It's final, I'm switching

My I ask why you would switch to E* right when D* is adding all that new HD? D* was more than happy to upgrade my UTV to an HR21 for the price of shipping. They didn't seem to care whether or not I left the UTV active - which I did.

OK so for clarity.

D*and E* 's HD DVRs both offer TWO Tuners (right?) with the ability to RECORD TWO Programs AND WATCH ONE previously Recorded Show. RIGHT? That should be standard (since the UTV can do it! ) .

It sounds like you are saying only One Record/One Watch (Single Tuner HD DVR?).

Regardless you make a good point about "paying" for HD Content. Time Warner has ads in my Market Area asking "why pay twice?" for HD. DTV should bite the bullet and start offering a "flat" HD Program Rate.

A friend has used the ViP722 (or a similar model) that can do the multi-room control. I never did ask exactly how the "two room/Two Interfaces" works.

I've under stood it to mean you can have two TVs with TWO Programs playing at the same time. So TV1 gets to watch NBC for example and TV2 gets to watch CBS... they both (I suspect) are unaware of the other's viewing and (bonus?) get access to ALL of the DVR's Recorded Shows (or maybe just ones "designated" for a particular TV/Tuner).

So each "interface" (TV) gets to Record/Watch using (one) Tuner? How does it handle recording "conflicts" say if TV1 (or TV2) wants to record TWO programs at a particular time. Does the DVR "check" with the other "interface" and if it isn't "actively" in use record the program OR does it limit everything to One TV/One Tuner?

I'd be very interested in hearing about this DVR's "conflict resolution" since by design it is dealing with multiple users... issues of Recording Space,recording conflicts, and deleting programs/upcoming recordings are a bit complex. You want flexibility, but you may also want some "hard" lines drawn to prevent issues between the users.

TV1's marathon recording of a series could possibly "take over" available recording space. TV2's movies/shows could be rapidly deleted before they could be viewed... Could really piss off some people.

Sharing a dvr? Perish the thought I have 2 utvs with 4 tuners just for myself. It would be nice if these two could network and do conflict resolution as if it was 1 dvr with 4 tuners.

One feature that would have been nice, and from what I can tell is available in some newer dvrs is a priority seting in auto/series records for resolving conflicts.

I seem to recall discussion of "networked" UTVs (collective DVRs acting as one) either as a possible "future" upgrade that failed OR maybe was just a dream previously mentioned on this forum... That I'm sure we'd all love...

If only the UTV USB ports could be used to "network" various UTVs and have a menu setting to control how they are coordinated/controlled by the user. Which is Primary/Secondary and how exactly a user accesses the "Network" in a reasonable way.

Did you speak to retention? I explained to them that Comcast in my area had all the channels I actually watch in HD and had no upfront cost for their DVR. As a result, they waived the cost of the DVR. I paid $20 shipping for the DVR, Dish and the install.

Hey Network TV,

This is off-topic but I'm curious . . .

I remember that years ago you had setup your UTV to AutoRecord the AFI Top 100 films. Was that a useful exercise? How many films of the top 100 did it eventually record?

Good question about Auto-Record's "limitations". I know during marathons that it doesn't always record "ALL" the shows. It tends to record just a handful of shows then stops for the day. Not sure if it is a function of the default "keep" recordings (3 or 5 by default on most auto/series recordings).

It might be a way to prevent an auto/series recording from deleting programs you haven't seen yet.

Not the films themselves. There was a mini series of specials profiling the movies.

Of course, now I have Netflix so I can't watch the actual movies anytime I want...