[dvdguyjt]

Hi all --

I'm trying to find out what the differences are between dishplayer and the 501. Is one less buggy thatn the other?..how about features.

PS -- I'm new here so bare with me

JT

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Welcome dvdguyjt :hi:

The Dishplayer is a little smarter (although buggier) then the 501. Lets say you have a show you watch every night which airs at 7pm. The Dishplayer will only record it if the name of the show is the show you want, the 501 on the other hand will record the show every night of the week including the night its not on, it just records by the time and not by the show title.

The Dishplayer has Internet access available to it with WebTV/MSN but the internet access is only work it if you already have a MSN account (then your WebTV access on the Dishplayer is free)

Up till a few weeks ago the 501 lacked as it had only a 2 day guide and had no search features.

Now they have 9 day guide and a basic search feature. The 501 is turning into a nice machine. It does have some bugs which are not anything major.

 

[Jim Rochefort]

I would like to add one comment. The DP does have the ability to record by inputting time and date and and how often to record. Select setup recording, then manual timer. That feature has been in there for about a year now.

Jim

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yup forgot about the manual timers. But what I was trying to get at was the 501 was like VCR it records the time and channel you want, while the Dishplayer notices what you are trying to record (except in manual time mode of course)

 

[David_Levin]

Dishplayer often messes up the recurring timers. I'm trying them again with the latest software. No problem yet, but it's only been a few days. Seemed to be a problem with the 7 day guide causing the timer to get disconnected from the show.

Let's say you set up Sopranos for 6pm Sunday Night. It will also often get Supranos any day of the week it's also on at 6.

The Dishplayer search function is great - especially with the keyboard. There is no keyboard for the 501 (why the heck they couldn't make the 501 optionally respond to the Dishplayer keyboard is a mystery to me).

The Dishplayer still has problems with Dolby Digital. Some shows seem to suffer from frequent sound dropouts forcing me to switch back to PCM (it's not clear to me if all the boxes suffer from this problem).

I've also been experiencing sparatic blackouts (perhaps a few during a movie, lasting a couple of secs) on about 5% of my recorded shows. I'm not sure what this is - I haven't seen any other mention of it. Hard Drive Fragmentation?

The biggest Dishplayer benefit to me is the ability to easily swap the hard drive. I'm at 80 gig and would hate to live with less - that alone keeps me from the 501.