[capt. norm]

You must have gotten hold of an OLD receiver. Mine (just checked it) goes a little over two weeks ahead and offers the option of jumping 12 hours at a shot in either direction.

The latest email from DirecTv tells what kind of hard drives are compatible and how to attach a big hard drive for saving a lot of shows.

I just successfully hooked up a fairly inexpensive 640 gig drive to it. The only bad part is that the attached external drive takes over from the internal one, but I can move the external 640g. drive and hook it up to my computer (USB) where I can burn the ones I want onto DVD discs.

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[DGHoodini]

You have their *basic* receiver?

[Wiseghy]

I agree. I had a fairly old receiver with a DVR (3-4 years old?) The programs went about 2 weeks ahead, but sometimes had to stop to download after about 10 days out.

I found the service to be the least expensive, until recently.

Dish waived extra fees on programming changes for me. Their phone reps appear to have power to waive a lot, and even bargain equipment prices.

I only switched when Comcast showed up at the door and offered free basic cable, forever, because I have broadband internet already.

I’m told comcast no longer offers that “free TV” deal (no shock there). It apparently was only offered by the door to door reps.