I purchased the 921 on the $839 deal. I would have been thrilled to get it for $549. I have had a 721 for about six months and love it. I was hardly using my 811 because it forced me to watch the HD live. I know the 921 software resembles the older 721, but that is fine with me. As soon as the program info is available in the guide, I think the 921 will be a pretty nice receiver. Worth $1000, maybe not, but $549? Heck yes. When do you honestly think the 942 will be at a quality level better than the 921? I bet this June that the 921 will still be better. By December, it may be a different story, but I think the 921 will be a very usable receiver at that time and I will have enjoyed it for over a year.
DISH discontinuing 921?
- Thread starter joelk
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Price may be a issue for some but that is not what has been holding me back. It is very simple, it needs to work flawlessly and not require a Phd to learn all the tricks for work arounds. I might go $50 for a product as an experiment that can be thrown out it it does not work out. $1000 is not an issue for a quality product. Did I use the word quality, now that is something that Dish needs to study. There is plenty of money out there that once a product gains a solid reputation it will sell like hot cakes. I can not imagine an installer recommending a 921 to any customer that they care about or desire any return business. Jon.
jcarr: You are quite right. I do NOT recommend the 921 to anyone short of an expert-level techie.
Charlie: It's spelled Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y, and just because you get a JD Powers award doesn't mean that you actually HAVE any real quality in the company.
Charlie: It's spelled Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y, and just because you get a JD Powers award doesn't mean that you actually HAVE any real quality in the company.
Does the 921 have the record for the E* receiver with the shortest production time? I mean only a few people had this receiver by Christmas of last year and less than a year later, it's already being discontinued.
This is why i said a while back that it was almost outdated by the time it came out, that Dish Network waits too long to release some of their receivers. Remember the receiver with a DVD player that never made it to market? When the price of the items drop so quickly on the marketplace it makes it nearly impracticle to relase that product especially if they order a lot of hardware in advance.
I half agree with you Stargazer. If E*, et al, had a little more planning sense, they'd allow these boxes to be upgraded. They certainly thought about it during 921 design (empty drive bays and PCI slots). OTOH, they must've gotten a HUGE deal on obsolete crappy slow VIA CPUs. Maybe someday we'll see what the box an do with a ordinary slow CPU instead of one that was obsolete before they even built the motherboards. 
I spent $999.00 on my 921 last January and you don't see me complaining.
Bought your 921 last week before the price break.... Tough luck... Thems the breaks...
Live with it... Get over it.... Consider it bad timing.... Do as Scott sez and email echostar.... Otherwise, give Claude a break and take your medicine like a man.
Timing is everything.... I'd still give $999 today for mine.
The 921 is a good unit. Sure it still has some drawbacks with OTA, but rewind to 11 months ago when those of us on the bleeding edge had to put up with DAILY LSOD (Linux Screen of Death) Scott can back me on this... So can Mark L.
Once in a great while, my unit still pukes and gives me several channels that are supposed to be hidden and restricts some that I am supposed to get, but I call echostar and report it like a good doo-bee. A front panel reset usually fixes everything.
The ONLY real letdown was covering the firewire port.
Anyhow, even without archiving to JVC D-VHS, I would buy it again. The HD-DVR is well worth the price IMHO.
*stepping down from soap-box*
Bought your 921 last week before the price break.... Tough luck... Thems the breaks...
Live with it... Get over it.... Consider it bad timing.... Do as Scott sez and email echostar.... Otherwise, give Claude a break and take your medicine like a man.
Timing is everything.... I'd still give $999 today for mine.
The 921 is a good unit. Sure it still has some drawbacks with OTA, but rewind to 11 months ago when those of us on the bleeding edge had to put up with DAILY LSOD (Linux Screen of Death) Scott can back me on this... So can Mark L.
Once in a great while, my unit still pukes and gives me several channels that are supposed to be hidden and restricts some that I am supposed to get, but I call echostar and report it like a good doo-bee. A front panel reset usually fixes everything.
The ONLY real letdown was covering the firewire port.
Anyhow, even without archiving to JVC D-VHS, I would buy it again. The HD-DVR is well worth the price IMHO.
*stepping down from soap-box*
BTW just for the record I got an email from Echostar, and the email says that YES THE 921 IS DISCONTINUED.
No word on whats replacing it, as far as I know in talks from last week that the 942 is NOT ready for primetime yet.
Tech Chat is tonight, maybe they can shed some light there.
No word on whats replacing it, as far as I know in talks from last week that the 942 is NOT ready for primetime yet.
Tech Chat is tonight, maybe they can shed some light there.
wait... they droppe dthe price then discontinued it a week later... wont this raise the price back up?
Im not sure...
On the Retailer Chat they did call this price reduction a "HDTV Closeout"
I guess that was a good clue.
On the Retailer Chat they did call this price reduction a "HDTV Closeout"
I guess that was a good clue.
Typical Dish history... Discontinue the receiver just as the software finally approaches stability...
Probably going to introduce the new Motorola DVR (i.e. team up with VOOM) so Dish customers can spend the next year debugging a new box...
Probably going to introduce the new Motorola DVR (i.e. team up with VOOM) so Dish customers can spend the next year debugging a new box...
Many people are very happy and still use many discontinued Dish receivers. Hopefully Dish will finish up the 921 software to include the Dish Home, NBR, and of course the OTA Guide info. After that, do not expect any more features.
In fact, Do not put too much weight on Dish Home either.
In fact, Do not put too much weight on Dish Home either.
Thats a good question, call into the Tech Chat tonight to try getting some answers.madpoet said:So... is it worth buying? Makes me nervous
Scott Greczkowski said:
How does this explain lack of OTA guide info? Those bozos had to develop the infrastructure to do it. Was the 811 done in England too? Both receivers have had that issue, and they can't write the software until Dish puts EPG data on the satellites.
What about name based recording? They listed that as a feature for all of the PVRs a while back. Has that been seen yet? It really isn't that hard to implement. They just need some good relational database management. I think Eldon was a problem, however, I think E* is equally slow (retarded) with these issues. EPG is an example of that. Name based recording is an example of that.
While being from Canada I can't call into the infamous tech chat but a question I would like to know is why does dish not stablize their recievers instead of coming out with something new? They don't need a new HD-PVR, they just need to fix the product they have now. The 921 has great potential, make it a top of the line reciever and quit fixing problems with the hardware by coming out with new hardware and dropping another line.
Alt
Alt
I would answer the question by saying DISH really dosen't value their customers. Selling them a defective product and then abandoning it to try and develop a better product that will also be defective is the history of Echostar. Back in the "C" band days they bought the Houston Tracker brand and developed a switching power supply for those receivers. They failed in a three to six month period and Echostar kept replacing them and redesigning them. I don't think they ever cured the problems they created with these receivers. About a year and a half to two years after they started DISH they closed down the Houston Tracker business. They have continued this type of business policy into the DISH Network products. DISH has forgotten how to make a quality product, they have found they don't have to the American Public will buy "almost working".Altaman said:
Scott Greczkowski said:
I called and called and callled, and I actually got through. They asked me if I had a question for the show, I rattled off the NBR and EPG questions, and all of the sudden I got transferred somewhere else. I am guessing they screen what questions they want to answer.
Didn't get to see the tech chat though....
Did anyone get to ask the question on the air?
now that we know that the 921 will be discutinuing soon i have some questions regarding Puerto Rico:
1. If we arent able to buy the 522 because PR dont work the Digital Home Plan, will we be able to buy the 942?
2. how soon will the 921 will be disc?
3. will the 942 will use the firewire?
4. when dish will change the hdcbs channel to the 110 sat?
5. how much channels can we expect in hd and how soon?
1. If we arent able to buy the 522 because PR dont work the Digital Home Plan, will we be able to buy the 942?
2. how soon will the 921 will be disc?
3. will the 942 will use the firewire?
4. when dish will change the hdcbs channel to the 110 sat?
5. how much channels can we expect in hd and how soon?
The 921 was based on the 721 receiver only it had the built in HD tuner in it. The 721 was released a while before the 921 was (and I even remember the delayso n the 721). Basically that allowed even more time to go by causing it to be more obsolete than it could have been.
