Reasons why you should NOT get a 522.

[ChrisCoop]

Sorry to hear you are having such problems, Chris. Maybe it's a karmic payback. Did you screw over the grandfather of the president of Phillips in a past life?

I don't think so, LOL. No, but seriously, I think my problems are a lot more common than many here would care to admit. The thing of it is though, when other members or 522 users experience a bug or a quirk, they may write it off as not being that big of a deal and just make a mental note of it, if that. Look around these boards and you'll see a lot of people defending Dish and actually telling others that these problems should be expected because, after all, "we're dealing with technology." I never understood that argument. I think too many people just accept the problems, whereas I come here and complain and post a picture of them for all to see. So when you come on the board and see a thread that has so many pages with post after post and picture after picture of the bugs, you might think that my 522s have been uncommonly prone to problems. However, if you spend a fair amount of time here (and/or on other tech/satellite message boards) you will in fact see that many other people have reported the same exact problems as me. In fact, out of this whole thread there are only a few issues I've brought up that I haven't seen anyone else complain about yet. But I've put it all in one place instead of having a thread or post here and there. And don't forget, I quoted two Dish employees in my response above to fire_317. Both of them made it pretty clear to me that I'm far from alone when it comes to problems with the 522.

Oh - Chris - your vid clip referenced in Post #91 is normal AVI. Doesn't need that POS QuickTime player at all. In fact, most any media player around should run it just fine.

Simon, thanks a lot for that info. If you don't mind, do you think you could please tell me what OS you're running? The clips I've posted use the MJPEG codec. It was my understanding that no Windows OS came equipped to handle them, at least not without downloading a (shareware) codec. So I figured it was better to recommend that people download the (freeware) Apple QuickTime since it supports MJPEG right out of the box. Maybe you're on XP? I think that's the only one that might have support for this format, not sure.

Regarding the disk diagnostics happening at times other than reboot/update, I was "fortunate" enough to get pictures of it happening just a little while ago. During the end credits for Trial and Error that aired on Starz East from 4:15 PM - 5:53 PM, the Hard Disk Diagnostics screen popped up for no apparent reason and proceeded to do its thing. The first two pics are of TV 1. I then ran to TV 2 (someone was watching the local news there) and snapped a pic at that TV (the third picture). I asked the family and, as I suspected, it has happened at other times when I wasn't home. It's pretty sad that they don't even bother to tell me anymore when the 522 does things it shouldn't be doing. Everyone's pretty much given up on it around these parts. After the diagnostics, the 522 rebooted, searched for signal, and then downloaded the guide. Not a big deal if you don't mind missing more than ten minutes of the program you were watching. Please note the diagnostics window OVER the picture that was on both TVs. Unacceptable! And again, pitiful! What exactly was in those last couple of updates, good tidings and cheer? Fairy dust? Raspberry marmalade? Are these people even trying to fix the problems? Or do they just keep playing with the code and releasing updates so their bosses will think they're working and stay off their backs? It's a sad state of affairs.

Click thumbnails to enlarge.

 

[Hall]

Chris, you clearly have an oddball 522. It's doing things I've seen NO ONE else mention. When I get the disk diag screen, there's nothing behind it. Is there sound too ??

Do you report ALL of these quirks to Dish ?? I would and by now, I'd be demanding a replacement receiver. I honestly don't think you'll see the same things with a new one.

As for your AVI, I can play it fine too, using XP and Windows Media Player 9. It is a "Motion JPEG", according to 'AVICodec", but I don't know where or if I installed a special codec that handles this format.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Simon, thanks a lot for that info. If you don't mind, do you think you could please tell me what OS you're running? The clips I've posted use the MJPEG codec. It was my understanding that no Windows OS came equipped to handle them, at least not without downloading a (shareware) codec. So I figured it was better to recommend that people download the (freeware) Apple QuickTime since it supports MJPEG right out of the box. Maybe you're on XP? I think that's the only one that might have support for this format, not sure.

I'm running it on Windows Media Player 9 running on Windows 2000 Server. I've never done anything special to make anything play.

 

[AJF]

A few weeks ago I installed two 522's in my home ( along with a 322 & 921 ), and I've just been waiting for the bugs to rear their ugly heads, but I have to say that as yet, I haven't had a single problem with any of these receivers. None ! My entire family is using them and recording our favorite shows without a glitch . I'm extremely satisfied with all of these receivers .

I just can't understand how some people can have so many problems, like Chris' well documented examples, while others don't . Chris, I can't remember if this is your second or third replacement, but unless you're ready to call it quits with Dish, I'd push for one more 522.

 

[ChrisCoop]

When I get the disk diag screen, there's nothing behind it. Is there sound too ??

Do you report ALL of these quirks to Dish ?? I would and by now, I'd be demanding a replacement receiver. I honestly don't think you'll see the same things with a new one.

As for your AVI, I can play it fine too, using XP and Windows Media Player 9. It is a "Motion JPEG", according to 'AVICodec", but I don't know where or if I installed a special codec that handles this format.

hall, when the diagnostics window pops up during a program, there's no sound. The picture stops moving and looks frozen and the window just does its thing until it finishes and reboots. So you don't see a frozen picture behind the diagnostics window, just a blank screen? How does your screen get blank? Does yours reboot before it does the random disk diagnostics? If both of our units are doing it at random times, I too am kind of curious as to why I still have a picture on the screen and you don't (even though both scenarios are completely unacceptable). Anyway, as I explained above to fire_317, I have reported these problems to Dish and they're well aware of them. They're even aware of this thread, so believe me Dish knows all about it. And there's really no point in asking for a new receiver. This is my third one already and they've all been plagued with (more or less) the same exact problems. And big thanks to you and Simon for the info on your OS and movie players. You learn something new everyday.

I just can't understand how some people can have so many problems, like Chris' well documented examples, while others don't .

AJF, I don't really understand it either. I've already posted some possibilities, but who knows? Maybe I'm really, really unlucky. Maybe other members are more tolerant when it comes to bugs and are willing to overlook/downplay them. Maybe there are lots of other very dissatisfied 522 customers that never found their way onto this message board. Only Dish can tell us how many complaints they get on the 522, or how many get returned (but I guarantee you they're not going to be releasing those figures). You want to laugh? I read a recent post on another message board from a user who was having 522 problems. Dish sent him a replacement receiver and guess what? It was still loaded with timers and recordings from a previous customer! So some poor sap is having problems with his 522. He complains to Dish and they swap receivers for him. They get the bad receiver into their service department, don't fix it, don't even reset it and delete the recorded events and timers, and then send a known to be defective receiver on to the next customer who wants to exchange a defective 522. That's what we're dealing with here. A company that seems completely devoted to doing whatever it takes to not put out quality hardware/software. They don't even seem interested in the appearance of putting out quality hardware/software. They've had several receivers all plagued with the same kinds of problems as the 522. Not the specific problems themselves, but general problems that resulted from end-user (instead of in-house) beta testing. You'd think at some point, someone in the company would say, "Hey, stop everything! No more new models or feature updates until we get a handle on the existing problems!" But instead they just keep rolling out the updates and making things worse.

Maybe another reason my receivers seem so problematic is that I'm incredibly observant, almost to a fault. I've pointed out bugs/problems in this thread that ALL 522s suffered from and that no one else noticed or posted about before. No record light when you select "stop recording manually," incorrect info in the DVR Events Help screen, timers not removing themselves after you stop a recording early, minor graphic problems in the guide, etc. These were not problems on "my" receivers. These were issues that EVERY 522, without exception, suffered from and that only I noticed or seemed to care about. Those problems are fixed now because I complained to Dish and posted about them in this thread. So do you know what it tells me when the other things I've complained about are still not fixed? It tells me they CAN'T fix them. Either they don't know how. Or they don't know where to start. Or they simply don't care. I'd like to post a couple of pictures to illustrate this very point (about not caring). Now, let me preface this by saying that I know this isn't a "bug." I'll be the first one to say that the pictures I'm posting have nothing to do with the actual operation of the 522 (I'm not that anal, LOL). However, they are indicative of the sloppiness and apathy that exists in the development of the 522. And again, I seem to be the only person on earth (including Dish employees) that noticed. If you go to the details screen after doing a check switch test, you'll see that the name of the screen ("Installation Summary Details") is not in the title bar of the window as it should be. It's down a bit, partially obscured by being white text with a white line running through it. Just look at the pictures, you'll see. The first one ("Installation Summary Help") is the way it should be, the second and third pictures illustrate what I'm talking about. Again, I'm not complaining about this in terms of product usability. But the 522 has been in development for what, two years now? In all that time, didn't anyone from Dish that does their software, testing, or tech support actually look at the results of a switch check? Apparently not! It's a perfect example of how someone in Dish's software department got something wrong and then never had his/her work checked. And then the rest of the people responsible for making the 522 work properly were either too stupid to notice it, or too lazy to do anything about it. So the issue (admittedly, an insignificant one) just continues to go on. And you know what? It's exactly the same with the big issues. The 522 is rife with things like this that don't make sense, were overlooked, or were just done sloppily. I'm not going to list them here because many of them border on being feature requests, and I don't want to turn this into a feature request thread. But if you'd like to know what some of the other issues are, I'd be more than happy to share my thoughts with you, in my typical long-winded fashion, of course.

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[SimpleSimon]

And this garbage applies to the 721 and 921 also (as if we didn't already know that).

A wonderful thought just went through my head. Impractical, but it'd be sweet. We should all take our junk receivers and pile them in Charlie's yard. Say a thousand of them. He's allowed to remove one for each bug that actually gets fixed, but 2 get put on the pile for every NEW bug introduced. It wouldn't be too long before he couldn't find his house.

 

[Hall]

...and they swap receivers for him. They get the bad receiver into their service department, don't fix it, don't even reset it and delete the recorded events and timers, and then send a known to be defective receiver on to the next customer who wants to exchange a defective 522.

Not trying to sound like I'm defending Dish, but that receiver could certainly be a service cancellation and not a defective model. Regardless, wiping it clean should still have taken place. Maybe a local retailer or installer received it back from a customer and then used it with a new customer ?? We lease these receivers so they can supply us with "used" boxes.

I'm off to check the "Check switch/installation" screen now. I've seen that screen, but don't recall the title being out of place....

 

[ChrisCoop]

Simon, you're so right about the other models. And as has been mentioned many times before, at least the 522 is sort of free (well, not really considering in the long run they're going to make a killing on these rentals). I feel really bad for all the poor souls that have the other Dish receivers (and actually had to pay a lot of money up front for them). And I'm SO on board with your plan for Charlie's new DVR garden. Actually, I'd be content to just hear him even talk about these problems. Instead of all the scripted softballs he gets on his chats.

Not trying to sound like I'm defending Dish, but that receiver could certainly be a service cancellation and not a defective model

No, it was defective. He reported that with the "new" box they sent him, he was having the same exact problems as with the "old" one he sent back - I believe thanks to the L201 update. He's a respected member of another satellite message board. See for yourself HERE.

 

[rhollinger]

Regarding the overlooking of bugs:
There are 2 things that are unacceptable to me. Programs not recording and poor quality. Pretty much everything else can be overlooked if it's not contributing to these two things. The pops, drops, and pixelation fall into the quality category but until 2.02 (or .01?) it was fairly infrequent leading to on average high quality. It's now VERY frequent and seems to be the major contributing factor to the audio sync issue as well.

So I reported this to Dish via email and they act like they've never heard of the issue, it's either the content as provided to them or I need to reset my system. what a friggin' joke.

 

[martin1]

My neigbore after putting up with the 522 problems turned it in and went back to
TW cable.

 

[Hall]

I hope this doesn't get buried in this long thread, but I think my 522 is doing something "new", specifically since 2.01 or 2.02. To preface, we turn off both tuners 90% of the time. For example, TV2 can be off (upstairs) while we're downstairs watching TV1. Turn it off and go to bed (without turning the TV on upstairs). When I come downstairs in the morning, both tuners are "on", i.e. the front-panel lights are 'on'.

My guess is the receiver reboots overnight after it's 3AM update and instead of returning to the state the receiver was in when it rebooted (like it used to behave for a long time), both tuners are turning 'on'.

Anyone else noticed this ??

 

[itsonthedish]

This thing is a bunch of crap... I scheduled a recording and it never recorded the show... I think I am gonna turn it in and get stand alone boxes and go back to TIVO.

 

[ChrisCoop]

...When I come downstairs in the morning, both tuners are "on", i.e. the front-panel lights are 'on'.

My guess is the receiver reboots overnight after it's 3AM update and instead of returning to the state the receiver was in when it rebooted (like it used to behave for a long time), both tuners are turning 'on'.

Anyone else noticed this ??

hall, I can't say I've ever experienced this particular bug, but typerk reported the same exact problem HERE. So it's definitely not just you. I'd say call and complain. It doesn't look like something that's being widely reported so I doubt they're even working to fix it. Maybe you could be the first one to bring it to their attention. @party

 

[rolandv]

Regarding the overlooking of bugs:
There are 2 things that are unacceptable to me. Programs not recording and poor quality. Pretty much everything else can be overlooked if it's not contributing to these two things. The pops, drops, and pixelation fall into the quality category but until 2.02 (or .01?) it was fairly infrequent leading to on average high quality. It's now VERY frequent and seems to be the major contributing factor to the audio sync issue as well.

So I reported this to Dish via email and they act like they've never heard of the issue, it's either the content as provided to them or I need to reset my system. what a friggin' joke.

Like you, my patience is also wearing thin. I'm getting rather tired of having to keep the remote in my hand when watching a show because I know that eventually it'll start screwing up. After Tivo, I thought I could wait out the fixes with this receiver, but my patience is fading fast. I may just throw a bigger hard drive in my Tivo, problem solved.

 

[ChrisCoop]

Well, it appears they've basically fixed none of the bugs in the much-anticipated L204 "update." And, as usual, have managed to introduce a few new ones. They might not be good at fixing bugs, but at least they're consistent. During limited use of the 522 in just the past day and a half, I've experienced:

• Old - Guide button reboots.

• Old - Color fading in and out and leaving a black and white screen. I always had the problem but now it occurs more often. See here.

• Old - Random numbers in the time displays. See here.

• Old - The "Time Left" field on the banner goes blank. See the start of the last paragraph and the first/last pictures here.

• Old - Still getting the audio/video little freezes and pauses (they've been named mini-freezes here). And they're worse than ever before. They happen a LOT now.

• Old - Still getting the audio/video synch issues that were introduced in L2XX software. Also worse than ever before. And it's harder than ever to correct. A 10 second skip back or 30 second skip forward (usually) used to fix it. It doesn't anymore. Now you've really got to play with the video - fast forward and rewind all over the place - to try to get things synced up again.

• Old - Still lose the ability to rewind or lose the 10 second skip back. See first two clips (and accompanying paragraphs) here.

• New/old - The "Info" window pops up randomly all the time. I had experienced this just a few times in the past months with the 522. Now it's a regular occurrence.

• New - Audio disappears after hitting 10 second back button and will not come back unless you turn the tuner off/on. Fast forwarding or rewinding doesn't bring the sound back like it does when you lose audio after a pause (which, by the way, hasn't happened in a while for me).

• New - The time/status bar gets stuck on the bottom of the screen quite a bit. Even when it reads correctly and the numbers work as they should, it doesn't remove itself after you return to play from a pause or from rewind/fast forward.

The whole thing is almost comical. Every "update," without exception, makes things worse. For all the complaining I did before the L2XX software series, I would still be glad to go back in time and have the old software. It was loaded with problems, but the audio/video stayed synched, it had a lot fewer mini-freezes, and I wasn't held hostage by the damn guide button. Was Single Mode really worth all of this trouble? Sorry, but I don't think so.

And speaking of the guide button, EVERY single time I'm about to look at the guide, it's right there in the back of my mind. Is it going to reboot? Am I going to end up with a segmented recording that's missing some of the show? Are the kids downstairs watching TV2 going to start screaming, "Hey, what happened?!?!?" This thing has me living in fear. I actually find myself using the browse banner sometimes instead of the guide just to avoid the chance of a reboot. Scrolling through over a hundred channels one by one really sucks. Why is this bug so hard to fix?

 

[rolandv]

Well, I noticed some bugs that you mentioned, BUT, I did notice that playback of recorded shows was better, less skipping. They were there, but infrequent and almost unnoticable if you weren't looking for them.

Live TV is totally jacked when you rewind it and are viewing the "cached" video. It's unwatchable.

 

[J3ff]

My familys main complaint was that damn INFO window popping up (ONLY ON TV TWO) , so what did i do?

I hooked the UHF out up to my old tv antenna! works fine now
hahah

 

[Wishbone]

I got my first ever "Guide of Death" this morning... I haven't heard about it for awhile now. I thought the issue was fixed...

 

[FJBill]

Update after 5 months

Well, not like anyone is reading this anymore, but here goes:

To date, the sum of problems we have encountered with our 522 (that I can remember), that are the fault of the 522, consist of

1) A/V sync loss about a total of 5-6 times in the course of 5 months of recording, always synced back up after 5-15 minutes (annoying, but watchable).

2) OCCASIONAL but very short lived pixelation/deresolution/blockiness of video signal, usually a second or less, very infrequent.

3) Just today, the signal turned to static. We thought the channel got switched on the TV from toddler sitting on remote control, but it didn't. Changing channels on the TV or 522 had no effect. Video was snow, but could hear audio from the different channels. Power cycling the 522 fixed that.

Other than my A/V sync loss occurrences, I have had NONE of the issues that have plagued ChrisCoop.

All in all, I've had more issues with my PS2 than I have had from the 522. My tolerance for PC issues requiring a format C: /u and reinstalling the OS has basically caused our experience of issues with the 522 to be a non-factor.


All in all: :clap :up

 

[GregoriusM]

Thanks for your experience, FJ!