The February 17th, 2009 analog shutoff marks the beginning of the digital age here in America and digital tuners, such as the DTVPal, are going to become a staple in many American households. Thankfully, Congress allocated $140 million to alleviate the personal cost of these boxes, by allowing two, $40 coupons per household. This should cover most, if not all, of the retail price. The DTVPal is one of the first on the market to hit the sweet spot of $40 MSRP, allowing consumers to receive these boxes for free thanks to that coupon.
This low price piqued my interest and so I set out to discover if this DTV tuner was worth the cost of your coupon. I, like most Americans, do not need one of these boxes, thanks to cable TV, but my lovely mother does. So I packed up the DTVPal, along with my camera, and headed over to her place.
Growing up at my mom’s house never involved much TV. She has the same antenna that was built with the house in ’76. When I was lucky, I could tune in FOX, but mostly all I had in my younger years was the big three networks of ABC, NBC, and CBS. When the President was on, my night was shot. It’s the same way still today; three, maybe four snowy stations on a tube TV.
My digital station market includes an ABC, NBC, and a FOX affiliate along with pairs of CBS and PBS stations. When all the digital stations are added up, there are 15 of ‘em. To my mothers utter, abet underwhelming, surprise, the DTVPal added all of ‘em to her available lineup — glorious digital TV had arrived to my mom’s house. The DTVPal did its job, but now my mom had to live with this new contraption.
Now my Mom isn’t exactly a true, technology fearing luddite as one can quickly surmise by her impressive component audio setup, but it can take her a while to warm up to new things. This was another remote to add to the end table and another system to master. Thankfully, the Dish Network-made tuner and remote operates the same way as the company’s satellite tuners so I could easily explain the basic functions, as could anyone that has used the providers equipment before.
The menu, along with the guide function, was easy ‘nough, although I doubt she will ever access either one. The OSD explains what TV show is playing, along with the signal strength and time. The whole setup is nice and clean.
I hooked up the tuner, although with a little reading and hunting, my mom could have connected the colored cables to the appropriate inputs. The tuner, of course, outputs the signal via composite RCA jacks or coax. The RCA jacks give you a higher quality picture, so I went with those for her little Sony TV. Unfortunately, in order to redeem the $40 DTV coupon, the tuner cannot have component outputs giving users access to the even higher quality inputs that most TVs have.
Overall, I am very impressed with the DTVPal and cannot find anything for Dish to improve on. We have tried other tuners at her place and none of them provided a better signal, or an easier operation. Plus, the unit is free with Congress’ generous DTV coupon. I even plan on getting a DTVPal when my coupon is delivered for the occasional Comcast downtime or emergency TV. Seriously, click here for one of the vouchers and then redeem it on a DTVPal. It is well worth the cost of admission and can be ordered of www.DTVpal.com.
Oh, don’t forget to make sure that your ‘rents and grandparents are hook’d by February 17th,, 2009. Just think, you could redeem one of your vouches and give the DTVPal to one lucky antenna user this Christmas – they don’t’ need to know it was free. CrunchDeal for sure.
Where did you buy this box?
This remote, and on screen guide, looks way better than the ones I’ve seen.
The $40 box is called the TR-40CRA. The DTVPal is still $59.99. They are the exact same boxes, but the TR-40CRA is “only available for a limited time!” You can get it from Dish Network themselves or search for the name and you will find several online sellers. Haven’t seen it in B&M stores yet. BTW, Dish is still working out problems in the software – check out AVS Forum for details.
The only problem I encountered with the Dish Pal was with the On/Off switch. Everytime I hit the switch it would also turn my Dish satellite receiver either On or Off. Very annoying to say the least!
DO NOT BUY THE DTVPAL! DISH NETWORK IS A RIPOFF! THEIR WARRANTY SERVICE DOES
NOT EXIST! This company is dishonest and does not support their product.
Their alleged warranty isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.
—
After waiting months for the DTVpal, having one order canceled because of
unavailability and the price increase, I finally got two just days before
my coupons expired. I immediately installed one on our bedroom TV. In less
than two weeks, it had failed. When turned on, it would download schedule
for a minute, give me about a minute of TV viewing, then the picture would
lock up. It would stay this way for a while, then eventually “reboot”, power
off, back on, and repeat the process over and over.
Aside from all the firmware bugs that have been reported on this unit, my
unit is broken. A dozen emails, chats, and phone calls with Dish over the
past TWO MONTHS, and they can’t even figure out how to replace a failed box
under their warranty. I have been lied to repeatedly by their “Executive
Resolution Team”. It seems their entire operation is set up to require an
account number to do anything, which DTVpal users don’t have.
I did confirm that there is no way to field upgrade the firmware on these
boxes to fix all of the firmware bugs that they went ahead and shipped with
this product that shouldn’t be out of beta test at this point. So firmware
upgraded will require replacing the entire unit at customer expense.
As to my problem, I emailed Echostar support on 8/8, and they kept insisting
that they couldn’t help me without an account number. WTF? The whole idea of
these boxes is that I don’t have to pay the monthly fees for service and
crappy support.
On 8/12 I found their tech support “chat” and spent 45 minutes online with
“Alvaro”, who confirmed that my box was broken, and that they would replace
it. He took my name, address, and phone number, and said I’d get a
confirmation call in 3 days that a replacement had been shipped.
NOTHING!
On 8/20 I called their 888-667-0633 customer “support” number from the
instruction book. They transferred me a couple times to a different number,
and I again explained the problem, and they again realized the box was
defective, but again, without an account number, they don’t have a clue how
to replace the thing. They were supposed to figure it out and get back to
me, but never did.
On 9/4 I again called dish, and after getting nowhere for a while, managed
to get transferred to the ERT (”Executive Resolution Team”). Isaac Ferman
seemed helpful, but rather ignorant. He told me the unit would not work
unless activated, and that he had to set up an account for me before it would
work. He couldn’t explain why it had worked for about a week when I first
got it without an account, or why my other unit worked without an account,
but set up an account for me, which of course did nothing.
He took all of my information, and promised I’d have a replacement shipped
immediately, and that it would be in my hands a week later on 9/11.
On 9/16 I still had nothing, and called again, and asked for the ERT. The
first person hung up on me. I called again, and this time got to Paul.
Paul’s phone number is 915-298-5525 x85525. Isaac was unavailable, and Paul
promised that he or Isaac would get back to me immediately. Never happened.
On 9/19 I called again, and again asked for the ERT. This time I got to
Gary, who told me that my replacement has been on “hold” since 9/8. It took
him a while to find out why, but he finally found that they were waiting for
me to return my broken unit. Well, they had NEVER asked me to ship it back,
or given me an address to send it.
Gary gave me an address to return the box to, which I did on that same day.
The USPS tracking number indicates it was delivered on 9/22. Here is the
tracking data from USPS.COM:
Label/Receipt Number: 0308 0660 0001 2205 3491
Detailed Results:
Bullet Delivered, September 22, 2008, 11:57 am, SUWANEE, GA 30024
Bullet Arrival at Unit, September 22, 2008, 8:03 am, SUWANEE, GA 30024
Bullet Processed, September 21, 2008, 2:13 pm, ATLANTA, GA 30320
Bullet Processed, September 19, 2008, 9:16 pm, CHICAGO, IL 60701
Bullet Acceptance, September 19, 2008, 3:07 pm, DUNDEE, IL 60118
I’m missing the date of my next call (about a week later), but I next talked
with Cathy Welling in the ERT (720-514-7865) to find the status of my
replacement. Se never called back.
On 10/3 I again called the ERT and talked with Hugo. He promised to get me a
tracking number by the end of the day, but failed to do so.
On 10/6 I called once again and got to Sarah Brown in the ERT
(720-514-8555). She too was unable to give me a tracking number to verify
that my unit had been shipped.
I next spoke to the ERT “supervisor” Chrissy at 956-364-7738. She has
promised to call me back by the morning of 10/7 and either provide me with a
tracking number for my replacement box, or to issue me a check for $70 to
reimburse me for the cost of the box.
Why do I not believe her?
—
I am fully aware that dish’s marketing strategy behind this box is to get it
in the hands of those who don’t subscribe to any TV service, have them “wow”
at digital TV, want more, and become dish subscribers. Based on the customer
“service” I’ve had over the past two months, I can promise them that I will
NEVER be a paying subscriber to their “service”, and will tell as many of my
friends as I can how lousy their customer support is so they too can avoid
this nightmare that I’ve dealt with the past two months.
—
Since I bought this with coupons that expired about the same time the
product arrived at my door, can any one tell me how to get my money back,
either from dish or the vendor, INCLUDING the value of the coupons, so I can
buy something else?
Even if I do get a refund from dish, there’s no other box on the market that
will preserve any ability to be able to program your VCR or DVR after next
year’s transition, so we’re all screwed.
Don’t buy DTVPAL Plus. I read some other person bought it and it stopped responding to the remote after 90 days. So it’s out of warrantee and He dumped it in the garbage. Yes the warrantee is only 90 days. Dish network knows that it will not last longer. Even though I read that I thought it’s was just one broken device. Mine broke too the same way, I’m still in warrantee; they want me to add it to my account. (Yes I did have a dish account with them) before they send me a replacement. First they wanted to send me a remote only and they wanted me to pay for the shipping. I fought with them and finally they agreed to send me another remote for free. I used to have an old receiver that had similar remote. Tried it and it failed too so I called them back and told to shove the remote up to their… because the device is broken not the remote. After fighting again they finally agreed to replace it. Did I mention that they gave me hard time and I’m still in warrantee!!
I will be shipping it to them on this address:
Dish Network service
90 Inverness Cr East
Englewood, CO 80112
First off, I don’t really watch TV. I use the interwebs as my primary source of content, but could not pass up the $40 coupon deal. I figured it would be nice to watch PBS or the local weather every so often. Which probably explains how slipped my memory and dragged on so long.
Unfortunately my DTVPal+ arrive DOA, called Dish Network multiple times, finally got them to say a replacement would be sent. Expecting it would show up at some point I went about my business.
After a busy summer, finally got around to inquiring where my replacement was, because it never showed up…
They said it was sent, got tracking number, it was for the original unit I purchased. No replacement was sent… Called again, went round and round. Turns out neither of my original calls were logged in the case notes, and there was no open case.
That allowed them to say I was past my 90day warranty and nothing would be done.
I argued that I had called well within the 90days, and it should be covered. I volunteered to fax my phone statement, I guess that is not a valid document…
I ended up talking to a supervisor, who made up a million reasons why they could not replace it, but she was ever so sorry.
I feel it is not my fault that they did not do their job documenting my case. I called well within the warranty period, and expected the replacement would show up. I should not have had to do all the leg work, and follow ups. That is why I paid them, and is why they have a “customer service” department.
At this point I asked to file a complaint, she said I could be given an address. Not satisfied, or wanting to spend my time and money mailing a letter, I asked to speak with someone. After which I was put on dead air hold, and gave up when 15minutes of silence passed.
Called back, quite irate by now. Apparently fate gave me a sane soul to talk to. He was quite helpful, and I should have my replacement in a few days after I send the broken one out.
BTW, IMPORTANT NOTE, you have to send the broken unit out before they will send a replacement. I was not told this when I first called months ago. Oh yeah, and you will have to pay for shipping. You should also record their operator IDs.
Overall this was a totally miserable experience, I was totally disheartened with all the misinformation, and total lack of competence at Dish Network. Something smells funny over there, and from what I have read about other people’s experiences, sadly I am not alone. AGs or BBBs should really look into their business practices.