New software version 146 downloaded!

[DVDDAD]

Well my 921 took the download, but I didn't get a message to power off the unit until I went into the software menu where it said download was successful and to power off. I've tried powering off and nothing happened. Tried it twice and waited 15 to 20 minutes each time. Did a smartcard reboot and a message now says that it's "Installing new software. Please wait..." Then, the dreaded "X" came up and now it's rebooting again. Stay tuned...

 

[DVDDAD]

Well after the second reboot the software download took. Too soon to tell you what's different. But I hear at DBStalk that the stretch mode hasn't been fixed yet. This version is supposed to add discrete on/off codes and add stability. We'll see...

 

[Mark_AR]

Mine just went to the LSOD (X) screen and then rebooted. It took all of 15 minutes for it to completely update and reboot and reboot a second time without me even touching anything.

So far the fixed things that I have noticed:

Name based search and record options.

Still not fixed:
PIP purple bar on right side when PIP is pushed twice.

Bleeding bottom of picture down in guide when viewing HD channel and browsing guide.

Inset picture overscans left side of box when in menu, search and guide.
(Similar to above bleeding picture in guide, but doesn't bleed down into guide area like above)

Still no Local Channel re-mapping either. *sigh*

Still ugly plain text on music channels. Copy the code out of the 522 already!

Thats it so far after about 10 minutes of scrutiny.

Mark

 

[A_Noland]

The SD Streach and Zoom formats are still totally out of wack.

Maybe next time.

 

[AppliedAggression]

"Name based search and record options. "

Do you mean you can record by name?

 

[Mark_AR]

"Name based search and record options. "

Do you mean you can record by name?

Well in a way yes, but the straight answer is still NO.

MENU - 1 - 2 is the SEARCH menu.

Open the keyboard and search for the program you want.

When the results come back, just tap the DVR button and select the shows you want to record. IT is a lot easier than browsing the list.

 

[Mark_AR]

I'll tell you something I DON'T like.

Now when I press the TV power button on the remote, the 921 toggles on/ off.

If the DVR is on and the TV is Off, pressing the TV button will turn the TV on and the DVR off. Then I have to press the 921 power button to get them sync'd up again.

I liked it better when the two weren't tied together.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

So far I don't like the update. My 921 does not seem more stable with it, infact it seems less stable now.

I have had to reboot my unit a few times to get the 2nd tuner working correctly.

Mark said the Grey Bars have been fixed but on my TV the Grey Bars still have a half inch gap from the end of the picture to the grey bars.

 

[DVDDAD]

L1.46 damaged remote control functions

I agree Scott, I didn't notice any improvement. A matter of fact, the programming of discrete IR codes broke the TV power button. When pressing it or first pressing the TV button and the main power key, the 921 now also toggles it's power state.

This is not an enhancement as Mark Lamutt first suggested on DBStalk, it's a bug. Why would you want to power down the 921 while recording, just because you want to turn off your TV and go to bed? Or if your 921 is on, but your TV isn't on, you touch the small TV button to watch TV, your TV turns on and the 921 turns off; that's stupid! Currently, because there is no screensaver, if I pause a program for a length of time, I like to turn off my TV, but I want my 921 to stay on and record to the buffer, not erase it by powering off the 921. This latest release caused the problem. If someone did this intentionally, as Mark originally suggested, they didn't think it through. We should not have to wait an other month before they correct their error, but I guess we'll have to.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Please don't think I am picking on Mark, because I am not. I have always been a person who calls things as I see them type of person. So far this upgrade has been more of a downgrade to me.

I hope no one things I am bashing Dish, because I am not, I am just reporting what I am seeing. When Dish deserves praise I give it.

I can't however give praise when the software is junk, because ultimately a lot of people depend on me for advice, I don't want to say "this is great" when I know its really not. I just want to be honest with everyone.

Again I have had to reboot more with this new software then with the old.

 

[markdl]

So far I don't like the update. My 921 does not seem more stable with it, infact it seems less stable now.

I have had to reboot my unit a few times to get the 2nd tuner working correctly.

Mark said the Grey Bars have been fixed but on my TV the Grey Bars still have a half inch gap from the end of the picture to the grey bars.

That wasn't the Gray Bars problem that was fixed. The problem that was fixed was the horizontal anamorphic squeeze applied to the 4x3 image before the gray bars were applied. This resulted in very squished horizontal picture, then black bars and then gray bars roughly the same widths.

Now, there's no horizontal squeeze applied to the picture. There's just the slight gap (compared to what it used to be) between the picture and the gray bars. And, I still think that this is due to the fact that the gray bars are being applied up the 0% overscan mark, while the 6000 took about 5% overscan into account.

I have this same issue with 2 of my local Denver stations that apply gray bars to the sides of their upconverted SD programming - there's always a narrow black strip between the edge of the 4x3 image and the beginning of the side bar.

 

[markdl]

This is not an enhancement as Mark Lamutt first suggested on DBStalk, it's a bug. Why would you want to power down the 921 while recording, just because you want to turn off your TV and go to bed? Or if your 921 is on, but your TV isn't on, you touch the small TV button to watch TV, your TV turns on and the 921 turns off; that's stupid! Currently, because there is no screensaver, if I pause a program for a length of time, I like to turn off my TV, but I want my 921 to stay on and record to the buffer, not erase it by powering off the 921. This latest release caused the problem. If someone did this intentionally, as Mark originally suggested, they didn't think it through. We should not have to wait an other month before they correct their error, but I guess we'll have to.

I think that this was meant as an enhancement that they screwed up. And, as I don't use the 921 remote, I was trying to get a handle on what the ramifications of the problem was before sending the report off to Dish.

 

[DVDDAD]

Mark,

I'm sorry, I know that when you first said you thought it was an enhancement, you were still getting a handle on this bug. It took me a while to notice what was going on myself. I was returning to watch something I either recorded or had it buffer and it was gone and I didn't understand why. I didn't mean to bash you or hurt your reputation at all. I applaud the work that you and Scott do to help peope like me get the most out of my satellite equipment. Please accept my appologies and my thanks for your efforts.

 

[Ray S]

That wasn't the Gray Bars problem that was fixed. The problem that was fixed was the horizontal anamorphic squeeze applied to the 4x3 image before the gray bars were applied. This resulted in very squished horizontal picture, then black bars and then gray bars roughly the same widths.

Now, there's no horizontal squeeze applied to the picture. There's just the slight gap (compared to what it used to be) between the picture and the gray bars. And, I still think that this is due to the fact that the gray bars are being applied up the 0% overscan mark, while the 6000 took about 5% overscan into account.

I have this same issue with 2 of my local Denver stations that apply gray bars to the sides of their upconverted SD programming - there's always a narrow black strip between the edge of the 4x3 image and the beginning of the side bar.

Is this narrow black line enough to cause burn in on a Direct View CRT? The black versus gray area seem to transpose enough where there would not be burn in.

 

[bytre]

The narrow black line between the grey bars and the picture is the concern I had - the usually black space will cause uneven burn in of the pixels. It is much more of a concern for a projection TV than a direct view CRT. Best solution - keep contrast set to proper levels, and watch a variety of full (wide) screen material as well as the grey bar SD.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I am still trying to figure out why the engineers did not look or think about how the Dish 6000 ran so that the zoom, grey bars etc would work correctly as they do on the 6000.

Guys don't reinvent the wheel, just take a look at what you already have done (and works well!)

 

[sclaws]

Just my .02, since the update I have not had a single reboot, crash or other failing behavior, where before I would see maybe one a day. OTA digital have been surprisingly rock solid(as they were very unstable before when surfing), all timers have fired properly so far and I have yet to see a LSOD while tearing thru menus. I'm not saying there is a ton of room left for improvement, but at least in my case, SO FAR I have been pleased with the new software's stability.

 

[nicholassjenkins]

My input on 1.46

2/24/2004 9:37pm ET (it annoys me that postings lack dates)
I have been checking off and on about once a week for an update, and I happened to check for 1.46 apparently shortly after it had already applied itself to my 921.

So far, here are my thoughts:
1) Tying remote main power & TV power buttons together = bad/stupid
2) Flipping in and out of guide, especially in OTA channels much more stable...no reboots = good.
3) I'm noticing a lot of warnings about all tuners in use, and needing to cancel one, or run in live mode = annoying (and frankly, the warning isn't informative enough for me to really appreciate what it is trying to communicate -- at the least, it should pop up a window saying "here are how all the tuners are currently being used", with a radio button allowing you to select which one you might want to drop)

Aside: BTW... I just noticed that if you tape back-to-back 1/2 hour shows, and accept the default of 1 minute early, 3 minutes late for each taping, that there are 4 minutes of overlap every half-hour, which uses the 2 available tuners. Duh...don't know why I didn't notice this before. I guess my point is that it seems stupid for Dish to leave the default as 1 early, 3 late if this will obviously cause issues when taping back-to-back shows. At the least, the software ought to recognize the contiguous time slots, and auto-eradicate the timing overlap.

4) I got some errors about PIP in use conflicting with timers - this is a specific annotation of the above #3 complaint. The issue is that I don't use PIP, typically, and I bumped the PIP button by mistake, and then cycled back out, exactly once. So, why did it hold a tuner to PIP thereafter? Or, does this PIP warning mean something else?
5) I'm now seeing the vertical blue lines in very faint, dark scenes, and I'm not sure if it has anything to do with 1.46, or just I'm lucky enough to have finally noticed, or if my 30/45 day life expectancy has finally come up.
PT-56WXF95A over YPbPr in 720P.
6) Recently, my OTA channels have not been tuning with as much effectiveness as they were a few weeks ago. Once again, not sure if this has anything to do with 1.46, as I'm using an indoor powered antenna...but as soon as we get some warm weather, up is going the medium-fringe rooftop antenna.

Thanks for reading.
-NICK

 

[guruka]

Hi Nick -

I guess my point is that it seems stupid for Dish to leave the default as 1 early, 3 late if this will obviously cause issues when taping back-to-back shows. At the least, the software ought to recognize the contiguous time slots, and auto-eradicate the timing overlap.

The 921 DOES do this. Create back to back timers and then go look at the timers menu again. You will see the first timer now has 0 minutes at the end and the second timer has 0 minutes at the beginning.

I'm now seeing the vertical blue lines in very faint, dark scenes, and I'm not sure if it has anything to do with 1.46, or just I'm lucky enough to have finally noticed, or if my 30/45 day life expectancy has finally come up. PT-56WXF95A over YPbPr in 720P.

This is hardware issue, not a software issue. Dish will repair overnight. There's a special UPS return shipping address to ship your 921 to so they can fix this problem for you.

Recently, my OTA channels have not been tuning with as much effectiveness as they were a few weeks ago. Once again, not sure if this has anything to do with 1.46, as I'm using an indoor powered antenna...but as soon as we get some warm weather, up is going the medium-fringe rooftop antenna.

Actually, I've found that OTA tuning is much improved with L 1.46.

.....G

 

[BobMurdoch]

When they repair your unit "overnight" do they wipe the hard disk and kill all your recordings?

I haven't seen the major problems yet, but I'm wondering what will happen to my recordings if I do.