942 & OTA

[Greysquirrel]

Have I misunderstood or is the CSR at Dish wrong.
I thought I read that the 942 would record HD OTA and that was the reason I was going to get Dish as my HD provider. When I phoned and asked about this I was told that the 942 has to be turned off so you can view OTA channels and will not record HD from OTA. This is not a benefit to me as I have a tuner in my set, didn't buy it for that it just came with the set I wanted.
With what Dish offers in HD it is not worth me changing from my cable as I can get 10 HD channels for the same as Dish wants for five.
Please let me know if the CSR is right as if I can't record my local HD channels I see no reason to put up an antenna as I record everything we watch on the networks which is not a lot but if I can't record them in HD I will just have to record them from my digital cable.
Now if anyone knows of an economic way to do this without spend $400.00 or so please let me know.

Thanks for any information you can give me.

 

[pdxsam]

The CSR is completely wrong. The 942 will indeed record OTA HD many of us here record OTA multiple times a day every day.

Cheers,
Sam

 

[lakebum431]

Just a 2nd to pdxsam's statement. It does record OTA. It has 1 OTA tuner and 2 satellite tuners.

 

[Minsk1]

With 942 you can record 1 OTA HD/SD show, 2 satellite HD/SP programs and watch pre-recorded HD/SD show off the DVR at the same time.

 

[goaliebob99]

yep... I recored aff air hd everyday...

 

[Cyclone]

It sounds like the CSR was confusing the 942 with one of the SD model DVRs. Those allow for Analog OTA channels to "pass through" the DVR to the TV so that the TV can tune analog OTA. In order for that to work, the DVR is usually turned off, or you hit that TV/Video button the remote. In that senario the DVR can not record OTA either.

So it sounds like the CSR has the right answer to a different model DVR.

 

[rowemance]

The CSR is wrong you can Record off air HD in your 942 on the hard drive I just did it to check.
But from your statement you will not be able to use the tuner in your TV or your cable HD box.
You will have to set up your OTA tuner in your 942 so your local channels show in your guide and you should have no problem recording them on your hard drive.

 

[SummitAdvantageRetailer]

Everytime you get wrong info, get the operator ID of that CSR. How badly misinformed is that CSR or what?

 

[Greysquirrel]

Thanks for all the replies, I was sure I read here that you could but she went twice to ask other people and came back both times saying no.
I think I will go to my local installer who has been in business here for a long time and others have come and gone, I should have gone there first and forgot about dish.
Thanks again for your replies.

 

[rowemance]

Always go to your local Installer first 99% of the time they know more than the CSR.

 

[seandudley]

In case you didn't know, in many markets the 942 is unable to get the programming guide data for local digital over the air channels. This was my big disappointment with the 942. Here are the categories of channels in which you won't get programming guide data, and thus can't use anything to record the channels but a manual timer:

1. If the channel is not carried by Dish Network as an analog local-in-local channel. For instance, in my market, we have WMAK which is a local independent station. Dish doesn't provide them as a local-in-local channel, thus I can't get any program guide data for the channel to set up DVR events. (Also, I can't get programming guide data for the HD version of PBS since Dish doesn't provide the HD subchannel as part of their local-in-local service.)

2. Dish attempts to map program guide data for local channels, but they aren't very good at it. You won't know if you get program guide data for all your channels, some of your channels or none of your channels until you get a 942. For instance, I get no program guide data for my local Fox or CBS affiliates. Dish agrees I should get the data, but they are too incompetent to ever get their act together and actually get it working. I've been waiting for many, many months.

Also, in order to get programming guide data for any of the local channels, it is my understanding that you have to subscribe to the local-in-local channel package even though you don't need it since you are planning to watch the local HD feeds over the air.

In addition to this, the 942 is rather bugy. I seem to have to reboot every few days to get around that days problem. A problem I have been having a lot lately is that the audio just suddenly goes away. Another problem I had was that the audio I was getting was for the wrong channel, and regardless of what channel I changed to, I still got the audio from the local over the air station. Yesterday when I tried to tune in a local channel, I was told that I had to do a check switch. I did that, and then it did a bunch of other weird stuff and ended up rebooting itself and doing a checkdisk and stuff. It finally fixed itself. Another thing the 942 did to me was refused to let me add additional timers. It kept saying I had to remove timers before I could add more. I kept removing them, and it kept telling me the same thing. I finally had to remove all the timers before it would let me add anything, so I had to remove everything, and then add everything back to get it working again.Anyway, just wanted to make sure you knew that the 942 is pretty buggy. (Although I have heard it isn't as buggy as the 921).

Sean Dudley