Dish Network 625 DTV Receiver / 100-Hours DVR

We recently subscribed to the Dish Network and upgraded to a receiver with a personal video recorder (PVR). After quite a few installation headaches (the first attempt they were a no-show and the second attempt was 3 hours late and finished at about 8PM), we finally got the receiver installed and running. The installers saw my system (we have a DVD player, VCR, stereo, and a wireless surround sound system), and instead of asking for help with getting everything properly installed, decided to just do what they thought would work. Of course, it mucked up my whole system and it took me a full day to get it all properly hooked up, but at least it was finally done. The installation guys appear to rely solely on the manual provided with the receiver, so if you have anything more than a VCR in your home theatre set-up, you might as well just hook the cables up yourself.

The picture quality is good. We don't have a high-def display, so I can't say what type of signal you would get on a higher resolution TV. There are a lot of menus, some helpful and some not-so-much. The recorder function can be accessed a few different ways, directly through the menus or by going forward into the channel guide. I found that recording shows that run back-to-back is just about impossible, since the recorder builds in a buffer before and after each recording slot. So, if you want to record one show from 5-5:30 and another from 5:30 - 6, it just won't do it for you because it puts a minute or two buffer before and after each show and those buffers would overlap. I was hoping that if they were shows on the same channel it would override the buffer issue, but that does not appear to be the case. There is also an option to record only new shows, although when I used it the first time, it still recorded old shows along with the new shows. Deleting saved shows is a bit of a pain, since I have not yet found a button that allows you to delete multiple shows at once. That would be handy for when you are recording 30 minute shows that air daily and you just watch them all in bunches and delete them when you are done.

So to summarize the PVR aspect, setting up recordings is a breeze, just watch out for overlapping recording times and give yourself some time for deleting shows when you are done with them.

The other menu options are relatively straightforward, although there are some hidden things that might be useful (like how to adjust the caller ID settings in the receiver so that the number appears on your TV). The unit comes with a good universal remote that was able to operate about half of the equipment I have. Of course, that meant that I would still need about 5 remote controls to do everything I wanted, so I just went out and bought one of those logitech harmony remotes (a great investment!) so that I can do everything from a single remote. The Harmony 680 works well with the unit and has a comfortable layout for accessing the receiver functions.

There are two ways to record something on VHS, you can have the dual receiver, not the single receiver, sacrifice the option of a second TV running from the dual receiver for one TV and the VCR getting its own signal. Even then I'm not totally sure if it would let you record through the VCR though, since any device connected to the receiver stays set to one channel and you change stations by tuning the receiver itself. The second option is to use a built-in function that allows you to take your digitally-saved files and move them to a VCR, so that's probably the best option. It doesn't let you go directly to video like with standard cable, so you have to wait to get the stuff moved off onto VHS, but it seems like it would work ok (I haven't tried it myself yet).

As far as things that are there for no reason go, there is a USB (2.0 maybe?) port on the back for transferring media, but it looks like that option is currently disabled/ not supported. I actually hooked up a USB drive to the connection and the receiver detected the drive fine, but would not access the media stored on the drive. With some hacking, you might be able to use that to get media on and off of the hard drive. Of course, you could also buy some other wireless box that could move things between the receiver and a computer, but that's an actual purchase instead of some software manipulations. Speaking of wireless, I had also heard that you could connect a USB wireless adapter to the USB port and get the receiver to communicate/ file-share with a wireless network, but so far that appears to be only a rumor too. Hopefully the USB port will be something they adjust with a firmware (i.e. downloadable software package) update in the hopefully near future.

I forgot to add, the $50 price I paid was with a 2 year contract agreement (and the $50 was actually refunded a month later). Without a contract, they gave me a price of $180 for the receiver.