Customer Reviews

Dish Network 612 Dual Tuner Hd DVR Receiver

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

We own a Samsung PN50A550 Plasma HDTV. When you drive a "cadillac" you don't go cheap with the peripherals; you get good quality. Anyway, we have the DISH Total HD package; nothing but HD bliss. I ordered the 612 to replace the HD receiver that we had that wasn't a DVR as well. We couldn't be more pleased. Great HD/DVR receiver at an Amazon price. My wife loves being able to pause live TV and come back to it after breaks. She also loves to be able to instantly rewind show dialog that she didn't get the first time to hear it again. The DVR HD recording is flawless; no HD quality loss whatsoever. Highly recommend however please note the 612 is only good for one TV. DISH does have other HD receivers that will work for more than one TV in the house.
Should add that you can also rent on a monthly basis this receiver from DISH but at the low Amazon price that I was able to score this at I should have it paid for in a short time. The flip side is that if you rent and anything happens to it DISH will just exchange it. I'd rather own it and pocket the savings; why give it to someone else.

This thing puts out more heat than you can imagine. And it has a fan constantly running to keep it "cool". Forget having a quiet living room. This thing is far out the worst piece of AV equipment I have ever owned. Did I mention when you turn it "off" all it does is turn the front panel LEDs off. The fan is still going, the power is still being used, the heat is still there.

I have only had this receiver for two days from a new DISH install, but I feel I must post a review here since I was apalled at the low ratings others left. I actually was looking for a diagram/picture of the rear panel layout before the system was installed to get an idea of what I would be getting when the system did arrive and saw it here. When I saw the low ratings and read them, I immediately felt that "buyer's remorse" feeling thinking I would be getting a horrible piece of equipment. When the installer showed up, I immediately asked him about reliability/performance of the unit, and he thought it was one that had the least complaints and one that had some of the better features to date. To the contrary of what most have stated here so far, I found the unit to work quite well. Maybe that will change with time, but so far I haven't noticed any of the deficiencies others have mentioned. The unit responds quickly, doesn't lose any frames that I can tell, hasn't locked up, nor has it rebooted at all. Another reviewer said the unit would shut off after 4 hours but it is supposed to do that under the default settings and that can be adjusted or turned off. As far as power usage, I don't think this unit is any worse than others that are out there. It would be nice to have it completely power down when it's off, but it does still need to be active to get updates such as the guide and record programs that are pending. I'm sure there is some room here for improvement with power management, but I wouldn't consider it a show stopper (pardon the pun) when compared the rest out there. I found the noise level to be hardly noticable from even a foot away from the unit, and I can't hear anything from it in the room even when everything is off and certainly not when the TV is on. I guess some people are just unlucky or overly picky about stuff (or from the competition?) Hope this review helps others dismiss some of the bad impressions I got when I read these reviews. Again, so far I find it to be decent product.

I have been through 5 612s, and they all have handshake issues with my Pioneer elite sc-07 and my Yamaha YSP-3000. and when you call dish network, they have no idea what I am talking about. I also have a 622 receiver, that I have been happy with.....

From day one I have had problems with the 612. It was installed by Dish Net guy from new & sealed package. He never dropped it or anything abusive to the unit. The receiver part works great but the DVR has many issues. It skips and stutters sometimes when playing then if you replay section it is ok. It skips and stutters the recording and no matter how many times you try it will play bad for that section. These messed up spots are about 2-5 per movie and about 2-7 seconds in length. May not seem like much but try skipping 5 seconds during a action scene or critical dialogue. Also it will start spinning hard drive when turned off and sounds like stuck. From my PC experience I know this sound very well to be a bad HD. No it is not the cooling fan nor is it the daily 3a.m. update. No matter what I try I cannot get the HD to shut down during those 'episodes' and about 50% of the time I am unable to even turn unit on, ending up with unplugging to reset. I have one month left on 3 month free service so will be getting rid of it. It has steadily gotten worse over 2 months. From my discussions with others and searches it would seem I am the exception and most people have no issues. What troubles me is that this is brand new straight out of the box performance.

We are on our second one of these and feel sad that we are stuck in a contract with this model. It freezes daily, which is especially bad when another show was recording at the time and now we can't watch it. Every time I invite friends over to watch a Pay Per View I picture them all staring at the TV in disbelief when it locks up midstream and there's no way to find out what just happened because we'll have to spend 5 to 10 minutes rebooting the system and missing the PPV we just spent $55.00 on.

We're told by Dish Network that to use another model DVR costs $200 plus monthly fee, and that's TO RENT, not to buy. They're obviously aware of the problem based on the other reviews you'll find on this model.

Both DirecTV and Dish Network suck! It's a toss up to see which one produces the worst HD DVR receiver ... I've owned them all and so far as I can tell ... Dish Network has a better DVR receiver but that's not saying much.

The DirecTV H20 lasted a week and then was replaced with the newer H21 model which only lasted about 2 hours before failing!

Dish Network ViP722 which I currently have had since 9-16-2008 is still working up until recently ... it's starting to have some problems (glitches) which means it's probably going to crap out in a month or so.

Personally, I'd steer clear of all DVR systems and save yourself the headache and some cash but if your had to choose one ... I'd go with Dish!

Why Dish .... well .... five reasons ...

1. It's cheaper than DirecTV and your get more programming for your dollar.
2. You don't need 2x B-Band converters to watch your HD programming.
3. If you install & work on your own system ... Dish Network dish is so much simpler to point, aim, & troubleshoot than a DirecTV slimline dish (no math or calculations to perform when aiming for those Ka satellites ... lol).
4. Replacement parts are easy to get and there cheaper (plus they all match up ... unlike the multiple versions of DirecTV equipment out there which aren't compatible with each other).
5. You can scroll through the guide light years faster when comparing it to a DirecTV receiver (GOD there painfully slow!).

This is coming from an installers point of view :O)

I received this DVR straight from Dish. Good thing I decided to keep their service plan. This thing is horribly made. It is extremely energy inefficient. I draws a lot of power whether on or off and puts out a huge amount of heat. Even when off, its fan will come on, making quite a bit of noise. Not a good receiver for a bedroom. Once you get it running, brace yourself for periodic freeze-ups, dropped sound, and unexpected deletion of everything on its hard drive. Speaking of hard drive, dish does not advertise the hard drive size of this receiver because it is tiny. It may fit 200 hours of SD, but for HD it is more like 30 hours. Going through recordings is slow - the DVR is not very responsive. Expect delays between you hitting a button and the DVR actually doing something. After 20 months of service, it started losing satellite signal and the freeze-ups became even worse. Dish knows that this DVR is junk and I was surprised they sent me a replacement right away, without even trying to troubleshoot it once I told them what it was doing. Do yourself a favor, do not buy this junk. If you must get this DVR, get it from Dish and get the service plan. If you do buy it, make sure you get an extended warranty. I know I am not the only one to have these problems, just google it. I feel bad I talked a friend of mine into getting one of these. He is already on his third in a two year period.

We purchased this receiver as a replacement for a like unit damaged by lightning. Many have written poor reviews for this product, but I've owned several and have had no difficulties. I spoke with several equipment vendors to get a feel for the numbers of customers reporting issues with the ViP 612, and none seemed to believe these units are particularly problematic.

The user manual is well-written, clear and easy to follow. Setup is a bit time consuming, but only because of the time needed to deal with the content provider.

Picture quality at 1080i is excellent, and Dolby Digital sound makes the viewing experience complete. I don't believe you'll find another device offering more bang for your buck in a high-def, DVR satellite receiver.

I ordered Dish network with a VIP 612 receiver. The receiver constantly freezes up. We had to replace the receiver twice. We finally had to replace it with another model receiver which I was charged for.
Do not get this receiver it will drive you crazy.