522 Fix released?

[steve4810]

My 522 now has DOD

So what's available? Is it all free? All pay?

 

[Stargazer]

I can see the calls now to customer service. Everybody wondering why the DVR button does not take them to the My Recordings screen and how they can get there (having to press it twice instead of once) and why they have to press it twice now when pressing it once in the past is all that needed to be done.

 

[mrschwarz]

I got 413 last night. From reading this forum, I thought the only difference between the 522 and 625 was that the 625 had a larger hard drive so there could be a VOD partition.

I haven't noticed any reduction in recording time on my 522, but poking around this morning, there were 4 movies that hadn't downloaded yet. There were also 3 free programs that were on the box (HGTV, Nat. Geo, and something else).

I don't have a problem with Dish downloading whatever they want to a partition that I have no control over. What really bothers me is the 'in your face' requirement that I have to click through it every time I want to access my recorded shows.

Dish has one of the poorest user interfaces I have seen. Rather than allowing the user to choose his own defualts, they insist that they know what we want. It wouldn't be so bad except they seem to always choose the exact opposite of what I would do; from deleting shows and requiring so many clicks, to the number of clicks required to record a single episode of a series.

While I am appreciative that they finally appeared to have fixed the problems that they caused in the last two versions of software, they charge an awful high price in terms of useability. Since this is a DVR, there is no logical reason for this simulated VOD service. If I want to watch a PPV move, I can record it myself, watch it forever and save a buck. Why wouldn't I do that?

I dumped Comcast when they couldn't figure out how to deliver a decent picture and not raise prices every 6 months. This latest improvement is making me seriously consider alternatives.

 

[kevink]

Search Google for "hard drive partition". The space that you record stuff to is one partition. The space that VOD goes in is another partition. You have NO access to that VOD partition. Marking your programs to not be deleted or filling your HDD won't stop the VOD stuff from coming down.

So I guess the question is, how much of the space will VOD use on the 522? On the 625, they had the larger hard drive, reserving about the same space for normal recordings that the 522 had. But since a software update shouldn't have messed with the physical hard drive...

 

[kevink]

I guess that the 522 will support recording fewer VOD movies than the 625. I recall mention of 120MB for 522, and 250 for 625. So, if they hadn't actually used all 120MB for normal recordings before, but instead, say, 100MB, then that must mean that there is 20MB for VOD on 522, and 150 on the 625.

You would sure hope that they wouldn't do something stupid like repartition the hard drive on the fly with a pushed software upgrade. Who knows what could go wrong. Power outage, someone unplugging it, very fragmented hard drive, etc.

Trying out the NG show right now just to see how it looks.

Sure is showing that I need HDTV programming, though, on my new TV.

 

[Stargazer]

kevink, I assume that you meant 120 GB for 522.

Does your own timers set to fire have priority over these shows that Dish chooses to record during the night for the Video On Demand PPV? I sure hope so.

 

[abrothman]

Do you know for a fact that VOD goes to a separate partition, or are you just speculating? I could easily imagine our evil lizard overlords deciding to take away DVR space.

Search Google for "hard drive partition". The space that you record stuff to is one partition. The space that VOD goes in is another partition. You have NO access to that VOD partition. Marking your programs to not be deleted or filling your HDD won't stop the VOD stuff from coming down.

 

[Hall]

I know very little "for a fact".... Every post I've seen says that the # of available hours didn't change after receiving the update. Of course, the update doesn't automatically include downloaded movies. Those will take a few days to appear usually. Point is, Dish advertises "X" hours of recording space and "evil lizard" or not, it's very, very doubtful they'll take that away.

As mentioned before, pull the HDD out of your 522 and hook it up to a PC. You can't see the data, but you can read the partition layout with different software tools.

 

[maximum]

I got the new software last night. It's bad enough that we have to click through this stupid new menu to get to our recordings but if my useable disk space goes down I'm going to demand an upgrade to a 625. From what I remember the main difference the 625 had over the 522 was a larger hard drive to accomodate VOD.

The 522 has a 120GB HDD -- 100GB for recordings and 20GB for the live TV buffer. So unless they somehow managed to squeeze more info into the same drive space I'm affraid my usable disk space is going to be reduced to accomodate VOD movies -- a feature I will never use.

That DirectTV package deal through Qwest sounds better all the time. . . . . .

 

[maximum]

On the bright side, 413 does have an enhanced Theme feature. Now you can search for movies by sub themes like Action, Comedy, Drama, etc. You can also enter a Key word like on the regular search. Unfortunatley the search results still include channels you don't subscribe to which limits it's usefullness.

 

[Pepper]

guys, do some research

the 522/625 disk has 3 partitions.
1) reserved/system
2) reserved/vod
3) user record area
none of these partitions change sizes due to a software update. 1 and 3 are the same size on 522 and 625 regardless of drive capacity, 2 varies.

 

[steve4810]

I Have It!!

After starting this thread and wondering what 413 was like, I finally got it yesterday afternoon.

Some observations:
The Themes & Search modifications are the fantastic. Because you can modify and narrow the search I was able to find out, for instance, that there will be 3 Humphrey Bogart movies on in the next 8 days and that among the 473 horror movies scheduled the original Dracula and the original Frankenstein movies will be shown along with Son of Frankenstein staring both Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff not to mention Basil Rathbone thrown in for good measure.

One other poster mentioned that he dis-liked the fact that Themes & Search showed both subscribed and unsubscribed channels in the results. I most definitely didn't like this feature of the guide listing of my first model 4000 receiver eight years ago, but in this one case it doesn't get in the way and could even help me find a channel that I had thought not useful but where searches show they broadcast content I'm looking for.

One more example, searching sports-football-keyword NFL lets me see and set timers to catch all the pro games in the next eight days. Something that before this update was a pretty tedious exercise.

On the DOD:
I can take it but I'd just as soon leave it. The free things seem to be things from channels I already subscribe to and would watch or record when they first air. As to the movies, well... I'm just not a "got to see the latest Hollywood blockbuster" kind of guy. In fact, I pay for less than one movie a YEAR. If it's a good flick, it'll still be a good flick when it lands on the free movie channels like the TMCs and the 7 E channels.

On the flaky performance caused by 412:
It does seem to be completely cured.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars, so long as I don't find out the space to record isn't reduced by DOD.

Oh and one other note about DOD, since I don't turn my receiver off, except in special circumstances , I don't think the DOD will get downloaded to my receiver very often.

Steve

 

[Stargazer]

I noticed that pressing the PIP button the third time will give you a split screen PIP instead of making the PIP go away like it did before. Now you have to press it four times to get it to go away. I do like the split screen feature. There is a bug with the PIP feature though. When you swap the PIP (no matter which PIP mode you have it in) you will not get the audio from the PIP channel but you will still get the audio from the main channel you had it on originally. In order to get the audio in the PIP screen you need to press the skip back button then the audio comes in.

 

[Hall]

I noticed that pressing the PIP button the third time will give you a split screen PIP...

Yes, that feature was discussed on the last Tech Chat. The s/w update you rec'd in the last week or so enabled it. I'm waiting for this for my 622.

 

[Stargazer]

I thought I had read that the 622 was the one that got it, I must have misread that or didn't see that mentioned. I figured someone would have mentioned that by now. I like that split screen PIP feature.

 

[steve4810]

I don't do PIP or own a 622 but I understood it was a new feature for 16 X 9 screens and that there was a bug if one of the splits was 16X9 and the other was 5X4.

Still I'm totally ready for the day when I get a couple of flat screens and a 622 to use this!

 

[gulmer]

Anybody using the digital output on their 522 hearing a low level popping sound that comes and goes, is more on some channels/programs then others, started w/413?