My PQ has improved on all outputs. I was very unhappy with it before this update. Now I am a little more satisfied. Now the OTA issues I was told were fixed are not. In fact I think it is worse. I was locking on 4 of my 5 OTA stations. Well really 3 because one came and went. Now after the update I have 2 that will lock and one of those comes and goes. I guess I am going to have to breack down and buy an OTA tuner just for my local HD. I am pleased with the guide fix. Much better. Last time it was also fixed and a day later it crapped out again. We shall see if it is truely fix in a day or so. Overall I am happy with the update. Now if they can just fix the rest of the problems.
New software downloading on my 811 now!
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My experience: Got home last night and my receiver had already updated to 266. Was watching Frasier (OTA), as it goes to commercial I hit the Guide button on the remote, you guessed it: reacquiring signal. Wait, wait, wait, hear on the TV upstairs that the commercials are over so I go upstairs, next commercial break it's still hung acquiring signal so I try to reset by holding the power button in, nothing, end up having to fish around behind the entertainment center to unplug the damn thing. Next commercial break reapply power and after lengthy wait to reacquire and download program guide info I finally get to watch the remaining 10 minutes of Frasier in HD OTA...
Later in the evening after the local news gets over (watching OTA) hit the Guide button same damn thing...
Later in the evening after the local news gets over (watching OTA) hit the Guide button same damn thing...
Bigthrust--As was already mentioned, we need s-video for DVD Recorders. My Panny E-80 records some very nice 16:9 programming. It's downconverted of course, but it still looks damn good (like DVD quality). The problem is the dark issue. If I record HDTV to my DVD recorder--any dark image looks like I smudged paint on my screen.
It's frustrating as hell. Again, I'm only having this problem with S-video (pure crap). My other outputs range from acceptable to very good.
It's frustrating as hell. Again, I'm only having this problem with S-video (pure crap). My other outputs range from acceptable to very good.
Well, the new 266 must have been targeted to fix OTA lock issue's. I have a station that would jump from 5%-40% every second. It now jumps from 49%-56% and still wont lock. My others whicj lock around 76% all lock faster. They still havent fixed the remote buttin HD/SD to cycle from 1080i-480P oh well. 4 weeks maybe they will get it..?
266 fixed some problems
Well after the 266 update I no longer have the OTA guide problem. I can go back and forth from the OTA and then to the guide and it does not lock up anymore. No searching for SAT or loading the guide info. Also I noticed that my OTA channels stay locked. I used to have to go and search for local digital channels often as it would loose some of the often. My 811 I purchased about 2 months ago, so I do not know if this is one of the newer ones or not. I got so tired of waiting for DISH I shelled out $425 from a local DISH installer.
Ron
Well after the 266 update I no longer have the OTA guide problem. I can go back and forth from the OTA and then to the guide and it does not lock up anymore. No searching for SAT or loading the guide info. Also I noticed that my OTA channels stay locked. I used to have to go and search for local digital channels often as it would loose some of the often. My 811 I purchased about 2 months ago, so I do not know if this is one of the newer ones or not. I got so tired of waiting for DISH I shelled out $425 from a local DISH installer.
Ron
juan said:
I've never noticed that when they did something good. In this case, though, they didn't do anything good. The OTA/EPG "acquiring signal" bug is still there. I see no improvement in PQ at all , darkness or otherwise, using DVI output.
Like I've already said, I think this update was mainly for Sirius. They may have tweaked the dark output a little. But, if they did, it only seemed to help some members, and did nothing for others. That might be consistant with the theory that the darkness is a HW issue.
BTW, did you ever notice that when people post valid complaints about their Dish prducts or services, there are members that automatically defend, as if the company were a family member (or at least good friend)?
How can anyone defend DISH when they have sat on this problem for 5 damn months?
We all have problems locking with the OTA. I live in Plainview, NY on Long Island. I'm not that far away from the towers. My buddy has a Silver Sensor antenna like me and he gets NBC digital. I never get it...just the same old 49% and dead.
I understand most of us got the 811 for 150 bucks or so. I know you get what you pay for. But, 150 isn't chump change either. We deserved a product that at least gives us a good picture.
We all have problems locking with the OTA. I live in Plainview, NY on Long Island. I'm not that far away from the towers. My buddy has a Silver Sensor antenna like me and he gets NBC digital. I never get it...just the same old 49% and dead.
I understand most of us got the 811 for 150 bucks or so. I know you get what you pay for. But, 150 isn't chump change either. We deserved a product that at least gives us a good picture.
Wide array of reponses to 266 - strange
My 811 since 266:
DVI: HD definitly less dark. I even had to adjust my picture settings on the monitor. No "downloading info" message when I hit "guide", in fact it displayed listings well into next day. I'm not sure (too noisy around here in daytime) but the audio "hum" may be gone - I'll know better tonight.
Composite S-Video: Both HD & SD look much better than before. Much less dark and noticably sharper. With side by side comparision of a few SD stations, there's hardly any difference from my 508 - 811 may be even slightly better now. That's a big change.
I may even try recording an HD station (Yes, I know it's not HD anymore) on SVHS later just for kicks.
Favorites: Not sure how much but definitly increased capacity. I was able to add a bunch of channels and didn't get an out of memory message.
It really baffles me when I read the various reports of the 266 upgrade. Similar to when 265 came out, many see significant PQ & guide inprovments while others don't and a few even say it's worse.
While allowing for the usual few that post BS just because they can, it does seem (as with 265) that some 811s are reacting differently to the upgrade and it doesn't seem to relate to whether it's an older or newer model.
Common sense would dictate that there has to be something different about a unit if it reacts differently to the upgrade. The difference either is part of the way it was built or the way the user has it set up.
These units must (should) have the ability to display a status report that can tell a tecnicition what those differences are. Sort of like the memory dump screens that I remember you could access on other Dish receivers.
I'll bet there are some in this group smart enough to provide some insights on this. Anyone remember that guy that worked for whoever was trying to fix the Dishplayer software (Matt Tellus I think) ? He provided a lot of information which I think made it easier for customers to weather out that period. If Dish was a little more forthcoming and honest about this stuff it would help.
WaltinVt
My 811 since 266:
DVI: HD definitly less dark. I even had to adjust my picture settings on the monitor. No "downloading info" message when I hit "guide", in fact it displayed listings well into next day. I'm not sure (too noisy around here in daytime) but the audio "hum" may be gone - I'll know better tonight.
Composite S-Video: Both HD & SD look much better than before. Much less dark and noticably sharper. With side by side comparision of a few SD stations, there's hardly any difference from my 508 - 811 may be even slightly better now. That's a big change.
I may even try recording an HD station (Yes, I know it's not HD anymore) on SVHS later just for kicks.
Favorites: Not sure how much but definitly increased capacity. I was able to add a bunch of channels and didn't get an out of memory message.
It really baffles me when I read the various reports of the 266 upgrade. Similar to when 265 came out, many see significant PQ & guide inprovments while others don't and a few even say it's worse.
While allowing for the usual few that post BS just because they can, it does seem (as with 265) that some 811s are reacting differently to the upgrade and it doesn't seem to relate to whether it's an older or newer model.
Common sense would dictate that there has to be something different about a unit if it reacts differently to the upgrade. The difference either is part of the way it was built or the way the user has it set up.
These units must (should) have the ability to display a status report that can tell a tecnicition what those differences are. Sort of like the memory dump screens that I remember you could access on other Dish receivers.
I'll bet there are some in this group smart enough to provide some insights on this. Anyone remember that guy that worked for whoever was trying to fix the Dishplayer software (Matt Tellus I think) ? He provided a lot of information which I think made it easier for customers to weather out that period. If Dish was a little more forthcoming and honest about this stuff it would help.
WaltinVt
waltinvt\ said:
I actually downgraded last night in order to get my "Favorites" organized better, NOPE. Still only 120 channels allowed TOTAL, that can be 120 in 1 List, 60/60, 40/40/40, or 30/30/30/30 in 4 lists. The point is you can still ONLY have 120 channels saved into memory which still isn't enough.
See if results of 266 change in a few days.
I just wanted to bring this up while 266 is still new. I know for a fact (and I believe others have posted similar observations) that things changed with my 811 a short while after the 265 download.
For example my guide worked great right after getting 265 and less than a week later it started having various problems. I know there were a few others that noticed this. I even wondered if Dish had downloaded an intermediate, "unlabeled " revision in an effort to fix what 265 had messed up. I'm still not convinced they don't do that.
Anyway, this time it may be good if we all pay close attention to what happens over the next few weeks and see if some of these fixes that seem to work now "go away" later or, who knows, maybe something that doesn't seem fixed today just might start working next week (and then I woke up).
WaltinVt
I just wanted to bring this up while 266 is still new. I know for a fact (and I believe others have posted similar observations) that things changed with my 811 a short while after the 265 download.
For example my guide worked great right after getting 265 and less than a week later it started having various problems. I know there were a few others that noticed this. I even wondered if Dish had downloaded an intermediate, "unlabeled " revision in an effort to fix what 265 had messed up. I'm still not convinced they don't do that.
Anyway, this time it may be good if we all pay close attention to what happens over the next few weeks and see if some of these fixes that seem to work now "go away" later or, who knows, maybe something that doesn't seem fixed today just might start working next week (and then I woke up).
WaltinVt
peid said:
I'll try to check the count on mine later. I work at home and have slofted off too much already today. I know for a fact that I was able to add to mine though. I have 3 custom lists and the total capacity was "maxed" before yet I was able to add, oh maybe 15 channels or so to one of the lists this morning. Who knows, maybe I lost some on one of the other lists - I didn't check. I'll get back to you when I check it out more.
WaltinVt
After some hours of experimentation, I haven't yet had a "lock-up" going to the Program Guide from an OTA channel. Seems like that problem, and it was certainly my biggest issue, has been fixed. That will make for more domestic tranquility in our house.
OTA channel lock seems the same. No better, but no worse. It did improve substantially w/ the 265 update. Now if I could just use "Recall" while on an OTA channel, I'd be a satisfied 811 owner. Of course there are a bunch of improvements that I'd like to see, but those evolved with usage and weren't expected when I purchased the 811.
I to am perplexed that so many 811 owners claim that there wasn't any change in the brightness level of the PQ using S-Video, while I saw a dramatic improvement. Note that I normally watch via DVI and I never adjusted my set, a 50" Sammy DLP, to deal with the darkness on S-Video. So when I switched the Sammy's input to S-Video, I was amazed that I found reasonably decent PQ on all of the channels I checked out. Before 266, these S-Video channels were totally unwatchable, so 266 changed something in my 811. I will admit that the S-Video PQ isn't close to my DVI output, but that is to be expected. I'll also admit that the 2700 that my 811 replaced did have a higher still brightness level than my current S-Video brightness level on the 811. However, the 2700's PQ otherwise was garbage, unless you like looking at all the pixels, compared to the 811's PQ on S-Video.
BTW, my unit is a 1010LABD, which I thought was the mark of the first generation units, consistent w/ my mid-December acquisition.
OTA channel lock seems the same. No better, but no worse. It did improve substantially w/ the 265 update. Now if I could just use "Recall" while on an OTA channel, I'd be a satisfied 811 owner. Of course there are a bunch of improvements that I'd like to see, but those evolved with usage and weren't expected when I purchased the 811.
I to am perplexed that so many 811 owners claim that there wasn't any change in the brightness level of the PQ using S-Video, while I saw a dramatic improvement. Note that I normally watch via DVI and I never adjusted my set, a 50" Sammy DLP, to deal with the darkness on S-Video. So when I switched the Sammy's input to S-Video, I was amazed that I found reasonably decent PQ on all of the channels I checked out. Before 266, these S-Video channels were totally unwatchable, so 266 changed something in my 811. I will admit that the S-Video PQ isn't close to my DVI output, but that is to be expected. I'll also admit that the 2700 that my 811 replaced did have a higher still brightness level than my current S-Video brightness level on the 811. However, the 2700's PQ otherwise was garbage, unless you like looking at all the pixels, compared to the 811's PQ on S-Video.
BTW, my unit is a 1010LABD, which I thought was the mark of the first generation units, consistent w/ my mid-December acquisition.
waltinvt\ said:
I agree. I worked for a S/W group that supported ~1000 systems around the world and we would have major releases which would include new features and we would have patches that would fix problems. Major releases and patches were announced to the customers and fully documented. Unofficially we would also push fixes that weren't announced or documented. Pushing fixes was not according to established procedures and usually knowledge of a S/W fix pushed to the field was kept quiet and only two or three people would know about it because of the procedure breach. Is this unethical? Maybe and maybe not. We were able to save multimillion dollar production facillities from crashing by pushing a fix where if we followed strict release procedures the fix would take days or weeks to get into the field causing massive production losses.
I just switched to the composite output (baseband - RCA) and that is unchanged from P265, still very dark. Now when I switch from composite to s-video the brightness difference is obvious, where there was no difference with P265. Not sure what this all means, other than my 811 is still fooked.
That's enough for me, going to contact Dish and demand a new replacement, one with all outputs working.
Keith.
That's enough for me, going to contact Dish and demand a new replacement, one with all outputs working.
Keith.
So can anyone explain how the 811 is better than the venerable 6000? Maybe the DVI output?
Assuming the 6000 has comparable features and fewer bugs than the 811, maybe Dish will consider swapping a 6000 for the 811's we are stuck with?
Assuming the 6000 has comparable features and fewer bugs than the 811, maybe Dish will consider swapping a 6000 for the 811's we are stuck with?
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