This device is unquestionably addictive!!!
Written: Jul 29 '03 (Updated Nov 14 '03)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Sound: |
 |
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Picture Quality: |
|
|
| Durability: |
|
|
| Customer Service: |
|
|
|
Pros: No subscription fee, ad zapper, UHF/IR remote, easy to use, lots of features
Cons: Software updates occasionally introduce instability
The Bottom Line: A revolutionary toy that really does change the way you watch television.
|
|
|
| hamuel's Full Review: Dish Network DishPVR 501 System |
A Personal Video Recorder (PVR) is unquestionably the most innovative and useful home television device since the VCR & remote control. If you remember the days of having to wait for a TV show to be repeated because you couldn't record the show (pre-VCR) and having to leave your chair to change the channel or volume (pre-remote) you will consider this device to be the re-invention of television that is worth every penny. The only thing better than owning one PVR is owning TWO PVR's.
Dish Network, owned by Echostar, has a line of proprietary PVR's for use only with it's own satellite service. Since the satellite service is a separate product, I will not attempt to review the service here except to say if you receive a good signal to your dish, the only down time you will experience is during the occasional extremely heavy thunder or snowstorm. In the 5 years we have had Dish Network, we have totaled maybe 3 hours of down time in each year. One time, service was out for several hours on a Saturday morning. Overall, I feel service has been excellent, especially when compared to the complaints of my neighbors and family who subscribe to cable service
The PVR-501 & PVR-508 are the same unit with one exception. The PVR-501 has a 40gb disk, which holds about 30 hours of programming; the PVR-508 has an 80gb disk. Otherwise, they are the same unit and have the same functions.
Here are my comments on the details of the PVR501:
No subscription fee - the program search & recording features are included with your Dish Network subscription. Compare that to Tivo's prices!!!
Ad zapper - One button on the remote control moves forward 30 seconds for each press, another button moves back 10 seconds for each press - all in the blink of an eye. My WWF watching Father-in-law LOVED this feature when he last visited!!!
UHF/IR remote - A very nice feature. They claim the remote works through walls 100' away from the PVR, I find that 50' or 60' is about the limit for reliable control. Use rechargeable batteries!!! Because you will probably be constantly using the remote to fast-forward through commercials, the batteries have a shorter life. Averaging 4 hours of TV per day we have to change the batteries about every three months. 2 years of use offsets the cost of a new charger and two sets of batteries. Obviously higher usage of the remote control means a faster payback with rechargeables.
Program Search & Recording - It's easy to search the program guide for future shows. Once you find a show, just press the select button and a simple window will appear guiding you through the quick process. Two or three buttons later and you are all set to record. Somehow, my cocker spaniel even figured out how to use this feature on the Planet channel...
Ease of use - Once the unit is setup, anybody familiar with the concept of pressing a Record, Fast Forward or Reverse button can operate this unit.
Many Features - You can Time-shift/Pause/Tape-Delay programs for up to 60 minutes. The forward slow motion features run at 1/15 & 1/4 speed or you can simply advance frame by frame. You can save up to 30 hours of programming indefinitely and watch it whenever you like. I think Dish advertises "up to" 35 hours of programming but we generally find the disk is full at about 30 hours.
Caller ID - This is one of my favorites! If you have caller ID service from your phone company, the caller ID information appears on the TV screen when the phone rings! This is great for avoiding calls that are less important than a particular TV show and even better for making sure your spouse answers the phone when the in-laws are calling, all this without getting out of your chair. Cooool!!!
Installation: Take advantage of the free installation!!! I am a MAJOR league do-it-yourselfer. Built my own addition, own my own tools, all that stuff. Aiming the dish(es) might be an easy thing if you have some experience and the right tools but if you plan on just using your ladder, a compass and some guesswork, plan on about 4 hours of work, TONS of luck and having an angry spouse who is dead tired of hearing the words "how does it look now?".
The only caution I have is to be a perceptive consumer when the installer arrives. Whether it is Dish Network or DirecTV, the installers are contractors who are paid a fixed amount for each installation and the creative installer might try to subsidize his satellite company paid fee by concocting installation problems. Some may try to tell you the dish has to be installed in a special location and it will cost you X extra dollars, cash of course, to run the extra cable & and use a special mounting bracket, pole, or some such thing. This happened to my wife when we had a second dish added to receive the local channels. My wife set the guy straight and demanded he place the additional dish next to the existing dish or he should leave and she would call somebody else to install it - the dish was placed exactly where we requested and has worked 100% okay since installation.
Other installers will tell you that the only signal you can receive is on a tree next to your house, even though the tree is on the same elevation as the house and has the same exposure to the sky. This is often a neat little ploy to get you to call them back in a few years (and pay extra $$ to re-adjust the dish) as the tree grows taller and skews the aim of the dish. Sometimes a tree really is your best option, but be aware, the signal will be as shaky as the tree - windy days may leave you without an acceptable signal.
Now for the bad stuff:
Software updates - Occasionally the player downloads updates via satellite and occasionally these updates will introduce instability in the functionality. (I do not know who does quality assurance for Dish Network but I would LOVE to have that job.) They really should take more time to do QA because occasionally we get an update and the recorder starts doing very strange things. The problems usually go away when you press the receiver's power button for 6+ seconds and force a hard reboot but still, the problems inevitably occur at inopportune moments. Dish Network needs to establish something like a Beta Tester program where people can test pre-releases then report bugs and their circumstances. More QA work should be performed before release because a new bug always means there has been a new software release.
One live program at a time - Yes, you can only watch and/or record one live program at a time because this receiver has just one satellite tuner. If you really need to watch and/or record more than one live program simultaneously, you will either need two PVR 501/508 units or you should look into the PVR-721 unit.
Also worthy of mention, the receiver has no high-definition support. You can certainly watch a program broadcast in HD but your TV will look like any old standard broadcast program.
No digital outputs - This issue really stinks. While it is great to have a PVR, it is not so easy to store permanent copies of programs. The only easy solution for this is to use some other device such as a VCR for recording the programs to tape. If you're really high-tech, you can use a video capture card on a PC and/or DVD recorder, but you're still limited to capturing the analog output signal and converting it back to a digital format with some quality loss. There are no authorized methods of moving/recording the data in digital format directly from the PVR and any attempts to do this are closely held secrets, which are widely considered hacks and violations of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.
One last complaint - Technical support at dish network is generally competent and normally professional, however, our first PVR-501 died after about 30 days of use and it took several phone calls to finally convince somebody that the unit was dead. It was slightly annoying to me that I had so much trouble convincing them of the problem. It seems they go through a script of questions and if your problem is outside the scope of their script, they do not really know what action to take. Ultimately, the unit was replaced at no cost to me so it turned out okay.
Despite it's shortcomings, we are 100% thrilled with the PVR-501 units. We have become significantly more savvy TV watchers; recording programs to watch on the days when there is "nothing to watch" and automatically grabbing the remote to skip through 5 minutes of commercials. Just be warned though, you'll feel quite foolish when you're visiting a non-PVR house and have the unbearable urge to skip through commercials or rewind the program because you want to see it again. This device is unquestionably addictive.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199.00
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
hamuel
|
|
Reviews written: 16
Trusted by: 2 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.