My 505s will sometimes display the 12 hour clock in the evening and sometimes 24 hour clock. My DSR500 is always a 24 hour clock. Right now, there is no way to change this.

My 505 shows military time when it is powered on and a 12 hour clock when it is not turned on. I find this handy since it seems it has to be powered on to talk to MCE.

The rumour is that when the 505 gets it's new code early next year, that the 530 clock features will be part of it.
Settable 12 or 24 hour clock amongst other things.

my landlord just got off the phone with *C and was told the 505 update has been pushed to mid-late January now. Since he is a very impatient person, I think we may be switching to Bell shortly. Having to go through the unplug tv/505, plug in tv, turn on tv, plug in 505 routine is just too much. We first thought leaving the 505 on all the time would help, but it still appears to loose the dvi connection at random times. To add to his disatisfaction is the fact that we were accused of pirating when we called to have the 505 initialized.

Seems our dish shows 2 different ids? If they had taken the time to maybe explain what that meant it would have been okay. BUT, the guy we were talking to just out and out called me a liar and informed me that the account was being flagged for investigation. Later my landlord called back in, spoke to a super and demanded a letter of apology, that was a week ago - no letter.

So I apologize for the lengthy, meaningless post but it pretty much sums up my current feelings on *C.

Wofter, why not just plug in different cables for now? Seems like an easier solution for the time being.

To add to his disatisfaction is the fact that we were accused of pirating when we called to have the 505 initialized.


There are no recorded cases of real piracy in the Starchoice or Digicipher II conditional access system and Starchoice knows that, so I highly suspect the statement. That's not to say there aren't cases of account splitting, which is really not piracy, it simple theft of service.

By piracy, I mean the type that was common recently with ExpressVu and the other DBS providers in N.A. where the signals are stolen by defeating the conditional access system.

I have to aggree. Use the component cables, DVI shouldn't be that much better anyway.

Not to make excuses, but the fact that you and your landlord are on the same account probably raised more suspicions than the different dish IDs....not that that gave the CSR the right to call you a liar...

my landlord just got off the phone with *C and was told the 505 update has been pushed to mid-late January now.

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I would be curious to know why your landlord would call for you on your account? i guess I can see why you were accussed of something, as I understand each address has to have its own account, is this not happening?

If you just activated your 505 be careful, you will have to return it or pay $200 if you havnt completed 12 months of service.

FYI--The Dsr505 was supposed to get its new software on OCT1/05 was only supposed to fix Pop up messages saying your not subbed or service temporarily not available. The software fix for DVI issues was always scheduled for January 2006. I think bells new PVR is also having HDMI issues.

ARR and Sharpie -

Thanks for clearing up my questions. Much appreciated.

I told y'all it was pushed back to January! No one believed me! :p

Anywho, in reply to:

If you just activated your 505 be careful, you will have to return it or pay $200 if you havnt completed 12 months of service.
When you disconnect before 12 months of service, I believe you only need to return the receivers you activated when you started your account.

can you go into more detail on this ?

Most people buy the 505 don't they ? ... I ordered 2 of them from FS about 6 weeks ago or so, what receiver I choose to use has no bearing on SC does it ? ... if I decided to go back to my old 305 and get rid of my HD tomorrow, how would that change anything with SC ? .... it doesn't do anything to them if I am using the 505, or any other older boxes with SC, ....

I am confused at what you are saying .... :confused:


I told y'all it was pushed back to January! No one believed me! :p

Anywho, in reply to:

When you disconnect before 12 months of service, I believe you only need to return the receivers you activated when you started your account.

In terms of most people buying the 505, that would really depend. I can't see much point buying a 500/530/505 unless you have highdef tv....and not sure on how many people have Highdef tv capabilities.

I guess I should have written that differently - I didn't mean that most people buy the 505, over another model, what I should have said was....

most people who are interested in the 505, buy it outright, so it is their own personal property, once this is done, what business does SC have in having you in a binding contract ? ... when I autorized my 2 505 boxes last month, the CS at StarChoice NEVER told me that by authorizing my 505 boxes ( turning them "on" ) that I am now entering in a legal binding contract for at a term of 12 months.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what the user Satelite said, but I don't believe this to be true if this is what he meant to say. There is NO contract as far as I know of, the customer service person at SC never told me about this.

So I'm still confused.

Is the user Satelite saying that if you own an old 305 you are not agreeing to a 12 month contract, but when you activate a 505 model you are ?

help :confused:


In terms of most people buying the 505, that would really depend. I can't see much point buying a 500/530/505 unless you have highdef tv....and not sure on how many people have Highdef tv capabilities.

What I'm saying is this:
When you purchase receivers (any receivers) as a new customer and have Star Choice install a dish and those receivers, you enter into a 12-month "service aggreement". If you disconnect before 12 months, you need to return those receivers to Star Choice or pay $200.

Last I heard, any receivers you purchase after the fact are technically yours and do not neet to be returned. However - The language Star Choice uses (see the back of your bill) is fairly ambiguous:
Receiver Non-Return Fee: If you deactivate services prior to 12 months from the activation date and do not return your receiver(s) and
remote control(s) to Star Choice in good working condition, you will be charged a Receiver Non-Return Fee of $200 plus applicable
taxes.

Hi Satelite, ok I understand you now, ... they don't want to install a dish, run the cable, and then have a client switch over to Bell Express Vu a month or 2 later... it's not worth it for them, I see what you mean now.

thanks for the clarification, makes me feel a little better , now my ol' ticker can slow down. Time for a beer ! 5:03 pm here in the east so that means the basement bar is now open :)

Btw, I brewed a Strong Pale Ale today, kegged a Honey Wheat beer, and also racked my Honey Red, which will now clarify for about a week then get bottled or kegged.

see some pix (images of my brewday ) here:
http://www.sendpix.com/albums/05111015/iksi8epvwl/



What I'm saying is this:
When you purchase receivers (any receivers) as a new customer and have Star Choice install a dish and those receivers, you enter into a 12-month "service aggreement". If you disconnect before 12 months, you need to return those receivers to Star Choice or pay $200.

Last I heard, any receivers you purchase after the fact are technically yours and do not neet to be returned. However - The language Star Choice uses (see the back of your bill) is fairly ambiguous:
Receiver Non-Return Fee: If you deactivate services prior to 12 months from the activation date and do not return your receiver(s) and
remote control(s) to Star Choice in good working condition, you will be charged a Receiver Non-Return Fee of $200 plus applicable
taxes.

Last I heard, any receivers you purchase after the fact are technically yours and do not neet to be returned. However - The language Star Choice uses (see the back of your bill) is fairly ambiguous:
Receiver Non-Return Fee: If you deactivate services prior to 12 months from the activation date and do not return your receiver(s) and
remote control(s) to Star Choice in good working condition, you will be charged a Receiver Non-Return Fee of $200 plus applicable
taxes.
When I talked to StarChoice about the $200 fee I was told that it was to recover the cost of the receiver that StarChoice was subsidizing. The CSR I talked to claimed that StarChice paid Motorola $1800 for a 530 (at that point in the discussion I had to pick myself off the floor:D )

The answer is that any equipment you activate within a 12 month window has to be returned otherwise you pay $200. It's a one-time charge, not a per item charge, unless of course you choose to cancel each receiver individually within different time frames. Then you get to pay $200 each time for non-return

You should also note that the information regarding this "charge" is not on your bill (at least for those of us with paperless billing) but is referenced on your bill thusly For a complete copy of Star Choice's Terms of Service, visit our website at www.starchoice.com or contact us at the phone number or address below.

Terms of Service is bottom right on home page. Go to item 4(h) in the terms of service to see the $200 fee. Read the definition of "Service(s)" and you can discern that cancelling a receiver of any kind within 12 months will cost you $200 should you not return it.

You are right, the $200 fee is entirely to recoup the cost of setting you up as a subscriber.
Dish & LNBF = ~$150
Installation of dish and 2 lines = ~$200
Receivers = $?? - definitly more than the retail price.

The 12 month requirement is an attempt to recoup those costs - I would imagine that on many packages, it would take more than 12 months to recoup those installation costs...

I should have clarified my living situation. I live with a retired couple, kinda like the son that did not leave. It is 1 dish, 1 house. My mistake, I guess it was account splitting that he accused us of. the girl I talked to a couple hours later was nice enough to sort of explain that our dish was somehow seeing two sources. While the 505 was having trouble getting setup, we had 3 other receivers (303s on the second lead from the dish) working just fine.

We did not use the component cables because the picture was extremely washed out, it was like watching something with the brightness controll at 200%. Today we visited the shop that sold us the tv (samsung hlr5064) and took the 505 with us. They hooked it up at the store and the component cables worked just fine. So they are sending a samsung tech to the house in the morning.

I just picked up a 505 at FS today. The price was $149 + tax,($50 off ,regularly $199) and I still get the $50 PPV credit when I activate it. Great price for an HD receiver.