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Just like DirecTV, Dish Network also offers its clients a range of DVR
receivers, designed to record and watch programs at the viewer's
convenience.
In general, specialists expect the hard disk-based digital video recorders
(DVRs) to be showing up in more and more video equipment, whether
DVD recorders, TVs, and tuners. This may weaken standalone DVR
products such as TiVo and Replay.
Dish Network's DVR/satellite tuner - the DVR 510 is a good example. Dish
Network offers it for free to new customers who get at least a $25-per-
month programming package for 12 months. And unless you subscribe to
the $74.99 America's Everything Pak, there's also a $4.98 monthly service
charge. So while there are a few strings attached, it still gives you plenty
of DVR goodness for very little money.
Let's have a look at the DVR 510 to better understand what Dish Network
offers. The exterior of the 510 has a curved faceplate, with a smattering
of buttons that allow control of major functions. The silver remote with
its transport keys (play, fast-forward, pause, and so on) are particularly
well laid out and user friendly. Within just a few days any user will be
able to activate it very easily.
Most users will probably prefer to browse the program guide. They can
choose between a full-screen list with eight lines or a four-line list below
a live, picture-in-picture-style video window. The big font is highly legible.
The six color-coded list of favorite channels allows to effectively create
six different guides, and a convenient All Sub option shows only the
channels to which the customer subscribed to.
The DVR 510 lacks the elegant animated menu of TiVo, but it's nearly as
easy to grasp. The separate menus for recorded content, major functions,
and search are satisfactory and well integrated. And the clearly written
manual with the dedicated answers channel make things even easier.
The 510 differs from its predecessor, the 501, in one important aspect:
hard disk capacity. The 510 can hold a whopping 100 hours of
programming, which soundly trumps TiVo (80 hours max) and all but the
two highest-capacity Replays, not to mention every DVR competitor from
DirecTV.
Standard DVR features are supported, including the ability to pause and
rewind live TV, record anything on the program guide, and search the
guide listings by keyword to schedule recordings. There's a 30-seconds
skip button to pass commercial breaks in four button-presses, and the
510's unusually fast 60X and 300X search speeds can blow through a
two-hour movie in seconds.
This Dish Network DVR is missing though one of Tivo's great features,
which is the Season Pass that lets you record every episode of a
particular show regardless of time or channel. The 510 enables to
program future recordings by entering time, date, and channel. Daily and
weekly recurrences are available, but it makes the 510 seem too much
like a VCR.
On the connectivity front, there's the typical assortment of jacks,
including an S-Video output, a pair of A/V outputs, and an optical digital
audio output, which lets the user listen to the Dolby Digital 5.1
soundtrack broadcast that comes with some shows. One of the favorite
extras is the remote's RF capability, which allowes to control the box
from anywhere in the house or stash it out of sight. There's also the
standard phone connection to order pay-per-view movies, which--when
plugged into a caller ID-enabled phone line--allows the caller's name
and number to appear onscreen.
Since it records the MPEG video stream exactly as the satellite
broadcasts it, the Dish Network DVR 510 doesn't offer any picture-quality
modes. Instead, everything is recorded at the highest possible quality,
including full Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtracks, where available.
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