721 Rip

[ken]

After 2 months of crappy operation my 721 is dead (the DVR part anyway). I can't believe E* made me go thru 3 levels of tech support (reboot twice at each level taking 15 min for each reboot) before agreeing with me that the hard drive is shot. Ever since the last firmware upgrade a couple of months ago the thing has been a royal pain. Now I have to look forward to getting a wonderful refurb that some other poor sucker sent in because it didn't work. It would not piss me off so much if I didn't have 75 hours of recorded programming on it. THANKS DISH....

 

[Pepper]

if you get a refurb that was sent back because of a dead drive, it will likely have a new drive when you get it.

and when you get it, if you have the expertise: you want to immediately, before even turning it on the first time, pull the drive out and make a ghost image of it to another 120GB drive you just happen to have lying around. in case you have drive troubles in the future you can swap it yourself.

 

[Van]

This is what I dont understand, if you are noticing problems starting to happen why continue to store programs on the dvr?

 

[Stargazer]

If you pull the drive out then your warranty is void. If you do not have a warranty on the receiver then purchase the $5.99 warranty and get it replaced.

 

[CJPC]

Could keep it in, and just use a long IDE cable, warranty seal stays intact, but irritating at that, still having the spare etc.etc.etc, and the legalities!

 

[ken]

Van, I don't keep the VERY important stuff on the DVR, it gets transfered to a DVD. The point is if I have a 90 hour DVR I am going to put 70-80 hours of good stuff on it. Even you have to admit that if you have that many hours of stuff you like go bye-bye it's going to sting a bit. And before you ask, yes, if I had a 200 hour DVR I would fill that up too.

 

[Stargazer]

How are you going to get a long IDE cable in there without taking the top of the receiver which voids the warranty?

If I lost a lot of content on my DVR in which I save my best shows for last to watch, then i would expect some credit on my programming bill or seriously consider going to another provider. No provider is worth a dime if you lose the content that you want most. Some of it you can never get back. Just like when they had the WB marathon on TVLand/Nick@Nite. One time deal, thats it.

 

[Pepper]

The only thing technically that voids the warranty is if you damage the little sticker attached to the hard drive bracket (and those are usually pretty easy to remove without damaging). There's no sticker preventing removal of the top cover.

Note: I am not advocating doing anything just mentioning things that can be done.

 

[Stargazer]

I thought the screws had something on them which indicates whether a seal had been broken or not. I am sure they got some way of telling whether they have been opened or not. Would be nice if they could be opened up without voiding a warranty.

 

[ken]

Stargazer, you and I must watch alot of the same stuff because that WB stuff on TV land took a big hunk of my DVR space. I did transfer some of it to DVD but still lost alot. This is the second time in two years that I have lost all of my DVR programming. You would think I would learn but it's hard not to use that space (on the hard drive) if you have it. In a way I wish the darn thing only had a 30 hour hard drive.

 

[Stargazer]

Unfortunately I missed some of the content that I did not get recorded. I was pretty young the last time I saw some of those shows and with the name change of one of the shows (Hogan Family from Valerie) I did not know the name until I did research not knowing it was going to show. I had always wondered what show had the name change. I could only get a few stations back then on an outdoor antenna that I would tinker with. I cannot wait until IPTV takes hold so that I can get to watch all of those shows again.

I had a 501 receiver have a hard drive failure before. It sucks. I had two 501's have a tuner issue and a 510 and a 721 with a tuner issue as well. I have not had any hardware issues with the replacement 721 and the 522's that I currently have.

 

[ken]

What is IPTV, is that AOL's programming that is due in January ? If it is I understand you do not need to be an AOL member, is that right ?

 

[Stargazer]

It is programming that you can access over a high speed internet connection. You can select which show that you want just like you would from a DVR Events screen.

 

[ken]

Ya but where is it going to be ? AOL has a new service coming out next month with a bunch of clasics, is that it, or are you talking just in general over the net stuff.

 

[navychop]

FWIW:

I was an early purchaser of the 721. It failed on me. I had the insurance, still do, and they replaced it. The second one failed also, and they replaced it, too. The new one, the 3rd 721 in my house, is working fine. Hopefully, it will continue to do so for at least another 6-12 months, by which time I will have a 622/962/other MPEG-4 8PSK HD DVR. The 721 then moves to replace my 508, which moves to replace the 301, which "goes away."

My current 721 works just fine and maybe that means they've figured out how to do a good refurb on them.