Key point to remember is that the TV my wife mostly uses is a SD set with a 625 and the one I watch is a HD with a 722. I pulled most of these from other threads I've posted to on Sat Guys:
Our SA 8300 had a one touch operation. If she hit Record, it would automatically save everything in the buffer along with the rest of the show. I don't have the specs for the SA 8300 in front of me, but I know she got entire movies that way.
The way the SA buffer worked (with the Passport software) was that when you hit Record you would get everything that was in the buffer since the last channel change...all the way to the back of the show even it that was two hours ago.
"...a feature that accounts for the average delay in a human seeing where he wants to play and hitting play. It will jump back a second or two to correct for that.
My old TW SD8300s (both SD and HD) would do that too.
When you are watching a DVR'ed event that hasn't finished recording yet, there is no way to stop what you have watched and then resume it again. If you press the stop button on the remote a window pops up and says "Your request will stop the TV recording and switch to live mode TV." I don't want to stop the recording, I just want to stop at the point of the recorded portion and then resume at that point later on. (Not my input, but one I agreed with).
Another thing is that with the SAs and the Passport software, I did not have to pick which "TV" I was using to DVR a program. If I wanted to jump in and watch what was being recorded on either tuner while they were both in use, I could. If they were both being used, I couldn't watch a live program, but I could watch something I'd already recorded.
And even though there was much disagreement with me, we liked having a clock on the front of the DVR.
We have had some major weather issues since we got Dish installed in Jan and we have lost the sat signal more that we care to. It's not just us. We checked with the other Dish subscribers in our neighborhood and they all had the same problems too.
My biggest reason for wanting to make the switch to Dish was so I could get the 722 and record all the locals in HD. This has really been hit or miss. TW didn't have NBC or CW in HD, but I don't think that is enough for me to dig my heels in and fight too hard.
In 3.5 years with TW, I had to replace TW SD DVRs 4 times because the hard drives wore out. The last one lasted a year though and was going strong when I returned it. I had to replace the HD DVR once after about a year. No hassle. Take one in, bring a new one home.
But I really think the deal breaker is 3 movie channels worth of free On-Demand, all the other free On-Demand channels and then the On-Demand PPV that TW offers.
I have seen some threads here and on other websites about people complaining about the new Navigator software TW pushed on everyone, but I haven't taken the time to research the issues yet.
