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June 24, 2008
Dish Network - External Hard Disk Drive
I have been a subscriber to cable, DirecTV and Dish Network over the years. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Until last fall I had used a DirecTV HD satellite receiver with TiVo DVR (digital video recorder) as my primary receiver. It was great. But DirecTV, transitioning to a better method of compression, rendered it obsolete.
I switched from DirecTV to a Dish receiver with DVR for the follow reasons/features:
-the Dish's user interface, in my opinion, is easier to use than the current DirecTV receivers
-the Dish receiver that I chose - VIP722 - can output an HDTV signal to one TV and a different non-HD signal to other sets in the home. Very cool. I routed this second signal through the standard coaxial cables in my home. Now any TV can access any of the programming on my receiver.
-After paying a one time fee, you can connect an external hard disk drive to the receiver's USB port. From the receiver's menu, you can archive programs on this external drive. This frees up space on the receiver's hard disk drive, ideal for special programs that you might want to watch again in the future. And you can connect multiple drives (one at a time) to the receiver. You could have an external drive with sporting events, another for movies, etc. A great way to build a library.
Everything worked great until a few weeks ago. My receiver developed a couple of problems. I called Dish Network,s customer support and, much to my surprise, received a replacement the next day. I was told that I would be able to access the programs on my external drive with this new receiver.
Well, I couldn't. When I tried to view a program on the external drive, I got an error message and the only choices that I had was to reformat the external drive (and erase any programs that I archived on it) or cancel.
I called Dish Network and was told, "Unfortunately when you get a replacement receiver, sometimes you cannot access the external HD and it becomes necessary to reformat the drive."
On my external drive I had many movies -- and more importantly the Orange Bowl and the semifinal and final games in the NCAA basketball tournament. I am originally from Kansas. Kansas University has never been to a BCS bowl, let alone win one and its been 20 years since they won the NCAA basketball tournament. I had these games archived on the external drive in beautiful high definition, now they are gone forever.
I am still pleased with Dish, but if you are thinking about upgrading your Dish receiver or switching from DirecTV or cable and one of your primary reasons for switching is this external hard disk archiving feature, you might want to reconsider.
What's been your experience with cable and satellite companies? Do you have a DVR?
Posted by Bob Gatton at June 24, 2008 6:13 AM
Comments
Awesome post, I am very glad to have all this Technical discussions is this way. I am very happy to avail satellite TV for PC offer and it really rocking with all the entertainment.
Posted by: Free PC TV at June 25, 2008 6:19 AM
In this day and age there should be NO charge to hook up a personal peripheral.
Imagine if Microsoft or Intel started doing that with computers!!!
Dish Network should get with the program and allow us to hook an external drive for free.
Posted by: Gary at December 24, 2008 2:24 PM
we have 11 hard drives set up to access our two DVRs and have had no problem switching between dvrs. Also talked with techinicans (a lot) and found there are good ones and bad ones. We have found sometimes the hard drives aren't recgonized and what to be re-formated. Re-booting the DVR usually cures this problem. The biggest problem now is having to manually keep track of the now thousands of recordings. I was told the format was propritory and can not be viewed with mac, lunix, or dos.
Posted by: paul at January 4, 2009 7:07 PM
That is a really smart idea.
Posted by: Tummy Tuck at January 6, 2009 2:28 AM
pay $14 fee for one time and you are set for life.
Posted by: nitdawg at June 4, 2009 2:49 PM
I had an external hard drive I used with Dishnetwork DVR 622. I just upgraded the DVR to 722. Dish wanted me to pay $50 for activate External HDD with the new receiver DVR. After I did that, it said the external HDD was actived with a different receiver. Do I want to format the hard drive, all contents on HDD would be deleted. Tummy Tuck mentioned pay $14 fee for one time and you set for life. To whom do I pay, Dishnetwork?
Posted by: Tim Trandai at August 1, 2009 4:41 PM
Tim,
why don't you call dish network, get the details and report back?
Posted by: FrankT at August 2, 2009 9:42 AM
I have some experience with the external drive, and I will find out in the next day or so whether or not I can use it on a new receiver.
Just yesterday DishNetwork told me they will send me a replacement 722 VIP. My symptom was that when I pressed DVR or Record, I got an Error 024 telling me that the data was not available. I pressed Pause or Rewind, and nothing happened at all. Resetting or unplugging would fix it for a half day or so.
When I asked if I could save my recordings by going ahead and paying for the external hard drive registration, and then watch those on the new DVR, they said "yes."
They said to make sure I tell the agent I work with on the new receiver that both receivers need to be active for my account when I attach the external to the new receiver. Selecting the programs to move to the external was very tedious, however, as there is no "select all" choice. Even if there had been, I have only a 100GB external, so I had to pick and choose what I transferred (a very slow process). Once I started the 98 GB transfer, it estimated about 6 hours to do it, so I left it overnight.
This was the first time in the two years I have had my 722 that I have had to call DishNetwork support at all. I've used DishNetwork for more than seven years and I have been very satisfied. The other time I had to call them, the hard drive already had completely crashed and I did lose everything. They didn't have the external option then, so I guess I would have lost it all even if the drive hadn't died completely.
I will follow up here when I get the new receiver in place.
Posted by: Mark at August 11, 2009 12:16 PM
