Dish DTVPal / Echostar TR40 digital to analog converter - Page 144

Well....I just spent 1 1/2 to 2 hours on the phone with Dish trying to get my DTVPal replaced under warrantee. I bought mine through cheapdigitalconverters.com so most of the people in Dish customer service were clueless as to how to deal with that. I called 6 or 7 times and kept getting different people. The main number (1-888-667-0633) is sales...they forward you to customer service and sometimes they try to connect you to technical support. I think I got disconnected 3 times getting connected to technical support. One time I asked for a supervisor and got connected to an automated phone line instead. Ugh! They are just not equipped to handle returns of the DTVPal when it was bought somewhere other than from them. THEY'RE IDIOTS! It is absolutely the worst customer service I have ever encountered. One piece of advice...if they try to connect you to someone in technical support, ask that they get the person on the line before they connect you....that way you don't get disconnected. I almost started to think that getting disconnected was designed into their system. Many times they told me to return my DTVPal back to the retailer I bought it from. I shouldn't have to do that if it's under warrantee, should I? I just told them that the retailer I bought it from didn't take returns more than 30 days after the original purchase and that usually shut them up.

Anyway, about the 6th or 7th try I lucked out and got someone in customer service who transferred me to someone in the Advanced Technical Support area and he verified that my DTVPal was bad, set up a Dish account for me, gave me a return authorization number and is sending me a new DTVPal. I'm supposed to receive it on 9/11 with instructions on how to return my old one. Time will tell. I think I have to pay to ship the old one back though. Hopefully they don't screw up and send a replacement with the old software.

My advice is to just keep trying...eventually you might get lucky and get someone who can actually help you.

When I got my first replacement, they also sent me a prepaid return label for my defective unit. I expect there'll be a prepaid label along with my second replacement.

Email is the way to go. It's slow, but at least you don't waste time hanging on the line while they try to figure things out.

I tried the email route first...they answered my email and told me to call Dish network customer service instead.

At one point they asked me to do an online live chat with one of their support people. That went nowhere. She said that she'd pass my issues on to engineering and suggested that I check back in a couple of days. At that point I went back to email and kept prodding about a replacement.

wow...I'm actually surprised that they were willing to send you the new one before you sent the old one in...in situations like this one normally has to send the old/broken one in first. With what you've said, it at least shows that they're dealing in good-faith here...that they trust you wont keep both.

it's great when we get some good news on this thread for a change.

Unless they took down a CC # in case "you don't return it"... That is fairly common when shipping replacements for "walking wounded" items.

I did not give them a credit card number when they established my Dish account.

I HAVE BOTH and yes they are the same, matter of fact when you check the info on the tr40 it ids it self as DTVPAL.

Hello Everyone, I've been following this post for a long time.
I have a Pal F-101, and two TR40's F-103.
They all act the same, and I have no problems.
I'm kind of scared because I don't think CBS is controling my time yet, so how does a person get warrantee replacement when things are working good now?

One thing I haven't seen yet, is with the heat issue.
I sat mine on it's side to fit beside the TV, because it got very hot on top the TV,
then I noticed it run's cooler that way. Has anyone else noticed this?

With Satellite Receivers I've never had to return a defective unit before they shipped a replacement.

you are not alone. no need to worry if you are not having trouble. i have mine on their side and i never noticed a heat problem, either.

I've been lurking for a while and finally registered for posting privileges. I also have a couple of F100-firmware DTVPal converters, bought from a retailer rather than from Dish Network. Trying out the timer features quickly brought out the symptoms so many others have reported here, mainly timers randomly changing or disappearing, making them pretty much useless.

Also like others, I've been run through the mill with Dish Network trying to get this resolved. Here's my tale of woe to add to the list...

First I emailed their tech support, and in a couple of days got back a response saying: "It has been determined that the equipment needs to be replaced. There is a warranty on your account that covers replacement of your equipment including shipping and handling."

An 800 number was provided in the email, which I called, starting an hours-long "adventure" in trying to find anyone who knew how to deal with this issue. Everyone I dealt with started out telling me the same thing: that Dish will NOT handle warranty service unless the converters were purchased through them. Then I would quote the warranty page each time, which states clearly in each section that "DISH Network" will repair or replace the equipment. (One DISH phone rep even tried to tell me that the DTVPal is "made by someone else," and asked "what address is in the owner's manual?" I pointed out that "DISH Network" is mentioned numerous times in the manual, as is the dtvpal.com web site, which is owned by Dish, and the warranty gives a toll-free number to call, which is also owned by Dish.) In fact, it turned out that the phone number in the warranty statement was different than the one in the email that Dish sent me, and I was finally advised to call that number for help.

I did so, and the rigamarole started all over again; talking to several people who all insisted that Dish would not handle the warranty if the DTVPal was purchased from another retailer.

I gently reminded each person I dealt with that Dish tech support has acknowledged that these early-firmware DTVPals are defective, that the warranty is a legal document; and that what they were trying to do was tanatamount to knowingly selling defective products and refusing to honor the warranty. This would get me bounced along the chain to the next confused Dish representative where I would have to start all over again.

After an hour or more of this I finally got connected to someone who actually attempted to resolve the issue. After being put on hold several times for him to talk to other people, he informed me that HE was getting the same runaround, being told that Dish would not handle the warranty on their converters sold through third-parties, despite the clear terms of the warranty. After consulting with more Dish employees, he informed me that it seemed that there is supposed to be a procedure in place, but nobody knew what it was.

I mentioned this forum, and the name of the Dish employee that was mentioned in this thread (Kevin Hutchinson) who was able to help one of the other people here. He tried calling Mr. Hutchinson, but was unable to reach him, and sent an email to attempt getting some assistance in resolving this.

And that's where it sits, after spending half a day wrangling with numerous Dish Network representatives over a lousy $40 (from my perspective) worth of defective DTVPal converters that probably costs them about $2 to manufacture. From the standpoint of my time I'd probably be better off just ordering a couple of the $40 TR-40s since they have the working F103 firmware, but this whole thing has me really angry and I hate the idea of "rewarding" this company by giving them more of my hard-earned money.

By the way, this is not an indictment of any of the people that I dealt with. It is clearly Dish Network's lack of training and preparation that is to blame for this nonsense rather than it being the fault of any individual employee, and it's the company execs and managers that my ire is directed at. In fact I think it's pretty safe to say that this company IS selling defective products and refusing to honor the warranty, either by deliberate design or by incompetence in not providing proper warranty procedures and training to their employees. (Sounds like grounds for a class action suit if I ever heard one!)

In any event, the last person I worked with has my contact information and says they will get back to me with a resolution on this issue. We'll see, I've never gone through this kind of nonsense trying to get warranty service, not even from car dealers...

the heat problem is pretty evident to me as well. for those that dont see the heat as being a problem, as a test, disconnect all cables except the power supply and leave your DTVPal on for 30 minutes, then touch the coax cable in/out ports. Dont worry, you wont get burned (I hope), but if i had to guess I'd say they're gonna be at about 55 to 60 degrees C...which is fairly warm.

From an earlier post I remember reading that someones Pal caught fire or something melted...I dont remember the specifics. This heat issue could be a serious hazard considering the shortest inactivity timer is 4 hours. I wish they would have 1) put vent holes in the sides like most of the other boxes and 2) allowed us to set a time in minutes that we want the box to stay on after inactivity/a timed event. As I suggested earlier, having the box turn on before an event and turn off after it, like a VCR does, would be another solution.

If I could get the thing apart and drill my own holes in it I would...but I'm not willing to drill blindly into the box and risk hitting anything.

I would say no more than one hour is how long these things should be left on unattended.

I'm still blown away at the Zenith/Insignia's abilty to say cool to the touch even after having been on for an hour or so. Those people deserve some applause.

that kind of defeats the purpose of having a timer if you can't record tv while you're not at home I guess that's another advantage for the zinwell...

They (Dish) obviously intended to distract the consumer......by leading them to believe that they wouldn't be getting the same box but a different one (with less features). This encouraged them to purchase the DTV PAL (at the higher price). This created the fear that the TR-40 would be missing features they would want......
such as the timers.

......Although this remains a theory, it makes sense......
knowing just how this company operates...... and the fact that the TR-40 is a DTV PAL!

No heat problems with my TR40. It is no warmer than my CM7000. IIRC, the smoking box was a Digitalstream 9950.

There is one difference you're overlooking.

It appears the TR-40 works the way it's supposed to. I'd say that's a bit of a difference.

None here either. My VCR gets hotter than this thing. The case temp has never reached more than 100°F.

It doesn't have ventilation holes, because it simply doesn't need it.

Leave it on for more than 5 hours and then see. I start having all kinds of major problems after that point.

And the box is so hot by then you can barely touch it.

It does?

Then what are all those posts from people saying it's doing the same things?

It's been on long periods of time, no effect. No weird behavior and no warmer than the CM7000 that's been on as long, for PiP. The TR-40 is not fully fixed, it still has clock problems, infrequent, but not 100% reliable.

Why are you leaving it on all that time?

Have to admit, tho', that it should be an option. Some people have the TV on for extended periods.

I wouldn't have said it works well if I'd known about the heat problem, tho'.

Wonderful.

Exchange one problem for another. One of my Pals has been left on for maybe two weeks straight and it hasn't had any problems, or gotten that hot.

I was going to call DISH (or Kevin Hutchison) tomorrow, and ask about the steps to take in returning my two boxes and getting "fixed" ones.

Is the general consensus that even the 103 boxes aren't quite right yet and we should wait longer for boxes that are actually fixed? (I haven't set up an account at DISH yet, so maybe I should do at least that, so they have my complaint on file?)

for those of you thats saying it isnt getting that hot...are you just going by the plastic case or are you checking the metal in the back? plastic is a better insulator than conductor of heat, so it's not as likely to allow the heat out and therefore feel as warm as metal would.

Just put my fingers on the RF connectors. Had to remove them after a few seconds.

Glad to hear the plastic is a better insulator, tho'. I mean, at least it's keeping all that heat in the case so's to fry the electronics.

I wonder if any of the designers have ever heard of ventilation holes?

I don't know about general consensus, but I was told by a Dish Network technical support supervisor (Danny [I9F]) on 9/4 to wait a little longer if getting all the problems fixed was important to me. He claims there are still a number of outstanding problems in F103 that are still being worked on.

Personally, heat has not been an issue for either of my DTVPals and one of them, on weekends at least, is on for many hours at a time. In fact, today is one of those days and I just checked, after having it on for 12+ hours, not that hot at all....either the plastic or the metal. Sure the metal is warm, but not hot.


Again, personally, I would say you are correct. The F103 MAY have fixed the timer issue but, apparently, all of the other problems still exist: the VBI distortion on 4:3 broadcast viewed in normal mode, the overall left shifted image (which is best seen when the Pal is connected to 16:9 set and the 4:3 broadcast image is viewed in normal or full mode), the bypass interruption, the lockups, and, of course, the TVGOS still not working (thought this appears to be more of a TVGOS company issue at this point).

So hot you can barely touch it. Something's wrong there. Where do you have this thing sitting?? I can leave mine on for days, and they don't get that hot.

I'm not sure if this questions has come up here before, but I thought that it would be relevant to a box with timers. Does anyone know how I can determine the aspect ratio of a TV show before it is broadcast?

For example, if you set the timer on your DTVPal so that you can record a movie, and the movie is broadcast in the letterboxed format, if you have the wrong picture format set, it could crop out the sides of the movie. So you would need to know ahead of time what aspect ratio to set your DTVPal to.

Nwiser, the metal connectors on my TR40 do not get hot, and I have no urge to remove my fingers quickly. The warmest location is the bottom, but it is still not hot. I have circulation space all around it, but nothing special. I have not elevated the box above the little rubber feet, but if it were hot, I would start there.