Simple installation, just connect to the DVR with the supplied USB cable, plug it in and follow the on-screen directions. It's easy to move recordings back and forth or to view directly from the hard drive. You can continue to watch TV while the recordings are being transferred. A neat thing is that you can use the external drive with any other Dish DVR you may have. You can record on your TV, connect the drive to the kids DVR and they can watch on their TV. Western Digital My DVR Expander 500 GB USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive
Just wanted to let potential buyers know that you can also use Wd My book Essential for pc as a dvr expander for Dish vip 722. I researched this and had difficulty finding an answer so I decided to hook mine up and see. The Dish dvr prompts you to reformat the external hard drive and it was a piece of cake! Completely compatible with dish. We got 1TB for 109.00!
Got this to increase the storage of a Dish network DVR. Plugged in this hard drive into the DVR, activated the USB port through Dish and everything worked smoothly. Since then I have used this drive with no problems to archive tv shows from the DVR and watch them later. Now if only the Dish network user interface to the hard drive was better....
I did a ton of research for a good week before buying a dvr expander.Based on the reviews I decided to go with western digital because of the positive feedback and I also have a passport hard drive with them. I have a scientific Atlanta 8300HD and it was not compatible. I didnt understand why it wasnt working. I called cable-vision and they have no idea what to do.I also called western digital who really need to hire people who arent lazy and can understand English a little better. Western digital basically wrote it off as the hard drive not working and they were going to send me a new one. I knew that wasnt the case and I asked about it being USB rather then ESATA and he confirmed this was the problem. so I basically diagnosed the issue no thanks to western digital or cable-vision. thank god I have half of a brain that I realized that on my own. I just purchased the correct one and will be sending this back. so,if you have a scientific Atlanta 8300HD make sure it is ESATA and not USB. Western Digital have two versions.USB version will not work with scientific Atlanta 8300HD! I wish someone wrote a review like this to save me the trouble of buying the wrong thing :(
I had to return my DishNetwork DVR because of a malfunctioning HDMI output. I had saved several years worth of children's shows (not to mention some other programming) which the kids watch again and again. All of this would be lost when I returned the unit for a replacement. This expansion hard drive allowed me save all my recorded shows and later transfer them to the new device. The capacity is ample for many many hours of programming. In the past I have also had DVR fail after a few years with the loss of all programming. Treasured recordings could be moved to this drive which presumably would survive a DVR failure. This will also expand the memory capacity of the DVR, although so far that has not been an issue for me.
A couple of things to note, however:
1. DishNetwork charges a $40 "activation" fee per account, over and above the cost of the drive.
2. The drive will not work with a computer so you can only watch the shows on a "activated" DishNetwork DVR.
3. This is not a back-up device, in the sense that recordings can only reside in one place, i.e. either the DVR or this drive, not both. They are physically moved from the DVR's drive when you save them to the Western Digital and disappear from the My Recordings List. That said, they do appear in the My Media menu and can be played from the WD without having to move them back.
I bought this to expand the storage capacity on my Dish HD-DVR. It works as advertised and is easy to set up. I haven't been able to fill it up yet. I have 105 recorded HD events stored on it and still have 20% of the drive available.
This works the way it should. When I plugged it in and attached the USB cable to my Dish 722 DVR receiver, the drive was instantly recognized. I selected the option to format it to work with the dish receiver and that was it. I am now able to archive movies to this drive, watch movies directly from the drive or, if I wish, move them back to the Dish DVR.
Once it is formatted to work with the Dish DVR it won't work with a computer, but that's not a problem.
It's silly not have one of these, isn't it?
I have 3 external hard drives recording dish HD programs on 3 different TV's.. This hard drive has 1 big advantage and 1 moderate disadvantage (depending on your needs).
The advantage is the ability to move your hard drive to any dish receiver and still have playback capability (This is not true for any other hard drive I'm aware of).
The disadvantage is cost. I have bought a 1 tb hard drive for approx. the same money (100 bucks). This drive is almost the same price for half the space. In my opinion this advantage overrides the cost but that choice ultimately resides with you. Good Luck! - Dish - Dish Network'
Detail Products
Detail Reviews
Click here for more information
