DTVPal

Only thing that sucks about the DTVPal is the Price$$$$!!!! Was Goin' to be free now w/ Coupon $20 + Idiotic SHIPPIN'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had one on order for $42.50 plus shipping before the coupon and they canceled the order because of the price increase. They won't carry this one at all now. I think that was a pathetic move by DISH Network. It was always intended to be a "loss leader" for DISH (their hope being you will eventually sign up for DISH because you got this for cheap or free).

Dish shows how lame they are. Call up Dish customer service about this, and you get a different answer each time. Watch for the DTVPal to be sold for $59.99 now, then a few months from now be renamed and sold as the TR40 for $39.99. Need to grab those extra bucks from early-adopters, you know.

Anyone paying a premium to get one of these just for the VCR timer feature should consider putting that money towards an HTPC or at least a DVD recorder with a built-in tuner.

DTVPAL's tuner is excellent. The program guide is excellent. The TV picture it delivers is a little better than other converters. Mechanically it seems to be a very good piece of equipment. But, the event timer is poor or almost worthless. In down time it will frequently wipe out the event you have set up to record. Also the clock looses about a minute a day. Consequently it is almost totally unreliable to be used as an event timer in conjunction with a VCR. Numerous phone calls to Dish were fruitless. You get foreign speaking people whoi are extremely difficult to understand and you get the feeling they just want to get rid of you. Finally after 6 weeks of struggling with the DTVPAL and Dish, I gave up and bought a recordable DVD with a digitable tuner. If you want a very good converter, buy a DTVPAL, but if you are looking for an event timer in conjunction with your analog VCR, forget it--it won't work.