721 Oddity's Thread

[Scott Greczkowski]

Welcome to the Official 721 Oddities thread!

As you can tell by looking around some people are begining to find some strange things going on with their 721's, while they should not be considered "bugs" as of yet you should post anything wierd you see with your 721's operation here.

(For the record while my 721 has done some strange things, the things it has done have been one time only things and I have never missed a recording, so in that regard the 721 has been flawless for me.)

By placing all your oddity's here in this thread it will make it much easier for Dish Network to find any possible bugs, it will also help other 721 owners who may have had the same problem know they are not alone, and if enough folks have the same oddity then we know we can report it as a bug. Again by having everything wierd listed in this thread it will help Dish Network find and fix things faster!

Thanks for your help!

[Bill D]

Here is one... Last night I finished watching something and wanted to delete it. The show was stopped, and was still in the little box in the PVR menu. When I went into the clean up area, I starting scrolling down to find the program I wanted to delete, and it bounced me back out of the menu and for about 20 seconds couldn't do anything, tried again same problem. I got out of the show that was still stopped and on to a live channel, and it then gave me no problems...

[Scott Greczkowski]

Here is an odd one that has happened to me for the last 2 nights.

I have 2 shows I have set to record, one is Saturday night at 11pm, the other is Sunday Night at 10:30, they are both setup to record once a week.

On Wednesday night it recorded my Saturday Night 11PM show and had the correct title for the show, on Thursday Night it recorded my Sunday Night show again the title in the PVR screen was the correct show name.

Of course the shows it recorded were not the shows it was supposed to record. Lets hope on Saturday and Sunday it recorded the shows when they are really on.

Has this happened to anyone?

[rjenkins]

I think I saw this mentioned in the review thread, but I thought I'd include it anyway... One very annoying "oddity" I've found is that when you're watching something as it records, the second it stops recording, it often kicks you to live mode. Then you have to go back in, restart watching and manually fast forward to where you were. Very, very annoying. Especially since this is often how I watch TV now. I purposefully wait to start watching a program until it's been recorded for at least 20 minutes so that I can skip ahead. With this, I often get kicked to live mode during the last 5 minutes of show (often the best part of the show), and then I have to start the show again and manually fast forward to where I was.

[TerryC]

I was watching a recorded program today. During that playback a recording timer fired. I don't know if that had anything to do with it but soon after that recording began the sound on the recording I was watching went out and the video started running herky-jerky. It was skipping many frames at a time. I didn't want to reboot because of the recording that was active so I stopped playback, cleared out of the PVR events screen and got back to live TV. Then I pressed the PVR button and restarted the same recording and it worked fine from then on.

Then there's two from the post I contributed to the review thread. I got the "kicked back to live" bug that 501 users from a few months back would be familiar with. And also, when I delete a recording and get back to the PVR events menu, the picture in menu is not a smaller version of live TV. The menu seems to be overlaying the full screen, blocking out all of the video except the upper right corner where the picture in menu should be. Instead, what is there is just that part of the picture that would be in that area in a full screen. I hope I explained this one clearly. Anyone else get this bug?

Terry

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yes I have had the Kick Back to Live bug happen a few times. I DO consider this a bug.

[rjenkins]

Yes, Terry, I've also seen the bug where after you delete a PVR item, the TV picture that's supposed to be small in the corner is instead full screen. I have my transparency option set to "high", so when this happens I can see that the TV picture is indeed full screen with the PVR display overlaying everything. Which is interesting, because I kind of like it like that... With the transparency set this way, you can still see what's going on with the TV picture. You kind of get a feel for what the "transparent guide" feature might (hopefully) look like once they implement it.

[Craig Fogus]

Something I noticed, not sure if this is covered somewhere or not. If you hit record while watching a show, and set it to manual stop, you cannot change channels even if you use PIP without it stopping the recording. Is there a way to do this, or is this just the way it is? I'm pretty sure it was working when I chose either stop at the end or extended the time.

*update*

I rebooted the unit, and it now seems to work. I'll keep an eye on it...

Never mind....it still fails if you close the PIP. Sorry....

[Kagato]

The PIP stuff still needs a little more logic put into it.

Manaully start recording a show.

Hit PIP and swap to another channel. Start recording that channel. Bring up the guide and attempt to go back to the first channel you are recording. You'll get a message saying you'll get the stop recording message. It's like one hand doesn't knwo what the other is doing.

[TerryC]

Thanks, rj, for the the heads up. I did have my transparency turned off. This might be an acceptable workaround for those who want to see what's going on with live TV while in that menu, as we wait for DISH to fix this bug.

And to all who are on the fence about getting a 721... Just for the record, while my posts so far have dwelt on the negatives of this machine (such that they are) I would recommend this receiver in a heartbeat.

Terry

[Scott Greczkowski]

Kagato, the PIP problems were one of my gripes in my origional review, believe me, Echostar is working on this issue. :)

[motjes2]

While watching a live program, I hit the record button and set the recording to manual stop. I hit the PVR button in the remote control and start watching one of my recordings. A few seconds into it, the live program that I was trying to record suddenly stopped. I replicated this problem about three times until I finally decided to record with the extended option and this worked fine. Please try to replicate the problem above with the manual stop to see whether this is a bug or is just my 721. Thanks.

[Scott Greczkowski]

motjes, this is the "kick to live bug" the 501 does the same thing.

[Tony S]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
motjes, this is the "kick to live bug" the 501 does the same thing.
Actually, the 501 did have the kicked to live bug, but it has been fixed in the last few software releases. I think the fact that E* fixed this problem in the 501 is a good sign that they will fix it for the 721 as well. :)

[MediaMills]

Timer Question on the 721:
When I set a PVR timer, the name of the show shows up as the "Description" however when I set a manual timer (Auto-Tune, etc.) the description reads "DISH TIMER"
I can move left and right in this field, I can delete characters in the field and I can type numbers, but I cannot figure out how to get letters there. Is this the job for the 721 keyboard man?!?

Oh Keyboard man...where are you?!?

[TerryC]

This one would go under the oddities category. I've noticed that if I go to the EPG while watching a recorded program, the selected channel in the guide is always the same as the channel from which the recording was taken. Even if I wasn't on that channel before I started watching the recording.

No big deal. I'm just wondering why DISH would think that this feature is desirable enough to implement. What might the benefits be?

Terry

[gsusser]

Just got my 721 yesterday, yippee!

The first problem might have been a one time thing. I set up my timer for a bunch of weekly and daily events. Today, they started recording 3 hours early as if I was in the wrong time zone. However, the time shown when I hit the guide was correct. The Dish people only scratched their heads when I called. However, after deleting the events and re-entering them, they seem to be working now.

The 2nd one is more troublesome, especially a supervisor in the advanced area's response. I've locked one channel. The lock works as it should when I go to view the channel -- I'm prompted to enter a password. However, no password is required to view anything recorded on this channel. The response from DISH was that nothing can be done and that's not a bug. Bulloney. The 501 requires a passowrd to watch such a recorded event, and logicially, that's how it should work. I got nowhere with them, and this was a supervisor.

Aside from the above, I'm extremely pleased.

[Chaos]

I'll call this one an actual bug. I recorded a program tonight and went to watch it. The 721 locked up and had to be rebooted. When it came back up, I couldn't watch anything that was recorded. It took a smart card pull to get it back to normal. Thankfully no program loss. :-)

[Craig Fogus]

Here's one that's really annoying. I hit record then choose "Extend time after end of event" Well, it never extends no matter how much extra time I put in there! It only records to the end of the current show. I have rebooted it to see if that was the problem, but it didn't help.

[Kagato]

I've been seeing a couple odd problems with my new 721.

1) Guide Time and Program time mismatch. If I bring up info or view while watching live TV I see the correct time. If I look in the guide it's off set by several hours. Dish Tech sent a re-auth down to correct. Which seemed to do the trick, but none of the timers have worked yet.

2) When selecting a program to record in the guide I cannot save certain programs as a record once timmer. i.e. Choose Daily Show from the guide. Hit record. From the timer screen I choose record once, and PVR. I hit the Create button. Nothing happens. No error message, nothing. Still in the options screen. However, if I choose any of the other recording options it allows me to create the timer.

[gsusser]

Originally posted by Kagato
I've been seeing a couple odd problems with my new 721.

1) Guide Time and Program time mismatch. If I bring up info or view while watching live TV I see the correct time. If I look in the guide it's off set by several hours. Dish Tech sent a re-auth down to correct. Which seemed to do the trick, but none of the timers have worked yet.


I had the same problem but it got fixed after I deleted all my events and Dish sent down whatever it is they send down.

[Scott Greczkowski]

Has anyone had any of these oddities happen more then once? Or have these all been one time only errors?

[Craig Fogus]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
Has anyone had any of these oddities happen more then once? Or have these all been one time only errors?

The ones I have posted happen all the time.

[gsusser]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
Has anyone had any of these oddities happen more then once? Or have these all been one time only errors?
Just once for me.

[gsusser]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
Yes I have had the Kick Back to Live bug happen a few times. I DO consider this a bug. Add me to the list. What I don't understand is the 501 had the same bug when it was released. Sometimes I think the engineering people have less brain cells than me, which is a pretty amazing feat.

[Kagato]

My guide and timer now match times. Although the timers don't kick off at the correct times. Instead of "3X3 Eyes" I got "BJ and The Bear"...

Ahh, to call Dish Tech and have them re-auth the box again, or just delete the items and do a NVM reset...

[ctorrence]

I got my 721 yesterday, and I love it! Once everything was up and running, ie. software download, authorized, and guide downloaded, I tried to add an event timer. I could pick all the options, except for being able to click the final "create" button. The create button would not do anything. I had this same result if I tried to create a manual event, or pick something from the guide. I called DISH, and they transfered me to advanced support. Advance Support had me try several things, and then had me reseat the smart card. Everything has been fine since.

[LarryH]

Originally posted by gsusser
The first problem might have been a one time thing. I set up my timer for a bunch of weekly and daily events. Today, they started recording 3 hours early as if I was in the wrong time zone. However, the time shown when I hit the guide was correct. The Dish people only scratched their heads when I called. However, after deleting the events and re-entering them, they seem to be working now.

I experienced this problem on multiple Dish receivers (not just the 721). Each time I get a new Dish receiver the guide is off by 3 hours the first day of use. Sometime in early AM on the first night, the problem goes away. I agree it appears to be a time zone issue. I'm in the Pacific time zone and mine was off by 3 hours. The receivers probably default to the Eastern time zone.

[LarryH]

If I set up 3 conflicting timers, the 721 correctly identifies the conflict but only lists two of the 3 shows. In my case, I had a single 1-time timer and two M-F re-occurring timers. The conflict message told me that the two M-F timers were conflicting and I had to search my timers list to find the 3rd (1-time) timer.

[LarryH]

When browsing the guide, the 721 allows you to move left into the "channel" column. I was hoping that this would allow me to search for a channel by its name (example: punch in "ESPN" instead of the channel number), but that doesn't appear to be the case (at least so far). Any insights?

[LarryH]

More of an annoyance than an oddity: When deleting recorded shows the 721 asks "are you sure". I don't think we need this added protection. First of all, if I accidentally delete a TV recording I think I will survive. Second of all, you already have to check the box next to the recording and select the delete key. The third step is just overkill (and an extra keystroke!)

[SParker]

I think most people would like the "are you sure" feature, but it should have a option to disable it.

Originally posted by LarryH
More of an annoyance than an oddity: When deleting recorded shows the 721 asks "are you sure". I don't think we need this added protection. First of all, if I accidentally delete a TV recording I think I will survive. Second of all, you already have to check the box next to the recording and select the delete key. The third step is just overkill (and an extra keystroke!)

[TerryC]

I think most people would like the "are you sure" feature, but it should have a option to disable it.


In the year that I've had my 501 I've had two occasions where a nag box would've saved me from accidentally deleting recordings. Especially since the 'start over', 'resume' and 'delete' buttons are so dangerously close together on the 721. It is a little annoying to have to go through the extra key strokes, but worth it to me.

[TerryC]

This is a strange one. I set up a one time recording for Third Rock from the Sun. Later, when I went to watch the recording, it showed up twice in the events menu. One was two minutes long and the other was fifteen minutes. The strangest thing about it was that the fifteen minute recording lasted what I assume to be 28 minutes because I was able to see the whole show from beginning credits to ending credits. The weather was fine (but even that wouldn't explain the minute discrepancy), so I don't get it.

Terry

[rjenkins]

I've been having a reoccuring bug with timers not going off consistently when I put the 721 in standby mode. Sometimes it will correctly start recording, but about half the time, it seems to miss at least one of the shows set to record. This has happened twice so far to me, so I've simply stopped putting the receiver into standby mode. (And I'll probably start doing a daily reboot just because I hate missing timers.)

[rjenkins]

On the "are you sure" message, I liked how the 501 would ask you for your locked password when you tried to delete a protected recording. Currently there is no difference on the 721 between a protected recording and an unprotected one when you go to manually delete it. (Protected just means that the recorder itself won't automatically delete it to make room.) I'd like to see a different confirmation on protected recordings. It's too easy to blindly press left and enter as you're deleting when you have to do it for every single delete.

[motjes2]

Here is something I felt frustrated with last night on my 721. I am currently have the following recording for Sunday, July 28th:

CBS @ 6:00pm-6:30pm (news)
CBS @ 6:30pm-7:30pm (Eve News)
ESPN (140) Baseball Tonight @ 7:00pm-8:00pm

All recordings with disabled 1 minute earlier or any minutes later.

When I tried to schedule Enterprise on WWOR between 7:00pm and 8:00pm (with disabled 1 min earlier or any min later), I received a schedule conflict between ESPN and WWOR. I went to menu and check all my timers (4 times) and looked at each individual schedule and there was no other program schedule within this time frame on Sunday. I took the smart card out hoping that this will solve the problem, and it did not help. I rebooted the HD, again hoping, but it still gave me the same problem. I did check switch and everything checked ok but the schedule conflict was still in effect. I tried to schedule any other two programs for the same day (sunday) within the same block of time, but again I received a scheduled conflict although I did not have a third program scheduled. At the same last night I had nova and baseball tonight scheduled within 10:00pm-11:00pm and both worked fine but I am still having problems with Sunday. I went to bed and checked this morning and was still having the same problem for Sunday. Could anyone of you replicate this on you 721? I wonder whether is local or general problem with guide for sunday? Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

[LarryH]

Originally posted by rjenkins
On the "are you sure" message, I liked how the 501 would ask you for your locked password when you tried to delete a protected recording. Currently there is no difference on the 721 between a protected recording and an unprotected one when you go to manually delete it. (Protected just means that the recorder itself won't automatically delete it to make room.) I'd like to see a different confirmation on protected recordings. It's too easy to blindly press left and enter as you're deleting when you have to do it for every single delete.

I agree. The 501 delete routine worked great: Don't ask "are you sure" on unprotected shows and require a password to delete a locked show.

[kyoo]

motjes2,

I was having a similar problem regarding the recording conflicts.. see this post. I reported it to Dish, and they said they sent it on to the engineering team.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5848

Your problem doesn't seem to use the midnight hour like mine was.. so maybe that wasn't the problem afterall.

[motjes2]

Kyoo,

thanks for the response; I misspelled the time in the cbs evening news. It is only from 6:30pm-7:00pm;

[Scott Greczkowski]

I actually ran into this problem last night, its annoying as I don't have my recordings set to 1 min early or 3 min late.

Let's hope this one gets fixed quickly.

[Bill D]

I woke up this morning and the 721 did nothing/showed nothing when the power light was on. Held down power button on front panel for about 5 seconds and it did a re-boot. Of course it missed the few timers I have set in the morning..

[Kagato]

I don't seem to have the problems with Conflicts if I let the box handle the 1 minute/3 minute deal. If I leave them with the default the software seems smart enough to edit shows already in the timmer queue that would conflict. Sounds like there's a little bit of a logic bug somewhere.

[motjes2]

I reported a conflict between two events before and there was no other timer set for the two times. Well, I decided to delete all my timers and boot the HD. I set up my timers once again and set up the two timers that were given me a conflict before. This time it worked!!!

[Jacob S]

2) When selecting a program to record in the guide I cannot save certain programs as a record once timmer. i.e. Choose Daily Show from the guide. Hit record. From the timer screen I choose record once, and PVR. I hit the Create button. Nothing happens. No error message, nothing. Still in the options screen. However, if I choose any of the other recording options it allows me to create the timer.

I had this same issue. It would let me record weekly, Mon-Fri. but NOT once whether I chose it from the program guide or tried it manually. After talking to advanced tech support they did not resolve any of the problems that I had except for the receiver not wanting to tune in both the 110 and the 119 at the same time on the program guide or channel change even though it showed that it was getting the signals and was fine on the switch check (smart card reboot). The timer error went away on it own or was fixed with the smart card reboot without me knowing that had fixed it.

The third issue I have in which I was told that one other person had the same two issues as I did with the once only timer and the channel problem. Channel 495 comes in the other receivers but not on the 721 and I not on the list of states/cities that are not allowed the channel. It says that the event has been blacked out in my area. Dish acted like they did not know what to do as a result. 496 comes in fine on the 721.

Also while you are playing back a show it will not allow you to press stop to stop the recording to ask to start from where you left off or just stop the program period, you have to either fast forward the rest of the way through or press PTV to stop the show. **(This seems to be working now allowing me to resume a show from where I left off and stop the show as well)** <ONE TIME BUG>

[TerryC]

Last night I was perusing the recorded events on my hard drive when I noticed a recording for My Wife and Kids, which I did not set up to record. The info reported that the recording executed on 7/31 (that's next week, folks). When I played back the recording it turned out to be the first half hour of America's Funniest Home Videos. So either DISH pushed this onto my drive or the 721 got confused somewhere. Big bug in my book.

Now I'm wondering what would happen if I'd tried to set up two simultaneous recordings for 8:00. Would I have gotten a conflict? And I'm also worried that I'm going to wake up one day, turn on the machine and see many recorded hours of The Munsters, or something.

I'm going to watch this closely because this one's got me nervous.

Terry

[Jacob S]

I noticed that on the timers when I set them I did not do anything to adjust the one minute early 3 minute late adjustment and it only listed the event as an extra 3 minutes so I am guessing that it did not do the 1 minute early feature just the 3 minute late one.

Also the signal screen functionality is buggy. Sometimes the odds (or evens I forget which) would say that it would not be picking up a signal on one satellite or would say it was locked at 10-15% being green but the audio indicated that it was 0% and the other satellite would say that it was on the wrong satellite even on a good check switch. Then it would go and only pick up 110 channels on the program guide or while going channel up/down and I had to pull out the smart card and put back in again to reset the receiver as I was told to last night to get it to acquire info from satellite to fix the problem.

[MediaMills]

Originally posted by Kagato
My guide and timer now match times. Although the timers don't kick off at the correct times. Instead of "3X3 Eyes" I got "BJ and The Bear"...

Ahh, to call Dish Tech and have them re-auth the box again, or just delete the items and do a NVM reset...
Mine did this also this week. Recorded Enterprise & West Wing on Wednesday and tried to record them again on Friday, were they don't exist. Instead I got an hour of Striptease, but the Wednesday events did record.
What channel shows BJ and the Bear? What time?
Oops...I guess I could do a search... ;)

[MediaMills]

Originally posted by rjenkins
I've been having a reoccuring bug with timers not going off consistently when I put the 721 in standby mode. Sometimes it will correctly start recording, but about half the time, it seems to miss at least one of the shows set to record. This has happened twice so far to me, so I've simply stopped putting the receiver into standby mode. (And I'll probably start doing a daily reboot just because I hate missing timers.)
Not a good idea. If you set up two timers for the same time and the receiver is on, when it reaches the time to start recording, a pop up box asks you if it's OK to take over the active channel for recording. If you don't answer this question your show won't record.
I used to leave my receivers on all the time, but because of the 9-day guide and this "Do you wanna..." box, I have been shutting down my 721 at night.

But I still LOVE this receiver!!!

[LarryH]

I recently experienced another 721 oddity: the search routine was returning "no match found" regardless of what I entered. Even searches as simple as "a" would return nothing. All the routines appeared to be working, but it was if there was no EPG guide data available to search through. The guide looked normal when this was happening. I gave it a soft re-boot and the problem went away. If I get it to happen again, I try to determine what triggers this behavior.

[Jacob S]

Signal screen says 10-15 % is locked green when it should be showing a signal. I do a check switch which fixes it temporarily unless I go back into the signal screen another time and then only the 110 slot channels will come in. I have to remove smart card and push back in to solve problem. This is a reoccuring problem when I thought it was a one time thing.

PIP does not always work. Sometimes it bugs out and causes the receiver to lock up. I even had it lock up bad enough to when I turned it off when I had PIP in and trying to get it to do something I still heard the sound through my stereo system and turned it back on and the PIP was gone but the banner screen was still blank at the top as it was before I turned it off and I had to hold down the power button to get it to shut COMPLETELY off.

The receiver also takes longer to change channels than the 501 does. Is this going to be fixed in a later software release?

Also when I go to change channels it stays on the same channel while I am going channel up and it will even stop for a moment like its allowing me to continue seeing whats on the other channels before changing them, this could be good or bad. Thats why I use browse or the program guide more often to change channels which is better anyways.

[Bill D]

Originally posted by Jacob S
Signal screen says 10-15 % is locked green when it should be showing a signal. I do a check switch which fixes it temporarily unless I go back into the signal screen another time and then only the 110 slot channels will come in. I have to remove smart card and push back in to solve problem. This is a reoccuring problem when I thought it was a one time thing.



Jacob this sounds like it could be one of those that fall under the NVM reset, I had some issues with signal strength menu amongst others before I did this.. Check out this thread for more details. Not sure how many people have actually gone ahead and did this (one time should fix the problems it's related to)
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5504

[Jacob S]

I did a hard reset by pressing down on the power button for 6 seconds, did not fix the signal issue such as that, did not fix the losing of the 119 channels. Sometimes it does this and sometimes it dont and when it does do this I have to redo the check switch to fix it and then the 119 channels will not come in after that.

[Jacob S]

I have also noticed that after an event is being played back you can see a show playing in live mode in the background and the pvr screen in the foreground as in the pvr event screen is see through but only at this time. How come is it not see through all of the time?

Also whenver I am erasing an event it says that longer timed events may take longer to erase even on the shorter version events and sometimes the screen pops up then disappears so quick that you cant read it. It never done this in the first place then started doing it later. How come can they not just have that screen pop up if it is a longer event, like have a delay for the screen to pop up and if it is still deleting a show then it will pop up because the amount of time reached that point to where it will take a while.

[rchecketts]

I live on the Gulf Coast of Alabama, we get rain most afternoons at this time of the year. When I say rain I *mean* rain, no chance of any satellite receiver seeing through the wall of water that falls. The rain only lasts five minutes so I expect the receiver to be back to normal once the rain has stopped.

No such look, after rain the guide only shows a few channels and they are the only channels available, to get back the 150 channels I am subscribed to I have to re-boot.

I have had this receiver about 2 weeks now and missed over 50% of the programmed recordings.

I only purchased this Dish PVR 721 after my Tivo stopped working and Circuit City failed to honor their warranty.

Anyone have any suggestions, I am ready to throw this thing in the trash.

[Nordug]

Here is a annoying bug: when I check the show "all channel" box within 24 hours it magically reverts back to "all subscribed".

[Bill D]

Originally posted by Nordug
Here is a annoying bug: when I check the show "all channel" box within 24 hours it magically reverts back to "all subscribed".
I swear that no matter what I check, my own, or all subscribed it kicks me back to all channels, sometime in the future. I get the same thing on my 4900, not sure if the guide updates are doing something...

[mccartt]

Originally posted by rchecketts
No such look, after rain the guide only shows a few channels and they are the only channels available, to get back the 150 channels I am subscribed to I have to re-boot.

I have had this receiver about 2 weeks now and missed over 50% of the programmed recordings.

I only purchased this Dish PVR 721 after my Tivo stopped working and Circuit City failed to honor their warranty.

Anyone have any suggestions, I am ready to throw this thing in the trash. [/B]

This sounds very similar to the problem I'm having. My neighborhood is very tree covered, but we got the dish jacked high enough to get decent signal strength. However I've noticed that several times a day I lose a set of channels, and won't get them back until a reboot. I called tech support on this on Tuesday and the advanced tech I got bumped up to told me that he was informed that this was a known problem and that a fix is being worked on, and should be put in within a week. Anyone else heard anything about this? It's definately highly frustrating.

-Shawn

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yes I have heard a upgrade is coming in the next week or so, and I am also told that this upgrade will have a few new features. :D

[mccartt]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
Yes I have heard a upgrade is coming in the next week or so, and I am also told that this upgrade will have a few new features. :D

Any news on what these features are?

[Scott Greczkowski]

I can't say :)

But lets just say I am typing SLOWLY and One letter at a time. :D

[Craig Fogus]

FWIW, the one problem I was having with recording and extending the time past when the show ends seems to have fixed itself. Weird. I had rebooted several times to no avail, but alas it appears to be working now and for several days.

[jerryyyyy]

I hope they can consider a fix on the constant fan problem. They should simply be able to have the disk spindown and hopefully that would cool it enough for the fan to stop, but this is a bother. Even this might now work if the power source itself is the heater. I have ordered the fan and will see if it is a simple install- my wife is not happy with the noise.

On the guy above who is losing channels, I had a similar problem for a week until Dish realized that my installer had made a wiring error, both the 500 and 300 lines must go into a 421 switch before going from the 421s into the two inputs in back of the 721. I was the first install in Palo Alto and he had no idea. Once this was fixed, I have impeccable recordings, even with one disk just about on the horizon to get the satellite at 61 deg from here on the west coast.

[Doug E]

I have a 500 with twin lnb for 110° and 119°, and a second dish (300) for additional locals at 148°. My configuration is one lead from the 500 and another lead from the 300 into dish #1 input on an SW21 switch. Same config on the second lead, and then from each SW21, the two leads into inputs #1 and #2 in the 721.

Do I understand that would also be your configuration, except that a 421 is needed instead of the two SW21's?

I may have the same wiring error then??

[Scott Greczkowski]

Gee I am suprised that no one picked up on my hint about the two new features coming to the 721 next week. :(

Oh well I must not have gave two good clues.

[Craig Fogus]

Keyboard support is one? :)

[SParker]

new software update next week?

[Chaos]

Scott, Could you be talking about the fix for the "telephone-style" text entry. Oh, and maybe SLOW MOTION?

[Scott Greczkowski]

Chaos, you guessed one of them :)

[LarryH]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
Chaos, you guessed one of them :)

I wanna play too...how about slow motion and frame advance?

[Jacob S]

A frame is one at a time and they did say they WAS coming out with this feature. I hope that they not only bring out these two features and other new ones, I hope they also fix the bugs, that more than anything else so I can use the features we have now.

Any other new features other than slow motion and frame advance?

I hope they show a demo video to show us and all users how to do the new features and letting us know what they are.

[Scott Greczkowski]

Larry wins :)

Thanks for playing!

[motjes2]

I hope that the 721 becomes more stable. I had the following problems since I got one.

(1) Skipping recording
(2) Conflict of events (when there is no apparent conflict)
(3) If there is a storm like it was a two days ago the 721 gets so confused that some recording get skipped and you will need to reboot a few times to get the 721 to respond.
(4) This I noticed in the past two days. I have a program at 4am in FXNWS to record but it has recorded past the hour sometimes up to 5 hours. When I turn my tv on, I get a black screen and I have to boot up or take the smartcard out.

I find the 501 to be more stable and reliable. I really hope the 721 to become more stable since I still believe it is a great investment.

[Jacob S]

Since this is just the first software release and none been updated then this is expected to be the worst the unit will be, at least I can hope. The 501 was pretty bad but they cleared up the software issues (wish they would clear up the hardware issues such as the units going bad not receiving a constant satellite signal or bad hard drives)

My unit has at least not lost any of the recordings in which the 501 would do. I hope they made the 721 more sturdy so there are no hard drive failures like the 501 is prone for.

[SParker]

Here's a weird oddity. I have Star Trek the original series setup to record M-F at 6PM well the red light came on at 2PM and it said it was recording Star Trek but ST isn't on for 4 more hours. Also the 721 didn't fire my 11AM timer for the price is right. So I rebooted because it had been a couple days since I had rebooted. The messed up ST timer was after I rebooted.

[SParker]

Goofy! Now it was recording ST: TNG 4 hours early! I rebooted it again!

[Craig Fogus]

You've been caught in a temperal rift. You just need to find a star to get you back into your own time! Be sure to have Spock take his best guess. :) Sorry, bit of a ST fan myself.

[SParker]

Voyager was already recorded and it was actually General Hospital! 4 hours early! So I will see if WWE: Raw kicks in with in the next 15 Min's and if it does E* is getting a call! :) I guess I must be in the middle of the Pacific ocean and not in Michigan anymore! :D

[SParker]

Well after a 2nd reboot Star Trek is recording at its correct time yippee! :)

[MediaMills]

Originally posted by SParker
Here's a weird oddity. I have Star Trek the original series setup to record M-F at 6PM well the red light came on at 2PM and it said it was recording Star Trek but ST isn't on for 4 more hours. Also the 721 didn't fire my 11AM timer for the price is right. So I rebooted because it had been a couple days since I had rebooted. The messed up ST timer was after I rebooted.
Mine did that also, but it was 2 days off. It tried to record Enterprise and West Wing on Friday, although it did record them on Wednesday when it was supposed to. I've also had one instance of turning on the 721 and got "no signal". When I tried to do a Point Dish, it couldn't find any signal on receiver 1 to use. Playing back previously recorded shows was working because my wife was watching a movie recorded several days before.
A reboot solved a problem.

[Jacob S]

When my receiver only has the 110 channels come up on the program guide and only allows me to view the 110 channels I notice that the receiver still records the shows on the 119 channels still anyways but just says unknown name for the title. I reboot the unit to get it to bring the 119 channels back in.

[john_k]

I installed a PVR721 last weekend and it downloaded software version L102HABD-N. In the time since I keep losing channels in the EPG and its always the same channels. Most notably is the Music channels (933+) and most between 101 and 113. I leave the receiver on a CD audio channel most of the time and it keeps right on working even though the EPG doesn't know it exists - I just can't get back to it if I change channels. A system reset fixes the problem but they're getting a bit old.

The question is: Is the version of L102 that I have the purported new software rummored to be coming by Scott and I've got some other problem or is the new software yet to come?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

-John

[Jacob S]

I have heard that putting a legacy twin lnbf on the dish 500 for the 721 will fix the missing channels problem, is there a certain procedure that I should do this? I seen someone else post and say you can burn up your lnbf if you do not do it a certain way. I believe the person said to do a check switch with no lnbf connected then connect up the legacy twin then do a check switch. Is this the correct procedure and will this help me to not lose my channels like I have been?

[Scott Greczkowski]

Why not just wait a week or two. They are finishing of a software fix for this problem.

Save your money. :D

[Scott Greczkowski]

John additional new software is coming that will fix the lost channel problem.

The advice from Echostar for users with the problem is to reset the unit by holding down the power button on the front of the unit untill it powers off

Or remove the smart card and reinsert it.

Both work fine.

[Bill D]

I have not had this problem at all. As some of you may remember from past posts I had done a NVM reset early on (Dish's suggestions), maybe this would help this problem, not sure..
Bill

[Scott Greczkowski]

The NVM reset will not correct this problem, this problem only happens in certain switch configurations.

Again Echostar does have a fix and it will be release soon.

[Bill D]

ohhh, I guess SW 64 is not one of those switch configurations
thanks Scott

[Jacob S]

wait 2 weeks and put up with this again and again at least once a day? no way, i am swapping out with a twin until they fix the problem. at least the unit still records the programs, the guide and channels just wont show up, that is very very odd, so i know the receiver is getting the channels.

[virtualsmith]

Of all things, I wish they would fix the "bug" that happens when watching a show that is recording. When the show stops recording, you are unceremoniously thrown to "Live" on the channel that it was recording. So if you were watching the show and still had 15 minutes left, you have to go to PVR, select the show, then fast forward to the place you were at before being thrown to live.

This is the most annoying of all current bugs and I would gladly agree with a postponing of slow and frame-by-frame (even though I am excited about these features) if it would mean they could fix this.

It happens on everyone's 721, right?

[Bill D]

Originally posted by virtualsmith
Of all things, I wish they would fix the "bug" that happens when watching a show that is recording. When the show stops recording, you are unceremoniously thrown to "Live" on the channel that it was recording. So if you were watching the show and still had 15 minutes left, you have to go to PVR, select the show, then fast forward to the place you were at before being thrown to live.

This is the most annoying of all current bugs and I would gladly agree with a postponing of slow and frame-by-frame (even though I am excited about these features) if it would mean they could fix this.

It happens on everyone's 721, right?

Agreed, it isn't too often that I watch stuff delayed that is still Live (mostly everything has long since past), but when I do it is as you said the most annoying, just because of what you have to do to get back to where you were.
Bill

[Craig Fogus]

I agree! I really, really hate that! It happens all the time to me!

BTW, I just noticed that my locals are now on their corresponding real channel numbers...For example, Fox channel 19 (Cincinnati) is on 019! What's the current software version? I'm on: L102HABD-N Boot: 10 GB Flash: 10GL

[Doug E]

Same as the S/W version I was downloaded couple days ago. Only difference I see is the local channel mapping as you mentioned

[Jacob S]

It does this 'thrown back to live' action on the 501 and 721.

[Craig Fogus]

We know. I had a 501. We just think that it would be nice to have this very annoying bug fixed rather than get new features. :)

[Jacob S]

I would have to agree when it comes to the 721 since that receiver just came out. I believe they should concentrate on fixing the bugs that they have all at once before adding more features when a product is just released, but another way to look at it is that they could try to fix the bugs and add more features rather than fix bugs, without getting the new features.

[KEEFP]

When I display the program guide on my 721, the left most channel number is cut off the screen; i.e. 739 shows up as /39. Anyone else seeing this?

[john_k]

To continue my issue with losing satellite 119 from the EPG randomly during the day:

I contacted the tech support line yesterday. I ended up talking to two different tech. They both had filled out problem reports for this issue earlier in the day. Thus, I'd say we have a bit of a bug here.

The only solution right now is to reset the 721 each time it happens. Grrr!

[Doug E]

To answer KEEFP, yes most definitely. I, too, reported it to an advanced tech rep two weeks ago. He had not heard of the problem up to that time. I had hoped for the Tech Forum to address it last night.

[Jacob S]

I have noticed a new bug. After the show that you have watched in pvr events is over or you press stop it will take u to the pvr events screen that shows all the pvr events with an arrow to the left of the date of the show instead of showing Erase, Start Over, Protect, Cancel, Help on the right side, and you have to select the show that you just watched which has that arrow pointing to it on the left to get to that screen now. Very annoying for those that want to Erase a show right after you view it, you have to go through and press extra buttons, in which we did NOT have to do before. Anybody else having this problem?

Also after you pause and unpause a show it will not have any audio for a moment even though it has video.

I wonder why the 721 is so much slower than the 501 in the things that it does. The 501 seems to be very quick compared to 721, anybody else notice this?

[virtualsmith]

I have now started noticing PVR naming issues with my 721. One time it taped an episode of Will&Grace and called it Dog Eat Dog (I didn't want it to tape Will&Grace, never watched the show. maybe it was left over from taping Dog Eat Dog last week). Also, it taped an episode of Trading Spaces that my wife wanted but it called it "A Wedding Story" which is the show that was on right before TS.
Funky...

And another thing, it seems to have some problems with AutoTune/Daily events. I have my 721 set up to autotune to 9News at 6:00AM every day so that it is on and rewindable when my wife and I get up between 6:30-7:30. Sometimes it does the autotune, sometimes it doesn't.

[Jacob S]

That was the other thing that I had forgotten to mention. It is now messing up on the name of the event. I think this is what is going on. When you start a show one minute early (which is the default) it will actually list the show that was on prior to the show that you had set to record. That has been what is going on. It just started doing this.

[Bill Mullin]

Originally posted by Jacob S
I have noticed a new bug. After the show that you have watched in pvr events is over or you press stop it will take u to the pvr events screen that shows all the pvr events with an arrow to the left of the date of the show instead of showing Erase, Start Over, Protect, Cancel, Help on the right side, and you have to select the show that you just watched which has that arrow pointing to it on the left to get to that screen now. Very annoying for those that want to Erase a show right after you view it, you have to go through and press extra buttons, in which we did NOT have to do before. Anybody else having this problem?I saw this exact problem this evening on my 721. I rebooted and it corrected itself.

- Bill

[Jacob S]

When mine was rebooted it corrected itself as well.

[motjes2]

Yesterday, my 721 rebooted three times in three separate occassions. This happened after I hit power button on my remote control (I was trying to turn it off). Is this normal? I never experienced this with the 501. Also, I just noticed that if I hit the # key while using the guide, the search window does not come up. I thought that I done this when I first bought the 721. I was able to bring the search window while browsing the guide by hitting the # key. Is this the case or there is something I am doing wrong?

[billben1]

I Have a 721, dish 500 and sky angel, with a 6 4 switch. Ever since installing the 721 I cannot receive the audio only channels from sky angel. They show up in the guide and on the banner, but if I tune to the channel I get a blank black screen and no sound. The audio only dish channels work fine. After two calls to dish and over 1.5 hours on phone still no resolution.

[Jacob S]

Hard reboot the receiver by pressing down on the power button for 6-7 seconds the releasing the button. Also if you have a dishpro lnbf try swapping it with a nonpro lnbf if you have that available.

[alienfreak]

I Just installed my 721 a few days ago. I'm getting a bit frustrated for reasons I'll describe below. If anyone has Ideas or solutions I'll be greatly appreciative.

First, I've confirmed both tuners are working by picking a channel, starting a manual record (it doesn't ask me when to stop, isn't it suppossed to?) then swapping to a different channel via PIP and starting a manual record there. Both recordings work.

However, anything I set as a timer seems to be completely ignored. Timers are not executing! Last night was the perfect example, and practically the reason I bought the thing. My wife wanted friends, Kids and I wanted Survivor. I went into the guide and set up timers for these. They get red dots in the guide even though they were still hours out (I thought they should get little clocks and red dots meant "recording now") As i did this in the late afternoon, sometimes it would start recording right away (nbc news). And from the second "friends" listing, the red dot kept dissappearing. So I would redo it, the dot would appear, and then dissappear. Meanwhile, none of these timers executed when they were supposed to.

I've tried a lot of fiddling around with this. Nothing seems to make the machine execute its timers correctly. I looked into the software update but it says "no updates available." I'm not inclined to believe the box is defective, because it seems to do everything BUT timers correctly.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

Thanks,

Gregg :nono2:

[Bill Mullin]

I'm still having the problem with long delays when pressing the +30 or -10 button. The picture seems to freeze for up to 10 seconds before executing the command. FWIW, I've noticed this only happens when the show uses Dolby digital sound - PCM is fine.

This problem was introduced 3 or 4 software releases back, you'd think they could have fixed it by now.

- Bill

[tsaylor]

Yes, the skip delay is annoying.

Another one that always bugs me but I haven't noticed in this thread yet, is that when I start watching a recorded show that is not yet finished, if I decide to stop watching it, the pvr stop button also stops the recording. Sometimes I'll just check the beginning of a show to see if it is new, and then I'll wind up inadvertently stopping the recording. I've lost the end of many shows that way, and not realized it until later when I go back to watch the remainder.

[Roger Tee]

Yes, the skip delay is annoying.

Another one that always bugs me but I haven't noticed in this thread yet, is that when I start watching a recorded show that is not yet finished, if I decide to stop watching it, the pvr stop button also stops the recording. Sometimes I'll just check the beginning of a show to see if it is new, and then I'll wind up inadvertently stopping the recording. I've lost the end of many shows that way, and not realized it until later when I go back to watch the remainder.

FWIW it is the way they designed it as the 50x series operate the same way.
They could even consider it a feature? Suppose you started a recording and decided you wanted to stop it for whatever reason. Press stop and bam it's stopped. The one that bothers me is when I record a music only channel and then play it back later.... 90=% of the time I have to reboot the 721, whereas the 501 is fine.

Cheers

[Bob Haller]

mssing survivors final episode was a #%^ last nuight when we got home late. Idiot box tunedv to survivor but didnt record and that would of been finwe if its buffer had been ok, but it was only 6 seconds

TIMBER, goes a 40 year old tree to make way for direct tv

[leefarber]

My only problem with my 721:

I noticed that every Sopranos I've ever recorded has trouble when I do a 10-second skip back or a 30-second jump forward. Everything locks up for about 10-15 seconds. A similar problem occurs with shuttling forward or back. This never happened with any channel other than HBO (the main HBO, not the sister channels). Then I recorded "Hulk" during the free STARZ preview, and the same problem occured.

I have a theory... the thing that HBO and STARZ have in common is that they both broadcast in Dolby Digital (at least I noticed that both my Sopranos recordings and my Hulk recording trigger the DD display on my receiver). I think the added bandwith (is that the right term?) taken up by the higher-end soundtrack is causing a glitch in fast-forwarding and rewinding. This problem is absent on any non-DD recording I make.

Any thoughts?

[Bill Mullin]

when I do a 10-second skip back or a 30-second jump forward. Everything locks up for about 10-15 seconds.
.
.
I have a theory...This problem is absent on any non-DD recording I make.This problem came about 3 or 4 software releases ago and affects any Dolby Digital recording, not just HBO, Starz, or 5.1. I called Dish advanced support some time ago and told them about this, but as usual their response was, "deny, deny, deny". I wonder if I (or someone else) called them again, they would still have the same answer?

- Bill

[leefarber]

This problem came about 3 or 4 software releases ago and affects any digital recording, not just HBO, Starz, or 5.1. I called them sometime ago and told them about this, but as usual their response was, "deny, deny, deny". I wonder if I (or someone else) called them again, they would still have the same answer?

- Bill

Intersting, because I don't think I have the problem with ANY digital recording, just, as I said, the Dolby Digital broadcasts. But you're right, it wasn't always there, it probably coincided with a recent software release (or "upgrade" :nono2: )

[rrbhokies]

This problem came about 3 or 4 software releases ago and affects any digital recording, not just HBO, Starz, or 5.1. I called them sometime ago and told them about this, but as usual their response was, "deny, deny, deny". I wonder if I (or someone else) called them again, they would still have the same answer?
- Bill

What do you mean by "affects any digital recording". Isn't everything that is transmitted and recorded "digital". Based on what you said, it sounds like he should be having problems with every recording, not just Sopranos and Hulk.

[Bill Mullin]

I don't think I have the problem with ANY digital recording, just, as I said, the Dolby Digital broadcasts.Sorry, I meant Dolby Digital . . . I've edited my above post. Note that this problem never bites me when watching shows using PCM sound, just Dolby Digital (5.1 or otherwise).

- Bill

[astrotrf]

The thing that bugs me the most (well, second most) is skip delay during pause, which is supposed to do a frame-by-frame skip. The interesting thing is that it seems to "save them up" during the delay. Pause, hit skip forward, nothing happens. Get impatient because this is about the 200th time you've seen this problem and hit skip 10 or so more times. Eventually, the receiver skips forward by a bunch of frames.

The thing that *really* bugs me the most is several seconds of herky-jerky audio and video when watching recorded shows or watching somewhat behind real time in a live show. Most of the time, skipping backward and rewatching the same segment works just fine, so it's not a problem with the recording itself.

Thankfully, I've never had the problems with timer recordings that some folks seem to have. I dimly recall that the 721 might have recorded the wrong show once, but it could have been pilot error.

I really like this machine - I just wish there was some way to permanently save some of the recordings on its hard drive.

[TomCat]

That's what DVDR's are for. Prices are low, quality has matured. Jump on in!