cable internet - it's because my DSL just went out of contract and when that happens they jack the rate up until you re-up for another year, since we're moving I don't want to do that.

My SBC DSL went out of contract. I called them up Wednesday, got the rate reduced from $29.95 to $14.95/month.

 

[OoTLink]

Yes, and that re-ups your contract

Anyone here know if there's a way to make the favorites list be the list of channels you surf like how you can do that on a dish box by hitting the guide button multiple times? I can't find a way to set the channel list and blocked channels won't go invis.. makes flipping channels a real pain in the butt

 

[BFG]

Eughhh.... I totally agree. Cable boxes may function, but there interfaces are a huge pile of crap.

I would hope most would agree that even thought the E* boxes may have bugs, Dish does have the best interface designs...

 

[jimboeau]

Eughhh.... I totally agree. Cable boxes may function, but there interfaces are a huge pile of crap.

I would hope most would agree that even thought the E* boxes may have bugs, Dish does have the best interface designs...

Oh, how can that be...... gp says they are the best....

 

[GaryPen]

Actually, the iGuide on the Comcast 6412 HD DVR's is quite nice. Definitely better than the horrible guide I used to have on the Comcast 2000 box. (I don't know what model ootlink has, as he has yet to master his digital camera.)

I would say that the Dish 721's interface is better than my Comcast 6412 in many ways. But, the 6412 works. It works right. And, it works every time. No zero second recordings. No missed recordings. Actual name-based recording. And, the guide works. These are things that can't really be said for the 721, 921, or 522. I hear the 942 works pretty well, though. But, that has an upgrade fee of $250 vs. $0 for the 6412.

 

[OoTLink]

It's a 2224 or, well I can't remember the exact number, but it's a comcast DCT2000.. Indeed, not that good at all, but it does have the most recent guide.

Even then, I'm not really that impressed. I wanted to get it switched with at the least a 2500, but they kept giving excuses and this is what it came down to:

1. They don't have any boxes with firewire/IEEE1394 (not true, I know it)
2. The only boxes with svideo that works are the DVRs (which cost $10 a month extra) and the HD boxes (which they won't give me even though they output in SD)..
3. The DCT2000 is "that's what we've got" -- they actually claimed it was the newest box they could give me.

LOL my apologies for the pic, I didn't really bother focusing because I was kinda busy/tired that day. I honestly didn't find it worth bothering with either lol.

Anyway, after calling about my discontent yesterday (after it was installed), they sent two guys today to check everything and well, this is what they did..

When I explain (pointing at the jack where the guy was supposed to run the wire from the demarc) the BS excuse that the original installer did, they respond that the guy was paid to do an install that includes those sorts of things if needed, and that obviously if I told him not to touch the house wiring he was indeed supposed to run a new coax run from the demarc to that jack.

After I had been redoing my modem wiring last night though I realized that if they could run the wire to a different jack that'd work much better instead, and they said that yeah of course, he still would have had to do that. ..

So they called their supervisor and said that the original installer would have to come back to finish his job, problem was they didn't say WHEN just "tomorrow or something"...

I don't want the same guy! WTF is up with that? And about the box .. any suggestions on who to call or what to say?

I dunno maybe I'm just making a bigger deal than it's worth arguing. Most importantly I need the wire run but the box doesn't matter, this is a temporary install anyway (we're moving eventually)... either way, since those dishes are staying on the roof whether or not we have service through E*, I don't want to get rid of the wiring to them.. it's silly and maybe someone wants to use both like I do when we rent this place!

 

[CJPC]

(didnt read the whole thread so bear w/ me)

the HD/dvr boxes output live firewire, bs @ the dct2224 , they have HD boxes, go to your local office, ask for a HD DVR box, (if u realllly want), tell em u just got a new hdtv and u dont wanna pay for them to hook it up, then u can use FW and output over svideo. HD DVR boxes here are 15 a month = total BS if you ask me!

sorry for the english, its 3am!

 

[OoTLink]

Hehe CJPC, yeah figures. HD = $5 a month, DVR = $10 a month..

That's a damn lot of money considering on E* if you pay that much you get HD and voom channels.. then again, getting a 942 is tricky enoough hehe.

I'd be cool with a non-DVR HD box if it meant $5 a month over the promo price, but from what I hear that tends to break the deal. :|

*edits*

So I just realized why after 8 hours on demand isn't working on the box, it was so silly that when I realized it I had a good laugh or two lol.

See, as you might know, only a handful of line amplifiers work with cable modems, and if you're splitting a line more than 2 ways you need an amplifier on the line..

The comcast guy, I kid you not, did nothing but drop the DCT2000 off, the remote, the cable modem, and the"install kit" for the modem. He then unplugged one of my DP34's outputs and plugged the cable into that coax run.

So my line amp obviously isn't supportive of cable modems because well, it's a spare part I had from way back when I originally had good ole' expanded cable a few years ago lol. Of course, I bought that, and all the wiring from the wall jack to the tv is my own wiring too!

Anyway, since I only have a 2 way splitter in front of the line amp (one line being occupied by the line amp -> then the 4 way splitter -> then the TVs including the DCT2000 box)... and the other side of that splitter being my modem, well.. the on demand just isn't going to work for now.

I swear this gets funnier by the minute

If they send the same guy back out to run the wiring (since they claim they already paid him for it), they better send him with his supervisor.

*bored*

A little comparison shot to have a laugh about:

http://www.talesmud.com/comcastvsdish.jpg

Yeah the color is changable, but shoot that doesn't change it much

*1 more update*

I was video chatting with a friend of mine and they showed me their comcast box -- tis' a 2500 not a 2224 BUT gosh.. turns out that the video preview thing should be on there and something's fubar..

That and the VoD is dead. Nothing brings it to life, soo.. yeah *sigh* Never liked the box anyway

 

[CJPC]

dead VOD = the line mostlikely like you hought, the amp etc.. it needs to pass data back as well (try taking it out? dunno why its there tho)

And the funny part is.. TV GUIDE has a monopoly in both

 

[riffjim4069]

OoTLink,

Order a HD DVR and request Firewire...you will have their latest and greatest SA8300HD or Moto 6412. The PG will still be awful and the boxes will clink, clank, clunk and overheat...but it will still be an improvement.

 

[David Dietzel]

The more I read the posts of those with other provider's boxes, the more I appreciate the beauty and elegant functionality of my Dish Network 942 HD-DVR.

My old SA8000HD was a piece of buggy junk and they wouldn't update me to the 8300 unit. Soft picture quality, especially the analog SD channels (so much for the lie of "digital cable"). On-screen programming guide was Atari 8-bit graphics. Charter, too, essentially dropped off my parts and let me plug it all in.

Dish hardware and support is not perfect, but I gotta tell you, it rocks compared to most of the competition.

 

[OoTLink]

What I did was simplify everything. My original plan was to 'transition' temporarily to cable stuff until we moved, but right now I'm stuck right in the middle...

So yeah, my TV up in my room can't get anything, two TVs are on the TV2 outputs of the 322s, and one TV has the cable box..

Basically I took off all my splitter gear and left it to 1 2-way splitter that came with the modem, there's no amps or anything whatsoever. Shoot, I aint putting a dime into that wiring, if comcast wants to run on all our TVs, they'll have to do it themselves.

Either way, VOD still doesn't work, and nor does the video preview pane. According to a friend of mine (who I showed the config info screen), there's some funky stuff going on.. so meh..

HD DVRs are $15 a month on top of the non-promo price, which would jack this $40 a month line to $87 a month. No thanks. ESPECiALLY not for 1 TV.

At $87 a month I could probably find a way to get a 942 and the AT180 lol.

 

[BobMurdoch]

Eughhh.... I totally agree. Cable boxes may function, but there interfaces are a huge pile of crap.

I would hope most would agree that even thought the E* boxes may have bugs, Dish does have the best interface designs...

Amen. They peaked with the original Dishplayer, but the are still better than that 1989 VGA look that most cable systems use in their program crawls and the like...