Improbable Insights

We have Dish Network satellite TV service here at the Case House. The HD service costs a little less than the equivalent DirecTV or Comcast HD cable service, and I’ve really liked the DISH DVR functionality. (There is an ongoing patent dispute between Dish Network and TiVo regarding Dish’s DVR software, which has been dragging on in the courts for several years now, but that’s not what this is about.)

We’ve had a Dish Vip622 DVR running for several years now. The 622 is an HD DVR, which can record standard definition and high definition content. The day after Christmas, we were watching a DVD when the audio was almost completely drowned out fan noise. Have you ever heard a PC graphics card when its fan spun up to full speed? That’s similar to what we were hearing.

I paused the Blu-ray player and discovered that the Dish Vip622’s fan was spinning at full speed. Using the Logitech Harmony One to switch to TV mode revealed… nothing. No picture, no audio, nada. The Vip622 had bit the big one.

I didn’t get around to calling Dish Network for several days, but once I did, they scheduled a tech to come in and check it out. The wait, surprisingly, was less than 48 hours. Like most service organizations, Dish doesn’t give a specific time for an appointment. Instead, you’re given a time window. In my case, Iw was too expect the tech between 8AM and 12 noon.

Imagine my surprise when the Dish van rolled up to our house at 8:05AM. When the tech arrived, he listened to my description of the symptoms and immediately went back to his van to get a replacement unit.

Dish apparently no longer carries ViP622’s, so instead the tech swapped in a ViP722k. Interestingly, you lose built-in over-the-air support with the 722k, but do gain another 100GB of hard drive capacity. It took about a half-hour to set it up and verify it was working. While he was setting it up, we talked, mostly about business and new gear. Business has been down somewhat – no real surprise given the recession – and most of his work has been satellite dish relocations as people have moved.

I signed some paperwork, and the tech left. The whole affair had taken less than an hour. After he left, I picked up the Harmony One and fired up the TV.

Nothing.

Actually, there was something: my Onkyo TX-SR875 receiver fired up and the Sony HDTV also powered on. But the Vip722 remained resolutely off.

I grabbed the Dish remote, and tried to turn on the ViP722. Sure enough, it turned on.

I realized that I probably needed to reprogram the Harmony One, which meant downloading the Logitech Harmony software, since I hadn’t programmed the remote since upgrading to Windows 7. Harmony remote are actually programmed via a web app running on a PC or Mac.

The process of programming a Harmony is somewhat cumbersome if you’re a sophisticated user, mainly because Logitech seems to want the whole affair to be idiot-proof. For example, once you start down a path (adding a device, for example), that’s all you can do. Despite this linear mode, you can still click on the tabs at the top of the screen to switch to other modes – you just can’t do anything until you actually press the “done” command.

Also, Logitech’s database of device controls is user-generated. I discovered that the control setup for the ViP722 was severely limited, at least compared to the 622. I actually needed to add a soft button so I could switch to DVR mode to manage or watch recorded shows.

Once the program was uploaded to the remote, I took it upstairs and fired up the TV.

You guessed it: once again, the TV turned on, the A/V receiver fired up, but the DVR stayed off.

It turns out that the 722k has multiple addresses for receiving either IR or UHF signals (the Dish Network remote can operate in either IR or UHF mode, if you have a multiroom setup.) The Harmony apparently sends out its IR signal over a different channel than the 722k’s default setting of IR channel 3. I had to reset the channel to IR channel 1. Dish actually maintains an online copy of the manual. Chapter 10 of the manual describes the process of changing the Dish IR receiver remote address.

Resetting the VIP722k Remote Receiver Address (from the manual)

Once that little chore was done, everything worked as it should.

This took more research than anyone just wanting to watch and record TV should have to perform. It’s as if the complexity of the PC universe is gradually encroaching on the world of consumer electronics. I suppose it’s the price we pay for more flexibility and programmability. But as PC interfaces become easier, the CE world seems to be adopting the worst of the old ways. Let’s hope this all improves over the second decade of the 21st century.