My Vip622 experience so far, coming from a Tivo and 811

[ArTT Vandelay]

My Vip622 experience so far, coming from a Tivo and 811 updated

Quick background...

I've been a Tivo subscriber for probably 5 years. Love it. The OS is awesome. I love my Tivo like i love my Mac and like i love my Audi. just one of those things. so, bad news when they finally announced an HD version that only works with cablecard. bummer. then Dish announced their new vip stuff, and the 622 sounded great. so i ordered one. I've used my mother in laws standard Dish pvr but not extensively and not for dish pass. seemed simple enough.

anyway, my previous setup was an 811 into my tivo for sd and straight to the tv for hd. off-air using a winegard ss100. abc was spotty ota sometimes in bad weather, but otherwise everything was great. dish 500 and 61.5 dishes, ex-voomer, kept that package, etc etc.

yesterday the installer showed up late. don't ya love that? and when he left he lingered, like he wanted a tip. You just cost me half a day of billable waiting for you and you want a tip?

he was competent at least. swapped the lnb, hooked up the 622, made the call and i was in business.

Here are the things i like:
extended guide in widescreen
fast channel changes
digital local scan is FAST!
HD DVR finally!

Here are the things i don't like:
extended guide with video cuts off the bottom channel (works fine without video)
Dishpass sucks compared to seasonpass from tivo
name based recording in general sucks compared to tivo
so far, digital local guide info has not populated (and yes, i subscribe to locals)

the dishpass is crap. if you search for lost, it records anything with lost in the title. crap. yes i know you can specify exact match. except the title field isn't long enough for something like, oh, desperate housewives. it cuts off half of housewives. so much for exact match. you can't select a show and say season pass, new episodes only unless you select record from the guide. and to search two or three days in advance sucks. also, i don't understand the difference between create timer for a show and dishpass when selecting record from the guide. so far future recording setup is waaaaay more complicated than tivo. also, if i delete a previously set up dish pass, then recreate a similar one, it seems that it remembers that i didn't want that show recorded earlier and so won't pick up my new setting. that may just be me.

anyway, it'll be a tough transition from tivo, but lost in hd is compelling

which brings me to the ota issue. on the 811, i got all the locals. signal strength was usually upwards of 85%. abc was often in the 60-70 range, but still locked most of the time.

with the 622 i had heard that it's ota tuner was lots stronger. which seems to be halfway true... everything except abc locks at like 98%! abc doesn't show up at all. its on the same tower as cbs, at a higher frequency. this sucks, i guess i'll try a different style antenna. any suggestions?

added later
i called tivo to tell them the bad news and they offered me two free months. i'll move it upstairs for a while i guess. don't really want to have two different dvr's, but hey, it's free.

added later still
removed the preamp from the ss1000. still no abc ota. wtf? this sucks. at least lost was a rerun.

 

[RobertsD]

If you want to reccord a show like lost just search for the show, or select it in the guide, then you can select whether you want it to record new episodes, all, weekend, weekday, etc.

Setting timers this way has worked perfectly for me, it always record the episodes I want, and never any I don't.

Dish pass will record anything with the titele or part of title that you search, but setting timers(like I explained above), records only the show and episodes you want.

I've never used a TiVo before, but from the sound of it, the TiVO season pass is practically the same as setting a timer to record either the new episodes, or all episodes, on the 622.

 

[kesslerm]

You hit the points which I have found be be what's lacking on Disk DVR's. I too came from Voom. I had a HTPC recording Voom with SageTV as software. SageTV was the closest to TIVO. It had the ability to record 'seasons' but at least remembered what episodes you watched so it wouldn't record them again (a big problem Dish seems to have.) It also had some 'intelligence' like TIVO which would record shows based on what you've watched in the past, which I consider a great feature sorely missing from Dish. That is what makes Dish DVR's to seem more like a glorified VCR.

Here's my advice for ex-Tivo users which now have a Dish DVR:

You better know exactly what you want to record, exactly when new episodes of your shows come on, and be sure to check it every week or you will miss something.

 

[RobertsD]

It had the ability to record 'seasons' but at least remembered what episodes you watched so it wouldn't record them again (a big problem Dish seems to have.)
Here's my advice for ex-Tivo users which now have a Dish DVR:

You better know exactly what you want to record, exactly when new episodes of your shows come on, and be sure to check it every week or you will miss something.

The Dish DVR's remember the episode's that they have recorded whether they are still on the DVR, or deleted. If it has recorded the episode before, it will skip the episode, unless you tell it not to.

Like I said before, I set timers for my shows, and after the timers are set, I don't need to now what time or day the show is going to be on, it keep track on that itself. Even if the time or day changes during the season, the Dish DVR knows, and changes the timer accordly.

My 942 has never missed an episode it was supposed to record.

 

[NOHDjunkie]

Here's my advice for ex-Tivo users which now have a Dish DVR:

You better know exactly what you want to record, exactly when new episodes of your shows come on, and be sure to check it every week or you will miss something.

That is a Completely false statemant when referring to the OP and his 622. Dish Network NBR is exactly that, and works via the same principles as the Tivo NBR.

ie... it records a show on a certain channel regardless of the time it airs (New airings only or new and reruns)

Select a show to record and set it to record new"NEW" shows. thats exactly what it does. It will not record reruns and will adjust to record shows that are moved to different timeslots and nights.

Or set it to record "ALL" and it will record every show, new and reruns. and will adjust to record shows that are moved to different timeslots and nights.

or you can set a scheduled timer to record weekly, daily or one time only.

I never use Dishpass. Just set the timer for "new" it's the same thing, for all intents and purposes.

Simple.

I've had my 942 for almost a year now and it has never missed a show. And once again, for all intents and purposes, the 942 and the 622 are the same.

And to the OP. To search ahead in the guide a few days just hit the skip forward butt and it will send you 24 hours ahead.

PS. I had a Replay and a Tivo. they both pale in comparison to dish DVR's IMO. The Replay is in the landfill and the Tivo is an SD doorstop.

 

[ArTT Vandelay]

Completely false statemant.

Select a show to record and set it to record new"NEW" shows. thats exactly what it does. It will not record reruns and will adjust to record shows that are moved to different timeslots and nights.

Or set it to record "ALL" and it will record every show, new and reruns. and will adjust to record shows that are moved to different timeslots and nights.

or you can set a scheduled timer to record weekly, daily or one time only.

Simple.

I've had my 942 for almost a year now and it has never missed a show.

I never use Dishpass. Just set the timer for "new" it's the same thing, for all intents and purposes.

And to the OP. To search ahead in the guide a few days just hit the skip forward butt and it will send you 24 hours ahead.

Nice. thanks. I'm sure i'll get used to it. the whole dishpass vs create timer is confusing though.

 

[Naidu]

which brings me to the ota issue. on the 811, i got all the locals. signal strength was usually upwards of 85%. abc was often in the 60-70 range, but still locked most of the time.

with the 622 i had heard that it's ota tuner was lots stronger. which seems to be halfway true... everything except abc locks at like 98%! abc doesn't show up at all. its on the same tower as cbs, at a higher frequency. this sucks, i guess i'll try a different style antenna. any suggestions?

You can go to the HD Local/OTA (I forget the exact name) menu and enter the UHF channel number of that ABC station. This method allowed me to enter one HD channel that scanning missed (signal is quite strong, so I don't know why it missed it; but it does come from an often flaky/experimental HD transmission fron NJN -- our state's public TV)

Hope this helps.

 

[NOHDjunkie]

Nice. thanks. I'm sure i'll get used to it. the whole dishpass vs create timer is confusing though.

That's all it is really... getting used to it. Tivo guys complain about the Dish interface and Dish guys complain about the Tivo interface. It's just what you're used to, that's all.

Just ignore the Dishpass and create timers to record what you want.

Regarding dishpass...for example, the real use for the dishpass is for the "seinfeld" junkie. The show is in reruns on 13 channels and airs 7 times a day. It will search for and record them all (except for duplicates) If you want to record all that, then Dishpass is your freind. and you can have all the Seinfeld your DVR can hold.

In regard to Logic in your DVR... I tried Charter Digital Cable and absolutey hated the Moxi HD DVR. It was so logical it wouldn't let you schedule recordings if it thought here wouldn't be enough space on the HDD to store it.

Example. (THe Moxie box only had 12 hours of HD recording space). I sit on monday afternoon to schedule a weeks worth of Primetime Network HD recordings and I get to saturday night and try to schedule it to record show X. the logic in the machine will not allow it because 12 hours of shows are already scheduled to record. (the Hard drive is empty at this time since nothing has yet recorded).

It will not allow me to schedule whatever I wanted, and then proceed on the assumtion that it will alert me that the recording can't take place unless I delete something.

Or, as would be the likely scenario, I would have already watched and deleted previous recordings before that would have happened, and there would be room for the future recordings.

A Machine can be too smart for it's own good, because that one only lasted 2 weeks in my house. As did Digital cable.

 

[ArTT Vandelay]

You can go to the HD Local/OTA (I forget the exact name) menu and enter the UHF channel number of that ABC station. This method allowed me to enter one HD channel that scanning missed (signal is quite strong, so I don't know why it missed it; but it does come from an often flaky/experimental HD transmission fron NJN -- our state's public TV)

Hope this helps.

tried that, no luck. i'm going to remove the pre-amp today and see if that helps, i may even get up there and re-aim. from what i've been reading on avsforum the pre-amp can actually increase issues in some instances. easy enough to remove and try it.

thanks

 

[dfergie]

I got my 622 going Monday, Local HD guide info populated overnight...

 

[scooby2]

season pass = timer
wish list kinda/sorta = dish pass

It works great. The 622 kicks the crap out of the HDTivo.

 

[sk8man]

season pass = timer
wish list kinda/sorta = dish pass

It works great. The 622 kicks the crap out of the HDTivo.

I have a series 1 and a series 2 Tivo. I have used the 622 for only two days, but so far, I am very impressed. The series 3 Tivo they are talking about does not interest me in the least since it won't do satellite. The picture I am getting from the 622 is very very nice.

 

[abricko]

Ex-Loyal Tivo User

I had two TiVos and I simply loved the interface and scheduling... very simplistic but not too simplistic that it didn't work... after getting a HDTV I grew tired of the fuzzy SD picture (from locals and sat) that tivo provided... i waited a year to hear of an announcement from tivo regarding a HD unit (it had been hyped for 2 years...) finally CES comes... nice looking box HD I like... but what's this? two ota and two cablecard tuners... where's my component input or composite input!

I was excited to hear of the 3rd generation HD DVR from dish, i ordered one and within a week i received my 622... i'll admit it's not as user friendly but after using it for a week it feels normal... the software bugs are few (and this is to be expected this is a brand new unit) I'm sure they'll fix them and I hope that Dish allows us to plug in an external HD (wish they'd have included a eSATA port on the back) to increase the (HD) recording space (although i'm excited to get MPEG 4 HD stuff that should increase the recording space...)

All the little *cool* things about my TiVo i thought i'd miss I don't, because i'm watching DVR content in HD! Can you believe that TiVo. I called and gave them the bad news they offered two months... i said no thanks my new DVR allows me to run both rooms (3 tuners people!) he said you'll miss tivo and i said no because i will finally have a clean picture on my TV... I also wished them good luck and said they were way behind the times!

To all former tivo users and switchers... give this DVR some time, the bugs will work out and you'll get used to this dvr and forget your tivo.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I sure forgot about my old stand alone tivo. Dish got it right with the 942 and the 622 hd dvrs. The future applications via internet will finally give us true Video on Demand features similiar to cable. In all the future looks bright to me with Dish.