The boy watches alot of noggin, so that may actually be a factor. I was set on D*, but the new 922 box coming out intrigued me back to E^. That said, I could just buy a seperate sling and have it in case I ever switched to another service anyhow as opposed to only having a catcher for my tv on deck or in my workout room. I really don't want to run more wire to those spots or buy another box for them.
I had E*, and things were OK for a while, but then they started falling behind in national HD, and still are. Then they still haven't added HD locals for our area (are you pittsburgh market? If so you get them with D* or E*, if you are altoona market like myself, you can only get them via D*, who has all HD locals including pbs.
Then, E* started doing some really funky things with our bill in the waning months of our contract, and their practices are downright awful sometimes. Like how our bill went up $26 (only $6 of which we were able to knock back off after a lengthy phone call as they added optional insurance crap we never wanted).
Earlier in the contract when we wanted to upgrade our package, it was super easy, upgraded in like 5 minutes! But when they jacked up our bill way more than they should have, and can apparently get away with it, we tried to change our package again to something cheaper, and of course we were NOT allowed to do that!
Hypocritcal.
We considered D*, they they said they would throw in 12 additional months of showtime package for free on top of the normal promotions. We got a free HD DVR even though we never asked for it, so it was definitely time to swtich. Oh, and D* said we can adjust our package at any time during the 2 yr commitment, unlike E*. And after the 1st 12 months they said they would likely throw in another promotion to make the non promotional period more worth while.
So we cancelled E*, got D* setup a week ago, and have zero regrets, its been great so far.
I honestly just don't think anybody should be singing up with E* right now, they have a lot of work to do to pick up their game.
Besides, there isn't much of anything E* offer's that D* can't. D* is better for sports, period. Kids programming, D* seems better there, and they currently have Nick in HD while E* is still waiting on that, apparently.
As for the HD DVR's, we were lucky enough to get the new HR23's, and it isn't that bad. Also the HR23 hasn't had the # of updates yet that the HR21/22 have had, thus it will probably only improve as time goes on. But it's a damn good looking reciever.
The whole interface definitely seems more in depth and technologically newer than E*'s 722, which we had. The 722 was pretty solid, but they aren't perfect.
We've had ours overheat to where I needed to add additional cooling (laptop cooler) under it. And my grandma's 722, which is even newer than ours, just completely died recently.
Can't comment on E*'s 922, but probably no guarantee that is what you would get. Honestly, I wouldn't put much stock in the hardware at all, cuz it works, focus more on the programming you'll be getting and resign to the fact that all hardware has some pros and cons. The installer comes and makes sure its working up to par, and everything is covered so long as you lease everything through D*. So yeah they will cover repairs.
And this can go along with your question about buying used/new recievers, most will advise against it.
Anything used, you'll need to pay $20 for a new access card anyhow, and it won't be covered by D*. Same with buying new, it may come with a warranty of some type, but it won't be under D*'s contract to fix it. You just don't want to take those chances, especially when the price of a good used reciever plus the $20 for new card or a new reciever won't be much less than just leasing it from D* anyhow, where it is covered.
We considered the same thing in regards to possibly buying the 2nd HD DVR we wanted rather than pay $199 through dish, maybe save $40 or $50 getting one through amazon for an HR21/22.
So instead of taking chances, we decided to get one through D*, but I explained to D* how the high price of the 2nd HD DVR was a bit too steep & I asked for a possible $99 rebate that some people get.
They weren't able to do that, but instead, for leasing the reciever through them, they easily gave us the additional 1 free yr of showtime package (which actually includes 5 HD showtime channels and 1 The Movie Channel HD).
On top of that, the recievers ended up being HR23's, which of course are newer than the HR21/22's we considered buying.
With the HR23, there is a little lag sometimes, but you adjust to it after a week or two to where its a non-issue. IMO, its not bad enough for me to really complain about. And as far as the remote stuff, the built in RF is real nice. Basically don't let hardware comments make or break which provider you choose, neither D* or E* is perfect in this regard.
Lastly, want to note how great my D* install went (which if you have multiple TV's scattered about the house, this might be a big deal). First off, with E* we needed to have 2 dishes on our roof, kind of an eyesore. With D* we just got the 1 slimline dish.
Anyhow, my main concern was that since we have 3 or 4 TV's is how complicated the install might get cuz with E* we just had 2 dual tuners set in the same part of the house, and for all TV's to operate, the E* install was a bit of a hack, the dual tuners saving the install from being A LOT of a hack!
Thus when I learned D* required each TV to have its own reciever, I thought this might be good in the way that we would now have 2 seperate DVR's in different rooms, and it would help the remotes work better (where before, E*'s remotes were far away from the recievers on 2 of the TV's and didn't always work without finding a sweet spot, was kind of a pain).
However, with each TV needing a reciever, I was thinking the worst, that holes would need drilled on the other side of the house, new cable lines might need run, a potential nightmare.
But once the installer got here, told him how our cable lines were run and told him my concern, he said that there won't be any problem at all because he's been using SWM LNB's for the past 6 months & then I learned how all that worked. So we were saved from any trouble, but glad we got D* installed now rather than 6+ months ago.
He got the dish up real fast, was able to use old E* cable run so once he mounted the dish, he just needed to re-attach the E* cable to the D* dish, and that was it!
At that point, the recievers very simply just hooked up to our existing cable run (which is 30 yrs old and contains multiple splitters). Which really surprised me. This SWM LNB stuff must be a life saver for saving installers a lot of work, and keeps house damage to a minimum. All our guy needed to do was mount the dish on the roof, other than that our house was untouched.
And aside from the HR23's, we ordered 1 regular reciever, and instead he gave us an HD DVR for free! Normally $99.
Finally, the last week+ of watching TV since the install has been just fine. No issues, the HD looks as great (although as far as HD PQ, I don't feel there is much difference between D* and E*, if the HD broadcast is a good one, then it should come across as good as possible with D* or E*). It does seem D* might have better PQ as far as SD channels, but I don't watch much SD anyhow.
Given your situation, it sounds like you are better off with D*. Plus D* has more going for them right now regardless, and you should have less trouble with them as far as customer service, crazy bill issues, & other frustrations. I'm know D* isn't perfect, but I'd reckon they are the lesser of 2 evils!
