Scott's 921 Has Arrived!
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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It does show it from the Manual DTV addition screen, however once you have a channel programmed in and want to watch it its hard to aim the antenna properly.
My CBS is wierd, it comes in perfectly if I aim it at just the correct area, a blip to the left or right from the antenna and I get no CBS at all.
With the 6000 there is an on screen meter for when you have channels already programmed on. I wish the 921 had this meter.
My CBS is wierd, it comes in perfectly if I aim it at just the correct area, a blip to the left or right from the antenna and I get no CBS at all.
With the 6000 there is an on screen meter for when you have channels already programmed on. I wish the 921 had this meter.
Scott,
When you press the browse button on the 6000, there is a meter (on the right corner) that shows you the strength of the OTA signal. Is this not included in the 921?
I understand about the manual.
When you press the browse button on the 6000, there is a meter (on the right corner) that shows you the strength of the OTA signal. Is this not included in the 921?
I understand about the manual.
Sean Mota said:
Nope if you have a HD Window open and select PIP a PIP Box appears and the words "PIP Not Available in HD Mode" appear.
You also can not record from 2 tuners and try to watch OTA programs.
I fixed my SW 34 issue, I unhooked everything from it so it had no power going in it then hooked everything up again and plugged power into the receivers. That took care of it.
Sean Mota said:
This is correct no meter is shown on the screen (like it did on the 6000)
I also am noticing that one of my local OTA Digital has no sound on 2 of its 4 subchannels, not sure if this is a 921 issue or not.
Scott Greczkowski said:
That's dissapointing that PIP is not available in HD mode. But more dissapointing is your second observation about the 2 turners and not being able to watch OTA programs.
Ok played with it for awhile. Still no guide out past 2 hours. Hopefully it downloads overnight.
I have managed to crash the unit a few times, when you crash and you need to reboot it sometimes takes over 4 minutes for the system to come back up. I was kind of worried a few times that I killed it, but then a few moments after starting to get worried it came back on.
The REALLY need to do something about the different stretch modes on the 921. On my 6000 the strech mode filled my 1x9 screen nicely and the people did not look wierd.
On the 921 Stretch mode, people look like they have been stretched by the Umpa Lumpas at Willie Wankas Factory. There was a commercial on (a SD Channel) and it had an 800 number the number was something like (800) 555-1212 however what you saw on the screen was 0) 555-12 the rest of it was off the screen.
The Zoom is just as bad.
On HD images in normal mode the screen is filled just right. (And the guide also fits nicely.)
I have also crashed the unit a few times when trying to watch OTA Digital Channels. My local CBS likes to remap its channels on the fly, and the 921 does not like this. The only way to fix it is to reboot.
Then there is the bug Mark reported at DBSTalk where the OTA tuner locks up solid requiring a reboot this has happened a few times as well.
Beside the OTA problems above, I do not like that all the Digital OTA Channels are listed as "Digital offair channel" there are no listings for these channels.
Whats wrong with this is I can't look for a certain show I want on a OTA digital channel and tell the 921 to record it, instead I need to know the time and day the show airs, the length and I also need to know what sub channel the show will air on. Not a user friendly way of doing things.
Ultimately the 921 is really just like the 721 except it gets HD and OTA.
If you have a 721 you might be disapointed with the 921 because it does not feel like you are using something new.
However if your coming to the 921 from a 501 or no PVR at all you will really consider the 921 an amazing machine.
Thats my report for tonight.
I have managed to crash the unit a few times, when you crash and you need to reboot it sometimes takes over 4 minutes for the system to come back up. I was kind of worried a few times that I killed it, but then a few moments after starting to get worried it came back on.
The REALLY need to do something about the different stretch modes on the 921. On my 6000 the strech mode filled my 1x9 screen nicely and the people did not look wierd.
On the 921 Stretch mode, people look like they have been stretched by the Umpa Lumpas at Willie Wankas Factory. There was a commercial on (a SD Channel) and it had an 800 number the number was something like (800) 555-1212 however what you saw on the screen was 0) 555-12 the rest of it was off the screen.
The Zoom is just as bad.
On HD images in normal mode the screen is filled just right. (And the guide also fits nicely.)
I have also crashed the unit a few times when trying to watch OTA Digital Channels. My local CBS likes to remap its channels on the fly, and the 921 does not like this. The only way to fix it is to reboot.
Then there is the bug Mark reported at DBSTalk where the OTA tuner locks up solid requiring a reboot this has happened a few times as well.
Beside the OTA problems above, I do not like that all the Digital OTA Channels are listed as "Digital offair channel" there are no listings for these channels.
Whats wrong with this is I can't look for a certain show I want on a OTA digital channel and tell the 921 to record it, instead I need to know the time and day the show airs, the length and I also need to know what sub channel the show will air on. Not a user friendly way of doing things.
Ultimately the 921 is really just like the 721 except it gets HD and OTA.
If you have a 721 you might be disapointed with the 921 because it does not feel like you are using something new.
However if your coming to the 921 from a 501 or no PVR at all you will really consider the 921 an amazing machine.
Thats my report for tonight.
The 921 having a smart card slot and not implementing a second tv out for the second tuner tells you that this receiver has been in developement for a while, longer than the 322 and 522 has been in development. Also dont the 921 have the legacy UHF remote with 100 foot range instead of DishPro UHF remote with 200 foot range? It does not have some of the enhancements that the other new receivers are coming out do because of it being a receiver that was in development too long, delayed too long before being released.
The 921 has the uhf pro remote, not the legacy uhf remote.
Check ebay for dvi cables - good prices there.
Yeah, it sucks right now about the lack of OTA guide data, but at least it's being worked on. Dave told me they'd have the tribune data by late spring or so.
Everytime I forcibly reboot, it's about 4 minutes - that's normal.
And yup, the OTA lockup bug is a killer right now. Especially with a station remapping PSIP a bunch...I bet that kills the tuner every time.
Check ebay for dvi cables - good prices there.
Yeah, it sucks right now about the lack of OTA guide data, but at least it's being worked on. Dave told me they'd have the tribune data by late spring or so.
Everytime I forcibly reboot, it's about 4 minutes - that's normal.
And yup, the OTA lockup bug is a killer right now. Especially with a station remapping PSIP a bunch...I bet that kills the tuner every time.
Scott- after your pan of the 921, I suspect there will be more delays before a full roll out of the 921 hardware currently in stock. Ugh!
Personal Opinion-
Stretch mode: I feel anyone who watches TV in a form of stretch mode has no right to complain about picture distortion, graphics that don't all appear on the screen. It is fair to state that you prefer one form of distortion to another but since distortion is not an engineering standard, you should not expect every device to distort the image the way you prefer! Some people like short fat people while others prefer people who are tall and skinny. Me, I prefer the image not be distorted, I prefer the Original Aspect Ratio, I prefer the TV picture to have SMPTE standard geometry and this will nearly always allow for all graphics to be seen properly on the screen. I also feel anyone who buys a 4x3 TV to watch a 16x9 image has to expect that his TV is not designed for the AR he is watching and while he may stretch and distort it all he wants in attempt to fill the screen with non-black spaces, doing so will not result in the original image perfection but one that is distorted in a non-standard way.
Should be interesting to see how HDTIVO handles the OTA guide issue. I recall last October working with the TIVO I gave my dad, the guide is downloaded over the phone line. Since his phone line had been unplugged for 6 months it took about 5 hours for the TIVO to update. (Not all that time on the phone but after the phone call it took 5 hours to redo what it needed to do. After that the updates each day are quick. But, TIVO is said by TIVOheads to be perfect out of the gate. We'll see!
BTW- Locally, the PSIP is a mess according to many local enthusiasts here as well as some station engineers. Cl;ocks are out of whack and there is no standard for listing the data. How are we going to expect guide based PVR recording to function right without guide information?
Scott- I think you said it correctly when you stated that if coming from a previous PVR you may not be impressed with the 921 but if coming from a non PVR background it will be great! Unfortunately we all from the DVHS HDtime shifting world will quickly become spoiled and expect more in far less time than it takes for the developers to give more that works the way it should.
Personal Opinion-
Stretch mode: I feel anyone who watches TV in a form of stretch mode has no right to complain about picture distortion, graphics that don't all appear on the screen. It is fair to state that you prefer one form of distortion to another but since distortion is not an engineering standard, you should not expect every device to distort the image the way you prefer! Some people like short fat people while others prefer people who are tall and skinny. Me, I prefer the image not be distorted, I prefer the Original Aspect Ratio, I prefer the TV picture to have SMPTE standard geometry and this will nearly always allow for all graphics to be seen properly on the screen. I also feel anyone who buys a 4x3 TV to watch a 16x9 image has to expect that his TV is not designed for the AR he is watching and while he may stretch and distort it all he wants in attempt to fill the screen with non-black spaces, doing so will not result in the original image perfection but one that is distorted in a non-standard way.
Should be interesting to see how HDTIVO handles the OTA guide issue. I recall last October working with the TIVO I gave my dad, the guide is downloaded over the phone line. Since his phone line had been unplugged for 6 months it took about 5 hours for the TIVO to update. (Not all that time on the phone but after the phone call it took 5 hours to redo what it needed to do. After that the updates each day are quick. But, TIVO is said by TIVOheads to be perfect out of the gate. We'll see!
BTW- Locally, the PSIP is a mess according to many local enthusiasts here as well as some station engineers. Cl;ocks are out of whack and there is no standard for listing the data. How are we going to expect guide based PVR recording to function right without guide information?
Scott- I think you said it correctly when you stated that if coming from a previous PVR you may not be impressed with the 921 but if coming from a non PVR background it will be great! Unfortunately we all from the DVHS HDtime shifting world will quickly become spoiled and expect more in far less time than it takes for the developers to give more that works the way it should.
Don, I think the stretch modes are important. I use them for News and so does my wife. We watch a lot of Fox News and the 6000's stretch and zoom modes are great for this. If the 921 does not have the same type of stretch mode quality, then that will be disappointing.
