Black Boxes:
DishDVR 921 Satellite Receiver with PVR
$999
EchoStar Communications
5701 S. Santa Fe Dr.
Littleton, CO 80120
(800) 333-DISH
www.dishnetwork.com
About a year ago, EchoStar Dish Network released its first DVR (Digital Video Recorder) satellite receiver to sport two coveted features: two tuners and the ability to receive, record and display High Definition (HD) programming. At $999, the DVR-921 is expensive, but Dish sweetens the deal by offering either of two HD monitors for $799 to its Digital Home Advantage customers: a 34" direct view model or a 40" rear projection unit. Dish also offers a package of nine HD channels in its "HD Pak" for $9.99 per month.
We reviewed the DVR-921 with the 40" rear projection TV, the HD40-300. Overall, we liked the visual design of the DVR-921's navigation pages better than that used in other Dish receivers we have tried, and found the second tuner a real boon and the widescreen display of both HD and widescreen DVD content very pleasing. However, though the DVR-921 had had several software upgrades by the time of our review, it performed very much like a first-generation product.
The DVR
The 921's two tuners make it far more versatile than a single-tuner DVR. When recording a program, single-tuner models give the viewer the choice between watching the channel being recorded or viewing a program already recorded. You can't surf over to a second live channel without canceling the recording of the first. With a second tuner, however, one can watch one channel while another is being recorded or watch a program already recorded while two other channels are being recorded. Since the DVR can record two channels simultaneously, the user encounters far fewer timer conflict notices. If two of your favorite shows air at 10:00 on Monday, no problem. Set the DVR to record them both. After experiencing DVR functions with two tuners, it came to seem a natural, even necessary, realization of the DVR's capabilities.
The 921 has fewer "interactive" offerings than some other satellite DVRs, offering games and weather only. The glowing red "dish" button on the remote that brings one to the "Dish Home" page of interactive services with other Dish DVRs performs no function with the DVR 921. Dish will likely add more in time.
Let's get to the heart of the matter: the 921's performance.
When we first received the 921, the DVR navigation and control screens, such as the Electronic Program Guide (EPG), DVR and Search screens, didn't fit within the frame of the TV monitor. For example, the bottom half of the Help button on the Search screen lay out of frame. More annoyingly, the first three digits identifying the channels in the EPG fell out of frame, as did the program title at the top of the EPG.
Video from the active channel is meant to display within a window in a corner of these navigation screens. The video didn't always line up with the window correctly, so we often saw only 2/3rds of the video with the rest of the window filled with a black bar. Alternately, we often could see through the window only a corner of the video instead of its full frame.
We called Dish Tech Support. The first representative was unable to resolve the navigation screen issues, and then blamed the problem on the monitor. Saying that RCA built the monitor, she referred us to an RCA tech support phone number. The RCA rep denied that RCA built the monitor and said they have no information on it. We called Dish Tech Support again. A new rep had me restore the factory defaults for the receiver. This brought the left side of the EPG into view, and resolved the video window problem some of the time for the Search and DVR screens, but not for the EPG. Also, it still left the top of the EPG out of frame.
Pressing "Stop" while watching a DVR event in some cases stopped a timer-based recording running in the background.
Sometimes programs recorded appear in the DVR listing with the title of the program previously broadcast on their channel in place of their own titles.
Occasionally, a program playing back from the DVR will lose sound for a few seconds. Often, when moving the DVR from Pause to Play mode, the first few seconds play without sound.
All of these issues give the unit a very unfinished feel. The things we liked about it nevertheless made us prefer the unit to others. We'd be more or less willing to live with these glitches in the hope that Dish will resolve these problems with future software upgrades. Still, it seems almost abusive to expect customers to lay down a grand for a receiver that's so buggy. Alas, the life of the "early adopter."
The Monitor
By press time we couldn't obtain the precise resolution specs for the HD40-300 monitor -- though a Dish representative told us it is "greater than 1000 lines per picture width" -- nor, officially, the name of its manufacturer. The model does have, however, a strong resemblance to the RCA D40W20 and the GE D40GW10.
We connected the monitor to the DVR-921 by its DVI jack and to a JVC DVD player by its component inputs, and calibrated it with a set of test patterns. The HD40-300 has the usual array of setup controls for color balance, contrast, sharpness and convergence. When we found the top of the EPG consistently cut off, we wished for one more set: horizontal and vertical sizing and positioning.
The monitor looked bright at eye level, but always rather soft. This was especially noticeable in the fuzziness of any on-screen text, including that in the navigation screens. HD programming didn't really look much sharper than standard DVD. Cranking up the monitor's sharpness control helped a bit, but also greatly increased the set's visual noise. At any setting, it remained very noisy in many dark scenes and dark areas of some shots. Bright objects or letters on dark backgrounds were often streaked. Dark areas of shots -- even in HD content -- tended to get blocky. This might have as much to do with Dish's MPEG encoding as with the screen per se. Like HD and SD content, DVD content looked soft, but often had less visual noise. This makes us again wonder about the encoding of the HD channels and about the difference between the DVI and component inputs.
As with the 921, the HD40-300's performance, especially in displaying HD material, was lackluster. Unlike the 921, however, this monitor is a bargain--if you buy the Digital Home Advantage program bundle. The HD40-300 provides a relatively inexpensive way to step into the world of widescreen and something resembling high definition.
Stephen Muratore is Smart TV & Sound's Editor in Chief.
[Sidebar: The Official Dish DVR-921 Support Forum]
To read the ongoing discussion among users of the 921, go to www.dbstalk.com, click on Forums, then Official Dish DVR-921 Support Forum
Smart Specs
DVR 921 Receiver
Number of tuners: 2
Software version tested: L188
Resolution: SD, HD (480p, 720p and 1080i resolutions supported via HD outputs)
Hard drive capacity: 250GB = 180 hours SD recording or 25 hours HD recording
Electronic Program Guide Length: up to nine days
Receives off-air analog and digital broadcasts: Yes
Picture in Picture: Yes, for SD
Antenna Inputs: One UHF-VHF, Two EchoStar-Dish Network
Telephone jack (for PPV ordering): Yes
USB port: One (for future use)
HD video outputs: DVI-HDTV/DISH DVI, (DVI-I/RGB), HD Component (Y Pb Pr) video
SD video outputs: Composite, S-Video, Coax
Audio outputs: Toslink optical digital audio, Two sets RCA-type audio/video outputs
Remote: UHF Pro 4-Component Universal remote
HD40-300 40" HDTV Monitor
Type: Rear projection CRT
Weight: 128 lbs.
Comb filter: 3-line digital comb filter
System requirements
Phone line, TV monitor, stereo system, audio tuner with Dolby Pro Logic and Dolby Digital decoders (not required for regular stereo reception).
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