Free HBO Weekend

[homergreg]

Either that or someone's added a package to my receiver!:lol:

[Five Hole]

Unfortunately, HBO-HD is not activated, at least not on my receiver. :(

[marko]

I have both hbo and cinemax. Quite a surprise. Have to clear some room on my 501 and tape some movies :)

[Cyclone]

Five, give them a call, they might turn it on for ya.

[Jacob S]

What I would do is record as many movies as you can on your pvr so that you have movies to watch after the free preview is over. If you have a 508 thats 60 hours (40 movies) and 721 thats 90 hours (60 movies). A lot of time for movies. I am sure you can record about all the movies you want if you had all that time available. Those with upgraded dishplayers would also have a lot of space. Just make sure you dont have pixellating problems with the receivers before doing so.

[Big Bob]

Originally posted by Jacob S
Just make sure you dont have pixellating problems with the receivers before doing so.

Jacob,

Can you make a post without reminding everyone that you have a pixelation problem with you receiver? Most people are not having the same problems you are seeing.

[Steve Mehs]

I watched a some free HBO last night night. Enough, was a pretty decent movie, kind of reminded me of Double Jeopardy but I like revenge movies. I also watch a double shot of Sex and the City, which IMO is corny, but it's pretty funny.

[Jacob S]

I had a gut feeling that someone would post a comment on me mentioning the pixellating problem in this thread. I just wanted to mention it in this thread because some may not program two timers at the same time and see this most of the time and if someone were to program multiple timers to store as many shows/movies on their hard drive all of a sudden then they are more likely to notice the problem whereas before they wouldnt.

[Jarrod]

I am sure you can record about all the movies you want if you had all that time available. Those with upgraded dishplayers would also have a lot of space

Sounds nice in theory (and is usually what I do) but my DP now will not let me record the preview channels. They show up greyed-out in the guide (as if they were inactive channels) - you can still watch the show live, but no PTV capability other than pause.

This is the last straw for me and my DP. I pay $9.99 per month for the privilege to record on my own equipment (I missed out on the $99 for three years deal), and now they've taken away the ability to record free previews.

If they won't upgrade me to a 508, I will take my money somewhere else...yes, I'm that fed up.

[sjhill01]

Thanks for the heads-up, homergreg! I saw this thread last night in time to load up my 721 timer list :) Now I'm seriously considering buying the new Philips DVD+R unit....

[dbronstein]

I appreciated the heads up as well. Why don't they tell people about the free previews? I use a custom guide on my 721, so I would never see that the channels are active, not to mention that even if I used the All Sub guide I probably would never see them anyway. How about e-mailing people or something.


Originally posted by Jacob S
What I would do is record as many movies as you can on your pvr so that you have movies to watch after the free preview is over. If you have a 508 thats 60 hours (40 movies) and 721 thats 90 hours (60 movies). A lot of time for movies.

Looking through the guide, I don't think there are 60 different movies on this weekend :). They repeat most of them so many times. It's good because if you have recording conflicts you can just record one at a different time. But it's a nice reminder why I don't subscribe.

Dennis

[Jacob S]

I was starting to wonder that myself if there were actually that many movies on but seeing where there are 40+ commercial free movie channels (in the 300's) that there would be 40 movies on at once so I figure in a few more hours there would be an additional 20 different movies.

One may not like them all but one could just delete the ones you dont like. Gives one a real good choice, and the ones that you want to save you could record to vcr.

[Steve Mehs]

You couldn't fit 40 movies on a 508 anyhow. Remember the premiums are less compressed and HBO (and Starz and Showtime) carry Dolby Digital so hard drive space gets eaten up quickly.

[TopCat99]

ARGH! Why do the free previews come the week *after* I start paying?? :lol:

[Jacob S]

I bet if someone wanted to cram all they could of a top150 free preview on the hard drive that they would not have problems with it being compressed less.

[Lurker]

I love free previews. I managed to tape 20 HBO/Cinemax movies I am interested in and have not already seen. And from what I've seen so far, with no annoying banners, bars, or bugs. I'll be watching these over the next couple of months. Should be about time for another Starz! free preview by then.

[dbronstein]

Originally posted by Jacob S
I was starting to wonder that myself if there were actually that many movies on but seeing where there are 40+ commercial free movie channels (in the 300's) that there would be 40 movies on at once so I figure in a few more hours there would be an additional 20 different movies.

One may not like them all but one could just delete the ones you dont like. Gives one a real good choice, and the ones that you want to save you could record to vcr.

Well there were only 7 or 8 channels in the preveiw - it wasn't all the movie channels, just HBO and Cinemax. There is a ton of overlap on the HBOs. Not to mention that you can't fit 60 movies on a 721 anyway - a lot of them are well over an hour and a half, and this assumes you don't have any other inventory and that you'll watch them before other timers start firing. We picked up 9 or 10 movies over the weekend.

Dennis

[dtcarson]

Dish sent me a flyer middle of last week reminding me of the preview. I enjoyed it, and did PVR 3 or 4 children's programs, and about 5 movies, but they'll probably end up being deleted before I watch them. I appreciate the preview, because it saves me the money--I didn't see 15.00 worth of stuff on those channels this weekend.
Also, what's with this pseudo-widescreen? I PVR'ed Krull, and the Opening Credits were in widescreen, but as soon as those ended, it popped into P&S. I might delete it before watching it just because of that.
I have also had Jarrod's problem with PVRing, but not just with free preview stuff--sometimes I will cycle through the guide, pick something on tomorrow or next week, and hit Select, which used to bring up the record menu, but at least half the time it goes back to the current show I was watching. I can't figure it out, other than that it's annoying.

[Jacob S]

Good point lurker, it may be possible to store enough movies to last until there is another free preview. Some would probably go from preview to preview doing this but there are not always a free preview within 3 or 4 months of each other.

[Pacman]

dtcarson - I've seen the "pseudo-widescreen" issue before - the movie is actually P&S, but in order to fit all the lines of the credits on the screen, they have to leave it widescreen (otherwise some of the lines will be cropped).