Slashdot Mirror
Dish Network DVR-921 HD DVR Reviewed
cblount writes "The Dish Network DVR-921 is the first home satellite receiver capable of recording and time shifting HDTV signals both from satellite and local Over-The-Air broadcasts. The first comprehensive review has been posted at DBSTalk.Com."
The DVR-921 won CES (Consumer Electronics Show) Best of Innovations for 2003. Of course, it should have won it for 2004 since that is when they will actually be available.
I don't own a television set, so I had to ask one of my close personal friends to write a review of this device. Here it is.
As you all know, High Definition Television represents a clear and present danger to customers' right to time shift. The so-called "broadcast flag" prevents casual users from exercising their Fair Use rights.
Nevertheless, I watch a lot of television thanks to my TiVo. TiVo lets me skip the commercials, which makes me a "thief" but lets me enjoy the entertainment I deserve. Let's compare some features.
Dish Network DVR-921 HD DVR does not have a "Season Pass" option to let you record a whole season's worth of programming.
TiVo has a Season Pass option.
Dish Network DVR-921 HD DVR does not offer the ability to play multimedia content streamed from a personal computer.
TiVo's Home Media Options turns your TiVo into a multimedia access centre!
Dish Network DVR-921 HD DVR does not run Linux.
TiVo is an open-source-friendly company.
Based on my good friend's comments, I rate Dish Network DVR-921 HD DVR a 1 on the Seth Finklestein scale of greatness. Do not buy the Dish Network DVR-921 HD DVR.
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
I'm not Seth Finkelstein. I still speak the truth.
The review site is unreachable, but thes /receiv ers/dvr/index.shtml
Dish Network DVR product line is here:
http://www.dishnetwork.com/content/product
Bram Stolk http://stolk.org/tlctc/
They're teaming up with DirecTV but Comcast, for example, is not teaming up with TiVO. Since they're the largest cable operator in the US, it's a big deal.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
That's why you should buy a HDTV pci card now. I have an MIT MyHD MDP-120 which displays and records beautiful full rez HDTV. The drivers are a little sketchy (no linux support :( ) but it has none of these silly broadcast flag limitations.
Yawn.
The 921 is based on the 721 software...
If any of you have ever used the 721, or really any Dish PVR... you'll know how pathetic and bug ridden dish PVRs.
One of the biggest issues with the 721 and 921 is the fact that they totally and utterly lack any sort of Name based recording. Every other PVR on the market, Tivo, Replay, UltimateTV, etc... all have name based recording, but Dish saw fit to leave this critical feature off.
This makes the 721 and 921 nothing more than a glorified VCR. The whole point of a PVR is to make recording easier and to handle the mundane, day to day tasks so you don't have to. Leaving off name based recording makes you search through the guide on a daily basis, hoping to find the programs that you want to record, instead of telling your unit to "Record anything with XXXXX in the title/description"
I switched to Dishnetwork from my UltimateTV and Tivo boxes, and was never sorrier I took the plunge. I always liked Dish over DTV, due to the superior customer service, but after this fiasco with these jokes of a PVR (which I paid far more than a Tivo with lifetime for) and it's just a VCR with a hard drive, I want to cancle my Dish service just out of spite. Unfortunately, I'm under a contract, and I hate DTV more than I hate Dish, so I'm pretty much stuck with Dish for the time being. As soon as Voom comes out with an HD PVR, I will be signing up for Voom.
As far as the 921 goes, I suspect it's going to suffer from many of the same bugs as the 721 does. Such as random reboots, crashing to the X desktop (requiring reboot), misfiring timers, timers recording until the HD fills up for no explicable reason, unit not responding to the remote, etc... I could go on and on with the problems on the 721 (and by extension, probably the 921) that are never addressed by the Dish developers... problems I never had with Tivo or UTV. They are very easy to fix some of these problems, but they just won't do it, because it would cut into their profit.
I never realized how much I relied on my UTV box to "do the right thing" until I got my 721, which was suppose to be superior. Now I come home at night and wonder if my programs will still be on my PVR after some wierd crash... I watch shows when I really don't want to, because I'm afraid that if I don't, I'll lose them. These are things that I never even thought of with my Tivo or UTV box.
Dish is also charging an outrageous and ridiculous price for the unit... $1000? Come on, you are gouging people because it's the only HD PVR on the market, plain and simple. I guess you gotta charge it while you can.
The bottom line is, if you've ever used another PVR, you'll hate the 921 (and the 721) because of all the bugs and total lack of features and brain dead UI. If all you've ever had is a VCR, then you'll like the 7 and 921's, because they ARE better than a VCR... but when compared to the PVR competition, the Dish PVRs are an utter and lasting joke... a travesty to the PVR buying public.
Realisitcally, if Dish would just add NBR, I would be less critical of the other flaws, but since that one glaring deficiency is being refused by dish to impliment, I have no sympathy for the company. NBR is the defining feature of a PVR, and Dish DOES NOT HAVE IT. All they have are glorified VCRs with a misleading lable.
Dish still has the best pricing plans for satellite service though, so it's a big plus in their favor.
Here's the link to the DirecTV HD TiVo:
http://www.cesweb.org/shared_files/innovations/
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Been a DishNetwork sub for 8 years now, and a Dish PVR user for a little over a year. I also have a TiVo (2 yrs old). There simply is no comparison. Going from the TiVO to Dish's PVR is like going from XP/OSX back to Windows 1.0. The interface is so horrible in comparison. It just plain sucks. AND the damn thing's buggy (I have to cold reboot it once every coupla weeks). AND it does weird things (stops buffering the current show if you play a recorded event, eg). And you can't easily add HD space.
I was all set to switch to DTV when their HD TiVo combo comes out... Problem is DirectTV may be owned by Rupert soon. Yech! Hate the idea of feeding money to that monster. Support The Evil Empire, or buy (vastly) inferior tech. Arg.
If only Dish would use TiVo instead of torturing their customers with their horribly inadequate PVR skillz.
That may be true with the linux hd-2000. I don't get any HD channels on my cable, but the MyHD card decodes analog cable, and has no trouble recording from the Comcast digital cable box. If the Direct TV HD box can get digital out of a tuner box, you can probably do it too with a little effort.
Yawn.