When we needed to replace our broken CRT television in July with a nice HD flat panel, we decided to upgrade our programming. We wanted to keep DirecTV, but they hadn't completed work with the TiVo people on an HD DVR system, and Dish won in terms of pricing anyway.
So it's been mostly decent, some improvements in the switch, some compromises. Lately however, we've been having several problems. The "resolve by priority" feature on our VIP722k dual receiver has been atrocious, in particular. My visiting mother's "Dancing with the Stars" conflicted with "The Daily Show", so, days in advance, we moved the Daily Show Timer all the way to the bottom of the list. Come that Monday, the DVR still show both programs in the schedule, despite several attempts to manually skip the conflicting Daily Show. That night, the DVR tells us it is recording Daily Show, but is in fact tuned to Dancing and cuts off after a half hour.
This past weekend, when we cancelled HBO after our introductory 3 months expired, the CSR kindly reminded my wife that we still had a number of complimentary PPV coupons that would expire this past weekend. Cool! We schedule a movie to record on Saturday night. We are told by our DVR that it would be given top priority, which a check of the timers list confirms. The only conflicting program is way at the bottom of the list and we are sure to tell it to "resolve by priority". Again, neither program shows as "Skipped" in the Schedule, and come movie time, the low priority show records, and then the tuner hops over to the "#1 Priority" movie and starts recording a half hour in.
My wife, after being hung up on three times, once while on hold for a supervisor, has to explain the situation to the CSR no less than 5 times before light dawns, and said CSR tells us we need a new box, which is apparently arriving tomorrow. The CSR initmated that we were to take delivery on the new box, install it ourselves, and present the waiting UPS driver with the old box. Not happening, we make clear. Can't promise that whoever's home to receive that day has the technical wherewithal to operate a screwdriver, so other arrangements are made, offering a short interval where we will have two DISH boxes.
And how, we ask, do we get our hundreds of hours of programming, much of it not repeating any time soon, off the old DVR and on to the new one? We are SOL, is the reply.
VERY disappointed in the dismal service now. So my questions are several:
1) Is this problem with program priority common?
2) Is a replacement box the only way to fix this? WILL it fix it? I have less than zero confidence in this CSR's understanding of the issue.
3) Can I really not get my recorded programs to the new DVR (model as yet unknown) by any means? I am personally quit tech savvy (pro computer consultant and software engineer and all-round go-to guy in my circles for all things computer and entertainment-related), I just won't be around tomorrow to change out the boxes).
Thanks for any insight and advice.
So it's been mostly decent, some improvements in the switch, some compromises. Lately however, we've been having several problems. The "resolve by priority" feature on our VIP722k dual receiver has been atrocious, in particular. My visiting mother's "Dancing with the Stars" conflicted with "The Daily Show", so, days in advance, we moved the Daily Show Timer all the way to the bottom of the list. Come that Monday, the DVR still show both programs in the schedule, despite several attempts to manually skip the conflicting Daily Show. That night, the DVR tells us it is recording Daily Show, but is in fact tuned to Dancing and cuts off after a half hour.
This past weekend, when we cancelled HBO after our introductory 3 months expired, the CSR kindly reminded my wife that we still had a number of complimentary PPV coupons that would expire this past weekend. Cool! We schedule a movie to record on Saturday night. We are told by our DVR that it would be given top priority, which a check of the timers list confirms. The only conflicting program is way at the bottom of the list and we are sure to tell it to "resolve by priority". Again, neither program shows as "Skipped" in the Schedule, and come movie time, the low priority show records, and then the tuner hops over to the "#1 Priority" movie and starts recording a half hour in.
My wife, after being hung up on three times, once while on hold for a supervisor, has to explain the situation to the CSR no less than 5 times before light dawns, and said CSR tells us we need a new box, which is apparently arriving tomorrow. The CSR initmated that we were to take delivery on the new box, install it ourselves, and present the waiting UPS driver with the old box. Not happening, we make clear. Can't promise that whoever's home to receive that day has the technical wherewithal to operate a screwdriver, so other arrangements are made, offering a short interval where we will have two DISH boxes.
And how, we ask, do we get our hundreds of hours of programming, much of it not repeating any time soon, off the old DVR and on to the new one? We are SOL, is the reply.
VERY disappointed in the dismal service now. So my questions are several:
1) Is this problem with program priority common?
2) Is a replacement box the only way to fix this? WILL it fix it? I have less than zero confidence in this CSR's understanding of the issue.
3) Can I really not get my recorded programs to the new DVR (model as yet unknown) by any means? I am personally quit tech savvy (pro computer consultant and software engineer and all-round go-to guy in my circles for all things computer and entertainment-related), I just won't be around tomorrow to change out the boxes).
Thanks for any insight and advice.
