What PVR should I switch to?

[buzzdalf]

I've been trying to work through what I'm going to do about the DishPlayer as June approaches. I'm not going to pay $10 a month for the DP when it's going to be in beta forever, that's for sure.
Last night I subbed the Tivo I had laying around for OTA and hooked my 4900 up to it to see if that will suffice.
I'll play with it for a week or two here.
I am a little concerned about losing flexibility though. It's nice to be able to record something on satellite and watch from locals with PVR capabilities. With only 1 PVR, I will lose that.
Another issue I'm grappling with is whether it makes sense to pay the $299 lifetime sub fee for the Tivo. For that $$, I could either get an updated DISH PVR, or go with a DirecTivo.
So do I want to sub the Tivo, change to a 508 or 721, or change all together to DirecTivo?

The only thing keeping me from the 508/721 route is the time based recording.
Does the DirecTivo offer a lifetime sub route? How much is the monthly fee for this dude?

[Hopper27]

I tried the DirecTivo route, but ultimatly stuck with dish for reasons that are no fault of Tivos.

I would love a Tivo type PVR for Dish, shame they can't make that happen.

The 721 box is wonderful so far, a few minor glitches, but overall, a very nice box. The extra space, extra features, and dual tuners over the 50x series is worth the money.

True, it is $520 at Dish Depot, but you own the box and can sell it in a few years for nearly what you paid for it.

Jason

[buzzdalf]

So if I sold the 4900 and the DP, the 721 could replace both of them since it has dual tuners?
Right now (well prior to last night when I hooked the 4900 up to my Tivo) I use the DP in the family room for main viewing and have the 4900 in the basement with all other sets in the house wired into it. The Tivo is in the family room with OTA only. We use(d) it un-subbed for local news and local PBS only.
It sounds like I could hook the 721 up in the family room and also route it through the house. Then when the kids wanted to watch Teamo Supremo or the wife didn't want to watch Enterprise, we could all still be happy.
If that's true, that's great, but if Survivor moves from Thursday to Wednesday for a week I'd have to manually set that up. Both the DP and Tivo go and find it. I'm pretty bummed by that restriction.

[boba]

If you stick with DISH you are going to continue to have problems. Just read the problems posted with all models of DISH PVR's they don't have the quality built in and they are constantly beta testing their software on consumers. Check the TIVO posts and see how few problems are posted compared to DISH.

[MikeW]

Although the 721 has dual tuners, it doesn't have dual outputs. Whatever is being viewed on the 721 will be displayed on all TVs connected to it.

[buzzdalf]

The DirecTivo has dual tuners, doesn't it. Does it have dual outputs?

[TerryC]

Originally posted by buzzdalf
The DirecTivo has dual tuners, doesn't it. Does it have dual outputs?
Nope.

[Jacob S]

The 522 is going to have dual outputs, so this may be the first model to be offered in which will offer it this way. I just wish Dish would get their hardware issues fixed without blaming the customers and everything else and in between for their mistakes.

Yes, it is true, DirecTv PVRs do not have the problems that Dish PVRs do. If you get the higher packaged packages then you do not even have to pay the extra monthly fee for Tivo. There are some advantages to one over the other though on each brand. Eventually there will be the one that will have all those advantages in one machine.

I think software using the computer's hard drive would be a good way to do this because it would solve different problems. You could use any receiver or signal to record off of, play it on your computer, record it and save it to the hard drive, have an external hard drive that you can upgrade anytime you wanted to, do not have to pay a monthly fee for it, do not void your warranty replacing a hard drive in the satellite receiver with a bigger one, you know you can upgrade the hard drive, use the interactive program guide, not have the hardware issues you have now with the Dish receivers, take it anywhere that you have a computer and use it or just take your computer with you with the tv video card or maybe even use a labtop to do so with the receiver seperate, that way it would be less likely of damage like the Dish receivers have. You could play the videos on the computer without having to even power up the satellite receiver. You could even burn it to DVD.

[tm22721]

In this age of reduced expectations I don't think E* can continue to pump out slightly evolved, ever more expensive and complex receivers to a slower growing high end customer base. What you are asking for is a high end feature that could be provided by a media server and home network that is upgradeable, although not totally friendly to the average TV watcher.

[Jacob S]

And Dish still leads PVR sales, they do this and get away with it, but it will just be a matter of time.

[Kenster]

It's too bad you can't get Ultimate TV anymore. I find it's perfect with the dual receivers. It follows my programming so if Survivor gets switched one week, it still records it. I rarely get close to the 35 hour max. I love it.