[hogwash]

I am a very frustrated 722 owner right now. If Dish can't turn this device into a usable box before next summer I will definitely be switching to DirecTV once they release their new TiVo boxes. But lets focus on the now and move onto my list of complaints.

1) Only a maximum of 96 timers? Are they serious? Having a family of 4 we reached this very quickly. They give you hundreds of channels, but they only expect you to watch 96 shows max?

2) My timers occasionally dump all their program guide info and I have to set up new timers for the exact same shows to get a working timer. So now I have to watch my upcoming events list like a hawk to make sure that everything records.

3) It is such a pain to watch live tv. You can't start a show and then watch another while the live show buffers because the buffer is dumped when you start the second show. And if you do just walk away to let the show buffer if there is another show scheduled to record immediately after it kicks you out of the live show and dumps the buffer.

4) And speaking of buffering, if I decide I like something I'm watching live and want to record it for my wife, why does it drop the buffer and only record half the show?

5) The search window is tedious and a pain to input text to search for, and if you happen to be recording something else at the time 33% of the time the system will freeze up and reboot.

6) Why does the system need to reboot everyday? This drives me crazy because it is so loud at night that it wakes my wife up, so I have it set up to restart midday where it will occasionally kick me out of whatever I am watching at the time.

As a former TiVo series 1 user, I find it appalling that any of these things would be an issue as TiVo had it all worked out 10 years ago. How anyone could claim that this box is "better than TiVo" as Dish's ads claim is beyond me.

I apologize if this is rantish sounding, but I just spent an hour with dish tech support to work out my timer issues and the operator just hung up on me.

 

[Ken Green]

:welcome_s to DBSTalk

You're clearly frustrated and a bit angered, though I can see why, given the information you have available to you, so far.

May I suggest you take a few moments and view Ron's Tips and Tricks thread, as many of your questions will be addressed there, and also in the User Guide. Ron's format is much easier to navigate through:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=93559

At least, 4 of your 6 concerns are addressed there, 2, 3, 4, & 6.

TiVo and the VIP interface are very different STB's, and most throughout the industry, agree the ViP722 is far superior. However, the differences go well beyond ease of programming, and amount of available timers. Most TiVo users, switching the the VIP series STB, have difficulty adjusting to the interface at first. I think, given some time, you too, will see the differences.

Just give it a chance, gain a bit more knowledge about the unit, and give it a bit of time

 

[Ron Barry]

Welcome HogWash.

First off.. How are you using the box such that it requires 96 timers? I consider myself a heavy user and I am around 40 timers. Basically I see this as a performance trade off. The more timers to manage the longer it takes to do the function. The only person I am aware off that kept running into this limitation was creating a lot of timers hunting for old shows on their 622. Bottom line 96 timers appear from the posts here are plenty for most users and if you run into that limit you might want to consider getting another 722/622.

2) This is not normal and it is a bug that appears to be related timers that are configured for Map down channels. There is s thread discussing this issue if I am reading your issue correctly.

3) Are you in dual mode? If so, the reason for this is because you most likely have so many things being recorded that you don't have a timer free. Do you have OTA hooked up? if not and you can. Do it because it will give you another tuner resource and help elevate this issue. Also, play with the PIP swap button (If in single mode) it can come in real handy as you watch multiple things.

4) Rewind back to the beginning and press record.

5) Agreed. WOuld like to see this improved. Would like to see better search functionality. One cool thing is press search when in the EPG and you can do a search for a particular show.

6) Reboot is to update the guide. Never woke me up but I am a heavy sleeper.

Based on what I have read above, You seem to be a power user and are definitely stretching the limits of your 722 and it feels like a 722 in dual mode is not the right configuration for you (If you are indeed doing that).

Couple of other tips. If you are using Dish Passes to record series shows, don't. Switch to All or New episodes. Dish Passes should be used for hunting for content like "All shows that have Ghost in them" and Series type recordings should be done through ALL, New.

As for limits... There is 96 timer limit and ther is also a timer event limit of 576. Each timer can have multiple timer events associated with it.

Freeze and rebooting I have not seen on the search. Might be running into a bug and the 96 timers might be contributing to it. I am never a big fan of running these boxes at the limits, so I would suggest dropping your timer count down to around 75 and see if the reboot issue goes away.

As for claims. Lot of people here have that opinion based on their own reasons of what people value in a box. Like I said above, I would consider another 722 to divide up the work. I think you would be much happier customer.

 

[Ron Barry]

May I suggest you take a few moments and view Ron's Tips and Tricks thread, as many of you questions will be addressed there, and also in the User Guide. Ron's format is much easier to navigate through:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=93559

Why didn't I think of that... I do need to update the list as soon as my work life returns to normal.

 

[ChuckA]

Adding to what Ron says above, we hear a lot of ex-TiVo users having problems with timers. One thing that they almost all wind up thinking is that Dishpass timers are the way timers should be set. That is completely wrong. A Dishpass timer should be a rare thing to use. Like Ron says, use them only to search for movie titles, certain actors and similar things that are not in the current schedule but you want to catch when they show up at some future date in the schedule.

The normal way to set a timer is by selecting a future show from the guide. You will be given the choice of recording all shows, only new shows, weekly shows. This type of timer will search only the channel you selected in the guide and not hit on every occurrance on every channel in the guide data.

The problem with Dishpass timers is that you often get many many events generated from them since they search the entire guide data and generate lots of duplicate events that are skipped (but still using an event). The larger your schedule event list, the more work it is on the receiver to manage. Add that with possibily recording three programs at once, while watching two recorded programs, all while archiving programs to an external disk and you have got one very busy box.

Try using fewer timers and see if your receiver becomes more stable. If you still have problems with a limited number of timers you may need a replacement receiver.

 

[lujan]

...

6) Reboot is to update the guide. Never woke me up but I am a heavy sleeper.

...

I keep my 622 in another room, not in the bedroom. Is it possible to move the receiver to another room?

 

[Kevin Brown]

4) And speaking of buffering, if I decide I like something I'm watching live and want to record it for my wife, why does it drop the buffer and only record half the show?​

When you press record, go to options, and if you've been watching since the beg, you'll have the option to record the whole show. Or like it was mentioned, rewind and record from when you started watching (this hadn't occurred to me either, btw!).

5) The search window is tedious and a pain to input text to search for, and if you happen to be recording something else at the time 33% of the time the system will freeze up and reboot.​

I have had this happen. Luckily, only once.

I've had a 522 for a couple years now, and just upgraded to a 722, and there *are* some differences. The 722 is a little rougher around the edges. I'm off to look at Ron's info now.

 

[Redlinetire]

1) Only a maximum of 96 timers? Are they serious? Having a family of 4 we reached this very quickly. They give you hundreds of channels, but they only expect you to watch 96 shows max?

DirecTV HD DVRs have a max of 50 timers currently. From all reports, this is a hardware limitation preventing what should be an easy fix to a common complaint.

Reportedly the new TiVo boxes will be utilizing the same basic hardware so I would NOT expect a magic increase when the new DirecTV TiVo boxes appear next year....

 

[puckwithahalo]

1) Only a maximum of 96 timers? Are they serious? Having a family of 4 we reached this very quickly. They give you hundreds of channels, but they only expect you to watch 96 shows max?

So you watch 96 unique shows? Or are you setting up individual timers for each episode of a show?

 

[hogwash]

Thanks for all the responses. I was pretty frustrated at the time I posted this and I do appreciate the opportunity to vent and receive productive replies.

Yes, I would consider myself a power user, but no I don't personally watch 96 unique shows. As I said before this box is servicing a family of 4 all with unique interests. The bulk of the timers are repeating events with a few one time recordings set up. I don't ever use the dish pass option.

Now of the repeating timers there are a number of shows that are seasonal and aren't currently airing new episodes but I would prefer to keep them active so that I don't have to keep track of when new episodes will air. I never reached any ceiling on season passes with my 10 year old TiVo and I find it hard to believe that these brand new boxes can't handle more than 96 timers. As for the DirecTV HD DVR limit, I'll have to check with my Dad who has one for confirmation, but I don't believe they have a 50 timer limit. He records as much or more than I do.

I am more than willing to praise the 722 where it is due. For the most part the dual room setting works great and is very convenient to share all the recordings on one box. Also the RF remote is way more responsive than I ever would have expected it to be. The downsampling of HD programming to SD on the fly for the 2nd tv is also very good. However the usability and silly quirks absolutely ruin the experience.

The dual room stuff is nice, but I don't see why basic functionality should be sacrificed. I can see how in comparing a spec sheet someone could give the 722 an edge over a TiVo, but I can't imagine anyone who has used both could really claim that the vip series was a better experience. Hell, for the longest time the fast forward and rewind buttons would drastically throw the vip out of sync with the time code on the program and was a nightmare to use. It seems as though that is fixed now, but it is obvious that they didn't give much thought to actual use of their boxes when they designed them.

 

[kucharsk]

Coming from a TiVo, I'm surprised your biggest issue is the big one I miss from the TiVo I use for OTA recording, and that's the ability to retrieve a deleted recording for which the disk space hasn't been used yet.

Great for those "I didn't think you wanted to watch that, too" moments or if you mindlessly delete something someone else wanted to watch when you're done viewing it.

 

[Bill R]

I keep my 622 in another room, not in the bedroom. Is it possible to move the receiver to another room?

Yes, all you have to do is have the proper wiring from the dish (or switch) to that room. Or you can just move the existing connection to the other room. If you have a dish 1000.2 it has outputs to support three two-tuner receivers. You can run a RG-6 cable from the dish to the other room is you want to leave the existing wiring in place. Also, if you are using the receiver for two rooms you need to take that into account.