Not sure what direction to go

neonturbo

Active SatelliteGuys Member
Original poster
Sep 17, 2009
20
0
michigan
What would you do? I have been with Dish probably close to 10 years. I have had many different receivers over the years including a 722, a 200 series, and the Hopper/Joey. I have been fairly happy with Dish up to this point.

Back in October, my Hopper died. One DIRT rep kept denying it was bad, and weeks later I got another rep to replace the Hopper. That was very aggrivating to be told I was basically making things up, and that all Hoppers totally freeze up for minutes and hours at a time. They acted like they were doing me a favor by replacing defective equipment. The original install was horrible, the dish literally fell off the deck because of how the tech mounted it, and it was mounted so low snow and people on the deck blocks the signal. Customer service didn't seem to want to help with that either.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. Now the replacement Hopper is giving "must reformat hard drive" and "hard drive failure" error codes along with nothing recording, no pause, and no guide data. Live TV only is all that works at this point. I pulled plug, rebooted, reset everything to default, etc, but hard drive sounds like a cement mixer. Pretty sure drive is dead.

I have been disappointed with the Hopper from day one but I lived with it. In my opinion, it was a big downgrade from the 722 in a lot of ways, except for having 2 HD outputs instead of 1 HD and 1 SD output. I hate the 1 AM reboot, I work afternoons and evenings, and this stupid reboot is always needs to happen in the middle of watching things, or worse yet rebooting even while recording. I just want to relax and watch something and not have to babysit a control to prevent a 15 minute blackout of TV viewing. Reliability of my Hoppers has been terrible compared to past Dish equipment.

Recently I got the opportunity to buy a Lifetime OTA TIVO. I hooked it up, and have used it almost exclusively for the last two weeks. I love the way it works and I can get a pretty good amount of channels, plus use my Amazon Prime. I have only used the Dish a few times in that couple weeks. I only seem to use the Dish for the news channels, Discovery, and maybe 1-2 other channels. Pretty much none of the content I watch on the Dish seems to be available via streaming so it seems I need to have some level of Dish service.

I just got the yearly price increase mail. I am on the 250 package, and have been forever. I am at a tipping point with the cost vs value of the Dish. If only one of these things was in play, I don't think I would hesitate to continue service. Is there any way to get 2 HD and DVR other than a Hopper/Joey?

Sorry this was long, but what would you do?
 
I switched from (2) 722's to (2) HWS & a wireless joey. I have not regretted the upgrade. I was going to upgrade to the Hopper 3, but after reading that some of the remote features were missing + not being able to turn off the banner + no 4K wireless joey, I have not done so. If you had problems with the Hopper, would not have waited 2 weeks for a solution. I do like the Dish hardware, but I too am thinking of scaling back. I enjoy watching tv, but these continual price increases are getting harder & harder to take.
 
I have a 722 and use a powered HDMI splitter and a good quality HDMI cable (about 35 feet) under the house to feed TV-2. Only downside is both TV's get the same content.
 
You can go back to the VIP series receivers. (722 etc) It will require changing your set-up and I do not know how much DISH would charge to do that. DIRT is usually quite good I am sorry hear your experience was not. That said, I would still try using them maybe someone different than you used before. See what they can do for you.

It does sound like you could downgrade your package and receivers in conjunction with using your TIVO for OTA. I use an OTA only Lifetime TIVO in addition to my 612 receivers. If having one DISH receiver like a 722 is possible along with the TIVO you would save alot of money every month. There would be no fee for the receiver and a $10 DVR fee. That's it for fees. Even if you added another DISH receiver, like a VIP 612 that would only be $10 more a month.(Or perhaps $7 more if you can remain Grandfathered)
 
211k with external hard drive making it a dvr. No dvr fees after the 1 time activation cost, would be a good alternative to use with Tivo.

I thought about going to the H3 and may eventually if linear 4k for sports happens.

Currently though, I'll stick with my 722 and Tivos w/Mini. The 722 only gets used a few nights a week for 2 or 3 shows now that football is over. Tivo and OTA gives me plenty now along with Netflix and Amazon.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk
 
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Forgot about my Mini, use it all the time and recommend that too, no ongoing costs.
 
Thanks everyone. I am not sure what I am going to do but I am going to try and get the Hopper replaced. I have been with Dish for a long time and have been mostly happy with things up until this point. Hopefully they will go ahad and replace it for me. I guess if they won't replace it, that will make my decision easier.
 

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