Mostly one purpose

[bjahn]

All other options exhausted, It appears as if dish network is the only way available for out location. One positive factor is that the house came with a ~4'? vertical mount dish (white fiberglass?).

My most driving goal is to capture all of the world cup games (64 games @90+min ea.) from ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC onto a DVR and eventually burn the games onto a personal set of DVDs.

At which point I "edit" down to just the challenges and calls for referee training purposes.

I see there are some concerns about certain model DVRs which "loose" their HDs. Due to my work schedule, I'm out of town for two weeks at a time.

It would be really nice to start out with a robust system that won't screw up my one chance to get it right.

Ideas would be appreciated- thx

 

[dfergie]

I have had 2- 501's that never had HDD issues, my 921 is over a year and a half old, never lost any programs due to HDD issues either, I also have 3 Replay boxes, I have lost programs due to IDE cable failure but not due to HDD death...

 

[gbjbany]

i have had 501, 510, 942 for 3 or more years and never lost a hard drive either.

One approach , might be overkill, could be to have 2 receivers recording as a safety net, the 501/10 series dvr's are not huge but in terms of hours but they are also not expensive, check on ebay. you pay no dvr fee for the 501 but you would for the 510 (5$ per month). I suspect the resale would be the same so you could just set this up for the worldcup period,