Dish
Tv is positioning its Dish Tv recorder Dish TruHD+ as a good cost effective product in the DVR category, the truth is very different. The concept of having a HD STB with external hard drive (called DVR lite) is a sub-optimal product for someone who wants to enjoy the real DVR features. It does not score on both cost effectiveness and functionality as compared to the HD DVR set top box.
You have to buy USB drives as well as a DVR remote. This entails additional high costs. The recording feature is heavily compromised on a DVR Lite because of the following reasons:
[*]The flash drive has to be always connected to the STB for future recording to be enabled.
[*]A normal SD definition hindi movie with advertisements runs for more than 4 hours and needs more than 4 GB of storage space. Thus to download 20 hours content, the you need to purchase atleast a 32 GB flash drive that will cost more than Rs 1600 according to current market rates. Additional stortage of say 500 GB costs almost Rs 4000-7000.
[*]There is no automatic series based recording. Since the episodes will need to be recorded back to back ideally a dedicated flash drive will be required. Tremendous coordination will be required if the same USB drive needs to be plugged in daily at the same time. To record series a USB drive with a reasonable recording capacity will be recorded if the you intend to store and playback on a later day in the week
[*]Unlike the HD DVR which has a built-in hard disk supporting infinite no of program recordings and playbacks (Erase- Write cycles), flash drives support a limited no. erase write cycles post which they get spoilt. Hence, the flash drive will be able to handle a limited no. of recordings and playback
[*]The data stored on the drive can’t be read on any other STB or computer
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So Dish Tv’s offering Dish TruHD+ doesn’t look good at all. Its is not robust and comprehensive as a good HD DVR should be. I think you should consider all these factors before thinking of buying it.
