What is wrong with Dish Receivers

[John Smith]

Out of interest could someone enlighten me as to what is wrong with Dish Receivers. I see so many posts about how bad they are and wonder if I am missing something.

Personal experience for the last two years has been the opposite with a 501 and a 301. Admittedly the 501 had problems at the beginning when it lost signal due to rain but after that was fixed I really have no complaints.

Both receivers perform well and get better all the time as software is upgraded and new features that were not in the original specification are added. After all the boxes contain some pretty sophisticated technology at a very reasonable price.

Is it just that everyone wants something better than they already have or some people just like to gripe?

 

[fv3]

Personally, I think Dish receivers are about average.

When looking at software, one looks at reliability, usability, and features.

Reliability: "appliances" should NEVER crash or need to be rebooted. I think Dish really soiled its reputation on this with the DishPlayer and early versions of the 501 and 721 code. They are much better now, but not perfect.

Usability: I don't have any complaints here. Not sure if others do....

Features: On the PVR side, most of the features I hear people requesting seem to be things for which tIvO holds patents or some other intellectual property claims. If those IP claims hold up, then the only way Dish would be able to implement such features is on tIvO's terms, which means licensing their code and having subscribers pay the tIvO TaX....

 

[Cyclone]

The 6000 is pretty flakey. Considering how many people are picking them up due to the $199-$149 offer, expect to see some fun posts in the next few weeks about the 6000.

Otherwise, I think that the E* receivers are pretty solid. People just have a reason to post about them when something goes wrong, so the problems seem to get a lot of attention around here. The ones with no problems do not get discussed.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I think one of the big problems is that new receivers are announced with all kinds of features then when they are released those features are not there. And you are stuck waiting a long time for a software to give you an upgrade which should have came with the receiver to begin with.

This was the case with OpenTV on the 3800, it was the case with caller ID on the Dish 6000, and its the case now with Internet access on the 721.

 

[jerryez]

I have had a 2800 and a 6000 for over two years. Other than the slow guide, I can find nothing wrong with either receiver. I was with D* for several years and find the 6000 better than the SD D* receivers that I had.

Cyclone, please define flakey. What exactly do you find wrong with the 6000.

 

[Curtis0620]

Personally, I think Dish receivers are about average.

When looking at software, one looks at reliability, usability, and features.

Reliability: "appliances" should NEVER crash or need to be rebooted. I think Dish really soiled its reputation on this with the DishPlayer and early versions of the 501 and 721 code. They are much better now, but not perfect.

Usability: I don't have any complaints here. Not sure if others do....

Features: On the PVR side, most of the features I hear people requesting seem to be things for which tIvO holds patents or some other intellectual property claims. If those IP claims hold up, then the only way Dish would be able to implement such features is on tIvO's terms, which means licensing their code and having subscribers pay the tIvO TaX....

TiVo Tax? You mean the PVR fee? Just like Dish is charging now on their new DVRs?

They ought to go ahead and license the TiVo software. This way they wouldn't loose so many customers to Directv.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

What exactly do you find wrong with the 6000.

When I leave my 6000 on an OTA Digital Channel for a long time then go to change the channel, I get the acquiring satellite signal message for a long time, or my unit reboots.

The guide does no have any info more then 2 hours in the future.

Other then that its not a bad receiver.

 

[rad]

Problems I've seen on my Dish 6K

- As mentioned earlier, a fairly useless guide, way too many info not available even on the first grid too many times
- If on an over the air channel too long then try to use the guide you have to wait for a download of the guide
- Caller ID comes and goes
- When switching to a channel that does 720p, either over the air or on DBS (ESPN-HD) the screen doesn't show the channel banner but a bunch of 'garbage' many times
- Too sensitve to bad PSIP info. There's one OTA station in Chicago (WYCC-DT) that's messed up. Other receivers get them but no the 6K and the station engineer won't do anything about it. No way to say don't look at PSIP.

Before the 6K I had a Mits 400 for D* and didn't see anywhere the number of problems that I've seen on the 6K. I would have been happy to upgrade to something with a bit new technology in it, but while D* is on their 3rd generation of STB's E* is still on their first.