Posted on 08/22/2009 1:56:18 PM PDT by DGHoodini
Anyone a Dish TV network customer? If so, can you tell me how many days does the basic Dish Network receiver guide display? I used to have a high end Hughes receiver with a 15+ day guide, but it burnt out recently, or got zapped in a power failure, and since DirecTV only uses their own brand recivers now, I ended up replacing my box with one of DirecTVs basic recievers, and quite frankly, it's been a big step down. The screen only shows 1.5 hrs on the screen at a time, and only shows 2 days worth of guide. It doesn't have a way to easily keep favorite channels accessable (No 'Turbo' Guide' button. So I was wondering what Dish Networks basic reciever offered as far as menu/guide features...
Well that’s good to hear. the reciver I am thinking about upgrading is in a place where it would be a real pain the butt to try and snake another line into the room through several rebuilds and floors. It would be easier to just route two new lines outside the house, and drill into it. Something that would be a deal breaker for me. I like the idea of the DVR, but I am irked that DirecTV is now charging $6-$7 a month, for what I used to get free with the purchase of my old receiver. ..Sounds a lot like they cut the competition out and had a new way to jack their prices. :-(
I live in N. CA. I only had rain fade a couple of times, in about 12 years, even in very heavy downpours.
If you are getting lots of fade, it means your dish needs better alignment, or it might be a cabling problem.
Winds on roof tops are amazingly powerful and will foul up a dish unless it is very strongly secured. This can happen over time.
My DISH receiver goes a week or more in advance. I usually run through my favorite channels and set up DVR recordings days in advance.
I’ve had DISH for at least 8 years. No problems. Sure, dense cloud cover knocks out the picture, but I never need anybody to repair anything as I always did with cable.
It's the one that came with the service when I hooked up last July.
The only thing different about it is (we had ordered "two rooms" service but only had one hooked up and that may be why we have, technically two receivers in one.
I can record two shows at once if I'm not watching a third channel. My dish has three receive horns on it but only two are hooked up and we have two coaxes coming into the house, with both plugged into the receive unit.
During one reboot after an electric outage, only one receiver came up, but I didn't notice it until I tried recording two different channels at once and got screen message. After a reboot, all was normal again and both receivers (in the same box with two coaxes going in) resumed working and the ability to record two channels at the same time returned.
It's only failed a couple times during heavy rain and once when snow stuck to the dish and built up on it to where it couldn't get enough signal.
It’s half-duplex. Not full. That would require 2 lines. Oops
No, I don’t get it a “lot” but do get it occasionally during a heavt storm, when the worst part is directly SE of us. But my dish is near ground level and in a reletively protected area. In fact the only time i had a problem with the actual dish reception, was during a spring that we had a very long rainy patch, and some bushes had actually grown tall enough in front of it to block the signal inan erractic and consternating pattern, buit after having figured it out, the signal strengths are all coming in in the 80’s or better.
How is ATT Uverse? Are you happy?
mine gives 2 weeks.
Funny you should ask that today...
Am I happy? Mesa mesa... Some of it is not ready for prime time. Some is very good.
The HD is superb... once they solved my connection problems after several months of AT&T technicians trying multiple times. I have a stack of technician's business cards about a quarter inch thick from techs who have come and attempted to fix the problem. They are all very nice and even give me their home and cell numbers to call any time if there are problems after they leave.
AT&T must have finally spent several thousand dollars trying to get my system to stop pixelizing and freezing every so often for 2 to 3 minutes until it spontaneously would start working again. . . until the next freeze. Sometimes I had freezes going on randomly three and four times per hour. I could not watch and enjoy a complete program.
In a freeze, the TV just froze on a frame, if we were talking on the phone it would disconnect, and the computer stopped any activity with the internet until the freeze was over. Every freeze lasted for a length of time in 15 second intervals... for example we could get a freeze of 2, 2.25, 2.5, 2.75, 3 minutes.... but never one that was anything in between those times.
The techs came and replaced the Gateway box, re-crimped the connectors on the cables, replaced the connectors, replaced the cables, fixed an echoing ground loop down the street, rewired the house, etc. Finally they dug holes in the street and pulled new cables from down the street where they had excellent signal to my house and everything seems to be good. I've had no freezes or pixelizing for the last month.
Sometimes the channel listings get the programing wrong or lose the description. I find I am not watching that much of HBO, Cinemax, etc. any more and would like to just have HD with only one of two of the premium channels instead of the whole gamut, but because of AT&T marketing policy, I cannot opt out of some of the premium channels without losing High Def capability which is only available on their highest priced tier.
The ability to record 4 shows at once in regular rez or 2 in HD on the DVR is great... and you can watch what was recorded in any of the three sets I have. You can start watching in the family room, move to the bedroom and continue watching the recorded show there with no problems.
In addition to paid On Demand programing, there is a LOT of content available for free as well... including the entire seasons of some currently running programs on the broadcast and premium channels. To my delight I discovered that they have almost all of the Wallace and Gromett Claymation series available free.
The high-speed internet is blazingly fast. I've opted for the 6Mb/second mid range speed and it is consistent. Upload is 768Kb/second...
The phone is crystal clear and unlimited local and long-distance... but their voice mail system requires you to access the message on your computer. Their webpage for managing the voice mails is byzantine at best. They keep the messages in MP3 files... and all other MP3 files on Safari on my Mac will play from within Safari using the plugin... but DO THEIR'S? nope. You can't listen to the voice mail from the list of voice messages left by just clicking on them. The list of messages are not the MP3 files... they are links to a JAVA script! You have to click on the selected message which then loads a separate page to click AGAIN on the message which then downloads the message to my computer... STUPID web design. My computer then automatically imports it into iTunes where it plays... I then have to delete the message from iTunes AND also delete the MP3 file from my desktop where AT&T's website insists on putting the file. Grrrrr.
Cost wise, it's about the same as having Dishnetwork with everything, a regular land line, AT&T Long Distance, and Basic DSL. Before uVerse, Dishnetwork was $114/month, land line with a real slow DSL (I was getting as low as 200Kb per second because of my distance from the switch and could not upgrade to a faster DSL for that reason) and AT&T Long distance was $70 (without long distance calls) for a total of ~$170. The uVerse bill comes to about $175/month but I have a REALLY fast internet connection, WIFI, and HD capability in all of the TV locations instead of just one.
Other issues:
Last night I went on line to pay my bill at www.att.uverse.com and when I got there I found myself already logged on... although I had definitely had logged off the last time I was there. I clicked the "PAY MY BILL" button and wound up at an AT&T Website Administrator page for AT&T's uverse website with all kinds of commands for changing and accessing the website. When I clicked help, it took me to a website for IBMs HTTP server which then jumped to IBM Websphere Administrator help page! Trying to return to the uVerse page got me to a page that said I had been logged out but clicking on "Where Do you want to go" took me to my uVerse home page... still logged in. Clicking on random links took me to interesting places, none of which were related to the link's name.
I called tech support and talked to someone in Bangledesh... who said they were working on the website which was causing my problems. I kept trying to inform her that it was letting me, a customer, access their ADMINISTRATOR page and change things if I was inclined to do so. I tried to tell her that was NOT good. She kept reading from her script. I told her that if they were working on the website, they should TAKE IT DOWN until they are finished. She read from her script some more. She finally agreed to escalate my problem to the second tier.
Finally, this afternoon, after a few more issues with the website, I was able to get on and pay my bill... sheesh. This is a tech company???
Wow
thanks
I usually get 7-8 days on my guide.
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