Well, after playing with the unit more... I still like it for the DISH reception. It is exactly like the 721, but with the ability to get their HD lineup. Off-air reception and recording is both very flakey and frustrating. Don't get me wrong on what I am about to say... I love this unit and am glad to have it.
I have had the off-air tuner lock up that has been reported. It happens a lot when just switching from channel to channel. There seems to be no reason for it. I have had both the 811 and 921 connected to the off-air antenna and switched the channels. The 811 will tune right in when the 921 just hangs and can not find the signal.
On several times, I have tried to record from my off-air channels only to get a very bad skipping recording. It will catch a few moments of the channel and then skip a few minutes to record another few moments. It keeps doing with and even when it catches a few moments, it contains a very pixel-filled image. This has happened on more than one occasion. I have had only 2 good off-air recordings in HD so far.
So, last night, I wanted to try it again. So, I programmed JAG to record. I then did a hard reboot of the 921. The program fired about 10 minutes later. I watched JAG on the 811 while the 921 recorded it. There were no drop outs and the signal was at 90 to 92% the whole time. When I went to the 921 to watch the recording, I got the same choppy video and pixel-image. The whole hour show only too about 7 minutes to watch and I was not fast forwarding.
The DISH HD channels had not exhibited this behavior at any point.
I like the fact that the guide is full-screen and not just displayed in the 4x3 area, like the 811. The PIP does work well when viewing 2 SH channels, just like the 721 does. When you try to activate the PIP in HD, it displays the PIP window, but no video and an error window pops up stating that PIP is not available in HD. This looks like a limitation of the HD decoder and not the software.
There seems to be times when I turn the unit back on and the green power light comes on, but no other lights on the unit are on and no picture is displayed on the screen. It does not seem to be related to being on the off-air or satellite channels when I turn the unit off either. I have tried leaving the unit on a satellite channels and off-air. No matter the channel, I will still sometimes get this behavior.
