Politely disagree
I sure wish I could figure out why some people seem to be able to use OTA DVR with the 921 "reliably" and so many others cannot. To break it down, there are really no variables with respect to how these things are installed, connected and used when speaking of OTA. Therefore, my 921 should perform exactly the same whether it's installed in my home, or in somebody else's home. However, my 921 has proven itself to be the single most unreliable electronic device I've owned in the past five years. Since I purchased for Dish directly, I have 30 days in order to either return the 921 for a refund or keep it. Mine will be returned on Friday.
My DVR is used primarily to schedule the recording of content that I cannot view during it's normal airing. In many cases, I'm not at home or am busy. Therefore, if the unit is not completely reliable, then to me it is not acceptable at all. While I do have issues of how E* supports the 5xx series of DVRs, I have had an extremely low incidence of shows not recording as scheduled. I HAVE had issues where the timing was off due to schedule changes, which TiVo would have corrected and the Dish DVRs do not. I'm OK with that (with the exeption of Dish starting to charge for a useless and unethical VOD fee, which they deliberately market with misleading statements). The 921, on the other hand, may or may not record. It may or may not lock up. It may or may not completely crash. I have no confidence that it will work properly at any given time. To be honest, these conditions are only when I try to use functions related to OTA. So, if Dish had HD locals (like my cable company does) this would not be an issue at all. But the don't, and won't. Not for a LONG time.
I do agree that the PQ of the 921 is wonderful, and that the overall value - IF IT WORKED - would be great. That's why I bought it. Since the 921 has already been discontinued, since they acknowledged that there are still outstanding issues they're trying to fix, since they haven't fixed them in the last year, since it's somewhere around $500 or so depending on where you buy it, since they have no local HD content - period, since their customer service has degraded so far (never got through on the phone in less than 35 minutes in the past 7 times I've called over the past week), and since I demand HD DVR, I am dropping dish completely and moving to cable this Friday, with a scheduled 1pm install.
Jumping at this time saves me a BUNCH of money ($549 to start with, and monthly savings every month after), gets me HD locals, and positions me where if Dish ever gets their head out of their posterior, I will get incentives to move back at a lower cost and with better equipment. In the meantime I'll get almost three times the HD content at a lower cost, with the only negative that I'll have to deal with some analog stuff which I rarely use anyway. And it sends a message to Charlie that not everyone will accept poorly designed, poorly tested, and poorly supported equipment at premium prices for limited programming.
For those of you who are having absolutely no problems with your 921, I am certainly envious. I really love the (missed) potential of the unit. I hope your luck holds out. For those of you who accept a 921 that works "most of the time" I don't get it. Most of the time is OK for aspirin. Not for consumer electronics. For those of you who have not yet installed a 921, you know where I stand.
