Dish 510

[mcoady]

I have ordered one of these as an upgrade for my mother not knowing for sure what I was getting and it turned out to be a 510, I was hoping for a dual tuner model. My mom gets her local channels over an outside antenna (on a tower) and she gets crystal reception with it so she doesn't need to get her locals though Dish. I guess she watches about 80% locals and 20% satellite so my main reason for getting a dvr was so she wouldn't have to use a vcr anymore but now it seems it won't help after all.

Since she doesn't get her locals through Dish is there anyway to hook up her outside antenna to the 510 so she could use it to record her locals or will all it do is record from satellite? I'm not too knowledge when it comes to Dish and dvdrs. It looks like since it only has one tuner she will not be able to watch something else if it's recording, is that right? Thanks!

 

[boba]

No DISH DVR will record Standard Definition Over The Air(OTA) channels. Only the two tuner DVRs will allow you to record one channel and watch another. You could buy a standalone TiVo to record the OTA and the DISH channels but at $12.95/Mo. to do that you would be better off subscribing to the local channels for $5/mo. from DISH. of course the $4.98 DVOD fee on the 510 plus the $5.00/mo. for locals is almost as bad as the $12.95 TiVo fee.

 

[mcoady]

Well I guess I goofed up and cost my mom $50, plus 5$ a month more, plus signing a year contract, at least it wouldn't have been as bad if they had given her a dual tuner dvr.

Are the dvd guide screens any better to use than her old basic Dish 301 receiver? Surely there's something better about the 510 over her old receiver, I've got to find something to make myself feel better about this upgrade.Ha!

 

[Jared Twomey]

once your mom gets used to the dvr, she will thank you for the upgrade, just being able to pause tv made my grandmother-in-law the happiest person in the world... and once she found out how easy it was to set up timers, she records old movies and stuff all day long.

 

[BobaBird]

The guide on the DVR models goes out 8-9 days with no waiting for the next day to load or the optional picture on guide to return. She can use the DVR skip buttons to move back and forth a day at a time.

Other things that are better than the 301:
- Remote has a separate TV power button
- Remote is UHF allowing the receiver to be hidden
- 50 event timers vs 10
- Optical digital audio out, to be used with her son's next Christmas present
- Pause live TV
- Stored Search entries can be recalled them from history w/o having to be retyped

Better than a VCR:
- Can watch a recorded show while another is being recorded
- Recorded programs are automatically titled
- 50 timers vs 8
- No tapes to fiddle with
- Not having to replace worn tapes offsets, though doesn't justify, the DVR fee
- Playback PQ is identical to the original Dish broadcast
- Future NBR - "this year" (for the record, the statement was made in 2005)