FROM DISH: New 942 Information

[Sean Mota]

What dish should do is this... All customers with 921 and 6000u who were screwed by them should get a replacement at no cost and lease. Otherwise, as far as I know, the 942 is another piece of garbage hardware that will only good until MPEG-4 hits it on the face and then they will have another receiver to replace the 942. What is dish smoking these days?

P.S. One word CABLE has no upfront cost and leases the DVR... NO WAY TO BUY THIS NONSENSE TO FIND OUT THAT IN A YEAR OR TWO IT WILL NOT BE COMPATIBLE WITH THE HD PROGRAMMING AVAILALBLE.

 

[gpflepsen]

What is the rate structure for using the 942?

$250 up front
$5 Lease fee (also includes extra receiver fee?)
$5 Extra receiver fee
$5 DVR fee

Depending on the lease fee including the extra receiver fee, it will take 2.5 or 5 years to exceed the cost of using the 921.

I know after 5 years you own the 921 and don't own the 942; how much value will the 921 have in 5 years?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Dont forget the $9.99 a month extra for the HD package which is required if you have a 942.

 

[korsjs]

when the 942 goes away, will you have to pay another 250 to lease the mpeg4 box?

 

[BFG]

This looks very cool, assuming it all works
Some of your pics got funked up though, the colors are wrong
But it's got some nice features and still missing some

Nice:
All 3 soruces can be recorded simultaneously.
PIP now works with Two HD sources
Now has HDMI and includes cable and adapter
The remotes can operate a second receiver in the aux mode.
The EPG on TV1 is 16x9 Enhanced
It comes with named based recording
It has that antenna mover thingy (not enabled)
It has the dish comm support, since I don't have a phone next to my HDTV (not enabled)

Some not so nice:
It still only has one friggin OTA tuner (come on dish, this is sooo important!)
The TV1 Remote is not UHF Pro
It costs a $250 fee to lease the thing
All of the nice features may not work

 

[gpflepsen]

Dont forget the $9.99 a month extra for the HD package which is required if you have a 942.

Wouldn't this be balanced out by paying the $9.99 if you have the 921? I personally would have the HD pack regardless but, some may not want the HD pack.

 

[gpflepsen]

I'm envisioning the active antenna as a flat panel (similar to the bay antennas) getting it's directionality from some sort of phased array principal. You remember diffraction interference patterns from Physics, yes?

I can see this type of antenna being quite a bit more expensive than the typical yagi or bay antennas used for the best performance today.

 

[Jaspear]

If Dish actually makes this available to existing customers for $250, I might go for it.

I *really* hate saying this, because I've been roped in by Charlie's bug filled, flaky hardware since 1996, but since I have no access to cable, this looks like the least expensive way for me to get an HD PVR. I would *never* spend $749 to own one. I already have a closet full of old receivers I helped Dish beta test.

Rope me in again, Charlie!

Who knows, hope springs eternal. Sooner or later, even chimpanzees would produce a receiver that would let me do something as simple as just watch TV!

 

[Eric_C]

I talked to them yesterday.

It IS available to existing customers. I have an 811, and was told that I would send back my 811, give them $250 and they would send me a 942. My monthly cost would increase 4.95 since I already had the HD Pack and was leasing my 811.

 

[fenwah]

Okay...let's say I decide to shell out the $250 for the HD PVR. Since I'm leasing it, what happens if the thing breaks? Am I entitled to have it fixed or replaced free of charge?

 

[BFG]

Standard warranty is one year.

After 1 year $5.99 warranty may be added for free replacement of both leased and owned dish brand equipment.

 

[wmhjr]

You got it!

That's EXACTLY why I got fed up and RMAd my 921 for a return and refund - and then got Cable installed. Though there are a few things I miss about Dish, I don't miss them *much* and certainly don't miss having to reboot the 921, find out that recordings were missed or paying the extra money that Dish was costing me.

What dish should do is this... All customers with 921 and 6000u who were screwed by them should get a replacement at no cost and lease. Otherwise, as far as I know, the 942 is another piece of garbage hardware that will only good until MPEG-4 hits it on the face and then they will have another receiver to replace the 942. What is dish smoking these days?

P.S. One word CABLE has no upfront cost and leases the DVR... NO WAY TO BUY THIS NONSENSE TO FIND OUT THAT IN A YEAR OR TWO IT WILL NOT BE COMPATIBLE WITH THE HD PROGRAMMING AVAILALBLE.

 

[jdsabin1]

Great information as far as the technical details are concerned (not so great on the deal itself for some it seems).

Of course the obvious question is ... does anyone in the know have a better idea as far as timeframe is concerned? I'm ready to go right now so I am hoping I don't have to wait on this deal for a few months.

TIA.

-Jeff

 

[BFG]

February. so we're talking weeks.

 

[GaryPen]

What is the rate structure for using the 942?

$250 up front
$5 Lease fee (also includes extra receiver fee?)
$5 Extra receiver fee
$5 DVR fee

Dont forget the $9.99 a month extra for the HD package which is required if you have a 942.

Hmmm. Comcast gives you a two-tuner HD DVR for
$0 up front
$9.95 lease fee
$0 Extra Receiver Fee (incl. in lease)
$0 DVR fee (incl. in lease)
$0 HD fee (incl. in lease)

I'm just sayin'

 

[BFG]

If they didn't have the upfront cost it would only be 3 cents more than comcast. ($5 + $4.98 = 9.98)

But of course since comcast is cable u can record 2 networks at once

But then again comcast sucks balls because they're missing, hdnet, hdnet movies, universal hd, and tnt hd

 

[markusian]

Hmmm. Comcast gives you a two-tuner HD DVR for
$0 up front
$9.95 lease fee
$0 Extra Receiver Fee (incl. in lease)
$0 DVR fee (incl. in lease)
$0 HD fee (incl. in lease)

I'm just sayin'

What about the OTA tuner for Local HDs, is it worth anything?
Does comcast provide locals in HD?

I'm not defending Dish, I'm just making sure that we do not compare apples to oranges.

-Mark

 

[GaryPen]

But then again comcast sucks balls because they're missing, hdnet, hdnet movies, universal hd, and tnt hd

Comcast has INHD1&2, which are the equvilent of the HDNets.
Dish doesn't offer Universal-HD, so no loss there.
NFL-HD and local RSN-HD more than makes up for loss of TNT-HD for most.
Comcast has all my major locals in HD (except for Fox). Dish has Distant CBS-HD. (Wow.)

Plus, since the 811 has never worked correctly, and DVR functionality is most important in my household, we don't even have the Dish HD Pack, as it wasn't worth the $10/mo to us. We will be gaining far more HD than we would be losing.

 

[BFG]

OMG the INHDs are NOT equvilent to the HDNets, so STFU

ok I feel better now, you offended my favorite channel

 

[GaryPen]

Does comcast provide locals in HD?
-Mark

Yes. But, for some reason in my area, not the local Fox. They still have it in SD, though. Weird.