DISH Network's DTVPal DVR now shipping, caught in the wild

We actually pondered aloud where all the standalone OTA DVRs were in this wild world earlier this year, and at long (long!) last, we finally have a new entrant into the all-but-dead niche. DISH Network's DTVPal DVR, which was known in a former life as the EchoStar TR-50, has finally started to ship out to anxious buyers. For those who've forgotten, this box acts as a digital-to-analog converter and an HD DVR, capturing up to 30 hours of HD OTA material or 150 hours of SD content. Check the read link for a slew of in the wild / interface shots.

[Thanks, TOTA]

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 25th 2008 12:12AM]

HD DVD!

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 25th 2008 10:09AM]

Mine is sitting on the counter waiting for me to finish watching everything on my current Sony HD DVR, tear apart my A/V cabinet and put this on in its place.

Then I can sell my Sony HD DVR (single tuner) for about $100 more than I paid for the dual tuner DTVPal DVR.

Upgrading and making money....awesome.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 29th 2008 4:35PM]

I've been anxiously waiting for this. How's it working? My intentions are to hook it up to my analog TV but will it still work when I make the jump to a TV with a digital receiver?

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 26th 2008 1:00AM]

Sweet! That's my photo, sorry about the flash. And yes that is an HDDVD player sitting there(wanted access to all the movies but knew Blu-ray would prevail). Bummer they cropped out my Emo MPS-1 Amp. ;)

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 26th 2008 8:53AM]

Assuming that's an HD A2, the DTVPal DVR looks awfully large, indeed it looks only fractionally shorter than a VIP622 - and slightly taller. Is this correct?

Reading the thread, it looks like there are a lot of critical features not implemented yet - though features that will be in the fullness of time, like external storage. I love the idea of the box, I hope the kinks get ironed out, as I certainly would like one.

[(Unverified) Posted Dec 26th 2008 9:11AM]

It is an A2 but I'm not familiar with other Dish products. I personally think the Pal DVR is pretty small but I guess it does bump up in the middle. As an aside someone on AVS found you can replace the 250GB hard drive w/ a 500GB one!!!