I'm considering buying a hard drive to use with my dish receiver for rewind and record purposes in my RV. Who uses them and how well do they work and with the receivers? Also which one did you buy and size? Thanks for any hep you can give me.

We have one and believe it's a Western Digital, but can't remember the size. It works well, but you can't record without the satellite up. I guess that's obvious and one that I often forget. Also, you have to turn it on at the same time as your receiver or you have to reboot the receiver in order to get it to recognize the hard drive. You also have to notify Dish that you have that option on the Dish.

ReneeG wrote:We have one and believe it's a Western Digital, but can't remember the size. It works well, but you can't record without the satellite up. I guess that's obvious and one that I often forget. Also, you have to turn it on at the same time as your receiver or you have to reboot the receiver in order to get it to recognize the hard drive. You also have to notify Dish that you have that option on the Dish.I called Dish because I have a problem with a receiver in my house and if I replace it I loose all my movies and shows I have recorded. So then I thought about buying a hard drive to store them and can use it in the RV. does it work as well as the DVR receivers?

Took one out of an old laptop, don't remember the size. I works fine and you can watch shows that have been recorded without the dish. You can also record off antenna (if you have the tuner) but the dish has to be up and running.

I've had great results using a hard drive with my VIP 211k + Tailgater.The connection on the receiver is USB 2.0, the older USB standard. Virtually ANY USB 3.0 drive should work with this. I happened to have an old, powered USB 2.0 drive box, and I used a WD 2TB 3.5" hard drive. 2TB is the limit to the drive, and dish says that the receiver cannot recognize a larger drive. The receiver will erase EVERYTHING on the hard drive when it originally formats it.Many here are using 2.5" laptop hard drives, and dish says that is OK, along with 3.5" desktop hard drives. Dish insists that the hard drive have a separate power supply, which all 3.5" USB drive boxes have. I've read reports here that some are using UNpowered 2.5" USB drive boxes, and that the reciever is supplying enough power to make it work. I would not do this, because even if it works now it may hiccup at some point in the future and destroy all your data, if that matters.The programs seem to be stored in the identical quality of the original beam. A 2TB drive shows a capacity of roughly 200 hours of HD programming or 900 hours of SD, IIRC. The interface for selecting your shows is very clunky, and although you can add custom names to your shows the process for doing that is clunky also.I am told you can swap out your HD for another one, and in this way store more than 2tb of programming, although you cannot access more than one drive at a time. Occasionally on restart the receiver will insist on scanning the drive, which adds another 10 minutes to the process but doesn't destroy any data. All in all I am very happy with the HD PVR function. It is very simple, once you see it set up, and as the OP noted it is not dependent on proprietary hardware. You supply the drive and that's where your shows are.I did NOT ask Dish, and I do not know if a drive used with one reciever can be used with another--say if you upgrade or replace your reciever. But I suspect it cannot be used with another customer account.

Despite what Dish says on their web site, the small, portable hard drives powered through the USB port work just fine - have been using one for a long time without any problems. There is a one-time activation fee for the HD and DVR functions ($10, if I recall). The 211 series receivers are single-tuner receivers, so you cannot watch a second channel while you're recording a program on the first. You can, however, watch a program you've already recorded while the receiver is recording a program from a live broadcast. We've been very happy with the setup.I haven't tried it, but Dish says you can remove the hard drive for playback on other devices (such as a PC), but I haven't tried it. After it's been formatted by the Dish receiver, it cannot be used for other purposes (such as PC backup) unless you reformat/partition the HD for PC use again.Rob

Hard drive with Dish 211K for RV? | Good Sam Community

GBuilders
Explorer
Feb 22, 2016
MrWizard wrote:
what they stated, makes little difference in your case
as you can NOT watch the recorded movies from Home in the RV
which is what you wanted to do, and which you warned against the possibility of doing so

to do what you want requires different equipment, to make recordings from HDMI , using dedicated hardware ,, NOT the SAT DVR box

NOT a simple task and something the SAT/cable and movie industry want to prevent
and is technically against DRM law

if you have a vcr and IF your sat box has composite A/V outputs
you can record video that way, and take the VCR in the RV

hi-def digital is a different problem / solution

I understand, I do have a DVD recorder but it's not that important. I just thought it could be good to have but I'm just planning and keeping the HD in the RV and can record shows and movies that way. My DVR at home has plenty of space. Thanks for the help.
MrWizard
Moderator
Feb 22, 2016
what they stated, makes little difference in your case
as you can NOT watch the recorded movies from Home in the RV
which is what you wanted to do, and which you warned against the possibility of doing so

to do what you want requires different equipment, to make recordings from HDMI , using dedicated hardware ,, NOT the SAT DVR box

NOT a simple task and something the SAT/cable and movie industry want to prevent
and is technically against DRM law

if you have a vcr and IF your sat box has composite A/V outputs
you can record video that way, and take the VCR in the RV

hi-def digital is a different problem / solution
GBuilders
Explorer
Feb 22, 2016
They stated that you can transfer movies from DVR to DVR with the external HD even if the model numbers are different, but a receiver that is not a DVR you have to reformat the disk.
MrWizard
Moderator
Feb 22, 2016
GBuilders wrote:
lbrjet wrote:
In order to watch it on the 211 it must be recorded on the 211. That is my understanding.

That is what they are telling me. The software is different on the 211k and the DVR receivers. I thought I could save movies from my 612 and watch them in the 211K but not so.

you were given this info back on the 14th

Posted: 02/14/16 08:23pm

i do not have dish or any sat receiver

BUT every prior comment on here has been that, the recordings are encrypted and can NOT be viewed on another receiver or PC.

they can only be watch on the box that recorded them

this is also commonly stated on the video forums
i visit

maybe this only applies to built in DVR hard drives
but i am of the opinion it applies too all hard drives internal and external
GBuilders
Explorer
Feb 21, 2016
lbrjet wrote:
In order to watch it on the 211 it must be recorded on the 211. That is my understanding.

That is what they are telling me. The software is different on the 211k and the DVR receivers. I thought I could save movies from my 612 and watch them in the 211K but not so.
lbrjet
Explorer
Feb 21, 2016
In order to watch it on the 211 it must be recorded on the 211. That is my understanding.
GBuilders
Explorer
Feb 21, 2016
Ok I just learned something from Dish, with my hard drive I up loaded movies to take with me on my. 211K but Dish is telling me that in order to use between receivers that I have to reformat every time I switch receivers that are a different model number? Is that right? If do I can't use any of the movies I have saved in the HD because they will erase when I have to reformat? Sounds stupid to me. Is it the same for you?
Thanks G
GBuilders
Explorer
Feb 19, 2016
steveh27 wrote:
GBuilders wrote:
One question that I wasn't sure about was while using the 211K with the Hard drive connected and watching live TV, can I rewind and fast forward like the 612 or 722 DRV's? Also the one I bought doesn't have an off/on switch so do you just it run at night or unplug it when when the receiver is powered off?
Thanks for help.

Yes you can rewind & ff with the HD DVR. Really nice.

It does stay on 24/7. That draws some power and all cable & sat companies have received complaints for that. I think the gov't even asked them to develop a new way to have it power down. I did turn mine off at night, but then when turning the dish on in the morning the whole system would have to go through the 15-20 minute reboot. I did that for a while & just watched the morning local OTA I can get until the dish system rebooted. But, I think that may be hard on the HD.

Ok that's what I thought, thanks for the help
steveh27
Explorer
Feb 19, 2016
GBuilders wrote:
One question that I wasn't sure about was while using the 211K with the Hard drive connected and watching live TV, can I rewind and fast forward like the 612 or 722 DRV's? Also the one I bought doesn't have an off/on switch so do you just it run at night or unplug it when when the receiver is powered off?
Thanks for help.

Yes you can rewind & ff with the HD DVR. Really nice.

It does stay on 24/7. That draws some power and all cable & sat companies have received complaints for that. I think the gov't even asked them to develop a new way to have it power down. I did turn mine off at night, but then when turning the dish on in the morning the whole system would have to go through the 15-20 minute reboot. I did that for a while & just watched the morning local OTA I can get until the dish system rebooted. But, I think that may be hard on the HD.
GBuilders
Explorer
Feb 19, 2016
Well I just bought a 2TB hard drive and BTW they are hard to find with a power supply because most are 4-6TB now. It works great so far and very easy to use. I hooked it up to my VIP 612 and downloaded several movies but haven't hooked it up to my 211K in the RV yet. One question that I wasn't sure about was while using the 211K with the Hard drive connected and watching live TV, can I rewind and fast forward like the 612 or 722 DRV's? Also the one I bought doesn't have an off/on switch so do you just it run at night or unplug it when when the receiver is powered off?
Thanks for help.

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