Dish DTVPal / Echostar TR40 digital to analog converter - Page 162

At least we know now how to filter your opinion. Anyone with an NDA isn't objective.

..and is this 108 version shipping?

(cough)

Bullchips!

(ahem)

The Zinwell ZAT gets just as many channels as the DTVpal, minus the self-erasing programs, and minus the clock that is about as honest as a politician. Zinwell - nothing else even comes close; unless you're an employee who signed an NDA. Then you have to say "Pal" or else risk losing your paycheck.

Since Dish bought what I think was channel 56 in the 700MHz auction. Couldn't they send the software updates on that channel in the future after they take possession and start using it?

Kevin called me back about the inactivity and 3.5 hour shift issues, and I have some news which I would imagine wont be taken well. The programmers from England were actually doing work in Denver (CO) this past week and were able to do live testing on our system instead of on theirs over in the UK.

As I understand it, they tried several different times/ways to set up a weekly timer for a week later within an hour of the show ending and didnt see the 3.5 hour time shift, so until they do, its unlikely that they will be able to do anything about it.

(For anyone who has seen this problem and cares enough to video the process/outcome, zip it, and then post it here or somewhere, I would make sure that Kevin sees it.)

The inactivity timer was again confirmed to take priority over the timed events, and is only altered by an IR signal from the remote (meaning its the "inactivity" of the remote and not the DTVPal iteslf). At this time the only recommended solution is to extend or disable the inactivity timer.

As I said, I mentioned to Kevin that disabling the inactivity timer defeated the purpose of timed recordings. I guess theres always the TR-50?

Since the programmers from England were testing in an area with a digital TVGOS station, (KCNC-DT of Denver, Colorado) I wonder if that comes into play. I assume they were using an antenna feed, as opposed to some sort of simulator.
It might be helpful if anyone posting on THIS timer issue indicates the call letters of their CBS station, and whether they believe it transmits digital TVGOS. I believe this is indicated by the time not jumping around when changing channels on F103 and earlier.

It sure would be nice if DISH maintained an FAQ that indicated the difference between the firmware versions, and what they are up to on their DTVpal web page.

If you can live without a guide, and you're only interested in SD. the Philips 3576H and Magnavox H2160 are fine HDD/DVD recorders which work great for ATSC-only (it's when using the QAM tuner that people sometimes run into problems).

But if the TR-50 is really going to come in at $249.99-$299.99, then you might as well wait for that - if you can wait till what may end up being the twelfth of never.

Actually, I've got the 3576 and have had NO real problems with the QAM tuner. Once in a great while if I change channels too often in a short time (like channel surfing) the digital tuner will lock up, but that's solved by clicking back to analog and then back to digital again.

Where I've had trouble is in getting what may be false "no dub" flags that allow the show to record, but don't allow you to burn it to a DVD. I use an antenna, someone else has said they've had the same happen using cable. My experience with cable is the exact opposite. Cable's the good boy. It the antenna that's a problem child.

Yeah, it seems there are a few people reporting that with OTA signals here lately, and that definitely warrants investigation.

It's not normal, but it sure raises a flag, as it's never really been reported 'till now.

It's been reported plenty with cable and satellite here before, though.

If I were to buy either right now, I'd probably go with the Maggy because it's newer - although it also has the looks and features I prefer - it's not really a "clone" like some people are wont to say - there are enough differences in features and parts.

Have you tried recording from the Zinwell (or other tuners) with it yet? Have any problems there?

I have two identical 76s. One's hooked up to cable...can't complain. (Except that the cable company scrambles most of the digital channels.)

The other 76 is the bad boy antenna machine.

What I'm doing with it now is (as of this afternoon) switching it to a cable feed. If it doesn't get any flags on certain stations known to have them, I'll try an antenna on the cable machine (to see if it gets flags). If it gets flags, I'll know OTA recordings are the problem for both machines.

Not sure WHAT that'll indicate.

I'll also put the one that was getting the flags OTA back on antenna, but by way of a feed from one of the boxes.

If it gets no flags then, at least I'm safe to record off antenna finally (and know I can make discs if I want).

I'd figured to maybe go all OTA with my equipment, just get off cable.

Buying a DVR with a digital tuner is great for that, but not if it gets false flags that prevent creating dics. A shame to not even be able to use its tuner, but have to resort to using an external tuner just so the thing can do its job.

Pretty foolish situation.

EDIT:
I've been thinking. This discussion is pretty far off the DTVPal. Any further talk on the 3576 we should likely be keept in the thread for that machine. No, I wasn't threatened into having to post this. It's all me.

Update since August: it's been almost 2 months and I STILL have nothing from these con artists!


DO NOT BUY THE DTVPAL! DISH NETWORK IS A RIPOFF! THEIR WARRANTY SERVICE DOES
NOT EXIST! This company is dishonest and does not support their product.
Their alleged warranty isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

---

On 9/4 I again called dish, and after getting nowhere for a while, managed
to get transferred to the ERT ("Executive Resolution Team"). Isaac Ferman
seemed helpful, but rather ignorant. He told me the unit would not work
unless activated, and that he had to set up an account for me before it would
work. He couldn't explain why it had worked for about a week when I first
got it without an account, or why my other unit worked without an account,
but set up an account for me, which of course did nothing.

He took all of my information, and promised I'd have a replacement shipped
immediately, and that it would be in my hands a week later on 9/11.

On 9/16 I still had nothing, and called again, and asked for the ERT. The
first person hung up on me. I called again, and this time got to Paul.
Paul's phone number is 915-298-5525 x85525. Isaac was unavailable, and Paul
promised that he or Isaac would get back to me immediately. Never happened.

On 9/19 I called again, and again asked for the ERT. This time I got to
Gary, who told me that my replacement has been on "hold" since 9/8. It took
him a while to find out why, but he finally found that they were waiting for
me to return my broken unit. Well, they had NEVER asked me to ship it back,
or given me an address to send it.

Gary gave me an address to return the box to, which I did on that same day.
The USPS tracking number indicates it was delivered on 9/22. Here is the
tracking data from USPS.COM:

Label/Receipt Number: 0308 0660 0001 2205 3491
Detailed Results:

Bullet Delivered, September 22, 2008, 11:57 am, SUWANEE, GA 30024
Bullet Arrival at Unit, September 22, 2008, 8:03 am, SUWANEE, GA 30024
Bullet Processed, September 21, 2008, 2:13 pm, ATLANTA, GA 30320
Bullet Processed, September 19, 2008, 9:16 pm, CHICAGO, IL 60701
Bullet Acceptance, September 19, 2008, 3:07 pm, DUNDEE, IL 60118

I'm missing the date of my next call (about a week later), but I next talked
with Cathy Welling in the ERT (720-514-7865) to find the status of my
replacement. Se never called back.

On 10/3 I again called the ERT and talked with Hugo. He promised to get me a
tracking number by the end of the day, but failed to do so.

On 10/6 I called once again and got to Sarah Brown in the ERT
(720-514-8555). She too was unable to give me a tracking number to verify
that my unit had been shipped.

I next spoke to the ERT "supervisor" Chrissy at 956-364-7738. She has
promised to call me back by the morning of 10/7 and either provide me with a
tracking number for my replacement box, or to issue me a check for $70 to
reimburse me for the cost of the box.

Why do I not believe her?

---

I am fully aware that dish's marketing strategy behind this box is to get it
in the hands of those who don't subscribe to any TV service, have them "wow"
at digital TV, want more, and become dish subscribers. Based on the customer
"service" I've had over the past two months, I can promise them that I will
NEVER be a paying subscriber to their "service", and will tell as many of my
friends as I can how lousy their customer support is so they too can avoid
this nightmare that I've dealt with the past two months.

---

Since I bought this with coupons that expired about the same time the
product arrived at my door, can any one tell me how to get my money back,
either from dish or the vendor, INCLUDING the value of the coupons, so I can
buy something else?

Even if I do get a refund from dish, there's no other box on the market that
will preserve any ability to be able to program your VCR or DVR after next
year's transition, so we're all screwed.

You cannot get the money back for the coupons. It is not legal for a vendor to do that. They can only exchange the unit for another coupon eligible unit or refund the cash payed directly by the purchaser. The NTIA has issued some replacement coupons, but only when the coupons were charged and absolutely nothing was delivered to the purchaser.

You are pretty much out of luck, unless you can get DISH to provide you a useable converter box.

There's also the Zinwell ZAT-970A. It's event timer feature is actually much more reliable than the DTVPal/TR-40's.

I'll do you one better.

One of our local "Consumer Alert" reporters will have a piece tonight about the coupons. Seems some of them "turn out to be absolutely worthless".

I'm waiting to see what she means by that. Have a few ideas...

And good luck on that. My last call to technical support was on 9/19 (my first was on 6/26), so I called today and spoke with Cozet [70W] in technical support. As with the past several calls, I was advised that timer issues have still not been resolved satisfactorily and that I should hold off returning my DTVPal for an exchange if proper timer operation is important to me. I was assured that warranty time-frames would not be an issue and that it was noted so in my account.

Of course, nothing said by any Dish Network employee can be trusted, so YMMV.

I purchased two PAL's. After learning that I have the same timer issues and clock drifting issues as everyone else, and getting nowhere with Dish Tech or anyone else at Dish, I fired off a nasty letter to Dish telling them I am writing them off for good. (I was planning to by the TR-50 DVR, but I will not allow them to screw me a third time). Since I have no more coupons, I purchased a Zinwell ZAT 970 outright and hooked it to a DVD/VCR recorder. I do not use the manual clock setting (I did however have to set the GMT- offset manually though), but so far the event timers have worked perfectly. They are a bit cluncky to set up, and you can't set it to record Mon-Fri but it will record in daily mode which will fire the timer 7 days a week which you still can work with, but the box does work. While there is no EPG, I still like the Zinwell better, since I would prefer a box with less features that works, than a box full of features that don't work

I'm in the San Francisco area and the CBS station is KPIX. I emailed the station some time ago and they reported that they transmit "TV Guide data on our HD channel and it has been on-line for several months". Also, my times are always the same across all channels and the time sometimes changes when KPIX is tuned. I have experience with DTVPals running F101 and F106 firmware. Both exhibit the weekly-timer-a-week-ahead-minus-an-hour-or-two problem.

I am somewhat sorry to hear that. I thought the absence or presence of the digital TVGOS station might have provided an explanation why they did not see the problem. If that was the case, all they would have had to do was filter out the CBS station to get the unit into the other mode for testing.

Actually, a competent engineer/programmer with access to the source code should have been able to figure out whether the digital TVGOS time lock would make any difference.

It is interesting how much trouble they claim to have duplicating problems. There must be a lot of unplanned interactions, or the design makes a lot of assumptions about potential operating conditions that were poorly researched.

A updated continuation from this thread...
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1045973&page=3

Here is the current (10-6-08) layout of known Firmware versions for DTVPAL and TR-40 (Not certain what version DTVPAL+ is using or if it's different. Anyone?)

F100: R1647343xxx-- (known)

F101: R164735510x -- R1647405121 (known)

F102: R164747xxxx-- (known? by user: 12none)

F103: R1647493691-R16475208xx (known) (Both DTVPAL and TR-40CRA)

F105: R164756xxxx -R16478013XX (from TR-40s)

F106 has been showing up on DISH "refurbed" F101s (maybe other "old" models too) that have been OAD (Over Air Downloaded) by DISH in exchange for "bad" F100/F101s being returned to DISH. Not sure if it is being released on "new" units yet...

If anyone can help expand the range of known serial #s and firmware version I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,

Dave

If I were Dish, I'd have a prepared script:

"I'm sorry to hear you've been having problems. In order to keep our customers happy, we are offering a special upgrade promotion that will eliminate ALL of the problems you've been having with your DTVpal. ----- In addition, we will be crediting all DTVpal owners with $80 as our way of apologizing for the issues you have experienced. Would you like to sign-up for our Local Channels Package? It's only $6 a month.*"

* (Plus $5 access fee, plus $100 installation fee.)

I have the F103 dtvpal. This is what I have tested and figured out about setting the timers so they will work:

1. FOR ONCE TIMERS - No problems. If you try to set the timer for today for a time of day that has already passed, it won't let you do it. You can't arrow up to a passed time of day and if you try to enter a passed time of day using the number keys it will accept it but IMMEDIATELY kick it out. So you know something is wrong. You don't enen want to set a future timer for something that has already occured today.

2. FOR M-F AND DAILY TIMERS - No problems. You can set these up on any day of the week even for a time of day that has already passed and the unit will make the first occurance on the NEXT day that occurs within the range of m-f or daily for the correct time.

3. FOR WEEKLY TIMERS 1 DAY PER WEEK - Tricky as follows:
A. If you set up the timer on any day except the day of the week you want to make the timer for - no problem.
B. If you set up the timer on the same day of the week you want to make the timer for and you make the timer for a time of day that has NOT already passed- no problem.
C. If you set up the timer on the same day of the week you want to make the timer for and you make the timer for a time of day that HAS already passed -PROBLEM!!!. It will let you do this with no indication that anything is wrong and the first day of occurance will be 1 week from today as it should but it will change the start time to exactly 3.5 hours earlier that you tried to make it. Unless you check the start time as you are backing out of timer screens or go back into timers to check start time you think everything was fine. You can not get past this except to not try to set a weekly timer on the day you want to set the timer for if that time of day has already passed. Just wait till tomorrow to set it and it should be fine. I wish it didn't have this quirk, but it does and this is how to get around it.

Has anyone had a confirmed exchange from Dish set up since the 22nd of September?
If you have, did you get your replacement Pals yet?

Thanks for the review! That's probably the most informative post I've read here in months!

The only problem with all of this is that I don't know if anyone's had actual problems getting the timers to work, except for the "3C" example you give.

The real problem with the event timer is that on earlier software versions, the download of new data on the program listings will scramble the time and/or channel info in any programmed events.

THAT is the problem people have been having.

I'm afraid that no list of "handy hints" will help with that one. Only software repair by DISH.

I tried to get thru to them yesterday to ask about replacements and if we could be sure to get the 108 software.

Phoned too late in the day, and would have to try again...

Right now I've misplaced the notepad I had all the information in. The serial numbers off my two boxes, the phone number to call....all of it. Gone.

Gotta remember what I did with that foolish notepad...

This is very helpful. I knew there had to be a specific pattern and sometimes those patterns are elusive.

Perhaps the person with direct contact with Kevin could pass this scenario along. Maybe he'll listen.

Yes, and Yes. I set up my F101 s/w version Pal return on Thursday 9/25 via the online chat with tech support. I put my DTVPal in the mail the next day at my own expense. I received a F106 replacement on Thursday 10/2, at their expense. No timer problems so far with the replacement.

--Gary

So we now know that if we set up a return/exchange with them and send them back on our dime, we'll be sure to get replacements which they won't be able to promise will have the up to date software?

Just wait a little longer for the F110 revision. Perhaps by that point the things will finally work.

Oh but WHERE WOULD THE FUN BE IN THAT?