The VIP722 DVR from Dish Network
I was looking at the specs of the VIP722 DVR this morning. You might say I got DVR envy. I’m in the shopping mood right now. For the last 3 months I’ve been using Comcast. I know what you’re thinking, “what is a guy who runs a DIRECTV versus Dish Network site doing on cable?” Well, truth is, I told DIRECTV to stick it during the BYU football season, because I wanted the Mountain and both DIRECTV and Dish Network still do not carry that channel. Besides, I’d fulfilled my 2 year contract and figured it was time to switch anyway. I prefer to switch every two years to get the latest goods and check out the competition.
So when I first heard about the DVR that shows on two TVs at once I thought, dumb, I’d rather just have two DVRs. Well, I think I’ve changed my mind, and here’s why:
- We have our main TV in the family room downstairs, but we also have a TV in our bedroom upstairs. Sometimes we want to catch up on CSI after the kids have gone to bed. But are kids just don’t go to bed on a normal night. We have to continually put them back in bed as they wander out wanting this or that. So having one DVR where we can store all our shows, we can watch the our shows in either location.
- They thought of the obvious. My first concern was what kind of gadget will you need to get the distant remote control to work. Simple enough, the remotes are different. Number one is your standard infrared remote, number two is a radio frequency remote, meaning it works between walls, much like your cordless phone does.
- It still has the two satellite inputs so you can watch different channels on either TV.
Here are some other cool feature I found on their brochure:
- Record up to 350 hours of standard-definition (SD), up to 55 hours of high-definition (HD) entertainment or a combination of the two
- Enjoy expanded storage capacity with the addition of an external hard drive (EHD)
- View and record HD over the air digital broadcasts on TV1
- Convenient On-Screen Caller ID with history
- DishHOME Interactive TV for watching six screens at once and on-demand entertainment, games, shopping, news, sports, weather and customer service
I think I will definitely be switching to Dish Network soon - just after BYU plays in a bowl game 
Click here to order Dish Network, or call 1-800-315-0788 (promo code 27239)
I am a DirecTv customer, but I like the PIP feature of the VIP722. I can use that to drive my Optoma HD projector… I think.
Do you know if DirectTv will have a DVR with this PIP feature?? Thanks in advance.
cag505@gmail.com
We are in a MDU currently subscribed to Directv.
We apartment management are changing to Dish Network within the next two weeks.
We currently have a Directv HD DVR 250.
Does the move to a new digital provider make our Tivo redundant??? Is there any way to continue using our current DVR with the Dish Network??
Also, I would like to record some of the programs stored on our DVR onto video or DVD…any short answer as to how I achieve this. I obviously don’t have the tv, DVR and DVD players hooked up quite correctly.
Thanks in advance!