Being a satellite dealer, and having most of my roots from satellite, I wanted to get an un-biased opnion on the reliabilty of Dish vs DTV.

I have always preferred Dish over DTV, for several reasons. Their equpment has always been one step ahead of DTV IMHO. Multi-room capabilities, multi-media options, (usb supoport, pocket dish, d/l camera pics to the hard DVR, etc) they pay (ok, PAID) us better, more HD content (w Voom), the promos were always much better fr a consumer (free HD, DVR, etc where DTV started at $300). Back when RCA was still an option for DTV, the reliability SUCKED.

My question now pertains to relaibility. In general it is assumed that a DVR unit, be it DTV or Dish, will not be as stable as a non hard drive based unit. I have one customer right now that has a 942. He is about 65 years old, and has had to do a re-boot of the 942 about 3 times in the last 3 months. (Wont respomd tp commands, no pic, frozen, etc) I have to do this on my showroom 942 occassionally as well, and more-so when I ask it to do too much at once. (like rapidly browsing the pics in the mulri-media section) I dont have a HR-250 DTV unit, but have an H-10. (non DVR, HD unit) It freezes up on me quite a bit as well, if not more. It also seems to not respomd to channel selection as rapidly as it should, but that varies as well.

The particular customer in question used to be on C-band, and we switched him to Dish NEt (942) when we sold/installed his H/T system. Each time he has to call me for no picture (always seems to be on a Sunday, and once on X-mas DAY!) I cant help but feel Im letting him down. To me an occassional re-boot is expected, but to a 65 y/o guy its another story. I tried explaining that just like a PC, they all need an occassional re-boot. But I can tell hes getting a little frustrated. (To top it off, his MX-950 froze up today, and would do ANYTHING.)

So, what are the opinions of reliabilty vs the 2, when you need these to work w/o fail?

I got a Dish 510 about 8 months ago and have not had any problems with it (knock on wood!). Unfortunatly, its not HD... Personally, I prefer DTV over Dish though. DTV is much easier to install IMO and has a better signal. With Dish I lose signal before it even starts raining. With DTV I would only lose signal during severe thunderstorms.

imho i would choose dish hands down. dish has alot less compression in its video signal. the hdtv looks better and the hardware is better.

all pvr/dvr units are a tad flakey regardless of dish or dtv. i've had zero issues with my 921 hdpvr from dish but i have not had it more than 3-4 months.

as for signal loss.... i've had dish at my house for maybe 8 years and i can count on 1 hand how many times i have lost signal due to inclimate weather. big ass blizzard, really bad rain storm and 1 ice storm thats it. maybe a few sun spot days.

remember dvr/pvr sats are basically computers. so they will need to be rebooted from time to time...its the price to pay for technology i guess.....

Exactly how I word it to my customers.

And as they are computers are you installing a UPS on them?

Alan

Surge protection/Line conditioning, yes. UPS, no. Though I cant think of one situation where that would have helped. Its not freezing up due to a power loss, the customers aren't losing data, etc. Its just a freeze/lock up for no apparent reason. Is there more reason to it that I am missing?

I've had Dish at my home for 5-6 years now (I'm not an installer ) and while their DVR's have become more stable with software updates, I think they have some quality control issues with their boxes . You can have 10 customers using the 942; 9 will have no problems, but there's always that 1 that is a bad apple . The only way to cure it is to ask them to replace it with a new one .

BTW, the 942 is being replaced with the 622 (mpeg4) in Feb.

In 6 years installing both sat. co's and some AT&T (now switched to Comcrap), I have had considerably better luck with DTV. I will now only install DTV and only for my clients. I won't accept any other installs as, in my opinion, all of them stink when it comes to paying me and being honest to my customers. Lots of big promises that I am to fulfill. Major honesty and integrity issues with all the "big guys". If I sell it to my CI client, I can let them know upfront about any limitations or issues and everyone's happy. As for me, I subscribe to DTV.

DISH hands down! For one Direc's HD channels are NOT TRUE HD, they are HD-lite. If you dont know what HD-lite is, Direc scales down their HD to 1280 X 1080 not a full 1920 X 1080 Rez, looks fuzzy compared to true HD. You can also get the Voom channels in full HD with Dish also. ONLY reason I would see putting up Direc is if the person was a die hard adamant football fan and HAD to have the season ticket. Otherwise Dish has easier to use DVR's that are user freindly. Although I havent played with the new Direc branded DVR's yet. The direcTivos were also very troublsome and un-friendly to use. Once you use Dish and realise the ease of use and the quality of thier HD programming you wont go back!

Just my $0.02 worth

I have always been put off by the cheap feel of the Dish IRDs and the cheap look of its GUI. I am willing to accept the superiority of the Dish picture although I have no direct experience with it save for the few clients who have it for International channels. I hate their software. I hate the way I have to interact with it. If you guys say the PQ is superior I'll not argue. I have not seen Dish since they purchased Voom. I did think that Voom looked very good. I'm less concerned with the way they wish to distribute satellite then Frank as I am not really in the satellite installtion business--though I do wonder whihch of us has more meters. I am curious as to how Dish is easier to use. I have not had to control a Dish PVR but I cannot see how it is more friendly than a Dish Tivo. I hated how slow the guide refreshed on the Dish Tivo but few clients ever complained. Nor have I seen as of the new LG made units though I am thinking of upgrading to one shortly in my home.

Alan

Alan, the Dish GUI is a lot better than it used to be. Still not great, but it is fast and easy to use.

The HD DVR is great and all the recievers have discrete power and ten discrete code sets.

Hate to say it, but Charlie said at CES that some of the new HD channels that they'll be adding will be in HD-lite .

I dont get it. when did I show concern of distribution, and what type of distribution are you talking about? Sales distribution? RF distribution? Bandwidth/data stream distribution?

Meters?

Sorry, Im just totally lost to any refereces if they exist.:)

I have had many more problems with Dish than Direct, plus Direct has Sunday ticket.

And none of that 6 box to an account Bulls@#t.

I would take Cable TV over Dish if Direct was not around, that really says a lot about my feelings about Dish.

Frank, what if line problems are causing the lock-up? Would it be worth taking an inexpensive (under $100) UPS over to that client and putting it in as a test for 6 months? Might tell you what you already know or could be a revelation...