When it works it is an excellent time managment tool.

No dual-tuner. Horrendous support wait times and most reps are lacking in social or technical skills. HD too noisy when it does work. I was once told to unplug the unit a total of 13 times during one service call. Product is not ready for market.

This product is too buggy for my taste. I have lost hours worth of recorded programming due to bad hard drives. I have been a customer for less then a year and I am already on my fourth PVR 501 box. I work in a small office, 25 employees, and the funny thing is that when UPS came by to pick up my 2nd defective box our receptionist was also sending her box back for exchange. Customer support is evasive and ill trained and according to those with whom I've spoken all the troubles are customer caused and there is nothing wrong with the product... this despite a number of message boards to the contrary. Very disappointed!

Similar Products Used:

NONE

Great price, flexible and easy recording of programs. 4 receivers run on one dish.

Picture not always good.

I too replaced a dual LNB Direct TV system with the DishPVR 501 (as well as 3 more 301 receiver in other parts of the house. Cost is $10 more per month than I was paying DirectTV for 2 receivers and everything was free, including the installation. Hard to argue with the price. I have same issues with pictures others have noticed, lots of artifacts, especially on scenes that have low contrast to begin with, picture looks all washed out and contrast is blotchy. The DirectTV picture is MUCH better. No problems with sound but the hard drive is noisy. I don't use the recorder all that much. Screens are a bit cumbersome, I like Sony DirectTV a lot better, the RCA was the most difficult of the bunch. I would not have changed systems without the free equipment and installation. I may go back to the DirectTV when the year contract is up (if they don't kill DirectTV altogether after the merger).

Similar Products Used:

Sony DirectTV, RCA DirectTV receivers

Digital recording. Skip, rewind, and fast forward features. Ease of use.

Lots of bugs. Latest is it locks up a lot.

My Dish 501PVR is a great concept, but with way too many bugs. I am now on unit #4! Already I am having problems with it locking up. I have spent way too much time on the phone with tech support and still they have not been able to resolve all of the problems.

Too many to mention. rewind, instant commercial skip on prerecorded programs, 35 hours of recording... I could go on and on.

Minor hiccups with picture, need to power down and turn back on to clear.

WOW! Absolutely the best thing that has happened to TV since color. I have been a satellite TV watcher for about 6 years now, first DirecTV, then Dish. I got this receiver as a promotion thru Dish, normally 399, bought for 199 with 12 months of their "Top 150" package. The only noise I notice is the hard drive spinning (needed for the 35 hours of recording). Picture and sound are excellent as you would expect from satellite. I have seen only minor glitches from this receiver and have never had it request information data from the satellite while I was watching it. I appreciate the instant program info and the ability to continue to watch my program while using the guide. The instant rewind and pause, as well as the ease of recording, either onto the hard drive or a VCR is wonderfull.

Similar Products Used:

JVC 4700, JVC 2100, Direct TV system.

Integration of Sat service & recording

System not too wife-friendly :=)

Don't know of any video artifacts described below. Perhaps his dish is a bit mis-aligned . . . With solid signal here (+/- 91%), video is analog at it's best possible with terrific definition & contrast using the SVideo out (and I drive 50 feet of cable with no problem). Channel user guide isn't quite as nice as the JVC but servicable with some practice. Audio is as faultless as previous versions of Dish receivers with the occasional DD programs (HBO) producing simply stellar results. WOW

If there is a better value at video controller, I haven't seen it yet. Record up to 35 hrs in digital domain, a quarter of a million available channels, fairly ~~ user-friendly interface and killer digital audio out : what's not to love ? IMHO - the state of the art circa 2002.



Panasonic 32SF37 Avia calibrated Monitor
Marantz DV4000 DVD
Denon DR3300 Heart of the House Receiver
Monitor Audio Studio 6s
Monitor Audio Baby Center
Dalquist 15" McNasty Sub

Similar Products Used:

JVC 1st gen. dish HD recorder, DishNet 4900 & previous Dish models

PVR Features, Nice looking, Remote(UHF) and DD compatible

No componet Video connection

An excellent piece of equipment.

It pauses live TV, Records up to 35 hours of programming, Skips commercials(30 Sec.) and instant replays live tv (10 Sec.). It comes with a UHF remote that works through walls and doors. It is Dolby Digital compatible also. A nice feature to have when you order PPV programs that have DD. I got this reciever for $199.This unit usually sells for $399.

This PVR is worth looking into.

Similar Products Used:

Dishnet 301 reciever

PVR, DD and remote

Noisy

Have had this product for about 6 months and I'm extremely happy with it. Now that I've had the PVR play back, record, TIVO-like feature, it'll be hard to go back to anything else. Some recording problems that could only be resolved by removing the ID card, and not happy when we must do that, but overall this 500 system is exceptional. It beats CABLE by a long shot!!!!

DD, Optical Out, replay/skip forward features are addicting

Poor video (all the time), Poor audio (some of the time), loud fan,

I've had the 501 PVR unit for over 6 months now and while the features are nice, the video and audio quality are suspect.

Video: There is a tremendous amount of artifacting with this DISH receiver...I had an RCA unit with DIRECTV prior to this DISH receiver and the DIRECTV video was far superior. Any action movie or sports event with a moderate amount of background movement generates a blurry picture. DISH considers this a by-product of the MPEG compression they can't do anything about....they even posted an FAQ on their website to cover this topic: (http://faq.dishnetwork.com/questions/124.asp?sc=%2F&cboSubCategory=0&cboCategory=0&txtSearch=bandwidth&pg=1)

Audio: I've had more than just a few instances where the audio out of the unit was very "scratchy" and "tinny". I have it connected via an optical cable to my Onkyo 787, but I know it is not the receiver/speakers, as this has never happened with any other component (DVD, CD, VCR). To resolve the issue, I must remove the ID card and recycle the unit (sometime more than once) -- very annoying!!!

Misc: While simply channel surfing, the unit will sometimes power itself off and must re-synch with the satellite before the picture comes back -- the whole ordeal can take 3 or 4 minutes!! I sent their tech support a note and they acknowledged this was a known problem, but with no idea on when it would be resolved.

Overall: I'm stuck with this "free" unit until my annual subscription commitment is over (in 5 months), then I will probably go back to DIRECTV...that is, unless the proposed ECHOSTAR / HUGHES merger screws with DIRECTV. However, I must say, once you get used to the digital recording and replay/skip forward features, you'll love it and will never want a unit without it....I'm going to have to factor that into the decision of moving back to DIRECTV.

Similar Products Used:

None