DishPlayer DVR 921

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DishPlayer DVR 921

Mike Langberg of The Seattle Times tests out the HDTV compatible DVR from Dish Network. It's expensive but has all of the features that DVR-lovers have come to expect, and aside from a few small configuration quibbles, Langberg was enamored of it.

This 18-pound silver box, introduced in late December, is a satellite receiver for HD and standard channels from Dish Network; a tuner for receiving and recording local over-the-air HD broadcasts received through a roof antenna; and a DVR with a gigantic 250-gigabyte hard drive. That hard drive holds 25 hours of HD programming or a staggering 180 hours of regular TV.

There's just one big obstacle between me and digital nirvana: The 921 costs an eye-popping $999. While that would stretch my budget, it's a drop in the bucket for home-theater enthusiasts who've spent perhaps $6,000 for a big plasma TV and $3,000 for a neighborhood-shaking surround-sound system. Indeed, Dish Network says demand is so high that customers might have to wait several weeks to get a 921 delivered.

If anyone has experience with HDTV PVRs, we'd love to hear what is good/bad about them. I personally think that 250GB is way too little storage capacity. I'd like to see 1TB and a DVD-burner attached so you can record your favorite shows to DVD.
The Seattle Times: High-definition DVR is a high-quality product

by Gen Kanai January 25, 2004 in Product Reviews

Comments

I just purchased an HDTV and have an non-hdtv tivo. I don't care so much about recording HDTV programs in HD, but will I be able to view HDTV programming with the tivo connected?

Posted by: Cheapbastard at Jan 26, 2004 6:48:54 AM

I'm a happy Dish customer, and want to upgrade to HDTV, but so far, to get what I want, as you described, I have to pay more than I can afford.

I think there might be a problem with the DVD burner. I don't think you could burn an entire HDTV movie on a single DVD, so I guess you would have to pause the movie at some point, swap DVDs, and then resume recording.

Or, would you expect an HDTV DVD burner? Do they have those yet?

Posted by: Roger at Jan 26, 2004 10:27:59 AM

We have an n-year old webTV/Echostar/Dish Network PVR (four? five years? I forget).

we never used it for WebTV, and that's how you activate the PVR recording stuff, signing up for the service and paying more. As it is it will pause/stream on a given channel until you flip. Video in delay mode is not noticeably different than in normal mode.

I selected the unit because they were heavily subsidised as part of the webtv push (I think mine was free if I committed to a year with the Dish Network). As I recall the drive is something like 10 or 20 gb, but could surely be as small as 5gb, considering when they were made.

The model name is EchoStar 7100 and the manual is copyrighted 1999. The manual does not mention DVR features such as disc-based recording, which make me think that the feature was added in an upgrade one the model was in-home.

One failed after a couple years and I successfully browbeat Dish into replacing it for free.

Posted by: mike whybark at Feb 1, 2004 10:06:04 PM

oops, sorry. misread 'hdtv pvrs' as 'dtv pvrs,'

Posted by: mike whybark at Feb 1, 2004 10:08:19 PM

I got excited about this DishPlayer DVD 921, too, until I saw the price. Right now, I have Time Warner digital cable with HDTV. So far, TW's HD set-top-box doesn't have a DVR, and their DVR (Sci-Atl Explorer 8000) doesn't receive HD, so if you want both,, you have to have 2 set-top-boxes hooked up, which I have. Works fine, except I can't record HD.

TW has announced now that they're getting the Sci Atl Explorer 8000HD within a couple of months. That will do everything the DishPlayer DVR 921 does, except that it only has a 160GB hard drive. BIG ADVANTAGE, though: It's free / you don't have to buy the box, just pay TW $7/month "rental" for the DVR and $6/month fee for "DVR service". Altogether, then, it's about the same price as TiVo's service, but it's integrated into the cable system and there's no equipment to buy.

Posted by: Nate at Mar 7, 2004 8:35:32 AM

I'd love to purchase one, however I can't find anyone in my area that will even take an order. The web site for Dishnet lists several vendors who are SUPPOST to sell them. I think that they forgot to tell the vendors, as none has seen one.
I did have one vendor tell me that if I paid my $1000 up front that he MAY be able to get one in 3 - 4 MONTHS!!!
So who the heck is getting all these units?

Posted by: James McCrary at Mar 8, 2004 9:20:00 PM

I LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO...WHERE CAN I BUY A DISHPLAYER
DVR 921? I HAVE NO DISH SATELLITE SYSEM AS YET........

Posted by: ROGER NISSIM at Mar 8, 2004 11:15:49 PM

The Dishplayer 921 was withdrawn temporarily for a number of hardware & software fixes. Rumors have it available from your local Dish dealer in a week or two, but similar rumors have often proved false in the past.

Posted by: Paul Brians at Mar 9, 2004 10:47:50 AM

I was one of the few customers that received the 921 before it was pulled by Dish. Overall, I love it. Being able to record and watch the sparse selection of HD programs when I can was well worth the price to me, especially after investing in a much higher priced HD TV. The picture quality greatly exceeds DVD. The only significant issue I have with the 921 is that the volume fluctuates, mostly decreasing at peak loudness points. I suspect this is due to a compression problem. While it is largely unnoticeable with regular programming, it makes music concerts unwatchable. I also noticed a slightly lower picture clarity compared to the Dish 5000 I had been using. An even lesser problem is its inability to perform certain functions such as picture-in-picture while in HD mode, but that’s a slice of nirvana I can wait for. The functionality is terrific and I’m told detailed programming info will soon be available for over the air channels, making it seamless with Dish programming.

Posted by: Chip Brunk at Mar 30, 2004 8:13:59 PM

Been waiting about 4 months now. Why doesn't Dishnetwork make an announcement about availability, either that or clearly mark it on their website that the product is not available. Been a customer for 7 years and this is the first time customer service seems sadly uninformed....

Posted by: Still no 921 in Atlanta at Apr 27, 2004 3:54:35 PM

My local satelite shop in Santa Cruz carried the Dish 921, but had so many problems with it they didn't want to sell it to anyone. I am very excited for them to work the kinks out of this unit as it seems to be just whot a lot of us are looking for. In the mean time I have a Dish PVR and an HDTV (Samsung DLP) but no HDTV programming, that I am pretty happy with.

-Ian

Posted by: Ian at May 4, 2004 4:26:10 PM

I HAVE A 921 AND AN 811 THEY BOTH HAVE PROBLEMS..BUT SO WHAT I CAN RECORD hd>>>>>>>>>. MY 921 CURRENT PROBLEMS ARE MY EVENT TIMES MISS FIRE AND WHEN I MANULLY RECORD SOMETHING IT WONT STOP NO MATTER WHAT UNLESS I MAKE IT STOP BUT OTHER THAN THAT BULL ...IT IS THE BEST THING OUT THERE...I ALSO HAVE VOOM FOR HD....THEY ARE ALSO SUPPOSED TO HAVE A "HD DVR" OUT 4Q AS WELL.... IF YOU HAVE THE TV AND SURROUND SOUND YOU MIGHT AS WELL GO SPEND THE EXTRA MONEY AND WATCH WHAT YOU PAID FOR OTHER WISE YOU JUST WASTED 6 GRAND ON EVERY THING ELSE FOR NOTHING BECAUSE YOU ARNT USUING IT TO IT;S FULL POTENTIAL....

Posted by: BEN at Jun 24, 2004 9:40:05 PM

A subscriber to TW, I recently added HD service and picked up the 8000HD with HD DVR. The PQ is excellent. My primary quibbles are the controls when I'm in playback. I have yet to figure out how to exit out of my recordings cleanly. If you are in the middle of a program and need to quit, the next time you fire up you have to start at the beginning of the show and fast forward your way through. That's made even more inconvenient by the fact that there are no minute/hour hashmarks on the time-remaining bar. The written instructions I received from TW were less than helpful. For $7 a month,it's a bargain. I'll probably keep it and simply check-in with TW occasionally on upgrades to the equipment.

Posted by: George at Jul 5, 2004 1:58:35 PM

Found my 921 on EBay for $920

Posted by: KMoore4318@aol.com at Sep 7, 2004 1:04:44 PM

Just ordered a new 921 at the following location for $899:

www.vssll.com

Posted by: Brian Bertoia at Oct 27, 2004 11:13:03 AM

In checking with the local satellite dealers, not one will have anything to do with the Dishnet 921! They all say that they are disgusted with Dishnet. When customers return their 921 for reasons of non-performance, Dishnet will replace the faulty unit with a re-manufactured unit, but still charge the dealer with new-unit pricing. Customer returns have been numerous. And to this day, I have not been able to find a local dealer who will order the 921 or even keep one in stock. The 921 is the first generation of this type of product that Dishnet has provided, and I will wait until the second generation before I purchase a DVR HD receiver.

Posted by: Jim Crummett at Oct 30, 2004 8:47:22 AM

I'm a DISH Network Retailer and I have sold several 921's. I got my first 921 On January 5 and I have had minimal problems with it and I still have the original unit. I only had to RA one 921 back in January as well, but I believe the unit was damaged in shipping based on an eye witness report when the unit was delivered (literally slammed on the ground by the delivery guy). ANyways, I have about 10 921's available if anyone would like one. I have them at a good price (under $900) and they are BRAND NEW Factory Sealed. Drop me an email... Rick@n2net.net

Posted by: Rick DeLaPezuela at Oct 31, 2004 9:32:48 PM

Just purchased a new 921 from an ebay seller (there are several) for a delivered price of $575. Anxious to get it.

Posted by: George West at Nov 10, 2004 8:13:38 AM

Is there any way to record pre-recorded program to DVD recorder from DVR 921?

Hari

Posted by: Hari Arya at Nov 16, 2004 6:01:11 AM

I am seeing some web sites advertising the 921 for $549. Has Dish cut it's price to all dealers or are these just come-ons

Posted by: Daniel Hall at Nov 18, 2004 1:19:49 PM

I just spoke to Dish Network. They referred me to Costco to by the 921 at $549. I haven't be able to check and see if they actually have it in stock.

Posted by: Craig Rossiter at Nov 23, 2004 10:24:51 PM

Just saw this unit for $549 on Dish Network's web site, with the caption "New Low Price". Don't know if they actually have any available.

Posted by: CRL 1 at Nov 29, 2004 9:48:03 AM

Is the new low price for the 921 an indication of a new hd-pvr to come from Dish?

Posted by: bodyblock at Nov 29, 2004 11:11:33 AM

I, too, saw the new price for the 921 and immediately called Dish to order it. After taking my CC# and scheduling installation, the rep casually mentioned a $9.95/mo. charge for HD service. No way to get the DVR without it. No thanks, I said and canceled the order. I shouldn't have to pay Dish so I can receive over-the-air HDTV from local stations.

Posted by: Rich at Dec 10, 2004 9:51:59 AM

Just purchased 921 for $549 but it comes with a $150 rebate spread out over 15 months in my service bill (have to maintain service for 15 months).

Still wondering how to burn HD DVD's for my own use.

Posted by: BYNXR at Dec 14, 2004 5:00:27 AM

I just bought my 921 from dish network for $549 with c/c they said I have to pay 9.95 A mo for hd service and 4.95 for regular service but they were rite about the pic it seems to be better than the 811 and the 510 and I"m very happy with it, but would be nicer if it had A hook up so you could record on dvd.

Posted by: EDWARD at Dec 15, 2004 10:45:23 AM

I am getting my 921 today, got it for $300 but had to do two year contract, hope it is as good as they say it is!!!

Posted by: Bob at Dec 18, 2004 8:31:39 AM

Where can I get a 921 for only $300.00 Plus service Fees?

Posted by: Michael at Dec 27, 2004 3:10:40 PM

Keep in mind all that yes you have to pay the $9.95 a month to get the HD receivers but you only have to pay that for 1 year. After the year you can cancel the HD content, get your standard Dish programming and still use the receiver of OTA HD broadcasts. Just to make it even more of a no brainer Dish is offering 6 months free of HD service so for $60 you get a free 811 or the upgrade cost for the 921. Right now for new customers it is just a $200 upgrade fee at signup to get the 921. Wow.

Posted by: Leon at Jan 4, 2005 8:50:01 PM

Bought my 921 for $549 from Dish and received it yesterday. Only hitch is that they are telling me they can't install it until FEBRUARY 7th! Anybody know how difficult it is to install? I currently have a Dish 500 system with 2 301's, a 501 and a quad LNB. Can I just run the second satellite cable down from the LNB and fire it up? Or is it more complicated than that?

Appreciate any help that you can give...

Posted by: Stuart at Jan 7, 2005 5:39:43 PM

Look in the manual of the 921, it's in there.

Posted by: Joe at Jan 12, 2005 1:21:23 PM

I had my DVR 921 installed last week. It works well overall but every day or so it seems to freeze up (most often when recording) and will not access the 2nd tuner. The program guide will come up and when I select a channel, the info banner comes up but the screen just stays black-no picure or sound. I have to unplug and reboot and then everything is OK for another day or so. Is anyone else having this problem?

Posted by: John at Jan 14, 2005 6:31:25 PM

I bought one late last year - when the price dropped. I got it from an online retailer not knowing DISH was going to start offering it at the same price. So I ended up having to pay to have it installed. Two things to keep in mind: You will want to have DishPro equipment for the Dish and you will want to have two lines into this box. So if you don't have Dish Pro equip you will be running two lines per dish down to the box and you will be limited for upgrades. If you bougth from DISH direct you can complain and they shoudl cover the cost to upgrade. What I did was upgrade the lmb's to dishpro (one screw and an easy swap) and ran one line from the 61.5 dish and two lines from the other dish serving 119 and 110. Then I ran all three lines into the basement (you could put it in the attic) into a Dishpro 34 switch. The cool thing about that is you can run 4 tuners off each dp34 switch and then daisy chain another to add more. So I have my old 508, the new 921 all using three lines.

One other Gotya! They charge a monthly DVR access fee for the 921 of $4.98; they can because of TIVO. It is a rip and they didn't warn me when I signed up. They didn't charge for the 508.

There are glitches now and then with the 921 - the guy who wrote the software shoudln't have picked Microsoft to build it on, should have used Linux, but the latest upgrade fixed most problems.
I'll put some more details on my website either in the forums or my blog later this week.

JimmyC
www.charanis.com

Posted by: Jimmyc at Feb 14, 2005 9:50:24 PM

Leon -

check out this post - they helped me to get where I did above.
More info on my post at Satellite Guys (http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?p=247292&posted=1#post247292)

Posted by: JimmyC at Feb 14, 2005 10:06:32 PM

JimmyC,

What on earth are you talking about? "There are glitches now and then with the 921 - the guy who wrote the software shoudln't have picked Microsoft to build it on, should have used Linux, but the latest upgrade fixed most problems."?

The unit is running a custom Linux distribution (DishLinux).

Posted by: Peter Retep at Apr 13, 2005 10:10:43 PM

Well for all you out there whom think that you are buying the 921 from dishnetwork, you're not. Just ask them, you are leasing it, not buying it. I just got off the phone with them and you pay $4.95 for DVR, then you pay $4.99 for the HD package if you already have a subscription, then you pay $9.99 to lease the DVR on top of your $549 you paid to get it...........Just though you all would like to know

Posted by: Bman at Apr 18, 2005 1:44:15 AM

This is not true. the 9.99 is for the HD programming. The 4.99 is for the "extra feed" You use two satelite feeds to operate your 921. So if you have a four room package and then you upgrade the to the 921, you then have 5 rooms to pay for. The don't charge by the satelite box, they charge by the connection. Get it?

Posted by: Terry at Apr 20, 2005 10:18:57 AM

We have had our 921, from Dish, for about 2 months now and there are several problems people should be aware of.

First, local channels coming in via the antenna on the Dish are way more susceptible to weather interference than analog channels. We seem to get more break-up and pixellation with this unit in general versus previous basic [and free] Dish PVR.

The software is definitely buggy. Every so often it gets stuck in stretch mode and we have to reboot numerous times to get it back to a regular format.

Also, rebooting takes many minutes to complete.

Finally, it is LOUD! Louder than my IBM Net Vista desktop PC. Way louder than my laptop. I have it mounted in a special vented made-for-audio/video component case, with a glass door in front, but can still hear it in the next room.

These issues are very frustrating because being able to record and watch Deadwood on HBO in HD is truly awesome.

When I get time I will get on the phone with Dish and see what can be done. This high-priced box is far less reliable and way louder than the free PVR box Dish gave us when we first signed up in 2001.

Stephen

Posted by: Stephen Cobb at Apr 27, 2005 4:56:38 PM

I don't know what I'm talking about - I was told it was windows. Sorry.
Follow up on my 921 experiences.

So now I'm even more disappointed in the software. Like those GIANT graphics - when you press pause or FF/RW - it covers the screen; that's just silly.
Yea, and how many times have you all had to re-boot because it gets "stuck" in ZOOM or Stretch format. And that black screen of death. Its not Windows but it might as well be, even thought its not a blue screen. I'm not sure of the exact key strokes to get there but every once in a while, too often, I'm checking out the catalog or prev. recordings and bam - I get back to the show and I can hear it and see it on the edges - with a BIG black box in the most of the screen. It really sucks when you are watching "behind" a show - say rewinding 60 minutes, which I often do, to see shows without commercials. Once you get that screen, its only a reboot and you lose everything.

I also have the same problems with the tuner on OTA - not sure if I were to purchase a separate box if they would come in better - but I'm pretty close to the Atlanta towers. Doesn't lock well on setup and little by little the channels are getting worse.

OH - and they charge for the 4.99 feed? I clarified this - its listed as a DVR charge on the bill and now it is on the website. They are piggy-backing off of TIVO billing; I wouldn't mind if the directory was better and subscriptions were like TIVO.
Be careful to PROTECT what you want to save. The other day my kids set the timer for cartoons - lots of them and it went on and erased a whole bunch of movies I hadn't protected! Ouch! So use protect!

Anyway; I won't go for the newer models. May be more stable but I'm not ready to spend and I think you give something up.

All said - I'm just ranting - its what I do. I do love everything about HDTV and when its working. I love the new VOOM channels - I gave them the extra $5/month. Love RAVE and the extra movies.

Posted by: JimmyC at Jun 26, 2005 10:06:03 PM

I have to agree with Stephen Cobb. My 921 has been replaced once, I've had to have the card reactivated once, I've had to reboot because it gets stuck in the zoom or stretch modes dozens of times. And the black screen of death - yup been there. Right now I'm waiting the required 24-48 hours for the "engineers" to call me back at at ***their*** convenience. It seems that so many angry customers are demanding replacement that they want you to wait for the uber-BS team to tell us how it's all our own fault. So once again I'm without my main TV. If there are any lawyers looking for class action clients sign me up!

Posted by: Steve at Aug 11, 2005 7:09:45 PM

I'm running my pvr 921 thru a receiver and then into the 1080i video input on my Sony TV. I recently bought a dvd recorder and have it running into the receiver. on the receiver remote i toggle back and forth between dvd player and tv. Here's my question. I want to be able to record onto a dvd the shows that I've recorded onto my pvr. I connected the video and audio outputs from the PVR 921 to one of the video inputs on the dvd burner. So when I have the receiver and tv set to play dvds and i set the dvd player to receive video and audio signals from the PVR I can see on the tv what is playing on the pvr and being channeled through the dvd. The problem is for the longest time I was not able to see the video. I could hear fine just not see it. I finally figured out that i had to hit a button called "output" on the front of the PVR to change the video signal from HD to SD. I now get the video but it is washed out and way overexposed. Very difficult to watch. Anybody have any idea whats going on. When I had this same setup running through a non HD receiver and a non HD TV i had no problems.

Posted by: amielp at Oct 7, 2005 12:55:08 PM

I bought a 921 9 months ago.Day one i had problems with the software they sent me a new receiver, 3 months later the same problem had acured they sent me another. After spending weeks of booting rebooting waiting the required 72 hrs for a rep to call me back i got fed up and called a supervisor to see if he could offer a 942 he said yeah for 649.00. His response was if i did not like it to disconnect service that is what i call great customer service. I am filing a complaint with the better buisness burea

Posted by: lou at Nov 11, 2005 11:41:28 AM

I picked up a "new" 921 on E-bay. The price was not bad at $439.00. It was a replacement unit that Dish had sent out to the fellow I got it from on E-bay. The 811 unit I had does just fine with HD. The reason for this purchase was to record in HD.

Issues.
Two reboots required to get the menu button to work. I recorded one show off HBO in HD and I was going to watch it the next day. Gues what the menu button did not work once again. After several reboots I now have the black screen. I hooked back up the 811.

Heat. This thing with a 250 GIG Hard Drive runs very hot.

Noise. While you are watching a movie with the volume up, no problem. However with the unit shut off it makes more noise than most computers do.

Little aid from Dish. I have been on the phone three times trying my best to work with these folks, they try but fall short with this unit.

Extra charge. This one hit me unexpectedly. The charge you and EXTRA $4.99 a month for this unit. How come the regular DVR is FREE and this this one costs your $4.99? I guess they figure they can soak those who can afford to buy the unit.

This 921 is sitting on my desk as I write this. I do not give up easy and will try this on my other HD TV. Maybe in the basement with the unit not in a confining wall unit I can somehow get at all the connections. For now however my new big screen HD Sony unit has the nice and quiet 811 providing the HD. No recording there, but it works. My other 34 inch HD TV sits in the basement with no HD source right now.

Posted by: Roy B at Dec 25, 2005 6:00:08 AM

I currently own a 921 and a Panasonic DVD Recorder. My question, how can I record from my 921 DVR to the DVD recorder? Or can I even do that?

Posted by: alan at May 23, 2006 1:25:31 PM

We switched to Dish from DirecTV on an offer to bundle that with telephone/computer online access. The unit says DP 635 on the front. I don't know where to find the #s the previous writers mention. My complaint is that it makes noise ALL the time. I understand it has to cycle at 3 in the morning but this makes noise all day long. Even now it's turned off and it's making a racket. Sometimes it's louder than what we are watching. The DirecTV unit never made a sound. I called the phone number buried in the back page of the users manual and the rep is going to send a new unit this Friday. She wasn't very forthcoming with any information about my complaint except to mail a new unit. Asked her why it had to be mailed,(I would come pick it up)when their minivans are all over the place and she said that they have no outlets for customers. Also that there was no way to download shows we have saved onto the new unit. I guess I have a second complaint then because with DirecTV we were able to record things and take them away from the unit. Can't do that with the DISH.

Posted by: katie at Apr 19, 2007 6:45:26 AM

DishPlayer DVR 921

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