With all the complaints.. is any happy with their 522/625?

KDRE

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Aug 28, 2004
110
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Just want to hear some of the more positive stories on this equipment
 
Had the 522 for going on 3 months and I have had really no real problems, other than the occasional audio dropout. I have the 942 too and it works even better than the 522 with fewer if any audio drop outs or video glitches. They both work very well with the timers and I truely love the name based recording features. I hope they continue to improve these three( 625 too) receivers and use them as the basis of their new mpeg4 receivers. I only hope they will include more than one ota tuner in the 942 replacement and I wouldn't mind if they could include more than 2 sat tuners. How about 3 or 4 ? Then you would only need like one sat receiver for the entire house with up to 4 outputs to all the tvs in your house. I would also like it if they allowed you to see the ota channels on all the outputs too. Much better receiver than the 721/921 receivers I had before.
 
I really like mine. I like the modulater, extended UHF remote range, name based recording, and dual tv output on the reciever. I also liked the cheap prices on ebay. The delayed DVR functionalities is annoying but does not prevent one from doing the functiality.
 
Positives:
Ability to record two shows and watch a third so I can stock up on watchable shows and eliminate channel surfing to see that there is nothing good on when I want to watch. Definitely a major plus.

Negatives:
Poor quality of recordings with intermittent dropouts (seemed to have lessened lately). Having to reboot to restore CC when it stops working. Having it intermittently record the wrong channel.

My only prior experience with E* has been with the 322 which has better quality recordings but only a 2 day guide.

JohnP
 
I do hear of the problems, I've even got one messed up episode of "the nanny" with audio/video drops, taped.

However, of the 3-4 hours a day I watch TV x 4 months... one messed up show isn't bad.

It floors me on this board, because sometimes people act like ALL they get is problems. If that were the case...these problems would be fixed.
 
Pros:
Only dual tuner dual output DVR I've seen. AT60 is the cheapest DVR satillite package on the market.
Cons:
Audio/video glitches during playback. When your HDD dies you lose all your recordings and Dish will charge you $15 to get a replacement.
 
bippi said:
sometimes people act like ALL they get is problems. If that were the case...these problems would be fixed.

LOL.


KDRE, with the 522, it's kind of a 50/50 thing. When the 522 works as designed, it's great. When it's not working as designed, it sucks...BIGTIME.

A positive story I could tell you relates to the Name Based Recording. Some weeks back, a program I Dish Pass on ABC named "Lost" had an extended end time of 5 minutes. Week after week, the program is always an hour (7pm to 8pm). But this one week, for whatever silly reason, they made the program 5 minutes longer so it went from 7pm to 8:05pm. The NBR caught the schedule change, adjusted the end time, and recorded the whole show for me. If I was back on the old software before the Name Based Recording came along, or if I had a model 721, 510, 921, etc. I would have missed the end of the show. I would have missed the last 2 minutes (5 minutes longer, minus 3 minute end buffer) and as I'm sure you know, a lot of times a whole program really boils down to the last couple of minutes. Heck, take a "Lost" episode like "Deus Ex Machina" where the whole episode boiled down to the last FOUR SECONDS!!! So the NBR is really nice.

Now for a horror story. Same show, same network. One week, for absolutely no reason, it didn't record "Lost." It was right there in the schedule all day, but when I got home that night, it had not been recorded and showed as "skipped because of priority" in the schedule history. Even though it didn't have anything else to record, and didn't record anything else. So what program took priority over "Lost" that week? Your guess is as good as mine. All was not "lost" though. Thanks to the Internet, I was able to go online and download the episode from the WinMX.

Put it this way, the guy who's locked in a little room at E* headquarters, whose job it is to think up the features? That guy is really, really, really smart.

The guy who works at E* and is in charge of actually designing the software for the features that the other guy has thought up? That guy's kind of a dumbass.
 
My first one died after about 6 weeks. The new 522 that they sent me works very well .. The technology and convenience are amazing!


I am still having trouble with sound/video synchronization... how come Dish is unable to fix this annoying glitch?
 
I only ran into the audio/video sync problem with the 1st program I'd recorded. It's worked like a champ since then. I'm hoping it continues to work well until I can replace it with the 2Wire Mediaportal. :cool:
 
These stories are interesting. As I get Dish installed today, I will have the 625 installed also.. I really mostly want to record local PBSHD childer shows for my daughter. As long as I can do that, Im happy. Maybe an occassional basketball game, but not too much.

If it works more than not, Im good. When SBC releases their DVR, Im really good. That's pretty much what Im waiting on.
 
I have never had a single problem with my 522, and ive had it for about 7-8 months now. The few audio glitches on the dvr arent even all that bad. The NBR has made it one of the nicest receivers (SD)in my opinion. Its really nice to tell it to record only new episodes of programs, and have it find them and extend timers if necessary (if scheduled).
 
I've had the dropouts and sync issues but I love the convenience of the 2-tuner DVR. I was upgrading from antenna and a VCR so this is like heaven to me. I traded terrible reception for audio dropouts. Fair enough.

I am looking forward to any offers SBC might have on the 2Wire Media Portal. It sounds too good to be true... Any advance word? It's through SBC, so it might not have the Dish (they're far from the only ones who do it, but they're who we're talking about now...) hallmark of being unkind to existing customers...
 
In general, I'm pretty happy with my 522. Most of the time, it works as advertised. Currently, mine is running version 235.

Now, there are a few bugs that are noticeable. The audio drop outs are a hassle, but they mainly occur on recorded programs. If the program guide fails to download properly, the Name Based Recording timers fail to schedule properly and won't record your program until the guide download is successful. Mine has frozen two or three times, requiring unplugging and restarting. Things like these are really annoying when you miss a show.

But overall, it works for me.
 
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