I will do that. In a way, I am amazed that the 501 has lasted this long. It has been a good 14 years, which is the longest that I have ever used any satellite receiver. You can't beat free DVR service!
QPSK receivers will go dark Feb. 10
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One of the 501's in my pile was my 1st Showroom PVR. It hasn't been connected to a dish or activated for years. I can still access all of it's recorded content.
I'm way worse than you, got to throw out so much receivers even C-band ones many brand new lots of $$$$$
The changeover to 8PSK has caused an additional problem besides loss of old receivers. I travel in an RV using a First Strike FS1-SE sat meter to set up my dish, however it's only works with QSPK. I need to find a replacement that works for the casual user and doesn't cost an arm and leg. Any suggestions?
Check out the Accutrac line of meters. The Accutrac Pro MKll would do the trick and it's compact. By the way, my 1st boat was a 16.
Yeah, as if anyone would not gladly accept an upgrade to a far better box and all at Dish's expense.
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You know someone will find a reason to complainYeah, as if anyone would not gladly accept an upgrade to a far better box and all at Dish's expense.
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Excellent pont!You know someone will find a reason to complain
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.I also belive the big upgrade from the 4700 to 4900 was picture in guide. I remember that when we first became Dish subscribers our main STB was the 3900 (I think, but I know it was a the lesser 3000 line) it already had picture in guide from with the then new EPG design from day of installation, and the info video crowed about it. Meanwhile, my relitives who joined Dish about a year earlier had the 4700, but no picture in guide. I told them that Dish had plans to upgrade their STB (info from either a Charlie Chat or a Tech Forum). It took longer than it should have, but one day they woke up to find picture in guide and the new EPG design.
FWIW, was not Dish the first MVPD in the US to have a picture of live TV in a quadrant of the EPG. I know the DirecTV boxes that were superior were by Sony at the time and the Sony's had a mode where the guide could be overlayed in tranparant shade over the full live TV picture, but that was not clear unobstructed live TV stream in a quadrant. Now, all the MVPD's use the video in quadrant, including TiVo.
Just so people know why Dish regretted the 7100 and subsequently make their own, in-house DVR 501: Echostar did the hardware, but the software was by Microsoft. Whenever there was a bug or even real big problem, Microsoft never had a sense of urgency and often did not respond to Dish's concerns and took several months to fix things. Customers were ticked and could only blame Dish. The 7100 was considered a disaster because Microsoft didn't support their software well and then---Microsoft went to market with their own DVR product: UltimateTV. What a coincidence!
Ergen felt burned, and went in-house for all future DVR's after that.
Those old Dish brnded HDTV's were an interim solution. Dish had made an investment in HD channels and providing far more of them than any other MVPD, so it became important to get people to subscribe to the HD channels because very few people then had an HDTV, nor could they afford to buy the HDTV's available at that time. Soon after launching the Dish branded HDTV's, the prices of HDTV's came down enoughj so that a lot of people could afford them (still the affluent as HDTV's prices still needed to come down the average Joe budget), there was no longer any point to Echostar continuing the Dish branded TV's and they were no longer available. I would not consider it a "flop" for it was never designed to bring lots of subscribers to the HD channels, but, rather, was a "band-aid" to the problem of the "chicken and the egg" problem with adoption of High Definetion. HDTV manufactures were holding off on producing HDTV's in mass scales of economies that would bring the retail price significantly down until HD programming was more avaialable. So, the Dish branded HDTV's were a temporary bridge for a few who were willing to buy one of those low pried Dish HDTV's and enjoy HD programming rather than waiting for prices of HDTV's to come down.
while theres perhaps some truth to that.
dish was dedicated to controlling who had the software code, to avoid pirating.
it got so bad there wasnt enough talent to have well tested software........... caused some receiver releases to be very seriously late
so boxes like the 721 started life with slow rebooting software, 5 minutes reboot. to a unreal over 20 minutes...
at the time i had some insider contacts, and such issues created endless troubles.
like my wife at the time put in tons of timers for cooking shows.
my 721 went into a continious endless reboot nervous breakdown mode. didnt clear till the timers fired
all because the software department never got around to setting a limit on the most number of time recordings. something thats pretty basic.
i also discovered my 721 could not download software when brand new foro 100/119. i had 4 or 5 721s here, tech support didnt have a clue......
till someone from the software group, reading my posts said get different lnb...
dish drove me away thru fees, but it was stuff like this that led to my departure
when i was at the echostar 6 launch as a vip guest i was told a pirate was attending. the launch the problem was they didnt know who the pirate was.....
dish was concerened for my physical safety since i had made a suggestion to screw with pirates, and they were concerned the pirates might try to get even....
my contact who made the slates for the charlie chats was a wonderful inside contact, he helped me win a couple nice dinners when i bet with dan collins and he lost
good old 007my most memorable leak was being just a few days early on mike dugans retirement, caused a mess in the pr department, i always called him uncle mike, a reporter at a press conference asked if he was really my uncle...
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more blather from Pittsburgh, over and over and over....
Addressing the rational portions of your post:while theres perhaps some truth to that.
dish was dedicated to controlling who had the software code, to avoid pirating.
it got so bad there wasnt enough talent to have well tested software........... caused some receiver releases to be very seriously late
so boxes like the 721 started life with slow rebooting software, 5 minutes reboot. to a unreal over 20 minutes...
at the time i had some insider contacts, and such issues created endless troubles.
like my wife at the time put in tons of timers for cooking shows.
my 721 went into a continious endless reboot nervous breakdown mode. didnt clear till the timers fired
all because the software department never got around to setting a limit on the most number of time recordings. something thats pretty basic.
i also discovered my 721 could not download software when brand new foro 100/119. i had 4 or 5 721s here, tech support didnt have a clue......
till someone from the software group, reading my posts said get different lnb...
dish drove me away thru fees, but it was stuff like this that led to my departure
when i was at the echostar 6 launch as a vip guest i was told a pirate was attending. the launch the problem was they didnt know who the pirate was.....
dish was concerened for my physical safety since i had made a suggestion to screw with pirates, and they were concerned the pirates might try to get even....
my contact who made the slates for the charlie chats was a wonderful inside contact, he helped me win a couple nice dinners when i bet with dan collins and he lost
my most memorable leak was being just a few days early on mike dugans retirement, caused a mess in the pr department, i always called him uncle mike, a reporter at a press conference asked if he was really my uncle...
Ironic to your point, it was Microsoft not allowing Echostar access to the source code that meant only Microsoft could fix any 7100 problems with Echostar being left hanging in the wind. While one can understand MS guarding its source code, it means MS needs to react to problems with its software with more urgency. Of course, why would MS do that when they were preparing their UltimateTV product for release.
As for the 721, the problem with the 721 was that project was done in the UK with a company, I forget the name (was the name Elden?), that I believe Echostar had recently purchased, instead of having the Echo engineers do the work as they had with the relatively problem free DP501.
This resulted in the 721 being released at least a year late to release to customers and Dish/Echo found the software to be a disaster, and it was the efforts of those at Echo who fixed what they could before offering it for purchase, although the 721 was pushing the boundaries as being the most sophisticated Satellite DVR at the time, and the 721 was most likely under-powered didn't help matters. No question, the very first 721 owners had to endure a product that was still not ready for prime-time (but even with those early problems, those same users LOVED their 721 because it had 2 tuners), which is why I waited several months before getting mine.
Eventually, (several months of software updates), the 721 became quite surprisingly rock-solid and reliable with reasonable re-boot times, but it was always a bit of the odd bird among the Dish STB's with its own idiosyncrasies. The mistaken attempt to integrate the internet during the early phases of design just made things more complicated than they needed to be and would eventually be, wisely, abandoned after learning people really didn't want internet via their TV boxes all that much after all.
Our 721 lasted years before we needed to RMA it due to dead HDD, still as owned, as that was the only way to acquire a 721: to purchase the box as retail item. It really was the superior experience of Dish with the 721, and its ability, for years, to allow recording one channel while watching another was the answer to our payTV prayers. It still had a superior interface to the DP522 and subsequent boxes until the Hopper came around. And most strangely, the weather overlay of the 721 was far, far, far faster than the weather apps on the latest and greatest of Hoppers, which I view as a dimished experience compared to the weather overlay screen of the 721. Oh, it came with a few games, as well.
The only complaint we had about the 721 was its inability to used Name Based Recording, but, instead, used the hard time recording timers, but even with that limitation, it was still the best DVR offered by any PayTV service with its sat industry first of 2 tuners. TiVo, which did use Name Based Recording, was the only superior DVR at the time.
After all that Dish learned and kept it all at Echo and each subsequent generation of Dish DVR has been better than the last.
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so dish only got better?
you conveniently ignore the 900 series HD DVRs, eventually dish killed them/ or years late release of new boxes over software issues.
I believe the most solid receivers I ever had were the 501s etc.
when i finally sold my 721 the rebot time was about 20 minutes.
i put it on a UPS along with my tv.
one night the power failed, and my then wife totally freaked, the tv is on but everything else is dead. now that was funny
