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December 03, 2007

Replacing a buggy AcctionTec router on Verizon FiOS

I've had FiOS from Verizon for about 4 months now.  It's blazing fast, but the one drawback was that the sub-par ActionTec MI424WR router Verizon bundled with the service would lock up about once a week.  The fix: Replace the router.

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October 15, 2006

Dish Network Update

OK, I've had Dish for a few weeks now, so here's my current thoughts on the VIP 622 DVR compared to the DirecTiVo I had before:

Things that I like better than TiVo:

  1. Dual tuner mode is very nice, from one DVR, I can play 2 different shows on 2 different TV's, this feature really does set Dish apart from the other DVR's out there.
  2. The menus are much more responsive.
  3. The history for 'Live TV' recording lasts much longer.  A couple of hours is not uncommon, unlike the 30 minutes on my old TiVo.
  4. The DishHD Package is by far the largest selection of HD channels, even over my local cable station.  Even the local ABC, CBS, and NBC channels are available in HD over the satelite (i.e. no off the air antenna is necessary).

Things I don't like about the ViP 622:

  1. The volume is not at all consistent across channels.  There was a bit of this on DirecTV, but nothing like the variance that exists with Dish.  One channel may be barely audible and the next will blast.
  2. The 'dual display' mode has this annoying 'feature' in which it locks any given recording to a particular tuner.  This basically means that if you program all of your recordings from one TV (like I do), you never actaully get 2 shows to record at once since each show is 'locked' onto the tuner that you told it to record from.  There also doesn't seem to be an easy way to move a show from one tuner to the other.
  3. There is no way to 'swap' tuner 1 and tuner 2 in Dual Display mode.  In single display mode, however, the tuner swap is actually a bit more intuitive than it is with the TiVo.
  4. Turning the channel on live TV or accessing certain menu items will stop an active show that is recording.  The TiVo, on the other hand, could 'swap' the recording to the 'background' channel and bring the channel you are asking for to the 'front' channel.
  5. You can only program in 35 programs (or search items) to record.  I never hit any 'hard' limits on my TiVo, but had ~55 programs lined up.

I'm sure that many of these problems are fixable through software updates, and it seems that Dish is fairly responsive on updating their system, as I've already gotten at least 2 firmware updates (which appear to shut the DVR off without any real notice, so I guess that's one more annoyance).  My DirecTiVo, on the other hand, hadn't had a firmware update in years, so many of its annoyances were things you just had to learn to live with (like the super slow menus, taking forever to recalculate your schedule when a priority changed, etc).

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September 20, 2006

First Impressions: Dish Network

So, I opted for the Dish Network offer with the dual-tuner HD DVR (ViP622) and the "HD Bronze" channel package.  The installer came yesterday and I was, frankly, a bit disappointed with the installation service.  The installer gladly removed my DirecTV dish and replaced it with 2 new dishes for Dish Network (apparently a second dish is required in order to tune the HD satelite).  He did OK with reusing the existing cables from the junction box into my living room, but for the 'jumper' to the second room, instead of running a whole new cable, he clipped one of the 2 cables that ran my satelite before in order to splice into my existing jack so that he could save himself a bit of work and cable for running the run back to the junction box or even just to drill a new hole in the wall so that the prior existing cable could stay in tact, even though I had specifically asked for the connection to the family room to go back to the junction box.

The DVR itself is also taking a bit getting used to in relation to having a TiVo.  There seem to be a few usability issues that could easily be fixed with a software update, but I think I'll reserve a full review until I've had a few days to see if I can overcome some of the apparent limitations of the DVR.  The primary one I'm struggling with is that it appears that a given show's schedule gets 'locked' onto a specific reciever (for example, this program will record on tuner 1) and that shows cancel themselves when there are conflicts rather than move to the second tuner for recording, like on the TiVo.

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