721 Upgrade

[Scott Greczkowski]

Greeting Guys!

I am planning on updating my origional 721 review which I origionally posted to the other forum, plus I will be posting a bunch of NEW Screenshots from the latest 721 Beta!

Stay tuned!!!

 

[angiodan]

Well, now that I have a 721, I'll have to pay attention to these posts!!

Actually, it's not plugged in yet, I have spent the last two evenings in a hot Florida attic running the extra cables I need for the 721, the 921 and a Bell Expressvu. Not fun, I don't envy the installers out there at all. I can't imagine how unbearable it must be in there during the afternoon!

 

[RobbinM]

And so the race is on! Can the 921 team deliver before the 721 team gets around to sending out the long, long delayed upgrade?

 

[John Corn]

And so the race is on! Can the 921 team deliver before the 721 team gets around to sending out the long, long delayed upgrade?

Good point, Robbin

Welcome to the forum Robbin.

 

[James]

Good point, Robbin

You assume they'll get the 921 right the first time?

I think the real race is the 921 and the DirecTV HD-DVR. I'm a DirecTV sub so I really don't care too much, but I bet there are some on the fence waiting to see what happens.

 

[RobbinM]

I'm a DirecTV sub so I really don't care too much, but I bet there are some on the fence waiting to see what happens.

I've been with Dish since '97, but if the DirecTv HD Tivo came out close to the same time AND offered a discount for new customers... Hmm. I'd have to think about that one.

 

[James]

I think that is a huge problem for Dish. People assume the DirecTV DVR will be better than the Dish PVR. I have not see either other than pictures, but unless there is a compelling reason to stay with Dish, why would you? The 921 is supposed to address that issue, and time will prove this right. For some NFL ST in HDTV might be enough to pull them over.

 

[Guest]

Does the DirecTV DVR do name-based recording?

 

[James]

Yep... Think TiVo...

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I would hope now that they have DVR fees that some of the money would go to licence technologies such as name based recording from whoever holds those rights.

I still believe it was silly for Charlie not to even try bidding for Replay when it went up for auction. Having Replays properties would have put Dish DVR's to the next level.

 

[Stargazer]

Scott, do you notice a longer delay in the PVR functionality (fast forward, rewind, skip ahead, skip back) of a previously recorded audio channel in the 900's compared to the video channels in your beta version?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Scott, do you notice a longer delay in the PVR functionality (fast forward, rewind, skip ahead, skip back) of a previously recorded audio channel in the 900's compared to the video channels in your beta version?

Jacob its been so long since I had a non beta version of the 721 software its hard to tell if its faster or not. I do remember when I first got this beta in Feburary I was amazed at how quickly the menus and screens popped up.

The only way I could tell the speed difference now was if I had two 721's side by side, one running the beta and the other running the current released software.

 

[Guest]

Scott, good to see you again (still waiting for my registration confirmation email to arrive

When do you think you'll have the updated beta information up?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Probably on Tuesday the earliest, I need to hook my PC up to the 721 so I can capture screens from it.

I may also do a video later on telling you how the new features work.

Now that I am on my own I am more free what I can do with video and things like that.

 

[Guest]

Cool - no matter how long you take I bet you'll beat them to the release

 

[Stargazer]

You must have misunderstood my question, I am noticing this on my 721 so I was trying to figure out if the beta version was doing this as well and if anyone else was noticing this too.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Can you explain your question better? Like give me an example and maybe this way I can help you.

 

[Stargazer]

Whenever I recorded off of some of the audio channels and played them back later, whenever I would push skip ahead or fast forward there seemed to be a bit of a delay before it does that function. I was curious if they had fixed this on the beta and if they were aware of the problem.

 

[Unthinkable]

Whenever I recorded off of some of the audio channels and played them back later, whenever I would push skip ahead or fast forward there seemed to be a bit of a delay before it does that function. I was curious if they had fixed this on the beta and if they were aware of the problem.

I've noticed this behavior from time to time on the non-audio channels myself. Occasionally I'll see an event freeze up for a few seconds while fast forwarding or rewinding as well. On a similar note, somtimes I'll hit the swap button to switch to the other tuner and it will swap back twice (back to the original tuner I was watching) instead of once effectively negating its own feature doing a full 360 instead of a 180.

Noticed today that a 30 minute recorded event couldn't be played back whatsoever on the 721 until the receiver was rebooted. Started to wonder if the whole thing was corrupted, but it ended up being fine with a reboot. Can't wait for the next software rev.

 

[Lee L]

Scott, you might not be able to answer thisdue to NDA, but how do they even get a different SW build onto the beta testers 721's? The DP had internet access built in so you could just download the updates but the 721 only has the sat stream.