DVR problems with OTA Digital Dongle and VIP211z

[Fireman Smokey]

I just purchased for my RV a VIP211z, Pathway X1, Western Digital Mybook AV 2TB external hard drive and the OTA Digital Dongle. All new equipment which works well EXCEPT for the recorded playback of Over The Air shows. The standard satellite shows are fine but the OTA programs are jumpy etc. This happens on all the stations with signal strength at 100%. I read elsewhere that there was a "software problem" with the OTA Digital Dongle and the engineers at DISH were working on it? That appears to have been months ago. Any idea if there they have fixed the problem or is there a workaround? My wife isn't happy I plunked down nearly 1,000 bucks for what I promised her would be a turnkey operation.

 

[TheKrell]

Do I understand that the OTA live channels are fine?

 

[Fireman Smokey]

The OTA live broadcasts are picture perfect. It is just the recorded playback that has troubles.

 

[TheKrell]

Bizarre. I'd try changing out the external disk and see if that might be defective.

 

[Fireman Smokey]

But the external drive works fine for all the programs I DVR that are from the satellite.

 

[TheKrell]

OTA HD takes the most bandwidth. IIRC it's about twice what a satellite HD broadcast takes. So, if there's something wrong with the USB connection, or the disk is just slow for some reason, you'll see this manifest on OTA channels first. You probably have another external disk you can use at least temporarily to try it out on your 211z. Try a 7200rpm disk. My WD Green drives are pretty slow, but they work fine on my 722 and 612's since they only allow one stream at a time. (That's a very annoying limitation BTW.) But your 211 series receivers with the DVR conversion disk have to support at minimum two streams (for trick play), and 3 at worst (2 recording, one playback).

I still think it's the disk.