InDashMP3
06-04-04, 06:01 AM
Hello,
I don’t want to bore any of you with the gruesome details regarding what it took to GET this thing from Dish, but I DO want to let you know what I think about it so far.
Well, the 721 arrived yesterday via UPS and I quickly hooked it up to my Twin LNB. First of all though, I want to mention that the little door that covers the Smart Card was DESTROYED on my receiver, and I asked DISH if they can send me a new door. Believe it or not, DISH does not carry the Door for the 721 and is going to have to send me an entirely new 721 simply to correct this problem! What a waste of shipping, and resources. Oh well, at least my door will be fixed. Now onto the install… Nowhere in the documentation that arrived with it, did it indicate the thing was going to do about 7 reboots during the “Validating Hard Dish” screen during start up. After the third time, I became a little concerned and almost unplugged the thing, but I didn’t. Good thing as it finally completed this reboot sequence. The next screen was the Check Dish/Switch screen. I rant the tests, OK,OK for Tuner 1, OK,OK for Tuner 2. Great…we were moving along. I called Dish to Activate the receiver. Another hurdle, although the CSR I was working with was very nice. He admitted to screwing up by entering the wrong Smart Card ID, but quickly made the correction and got everything up and running. My old PVR 501 was reconfigured for Remote Address #3 because I remember a couple of years ago, my neighbors dish remote was affecting my receiver. I forgot about this, and started to freak out when my 721 starting changing channels on it’s own!! (Don’t forget to change the remote address!) Anyway, I got that taken care of and started to use this great machine.
The first thing I noticed was the speed of the guide! The ability to see the program info in the upper left corner without having to press INFO everytime is great! Scrolling through the guide is a breeze.
Setting up favorites a little more difficult without easily seeing if the channels you are adding to your favorites list are actually subscribed to. Trial and error here if you are not intimately familiar with your program package and all the channels it provides.
One thing I don’t know if I like or not yet is, when pressing the PVR button to bring up a list of PVR recorded shows, the timers for shows that have not yet recorded are also listed here. I really don’t know if I like that or not yet. Will need to give it more time.
When viewing INFO during a show, the first step applies a transparency over the entire screen, and the program info is actually easy to read. The 501 applied a transparency box over the show, and it was not as easy to read.
Caller ID history is GREAT, and the popup is a transparency at the top of the screen.
PIP function is cool, but I wish as other have said, you could simply swap between tuners by hitting the SWAP button, but you must first bring up the PIP window. One way around that though is to press the RED button that looks like the (I) from the D(I)SH logo. This buffers the second tuner when it is not in view I think, and then you can swap from tuner to tuner easily without having to bring up PIP.
In the program guide, the small window that displays the current program can be positioned into the guide as a transparency, allowing MORE program info to be displayed at the top of the screen.
Two tuner recording works great. No brainwork needed to pick a specific tuner to do a specific recording. Simply select the first program in the guide to record, than select another in the same time slot to record. As easy as that. I will be happy to answer any questions, although with this product being out for quite a while I am sure most of them have been answered already. I will be happy to help though if I can!
Joe
I don’t want to bore any of you with the gruesome details regarding what it took to GET this thing from Dish, but I DO want to let you know what I think about it so far.
Well, the 721 arrived yesterday via UPS and I quickly hooked it up to my Twin LNB. First of all though, I want to mention that the little door that covers the Smart Card was DESTROYED on my receiver, and I asked DISH if they can send me a new door. Believe it or not, DISH does not carry the Door for the 721 and is going to have to send me an entirely new 721 simply to correct this problem! What a waste of shipping, and resources. Oh well, at least my door will be fixed. Now onto the install… Nowhere in the documentation that arrived with it, did it indicate the thing was going to do about 7 reboots during the “Validating Hard Dish” screen during start up. After the third time, I became a little concerned and almost unplugged the thing, but I didn’t. Good thing as it finally completed this reboot sequence. The next screen was the Check Dish/Switch screen. I rant the tests, OK,OK for Tuner 1, OK,OK for Tuner 2. Great…we were moving along. I called Dish to Activate the receiver. Another hurdle, although the CSR I was working with was very nice. He admitted to screwing up by entering the wrong Smart Card ID, but quickly made the correction and got everything up and running. My old PVR 501 was reconfigured for Remote Address #3 because I remember a couple of years ago, my neighbors dish remote was affecting my receiver. I forgot about this, and started to freak out when my 721 starting changing channels on it’s own!! (Don’t forget to change the remote address!) Anyway, I got that taken care of and started to use this great machine.
The first thing I noticed was the speed of the guide! The ability to see the program info in the upper left corner without having to press INFO everytime is great! Scrolling through the guide is a breeze.
Setting up favorites a little more difficult without easily seeing if the channels you are adding to your favorites list are actually subscribed to. Trial and error here if you are not intimately familiar with your program package and all the channels it provides.
One thing I don’t know if I like or not yet is, when pressing the PVR button to bring up a list of PVR recorded shows, the timers for shows that have not yet recorded are also listed here. I really don’t know if I like that or not yet. Will need to give it more time.
When viewing INFO during a show, the first step applies a transparency over the entire screen, and the program info is actually easy to read. The 501 applied a transparency box over the show, and it was not as easy to read.
Caller ID history is GREAT, and the popup is a transparency at the top of the screen.
PIP function is cool, but I wish as other have said, you could simply swap between tuners by hitting the SWAP button, but you must first bring up the PIP window. One way around that though is to press the RED button that looks like the (I) from the D(I)SH logo. This buffers the second tuner when it is not in view I think, and then you can swap from tuner to tuner easily without having to bring up PIP.
In the program guide, the small window that displays the current program can be positioned into the guide as a transparency, allowing MORE program info to be displayed at the top of the screen.
Two tuner recording works great. No brainwork needed to pick a specific tuner to do a specific recording. Simply select the first program in the guide to record, than select another in the same time slot to record. As easy as that. I will be happy to answer any questions, although with this product being out for quite a while I am sure most of them have been answered already. I will be happy to help though if I can!
Joe