upgrade question

whitelee28

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Original poster
May 10, 2013
6
0
sacramento ca
Hello all I am new to this forum. I have a question. I am thinking about updating my 2 10 year old standard definition receivers. I want to go HD but not looking to spend too much. I spoke to a dish Representative today and was given 2 options. Upgrade to the Duodvr vip 722k which would raise my bill about 10 dollars a month of the Hopper/ joey system which would raise my bill upwards of 25+ dollars. At the moment i only have 2 TVs (One 1080p, and one 720p) that i will have satellite on them. As it is i am currently paying 91 bucks a month. I am not sure which to upgrade to. I need to make a decision soon as the receivers that i am currently leasing are having issues. Basically I want to make a decision that i will be happy with and not regret making for the next 2 years. Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance
 
If you go with the 722 you wont have HD on TV2 with a hopper/joey system you will have HD on tv2 Hopper has a larger hard drive and doesn't take any space up when recording primetime shows.
 
Oh yes it does!
The innovative PrimeTime Anytime feature allows you to record up to 6 of your favorite primetime shows at the same time and will store them for up to 8 days so you can view them whenever you want. This means you can record your favorite shows on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC at the same time, all in HD. You'll have instant access to all of your favorite programming, with the touch of one button and without using up any of your personal DVR hard drive space.
 
That's OLD info, Will. Probably as a result of lawsuits, they increased recording options (which days, which channels), and moved the PTAT partition into the user space. User space went from 1TB to something like 1.3TB. That user space goes back down again if you use PTAT for all 4 channels for all week.
 
You don't say what you currently have for receivers. I would suggest two 211 receivers that will give HD on both TVs and cost you $7 per month which you should already be paying if you have 2 receivers. For one $40 fee you can make both 211s into DVRs. You will have to buy hard drives for the 211 but there is no monthly DVR fee. If you don't have it currently add the protection plan it will reduce the installation charge for your new HD antenna.
 
I have 2 301d receivers. I do have the protection plan. I'll look into the 211 receivers. Do they need to be external hard drives? I would like to say thanks to you all for the responses
 
If you don't want to convert the 211s to a DVR, then they would work just like your 301s except that they are HD and also come with a built-in ATSC tuner. No external disk necessary. Adding a disk and turning it into a DVR has got to be the best deal since Absolute!
 
IF you get an EHD to enable recording from the 211, it will cost you a one time $40.00 fee. (one or more).
 
Going with two 211 receivers can be nice but there is some upfront money that you would have to invest. You would have to purchase an EHD for each receiver in order for them to become DVRs. You would have to pay a $40 to activate the DVR fee. After that you wouldn't have any extra monthly fees other the the $7 a month for the secondary 211, which you would pay with the 722 anyway because of the DVR fee.

This is the one thing that no one seems to bring to attention, having two 211 receivers as DVRs work independently from each other. This means, if you record a movie on the living room receiver you would not be able to watch it on the bedroom receiver. You would have to set up the recording on both receivers, not bad but can be a hassle. Remember that the 211 only has one tuner so if you have something recording you can not watch anything else live. The 722 may only provide HD to one TV but it allows access to recordings on both TVs. You can record a show while watching live TV and you can add an OTA module to have access to two extra tuners for recording or viewing.
 
There are ways to get HD to both sets with a 722. You can use an HDMI splitter, if you can run a HDMI cable to the second TV. Put the receiver in single mode, and both TV's get the same HD video.
 
Going with two 211 receivers can be nice but there is some upfront money that you would have to invest. You would have to purchase an EHD for each receiver in order for them to become DVRs. You would have to pay a $40 to activate the DVR fee. After that you wouldn't have any extra monthly fees other the the $7 a month for the secondary 211, which you would pay with the 722 anyway because of the DVR fee.

This is the one thing that no one seems to bring to attention, having two 211 receivers as DVRs work independently from each other. This means, if you record a movie on the living room receiver you would not be able to watch it on the bedroom receiver. You would have to set up the recording on both receivers, not bad but can be a hassle. Remember that the 211 only has one tuner so if you have something recording you can not watch anything else live. The 722 may only provide HD to one TV but it allows access to recordings on both TVs. You can record a show while watching live TV and you can add an OTA module to have access to two extra tuners for recording or viewing.
The 211 has an OTA tuner so you can watch something while recording, no it isn't 2 satellite tuners but it is 2 tuners. If you wanted SD on the second HDTV you wouldn't be upgrading the 301 is already a SD receiver.
 
There are ways to get HD to both sets with a 722. You can use an HDMI splitter, if you can run a HDMI cable to the second TV. Put the receiver in single mode, and both TV's get the same HD video.
Yes you can have the same HDTV program on both TVs but you can't have independent HD programming, the better half would have to watch your program or even worse you would have to watch hers.
 
I'll talk to the wife about the single tuner aspect. So can you interchange the hard drives? For instance say the bedroom 211 has something we want to watch in the living room can we take the hard drive from the bedroom and move it to the living room and watch what's on it? And can you watch something recorded while recording something?
 
One more thing. With the 211 should you later decide to upgrade you can not view any recordings you have on any other receiver. All the other receivers that can use an EHD are interchageable.
 

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