Sorry; I don't have time to proofread this.
I knew DirecTivo had recording by show name and that EchoStar/Dish was
behind in this, but I figured they would have fixed that by now before
I decided to order it on the spur of the moment. Needless to say, I
am happy to find out that it is known this is to be a feature "in the
pipeline", and await it.
I have experienced many problems with Dish and 522 for first time. I
do not know how DirecTivo would compare. I know most of them can be
fixed with software and broadcast decisions, but am upset that they
are not already fixed. Here are some:
* Low quality recordings. Compared to Analog cable to my Hauppauge
350, Dish 522 sucks. Does Dish 522 recompress what comes across the
air, or is that exactly what Dish sends out? Is DirecTivo better?
Would it be worth getting an HD service (Comcast, Voom, Dish,
DirecTV) with their packaged PVRs (I know Comcast doesn't have HD
PVR; doesn't even have PVR! That's why I switched away), and then
down-converting that from the TV output to the TV for better quality
(instead of buying an HD set, still too expensive, but I will get
one when I can afford it)? Off the air HDTV I can record with my
pcHDTV card is quality decided by the broadcaster, but usually
better than Dish and worse than analog, with very few exceptions
both ways.
* Lack of topic and name based services. Tivo says it will record
things you might want to watch; I considered that an obvious feature
to put into all PVRs one has to pay for (since you scan channels in
old fasioned TV to find new shows, and PVRs take that method away so
have to replace it with something). (I can understand MythTV, which
I have, not having it, since it is made for free, but it's so buggy
my mother can't use it; I use command line to do all but record.) I
was amazed 522 didn't have that, and much more amazed it didn't have
even just simple title based recording. It would have to have
methods to choose duplicates. Some shows don't always have
duplicate information. Tivo has a lot of investment in good guide
data; would Dish be able to do as well? If they do, could they
implement near-local stations like KTVU & KQED in Monterey Bay
(available with Comcast but not satellite or antenna) using the
guide data to do automatic blocking of programs required to be
blocked?
* Crashed pressing Guide button while doing other things.
* Sound disappeared and output 1 started flashing black and white mode.
Problem with both S-Video & RCA, and coax out, so I assumed HW
problem, but Dish tech support said known software problem, and will
be fixed.
* Once set two shows to record, and one never showed up. Probably user
error due to interface issues.
* The hard coupling of tuners to outputs is bogus. There ought to
be a pool of inputs (2 tuners) upon which all users can draw:
recorders and live TV watchers. You would interact with the machine
to set priorities so that you never clobber anything or lock
yourself out of something in a default bad way.
Of course, priorities is one of the things a decent PVR system would
need, definitely for topic/title-based, but would also solve things
like what to do when you leave your TV on during a shower and a
recording needs to start, and which thing to delete when it's full.
Currently, they do this half right: it counts down to the switch,
and then switches. However, it shouldn't do this unless there are
no more available tuners in the pool.
* Desyncronized audio. I don't get this with my computer-based PVR, so
don't know why a professional DVR would have this problem. Tech
support said known SW bug, to be fixed soon.
* Audio cuts out occasionally, probably due to processor overload. Have
to step back to get it.
* Jumps forward and backward are too slow; with mplayer, I usually
only spend under two seconds to get anywhere I need to in the
program with two simple levels of jumping in my home computer based
system, but with Dish, the time necessary to jump to another part of
the recording is so high that you have to spend a long part of a
minute trying to reposition yourself (e.g., skipping ads). Lack of
being able to program the skip amounts also worsens this problem.
* When one or more simultaneous actions are in progress (e.g., recording
from both tuners and playing back from both tuners simultaneously),
processor overload seems to cause all sorts of problems: recording
failures, play failures, etc..
* I get receiver quality artifacts -- lost signal and other stuff like
that. I also got that with Comcast analog (they use some digital
retransmitters, and have other analog retransmitter problems). So
far, the incidence frequency with Dish is higher.
* Slow menus. I'm someone who remembers when computers programmed for
300bps modems responded faster to the commands you gave to them than
current equipment that is based on multigigabit bandwidths and
tuners and processors that supposedly handle that. It makes no
sense: if I press menu, it feels like it's sending the request to
the God of Bugginess and Consumerism for approval to actually show
the menu to me, gets put into queue, then has to go through the
entire application process, before possibly getting the
authorization to show me the menu, and then it has to send the
notice of authorization back to the box, and then, and only then,
will the box bother to go to menu. I mean, come on! Why is it so
slow? They say Sony is faster. I can't understand how HW designed
to show text on screen has so much trouble doing so. I think Amiga
was doing graphics on screen faster than that decades ago.
I can understand Guide coming slowly, but it seems like everything
about interacting with it is very slow. It should cache a few
things, and the rest it just shouldn't be so slow about anyway.
Decent indexes can easily speed things up even for large databases
(guide data).
* Annoying habit of the thing to say that something is in use so
you can't operate with it. I'm so used to having links in Unix that
I never worry about this (I delete shows that are in the last few
seconds of playing all the time). It's just annoying for it to say
"can't do it" rather than either just doing it or asking you to
override the other user of it.
Those are only a few of my negative experiences with the 522.
I like many of the things about the 522 that work or mostly work:
* A variety of outputs to fit your setup
* UHF remotes so you can stuff them in your closet out of sight
* Bare bones basic recording capability
* Pretty LEDs
I'm sure there are other things I'm forgetting.
Generally, I like the direction of the existence of the box, and
the fact that SW can potentially fix a lot of the above. While
not satisfied with it, I will wait for a while to see how the
software updates proceed before switching. I may wait for the
six month easy return level.
Also, other features I think are important, that seem possible
given the HW onboard:
* USB network to other DVRs to do things other PVRs already do
like backup, share recording duties (more tuners and eliminate
duplicates), etc.
Since this is designed for more than one person to watch, it needs
features like each person marking whether or not they have watched
a show. It ought to have a soft and hard setting: soft is set by
you watching it (it can show % watched); hard is set by you
overriding that with a mark of "yes, I deem to have watched it".
This can be used in priorities, as well as information for other
users while they decide whether or not to delete it manually.
That's because some people watch the same shows. Also, each person
could have their own independent lock on shows, so if they want to
watch a program later, they can mark it that way so it won't get
deleted. Users would have to log in, in essense, if they move
to another room; I don't always want to watch TV from my bed (the
living room TV is far superior in every way, but has all of the
lack of privacy issues surrounding the living room).
One of the main reasons I started with Dish is that they have a
history of less anti-consumer contracts, like being stuck for a year,
and stuff like that. However, since I have switched (almost) all my
viewing to non-live (and when it is live I just watch recording in
progress), I have a lot of quality concerns about such systems. The
fact Dish is available is good, but so far I am left with planning a
possible exit strategy, not trying to order more Dish stuff.
Questions:
Tivo: 35 hours: better quality or equal to Dish 522's 100 hours? I
mean, is compression higher or lower? Who uses MPEG2 vs. MPEG4 &
other better compression types? I had this data when I researched
this in 2003, but don't have it handy now. I'm not sure if MPEG4 &
other better compression types would do what I want at higher quality
levels: does it really compress that much better if quality demands
are higher? I know for highly compressed stuff MPEG4/newer
compression methods are definitely better. Not sure how much
SW & HW conversion Dish would need to do for receivers to support.
Obviously, other considerations were Tivo's 35 hours vs. Dish's 100.
I already filled my Dish DVR.
