This is just a poll to get a feel for what the 811 users. Just like the 721, 508 and the 921 you see mainly the problems on the site. So lets see who is actually enjoying the OTA on the 811 and how many people are still trying to get the signal lock.
Are you happy with your 811 OTA
- Thread starter WeeJavaDude
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SatinKzo said:
I was still filling it out.
looks like a bug in the process. It posted my thread before the poll.
I have had my 811 for about a month now and have seen
The 49% no lock problem on PBS-HD channel
The acquiring sat and guide download when I hit the guide button while on OTA
The need to periodically reboot the receiver because it just goes 'nutz'.
I like the HD picture on Discovery and the HDNet channel. When my PBS-HD OTA signal finally does lock I am pretty happy with it. But it is pretty frustrating when you have to go through the magical incantations to get the thing to work correctly. Thank goodness my local CBS affiliate comes in fine. In fact all my locals come in fine except for the PBS-HD channel.
I guess I'm new enough to still be somewhat optimistic about Dish getting it right in an upcoming upgrade. I also have a 508 and had to get a replacement after 4 months. They seem to have it 'mostly' working today.
The 49% no lock problem on PBS-HD channel
The acquiring sat and guide download when I hit the guide button while on OTA
The need to periodically reboot the receiver because it just goes 'nutz'.
I like the HD picture on Discovery and the HDNet channel. When my PBS-HD OTA signal finally does lock I am pretty happy with it. But it is pretty frustrating when you have to go through the magical incantations to get the thing to work correctly. Thank goodness my local CBS affiliate comes in fine. In fact all my locals come in fine except for the PBS-HD channel.
I guess I'm new enough to still be somewhat optimistic about Dish getting it right in an upcoming upgrade. I also have a 508 and had to get a replacement after 4 months. They seem to have it 'mostly' working today.
I am very pleased with the OTA from my 811. Now if we could just get the OTA in the guide, I'd be extremely pleased. Ecstatic even! 
Other than the software versions, there must be 2 or 3 different hardware versions of this unit. I have yet (knock on wood) to experience any of the stated issues with this receiver. I am "damn happy".
I am "Unhappy". I have one of the first batch of 811's. The OTA problem has gotten worse with the last few SW updates. I do have a replacement receiver on the way. I have all my fingers, toes, nose hairs, and anything else I can cross, crossed, hoping I can come back and change my vote.
I wonder if these percentages will hold up; or how many of the answers are 100% honest. (We are counting on your honor!) Right now its about 70% happy & 22% unhappy. Now granted this is NOT a great split for a company IMHO, but seems to disagree with all the other threads that totally bash this product. Also, how does an 811 user determine that it is actually the 811 and not their location, their setup, their affiliate, or other hardware that is causing their problems?
charper1 said:
Really nothing unexpected in the results. The people with the most problems are the most vocal. Also, different subscribers have varied expectations for the product and different tolerance levels for problems encountered.
When the 501 first came out you would have sworn that it was the worst POS created if all you did was read the posts from Usenet and the forums. I had one of the first 501's, and my experience was nowhere near as traumatic as you might be led to believe. My neighbor's and sister's experience mirrored my own so I don't believe my unit was an exception.
Of course none of this invalidates anyone else’s experience, nor am I trying to trivialize the problems with the 811. This is just to put emphasis on the tried and true phrase YMMV (and don't be suprised if it does.)
NightRyder
charper1 said:
It's really only 36% truly happy. Not very good results.
I chose "somewhat happy". But, quite frankly, I don't think that's good eneough. I think Dish should be ashamed for releasing this or any product in the shape it was in, or even the shape it's in now.
I can understand a few minor glitches. But, Jeez! Plus, by now, the thing should be friggin perfect.
Well I added the two "happy" together because being somewhat happy because one or two channels wont lock in may be a location or customer variable that really is of no fault of the 811 itself. So a realistic happy vote would incorp both of these votes. Just as the last 3 would all be for "unhappy".
And, I think these numbers need to be tempered by whether this is the 811 owner's first ATSC tuner. I find that my 6000 with the 8VSB module had the same performance as the 811 I hooked up in its place. The 811 has problems with the same channel that the 6000 had, and now my WS-55613 also has (ch. 58, 10KW ERP). Any wind, and the trees and leaves get blown around enough to create multipath soup.
GaryPen said:
Well once again Gary we found ourselves at the other end of the spectrum. First of, no piece of software is perfect and I sure you know that so that must have been a joke
. All have their limitations and all have defects. No product is perfect and that includes the Tivo line. (Looking for the tomatoes to fly my way from the Tivo zealots) As for the percentages, I would take these with a grain of salt. First off the group on here tends to be a bit more critical of their equipment and use most of the features in a product. I would expect number to be skewed down. Also, there is no poll to compare this too from the competition so I am not sure how the 811 compares to the other offerings in terms of OTA.
Dish should be ashamed with most products they release. I agree with you on that point. They need more up front testing to catch what I would consider very obvious defects in usability and robustness. I read from this poll that the OTA issues are not effecting as many people as I would expect. Dish still has some work to do, but it is not as ugly as one would believe if they read the threads bashing the 811s OTA performance. Infact there are people that actually are getting good OTA results with the 811. What a suprise.
Based on some reports 288 is coming down the pipe. I hope this one addresses a lot of the remaining issues and the 811 forum will slow down to a crawl. One can wish can't they?
WeeJavaDude said:First of, no piece of software is perfect and I sure you know that so that must have been a joke
Actually, after all this time (what has it been 8, 9 months or longer?) the 811 should be near-perfect. The only "defects" should be extremely minor. However, the 811 is still plagued with 3 or 4 huge honkin' defects.
BTW, evry other peice of consumer electronic equipment I own (camcorders, tv's, audio, vcr's, dvd's, etc) do work perfectly, except for old ones that wear out or break (very rare). They all came out of the box working as they should. I wonder for how many recent Dish models that claim can be made?
GaryPen said:
WOW... you are one lucky person. I have made numerious Consumer product purchase, I have found some sort of problem. Lack in functionality. I have a Nikon CP5700. It has frozen. I had a Sony PC-100 with digital picture PQ that I find unacceptable. I had a PC-1 Digital camera that had a number of flaws. Replaced by Sony with a PC-4 that still has a number of flaws. I had a Pioneer Elite receiver that has a known DSP defect that went bad on me. I have seen Toshiba DVDs reliability show throw on two DVD players I purchased. I have Audio equipment that does not include what I would consider the minimum standard of discreet codes. Bugs in my mind.
I have a Pronto 3000 that out of the box was unreliable and flacky. Yes I have had some great experiences, but also some not so good ones and I do a lot of research before making an electronic purchase. To have ever other Consumer electronic device purchase work perfect out of the box, you must be lucky. I should get you to research and purchase my equipement. You must be very lucky that Dish is the only Comsumer Electronic product that did not work as designed Out of the Box perfectly. I am sure you have purchased PCs. They tend to be the flakest out of the box depending on what you have installed and how you use them. Have they worked for you perfectly every time? You have not had a feature of any consumer product you purchased not work as you felt it should except Dish's?? I find that hard to believe given this is an area near and dear to you. My Yamaha DVD players Speaker set up does not work properly (Known Issue). This amazes me given that I know there is no such thing as perfect software and almost everthing these days run on software. I will stand by my statment: There is no such thing as a perfect consumer product that works perfectly out of the box. Maybe under your use cases but I am sure someone else somewhere is screaming about an issue with the products you have in your rack.
Yes Dish is doing a bad job with there DVT cycle and let way to many bugs that are easy to catch out to the field. From my experience, they tend to let out software before it is cooked enough and then fix things after the fact so they can release a receiver earlier in the life cycle. This gets the product faster to market but can cause customer pain. I do also know that over time their products do tend to stabalize and can be trouble free. My 6000 had reached this point (only one annoying bug) and my 4900s had reached that maturaty. The 508 and 721, I would say are close.
This is an obvious release plan that Dish feels is the right way to release their product given they release model. Release early and fix the issues vs. Longer DVT cycle to produce more quality software and release later.
I am not sure Dish has ever released a product with a perfect Out of box experience. Even if they did, one person would say it is perfect while another would not like how you created a timer and said it was flawed. That is the problem with Human interfaces. Very subjective. IMHO, the 811 was released before it time, but at this point has shown in my use case a much higher level of stability then 8 months ago. I am happy with it now and in my configuration it works. Yes it has bugs, but in my case none are catastrophic to the point I cannot use the 811.
From what I have read, D* seems to do things a bit different in terms of software release. Maybe you should jump when your contract is up. From what I see, you would be happier with their model of release. I am sure you are considering it.
Just about to send it back and settle on a 510 and heck with the hd package. The picture quality on sd is so bad I cant stand it anymore. There is no grey scale, its either black or white. Watching movies, and just regular TV shows is frustrating. Spent top dollar on a nice big screen only to have the 811 make it look like @#$&.
They keep saying 268 will fix it, but I am about done waiting. Don't see how they are going to improve the grey scale with a patch, just turning up the brightness will not improve the deficient picture.
They keep saying 268 will fix it, but I am about done waiting. Don't see how they are going to improve the grey scale with a patch, just turning up the brightness will not improve the deficient picture.
Well, every consumer electronic product I've bought over the last 10-15 years has worked above expectations, except for my DishPlayer, my 501, and my 921. My Philips HD RPTV is exhibiting some things - but that could be the 921's problem - I have no way to tell because I don't have any other 1080i capable devices. Other than that we're talking everything from a Wal-Mart DVD-Theatre-in-a-box all the way to high-end Sony A/V gear. Oh - I was slightly disappointed with a $90 digital camera because it doesn't remember date/time when it's off.
As for computers, that's what I do, so every one I build works A-OK with the exception of infant mortality component failures, and those are quite rare nowadays.
As for computers, that's what I do, so every one I build works A-OK with the exception of infant mortality component failures, and those are quite rare nowadays.
Actually, WJD. You sound rather unlucky with your purchases. I would venture to say that Simon's and my experiences are the more common.
BTW, I was not including PC's in my definition of consumer electronics.
And, you really have to stop dwelling on the word "perfect". I don't expect perfection. But I do expect something close to it. The 811 as it is, six to nine months after release (and apparently most modern Dish receivers during their first year of release) are not only not near-perfect. They aren't even far-perfect. They appear to be across the international date line from perfect, and traveling there by canoe.
BTW, I was not including PC's in my definition of consumer electronics.
And, you really have to stop dwelling on the word "perfect". I don't expect perfection. But I do expect something close to it. The 811 as it is, six to nine months after release (and apparently most modern Dish receivers during their first year of release) are not only not near-perfect. They aren't even far-perfect. They appear to be across the international date line from perfect, and traveling there by canoe.
