Jason Kragt
01-10-06, 08:47 PM
I received my 942 a few days ago (just in time for it to be obsoleted by the new VIP622 :) ). Here are my first impressions having upgraded from a 921. There is nothing too provocative here. Just wanted to share my thoughts.
The 942 is a very reasonable size. You don't realize how obnoxiously large a 921 is until you replace it with a 942.
I haven't noticed any of the heat problems that I heard mentioned here. It has been running quite cool.
The 942 is much quieter than the 921. Again, you don't really appreciate how bad the 921 was until you replace it.
Name-based recording is HUGE. I would browse through the 921 guide occasionally just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, but I think I was missing a ton. The 942 found episodes of "CSI", "Lost" and "Roar" that I probably would have missed. I had no idea I would appreciate name-based recording so much.
8VSB reception is NOT any better than the 921 (but not any worse either). I went through my share of 921s and it seemed to me that the HECD hardware had better reception than the HEED hardware. I ended up with a 921 that had very good 8VSB reception. The 942 has similar reception to the best 921 (HECD) that I ended up with. It is slightly worse on channels 2 and 20, but slightly better on channels 5 and 44. Overall it is a wash for me.
Dish does well supplying a selection of cables that you might need. HD cables get expensive fast, so it's something I appreciate. They even threw in an HDMI cable and some type of DishPro splitter/separator (which I had no use for).
Dual output is very nice. My 942 feeds a HDTV and SD DVD recorder. With the 921 I needed to swap output modes when recording to DVD. With the 942 I can omit that step.
It takes almost no time getting used to the 942 menus and such, especially if you stay in single-mode. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to use dual-mode or not. I might just keep it in single-mode and stick with my old 921 remote. The remotes it came with can be stored as spares for a while unless I go to dual-mode.
I hooked up the TV2 output to an old TV just to see what it looked like. My 921 transmitted on channel 3 and the picture looked fine. The 942 transmits on channel 60 (by default) and is supposed to have more power to feed a long cable run or video distribution system. I hooked it up, tuned to channel 60 and the picture was very, very snowy. I reprogrammed it to use a lower frequency (channel 21) because I thought I was losing signal. Channel 21 was less snowy, but still unacceptable. Then I realized that my old TV had separate VHF and UHF antenna inputs. I hooked everything up correctly (this time to the UHF input) and the SD modulated picture looked very good.
Overscan is a problem on the 942 just like it was on the 921. I cannot use the most detailed program guide on the 942 because I lose half of the last channel in the list. The "partial zoom" is a nice feature for people like me that have an overscan problem.
In a nutshell, the 942 is what I had hoped the 921 would have been when I bought it. Face it, the 921 is an experimental prototype, much like the original DishPlayer 7100 was. (I had the honor of participating in both experiments!) My 921 to 942 conversion experience brings back a lot of similar memories as my 7100 to 501 conversion experience. The 942 isn't perfect, but it is consumer-ready.
The 942 is a very reasonable size. You don't realize how obnoxiously large a 921 is until you replace it with a 942.
I haven't noticed any of the heat problems that I heard mentioned here. It has been running quite cool.
The 942 is much quieter than the 921. Again, you don't really appreciate how bad the 921 was until you replace it.
Name-based recording is HUGE. I would browse through the 921 guide occasionally just to make sure I wasn't missing anything, but I think I was missing a ton. The 942 found episodes of "CSI", "Lost" and "Roar" that I probably would have missed. I had no idea I would appreciate name-based recording so much.
8VSB reception is NOT any better than the 921 (but not any worse either). I went through my share of 921s and it seemed to me that the HECD hardware had better reception than the HEED hardware. I ended up with a 921 that had very good 8VSB reception. The 942 has similar reception to the best 921 (HECD) that I ended up with. It is slightly worse on channels 2 and 20, but slightly better on channels 5 and 44. Overall it is a wash for me.
Dish does well supplying a selection of cables that you might need. HD cables get expensive fast, so it's something I appreciate. They even threw in an HDMI cable and some type of DishPro splitter/separator (which I had no use for).
Dual output is very nice. My 942 feeds a HDTV and SD DVD recorder. With the 921 I needed to swap output modes when recording to DVD. With the 942 I can omit that step.
It takes almost no time getting used to the 942 menus and such, especially if you stay in single-mode. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to use dual-mode or not. I might just keep it in single-mode and stick with my old 921 remote. The remotes it came with can be stored as spares for a while unless I go to dual-mode.
I hooked up the TV2 output to an old TV just to see what it looked like. My 921 transmitted on channel 3 and the picture looked fine. The 942 transmits on channel 60 (by default) and is supposed to have more power to feed a long cable run or video distribution system. I hooked it up, tuned to channel 60 and the picture was very, very snowy. I reprogrammed it to use a lower frequency (channel 21) because I thought I was losing signal. Channel 21 was less snowy, but still unacceptable. Then I realized that my old TV had separate VHF and UHF antenna inputs. I hooked everything up correctly (this time to the UHF input) and the SD modulated picture looked very good.
Overscan is a problem on the 942 just like it was on the 921. I cannot use the most detailed program guide on the 942 because I lose half of the last channel in the list. The "partial zoom" is a nice feature for people like me that have an overscan problem.
In a nutshell, the 942 is what I had hoped the 921 would have been when I bought it. Face it, the 921 is an experimental prototype, much like the original DishPlayer 7100 was. (I had the honor of participating in both experiments!) My 921 to 942 conversion experience brings back a lot of similar memories as my 7100 to 501 conversion experience. The 942 isn't perfect, but it is consumer-ready.