DVR Options?

We bought the DISH VIP211K receiver from CW for about $138. The box and instructions indicate you can add an external hard drive if you want to record tv shows. We finally bought a hard drive and set it up. There was a one-time charge of $42.50 but no further monthly fee. We can now record a show, but unfortunately we cannot record more than one at a time, nor can we watch something else while recording. We have a cable service at home that lets us record two shows simultaneously while watching a 3rd. Has anybody found an alternative DVR box/system that will at least let you watch a show while recording another? I will call DISH once again but typically have struggled to get assistance on questions for an RV installation.
Thanks in advance for any response.

Is your DVR an older version? Earlier versions of Directv DVRs required twos cable coming in to record two programs at the same time. However, the more recent DVRs only require one cable. Also, not sure why you had to get the hard-drive - you should have been able to record TV shows with the DVR itself; an external hard-drive is a nice add-on if you plan to store/keep a great deal of movies/TV shows rather than watch them and then delete them as you go. I recently installed a Directv HR24 DVR - it can record up to 100 HD movies or 400 non-HD. With Directv I can watch an already recorded program while recording two add'l at the same time unlike your cable where it appears that you can watch/record 3 at a time.

I purchased the DVR through ebay for $198.

Regards,
Theresa

The DISH website describes this receiver as handling only one signal at a time.

Dish DVR VIP 612 receiver will do what you want.

Thanks to all for your responses and information. Prior to this our only experience was with our home cable service. We knew nothing about satellite systems (and I think we've proven this). Every receiver we ever used for the past several years has had decent DVR capability built in. We never thought to even ask about this at CW. Clearly we were not 'informed consumers'.
The VIP211K is packaged with the ability to start and stop your contract on a monthly basis, advertised as ideal for RV's. You can also call them up and change your physical address to get local channels wherever you are. The box indicated you could have DVR capability with the addition of an external drive. This didn't bother me since I've known people to graft in large external drives to get more tv storage on their cable systems, so it didn't seem unusual. The only (but huge} disappointment is the inability to do more than one thing at a time.

Based on all your very helpful input, we're going to take the following steps:
-Call DISH and find out how to get a more powerful receiver/DVR added to our present 'RV' contract. It sounds like we want the VIP612.
-Try to return the VIP311K to CW, once we acquire a better receiver.
-If we can't return it, use it for our 2nd tv. Our dish will handle up to 3 and right now we are using just 1.
-Keep our external hard drive ($89 at Best Buy)since we plan to download movies and tv's from a computer service we have acquired.

I will post the outcome as there may be interest out there for others. I've learned a lot from the forum, so I don't mind looking like a dumb*ss for the greater good of mankind. It may be a while since we are several states away from home and have been picking campsites with little to no reception, i.e. not even cellphone. We've got internet here but need to move on Thursday.

Further comments on our plans are welcome. Thanks Again Folks!!

Theresau said:

Is your DVR an older version? Earlier versions of Directv DVRs required twos cable coming in to record two programs at the same time. However, the more recent DVRs only require one cable. Also, not sure why you had to get the hard-drive - you should have been able to record TV shows with the DVR itself; an external hard-drive is a nice add-on if you plan to store/keep a great deal of movies/TV shows rather than watch them and then delete them as you go. I recently installed a Directv HR24 DVR - it can record up to 100 HD movies or 400 non-HD. With Directv I can watch an already recorded program while recording two add'l at the same time unlike your cable where it appears that you can watch/record 3 at a time.

I purchased the DVR through ebay for $198.

Regards,
Theresa

Click to expand...

Hi Theresa,

Apparently the receiver we bought is extremely 'simple'. It does work with only one cable, but has no hard drive 'built in' for storage. Thanks for your very informative post. We are going to stick with DISH partly due to the contract flexibility, but mainly because we have a very expensive 'one-touch' automatic DISH dish on the roof. We noticed you can buy DirectTV DVR's over the counter but haven't noticed and DISH units while shopping. It's time to hit the internet.
Again, thanks for taking the time to respond!

This update will only be helpful for those who knew as little as we did. We acquired a VIP722k dual tuner from an internet vendor. Prices ranged from $250 to $500 so it paid to shop around. This tuner has a terabyte of storage built in with ability to add more externally. It provides about 350 hours of storage for standard definition and something like 60 hours of HD. It is compatible with a cable splitter so you can feed both sides from a single cable coming from the dish. I believe this is the "Dish Pro Plus" feature. We did not have to run an extra cable down through the roof. Note, our dish has 3 LNB's fwiw. We were able to incorporate this new box into our present $63/month interruptable contract (this is the 200 channel option). If the VIP211k box is de-activated and replaced with the new one, it will cost an extra $6/month. If the 211k is kept active and the new box is added, it costs an extra $14/month. We can now record 2 channels while watching a recorded show, just as we wanted and naively expected to do with the 211k. In addition, the receiver controls both the living room and our garage tv, able to watch 2 separate shows at the same time. We heard we can record an OTA program while recording 2 others but haven't tested this yet.

Thanks again for all the help. We are Happy Campers, very slightly smarter.

I have recorded many OTA programs with my Dish DVR VIP 612, which is one model down from the 722. You will need to scan for OTA channels before you can record OTA. Just like you would do for the TV's. After you scan for OTA channels they appear on the program guide. I watch OTA and Satellite channels though the DVR receiver, which eliminates switching TV input sources when going from OTA to Satellite channels. I do the same on the VIP 211 except record.

Both receivers have a better signal strength meter than the TV's I have. I fine tune the OTA antenna by using the satellite receivers.


http://www.dishnetwork.com/receivers/dvr/default.aspx

Thanks Terry, we'll give it a try. We're heading home to Houston starting today, so once we're back we can experiment with our new system.

Can these things record OTA signals in HD?

Yes, they record in HD or SD from OTA.