Mike, I like a lot of your input but I just picture you sitting there reading these posts with a smug look on your face and laughing. Kind of that, I'm smarter than everyone else, attitude.
Some people enjoy being early adapters and like taking the risks. I think everyone that signed up early was expecting some snags to happen. I'll bet there are just as many installs that went perfect too. Most people who post online tend to focus on the negative things that happen instead of what went right.
I honestly am not surprised with how the launch has gone and for the most part have been impressed with how well the new system works. As for how Dish is handling some people's upgrades is a nothing thing. Dish has a mess on their hands there.
I guess what I'm saying is that you got your point across about how great you are for waiting and you no longer have to rub it in the people's faces who are experiencing some problems. I can tell that you are actually pretty excited for the Hopper system for yourself but prefer some wrinkles to be ironed out first.
I don't have a camera unit on my computer so I am really wondering how you knew I was sitting here with a smug face, laughing my ass off.
Look I was a early adopter of the original webtv/dishplayer back in August of 99. I loved the receiver and it was my first experience with the internet. I loved the pvr features and back then we had east /west coast networks for recording our shows. So we still could record all 4 networks , time delayed. But Microsoft and DISH had a falling out and the dishplayer went to HELL quickly. But after trading it back in for a replacement to DISH for 4 times in a row and at $15.00 a pop, I gave it up and went back to a 301 receiver.
I then was an early adopter of the 501 pvr and the 721 pvr and the 921 hd pvr. The 721 and 921 lost their minds quite regularly and had to be replaced ,again several times. I had to daily unplug the 921 receiver every day in order to try to prevent lost recordings. I put it on a surge protector with a switch so I could cut power on it easily. They sounded great in concept and they had future ports that would be used for computer access, but it NEVER happened.
So once again I kept these till they came out with the 522 receiver with Name based recording. I leased this bad boy and loved the entire idea ,but it was in Sd and I wanted a dvr that did hd. So when the 942 dvr came out I bought 2 of them. LOVED these receivers and they were really fun to own . I even could see analog channels through the 942 ,but couldn't record them. Then bought the 622 dvr , the 722 dvrs , had two of them- till the dvr fee PER dvr fee was instituted and traded them in again for a 722K and then the 922 dvr that everyone knows I had problems with ,and back to a 722k and two 211ks with dvr software -like hd versions of the 501 pvr ,but with ota tuners. And that was just my history with pvrs /dvrs that I've had since 99. I also had the regular sat receivers , like the 2800, 3800 ,4900 receivers ,but they were nothing like the pvrs/dvrs in relation to problems.
My point is that I have been a cutting edge ,early adopter since I've been with DISH for the last 15 years , and I've PAID to OWN my receivers on all of my 3 DISH accounts. So forgive me if I am sitting here laughing right now,looking smug, at someone else who is going through the pain for once. As much money as I've paid in receivers, sat dishes , switches, turbo plugs, sling adapters , and even the sling pro hd stand alone box, I think I have more than EARNED my smugness and happiness , that it isn't me suffering through the software glitches and problems, that come with a new "cutting edge" receiver.
I did try to warn all that were reading this board to learn from my experiences with the 922 debacle and to WAIT to upgrade till the receiver was more stable and feature filled ; 2 hopper integration and ota support. The uneven , inconsistent upgrade experiences alone, should be enough to scare just about anyone off of trying to even ask for the hopper upgrade. Oh and the hopper has to have a joey with it or you can't get it. Oh but some got it alone and without any joeys. Ridiculous for a company like DISH to operate like this . But that being said , I hope that the Hopper will become the best receiver DISH has. I don't have much faith it will happen this year and maybe not till well into next year. After all the 922 is still waiting to be fixed so Blockbuster @home can be added. But when and IF they do get it working with all the features like ota and 2 hopper integration too, you're right, I want one too.
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