A note from Echostar on some of the 721 reported bugs.

[Bill R]

No word on that, I have worked last night after the ball game to recreate that bug with no success.

Scott, since you don't have the same software as the rest of us it is likely that your software doesn't have that bug either. It is quite clear from what the rest of us are seeing that your beta did not become the general release that everyone is complaining about.

I agree with Randy_B. Someone at DISH is not being honest with you (and us).

 

[dbronstein]

No word on that, I have worked last night after the ball game to recreate that bug with no success.

Scott, since you don't have the same software as the rest of us it is likely that your software doesn't have that bug either. It is quite clear from what the rest of us are seeing that your beta did not become the general release that everyone is complaining about.

I agree with Randy_B. Someone at DISH is not being honest with you (and us).

I also agree.

Scott, I really appreciate all your work with this site and relaying the info from Dish. It does seem pretty clear that the final beta you have is not what was released, for whatever reasons.

I'm just really disappointed that after we waited so long for the upgrade that as soon as I started modifying timers I ran into problems.

At least the early padding is working and the correct show names are showing, so that's something.

Dennis

 

[baloo75]

When I was on the phone with "advanced" tech support the other night after my 721 went teet up and we were waiting for yet another reboot to occur during their troubleshooting process. He asked how I liked the 721 upgrade, well I said it was great until the thing stopped working (it says my smart card isn't authorized to view this channel on every channel).

The CSR mentioned that there was another 721 update coming pretty soon. Scott have you heard anything about this?

I am guessing when they get the final 921 bugs worked out they will send us an update, that has the version that Scott has. It is interesting that Scott still has a beta after the official release happened. Kind of tells me that L115 wasn't the final release of the beta that Scott has.

 

[sparker]

rather inconvenient if you ask me. if people preferred 29 minutes then why couldn't they type 29????

 

[Bill R]

My suggestion is if you don't like the 29 minute pad to let Echostar know. It should be at least 59 minutes.

I suggest calling them too. I really think that it should be 99 minutes (like it was).

 

[Bill D]

My suggestion is if you don't like the 29 minute pad to let Echostar know. It should be at least 59 minutes..

The 721 team is a group of good people let's hope they do the right thing and extend this option.

I thought we were letting them know, since we are posting complaints here. I am not going to call tech support to tell them I hate the 29 minute pa on timers. Scott, if they truely read these forums then all they have to do is read all of the people complaining about this problem. If you have an email address or phone # of a member of the 721 team that we can contact give it up, I will certainly contact them with my displeasure with the change and the obvious lying about why they did it.

There seems to be a problem with the 721 team to realize the less buttons presses the better. This change adds many steps (button presses), the new recording option is great bad adds an extra step, just bring up all the options right away.
Also the end time on the recording option is incorrect when the banner first comes up, when you go to options it is correct.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

You are letting them know by posting here, but if only 1 or 2 people post about it here they won't pay attention.

You fight a better battle with an Army then you do with one man and a slingshot.

 

[Bill D]

Thanks Scott, that is what I was hoping..
Also I posted this earlier..
If you tune to a channel (after the official start of a show) and 10 minutes later want to record the last 10 minutes plus the remainder of the show, it doesn't seem like the record from beginning is enabled. Is this feature only good if you start from the beginning of the show. If this is the case, it should be changed to pick up from whenever you tuned to that channel. Whether it was 1 minute or 20 minutes into the program

Dish, listening to that one??
thanks

 

[Tom488]

They did some kind of user test and found that those folks prefered the 29 min setting.

Okay - I'm calling bull$#!t on this. The default setting was 3 minutes. I can buy that user testing revealed that users either preferred a different default amount, or no extension at all by default.

It is utterly REDICULOUS to accept that a group of users said, "No, we'd prefer if we were restricted from changing this default setting beyond 29 minutes".

Add my name to the list: Echostar - this is entirely unacceptable. We should be able to EASILY specify an extension of a timed event. This nonsense of creating the timer, then going to the timer list, picking the one we just created, then going into the time menu and manually changing the end time is about as user-friendly as a freshly-castrated doberman pincer.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of bugs (or deliberate foul-ups), a recording of "Family Guy" last night at 11:00PM shows up in the PVR list titled "Futurama", which ran in the 10:30PM timeslot. Guess that "bug fix" wasn't exactly "fixed", either.

To paraphrase Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop II, "Are you guys looking at this code when you test it, or are you, like, using 'The Force'?!"

 

[Bill D]

.

To paraphrase Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop II, "Are you guys looking at this code when you test it, or are you, like, using 'The Force'?!"

that was a good one

 

[Bill R]

Okay - I'm calling bull$#!t on this.

It is utterly REDICULOUS to accept that a group of users said, "No, we'd prefer if we were restricted from changing this default setting beyond 29 minutes".

I have several takes on this:

• First, it IS a BS story made up by someone who either didn't know the story about why it was changed so he made up the information or he knew the real story behind it but he just lied to Scott.
  
• Second, there REALLY was a "group" of people that "prefered" a limit of 29 minutes. The "group" consisted of several DISH employees that had never before used or owned a DVR and really didn't know what they were suggesting. This was likely an internal focus group that was shown the 721 for a short period of time and then asked multiple choice questions about what they would perfer in the features.
  
• Third, there is some technical reason why this was done and we are not being told why.
  [/list:u]
  One of the above reasons is likely at least partially correct. No matter what the answer is, the truth is that DISH screwed up AGAIN. I sure hope that they have the wisdom to listen to their subscribers on THIS mistake and restore the extended time to the way it was.
  
  I also feel that there are some much bigger (management) issues here.
  • Why do these type of problems keep occuring?
    
  • Are we being told the truth (I don't feel we are)?
    
  • Why do customers get such a run around when they complain to DISH about a problem like this?[/list:u]

 

[Stargazer]

Since the 721 has this then I would expect the 501/508/510 receivers to receive the 29 minute padding as well in the future. Why would Dish implement this on the 721 and not the 5XX receivers?

 

[Filip]

Stargazer, You must not own a 50x or else you would know that the pad feature available on the 721, is not available on the 50x line. The only way to pad a timer you create from the guide is to edit it. The only other way to create an extended timer is to manually create it from scratch. But this way you don't have a program name on the timer. Really any one who has padded timers on the 50x's will find padding the 721 to be identical!

 

[120inna55]

You are letting them know by posting here, but if only 1 or 2 people post about it here they won't pay attention.

You fight a better battle with an Army then you do with one man and a slingshot.

I wasn't going to simply reiterate what everyone else was stating, but since you are suggesting it, here goes...

• I don't like the limitation of the 29 minute pad.
  
• I need a screensaver: I frequently fall asleep to a 30-60 minute recorded event. When I wake, the screen is on a static DVR screen requiring my action. On my current CRT, this is not much of an issue, but will be crucial when I upgrade to a projection, etc.
  
  [/list:u]
  
  Thanks.

 

[tom-008]

Ok dish engineers, who we know check this site regularly, I think we have made it abundantly clear that the majority of 721 owners are very PO'D about the 29 minute limit on adding extra time to a recorded event.First time I have ever heard of getting "LESS" control after accepting a software update.
Tom

 

[Stargazer]

No I dont have a 5XX receiver (opened out of the box for use anyways, the two 508's are sealed brand new in boxes). So the 5XX receivers could never do that, and the 721 had special functionality that they could but they just reverted the 721's back to the way that the 5XX receivers currently are?

 

[Filip]

Stargazer,
Not exactly, the 50x's never had the pad feature, the 721 still has it but just up to 29 minutes (which most of us hate). If you want more padding you then use the edit feature just like you do on the 500 series. So the 721 is still better in this respect, but not as good as it was.

 

[shadowman11]

To anyone from Dish Network that might be reading this.

Please give us 721 owners the ability to pad our timers by 99 min again, also the screensaver was great, please bring it back too.

 

[Stargazer]

OK, thanks for verifying this.

 

[Filip]

Stargazer, No problem. This "upgrade" has certainly been a major letdown.