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Best satellite HD DVR?

I'm already tired of Time Warner and their misserable digital cable. Time to go HD Satellite. Being a HUGE Tivo fanatic, it's somewhat of a sad decision because the Tivo HD boxes don't work with satellite. So, which of the two, Dish Network or DirectTV, offer the most Tivo-like DVR?
 
Hi John. Well, this is a sore subject for me. While I am not trying to scare you off of satellite tv, CHECK THE COMMITMENT THOROUGHLY before signing up for anything. Let me 'splain.

I have been a sat tv customer for nearly 15 years. Some of that on C band, most of it through DBS. First it was DirecTv and now Dish Network. I do not have a horror story but more like a GIANT PITA story. I currently have two receivers. Both standard definition but one is a dvr. Specifically a pvr-508. I love the feature. It is so nice to have hard drive recording. Blip, it's deleted. Zipppp, fast forward an hour in ten seconds. It does NOT have the bells and whistles of a TIVO. It does not cost $15 per month extra either. If fact, they are not even charging me the $5.98 monthly charge for the service! This was a perk for the early adopters when the pvr508/510 became available. That was over six years ago. To be honest I have thoroughly enjoyed DishNet.

Now comes the tap dancing. These dvr models are not real stable. None of them. At least any of the early models. I have held out buying a new receiver till I find out what is out there and how much it will cost. When I got the 508 they charged me a flat $149 to upgrade. No contract, no service up tick, nothing. It has been great but I can tell its days are numbered. Trust me, it is n the verge of death. Green screens, purple screens. Tons of restarts/resets. You name it, it IS coming to an end soon. So I says to the wife; Wife, I am calling those wonderful, helpful folks at Dish Net and finding out what super upgrades they have for existing customers with LONG service histories. What an experience. The "offer" was a refurbished 510 model for "only $100 and a two year contract". Gee, used up, unstable equipment AND a contract, which I have never had with them before. I had to really think about it long and hard but five seconds later said NO THANKS! Option 2. Buy a newer dvr model for only $200 and the same 24 month contract. Again, a big no thanks. This would have included(I think) a two tuner option or HD but I think it was just the two tuner deal. She was also convinced that I would need a new dish and cabling installed by them for a "nominal fee". Hmmm. I then ask about just buying a new receiver outright and she said it was $389. Sounds like a lot of money but you know what? No contract and I can do the install myself. The cabling is not that special. Good quality RG6 is required and the proper compression fittings and tools to make them up, which I have. BTW, I will also have the $5.98 dvr fee added as well no matter how I upgrade. I was not really given any kind of consideration even for being a customer for over ten years. I wasn't to happy.

Now comes the horror story but it isn't mine. I work with a chap who had Dish till this week. His equipment went out the first week of June. Dish customer "service" scheduled a repair job for June 29! They then canceled on him Saturday morning! They then tried to reschedule for July 23rd! What were they thinking?!!!! They didn't even offer a pro rate of his bill not to mention he would have been without service for nearly TWO months. I don't know what has happened to Dish Network but I am more than a bit uneasy with them now. He got mad and went back to cable. Believe me, this would be my LAST option. I love the options with sat tv that just aren't available with 90% of the cable systems.

I do know that to get initial setup with either Dish or DirecTv you are probably going to have to sign a 24 month contract. If they are installing a four receiver, HD setup for you, then I would be MIGHTY tempted to take it. Just beware that upgrading later could be a real pain. Yet what are your options? The crappy cable companies? I despise most of their so called services. I would call both Dish and Direct and ask a LOT of questions. Just beware that you are not talking to someone from America. I have called Dish at least three times about the upgrades and have gotten three different stories. So there. Now that I have muddied the waters for you, best of luck.:lol::lol:

Regards, Todd
 
John, Who is your Internet going to be with?

Todd, RG6 quad shielded is what you want.

Good luck
 
John, Who is your Internet going to be with?

Todd, RG6 quad shielded is what you want.

Good luck

It's currently with Time Warner. I can't say I've had any problems with my internet connection, but the cable has been a pain. I'm thinking of switching to AT&T as I hear they're more stable in my area.
 
It's currently with Time Warner. I can't say I've had any problems with my internet connection, but the cable has been a pain. I'm thinking of switching to AT&T as I hear they're more stable in my area.
So you will keep cable as your Provider? and add Dish for TV.
 
I haven't used Tivo, but find our Dish Network HD DVR (VIP 722) to be an outstanding product. It operates two sets at once (one in HD, one standard) and can record on both at once. You've got one hour of live tv pausing time, plus the usual reverse, fast forward, skip ahead, etc. You can set it to automatically record all episodes or just new episodes of shows. The hard drive is large -- 50 hours of HD recordings or a few hundred hours of standard (or a combination of the two). If that's not enough capacity, you can now attach an external hard drive directly to the unit (also useful should you need to upgrade units in the future without erasing stored recordings). YMMV, but this particular DVR has been delightfully bug-free (an improvement over the unit we had before).

Yes, they'll want a contract commitment. Yes, they provide the customer no-service we've come to dread from all tv providers. I can honestly say, though, that I've never lost an argument with dish. I've been able to successfully persuade them to make house calls to repair equipment at no charge (even though I don't pay the $6/month to insure that they'll visit for free when their equipment breaks), to provide new receivers free with minimal new service commitments (they wanted $100 or so and 2 years each time -- I talked them down to $0 and 6 or 12 months), and to provide an ongoing $20 monthly credit to retain my business back when Directv lapped them in the HD race. The secret each time: "I don't believe it's in my best interest to stay with Dish right now. Please let me speak with someone in customer retention."

YMMV, but for the time being I'm happy with Dish, and really pleased with my particular HD DVR.
 
I have Directv with HD Tivo receivers. Directv bought out Tivo some years ago and offers the Tivo service for 4.95 per month regardless of how many receivers You have. You do get charged for the lease of the receivers though. I believe it's like 4.99 a receiver. I have had the service for 12 years now and love it. I get a ton of channels in HD and everyone that comes over can't believe the quality of the picture. When I first started out the customer service wasn't great, but they really seem to have improved alot. I'm not sure about the 2 year commitment, I haven't heard that before. That doesn't mean it's not true though. :tongue_sm

The best part of the service for Me though is the NFL Sunday package. Sundays just aren't the same without it! :w00t: Everyone that I know that has Directv seems to really like it. However as always YMMV.
 
So you will keep cable as your Provider? and add Dish for TV.

I'm not sure yet. What ever makes sense. I really do like the Tivo. I think it has the best interface and the best feature set. I love being able to stream my music of photos from my PC upstairs. I love being able to transfer shows to my PC. But from what I've read, Time Warner, their cable cards, and Tivo don't work well together.
 
John, Who is your Internet going to be with?

Todd, RG6 quad shielded is what you want.

Good luck


You bet Jim. We have a great electronics store in K.C. that carries TONS of Belden cable including a good variety of RG6 and RG6 Quad. The main thing is GOOD terminations with the proper tools. I have Digicon RG6 Quad compression fittings and a high quality "crimping" tool. Even though I only use them occasionally for myself or family needs. Since I am an electrician, the whole family thinks I can fix anything with a cable or wire protruding from it. Did I mention I also buy the best hand tools I can afford whether I need them or not? :redface::redface: Kind of like shaving toiletries.

Regards, Todd
 
You bet Jim. We have a great electronics store in K.C. that carries TONS of Belden cable including a good variety of RG6 and RG6 Quad. The main thing is GOOD terminations with the proper tools. I have Digicon RG6 Quad compression fittings and a high quality "crimping" tool. Even though I only use them occasionally for myself or family needs. Since I am an electrician, the whole family thinks I can fix anything with a cable or wire protruding from it. Did I mention I also buy the best hand tools I can afford whether I need them or not? :redface::redface: Kind of like shaving toiletries.

Regards, Todd

As always Todd we are already on the same page.:001_smile
 
We have had Direct Tv for a year now combined with high-speed internet and long distance thru AT+T. The DVR is basic in my opinion, more like a vcr and does freeze up on occasion,requiring a reboot to start.
The billing has been a nightmare, we have not had one consistent bill since the service began.
You are required to have a land line when you start service, and somewhere in the process of switching phone service ,the order was lost and this took over a week to resolve.
And the commercials where it goes out to due rain or snow...entirely correct. Direct tv also claims more HD channels, but what they neglect to add is the additional cost and these are programs like Smithsonian HD, that in my opinion should be free.
The only reason we keep the dish is because of sports.
 
Well, I'm not too sure of your experience with TW Cable, but do you have a series 2 TiVo or a Series 3/HD TiVo?

The series 3/HD TiVos have cablecard support which means no more of the crappy cable boxes TW tries to pawn off on it's customers.

***

Well after reading the thread and having my other computer's motherboard dying while trying to update this post...

Do you have a Series 3 or HD TiVo? If you have a HD have you tried both the S-card and M-cards? From the forums I have looked at the success rate really depends on your local office's knowledge of cablecards.
 
biomesh, I have a HD and I've tried both the S-Cards and the M-Cards. They know the cable companies are largely clueless and include a sheet for the cable technician with step by step instructions and I've had not many issues with 3 different cable companies. Any TiVo questions feel free to PM me about.

I wish Echostar would just settle with TiVo so we could once again have Sat TiVo DVRs. But of course they'd cripple them and you wouldn't be able to do many things like MRV or TiVoToGo.
 
Well, I'm not too sure of your experience with TW Cable, but do you have a series 2 TiVo or a Series 3/HD TiVo?

The series 3/HD TiVos have cablecard support which means no more of the crappy cable boxes TW tries to pawn off on it's customers.

***

Well after reading the thread and having my other computer's motherboard dying while trying to update this post...

Do you have a Series 3 or HD TiVo? If you have a HD have you tried both the S-card and M-cards? From the forums I have looked at the success rate really depends on your local office's knowledge of cablecards.

I have a Series 2 right now. I was looking into an HD Tivo until I read all the horror stories with Time Warner and Cable Cards. And even if you get it to work, the number of HD channels is terribly small.

For what it's worth, Time Warner is a 4-letter work around my parts. The service is very flaky and I don't know many people that have it. Also, I've been told the service is the worst. Every person in my neighborhood has satellite, but me (right now).
 
I have Directv with HD Tivo receivers. Directv bought out Tivo some years ago and offers the Tivo service for 4.95 per month regardless of how many receivers You have. You do get charged for the lease of the receivers though. I believe it's like 4.99 a receiver. I have had the service for 12 years now and love it. I get a ton of channels in HD and everyone that comes over can't believe the quality of the picture. When I first started out the customer service wasn't great, but they really seem to have improved alot. I'm not sure about the 2 year commitment, I haven't heard that before. That doesn't mean it's not true though. :tongue_sm

The best part of the service for Me though is the NFL Sunday package. Sundays just aren't the same without it! :w00t: Everyone that I know that has Directv seems to really like it. However as always YMMV.

??? HD Tivo doesn't work with DirectTV.
 
It will work if you use the IR Repeaters with the DirecTV box. DirecTV does not use cable cards. I honestly did not have an issue with Time Warner, Brighthouse or Verizon FiOS with my cable cards and TiVo HD.
 
Right, DirectTV works with Tivo without HD, but Hawk said HD Tivo.

And the main issue with Time Warner is their service in my particular area and their horrible HD lineup. Very very few HD channels right now.
 
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