The new firmware should be great! Record everything of a program/movie except the 10 minute conclusion or record the wrong program due to the schedule being inaccurate. 2 things I notice all the time.!

I'm very tired of waiting to get a decent working PVR from ShawDirect. They keep postponing the release of their firmware and the hardware sucks on top of it.

I jumped ship today after years of being with ShawDirect. Next Saturday Bell is coming to hook up their dish. Hopefully I will enjoy it much better than I have the starchoice/ShawDirect flavor. It's too bad, because ShawDirect has a lot going for itself, but the empty promises and severely flawed hardware forced me to leave. I'll be calling them next week to cancel my subscription.

Call now..the sooner the better..it takes 30 days for the cancellation to take effect Funkytown. I'm paying for a week extra after Telus Sat. is installed at my house.

That's a good idea. I'll call them now. Thanks.

Why the heck don't they have a search function yet for TV shows? This is ridiculous, I even got this with Eastlink cable. Also, the Eastlink cable guide would indicate whether or not a TV episode was new, and what year it was made in (i.e., New, 2009).

Thanks again Riko. It saved me a few days of service as I wasn't going to call until next weekend. I called just now and they asked me questions as to why I was leaving. Let's just say I was very honest about it. It won't be disconnected until October. No big deal. Now on to selling this 530.

No Prob. FunkyTown, I wasn't going to call until later on either, but I just thought I should just in case. I was very honest with them as well , they even offered me a discount on their new PVR, whenever that is coming out. Thanks but no thanks, do I really want to take a chance on hardware that hasn't even been out yet. NOPE! Looking forward to Telus TV, even if the HD is "softer" looking...the hardware is the big seller!

The man I spoke with did not know anything about a new PVR. I mentioned that I heard one was coming out and thought this might be the saviour of ShawDirect. He said he has no information on a new one. Obviously it would be a big risk investing more money into this company given the track record of their current hardware and firmware.

If they were smart, they would have kept the Starchoice name until the new receiver came out. Then change their name along with the new receiver. Oh well.

It's been clear for years they are not very smart, at least as far as the consumer is concerned, so no surprise there!

+1 - too funny.

everyone knows ( at least here) that there is a new HD PVR in test that will be out in about a year or maybe sooner maybe the only ones not knowing are shaw direct employes (in training!!!)

I don't know. The man was very nice and he had a voice that sounded just like Winnie-the-Pooh. Seriously! I asked him if he was new to the DSR530s and he said no. He went on to say that the DSR530 is his specialty which was why I was transferred to him for the disconnection as he's been working with them for years and would investigate whether the problem was in my usage of the equipment. Poor guy, he probably gets a lot of people screaming at him all day long if he looks after disconnections.

The thing I do and always have liked about StarChoice/ShawDirect is they always seem to have friendly people on the customer service desk. Bell has the most horrible people. With Bell, I've been disconnected, snapped at, and I usually get someone who barely speaks English. When dealing with a complicated contract or device, having someone who barely speaks English is very bad. So I will give kudos to StarChoice for at least having English speaking people who really know English, and that they are friendly. I am hoping if the 9241 works well, I should never have to deal with Bell's lousy customer service. It's a risk, but I think I need a change away from the bad risk I chose with the DSR530. If things are OK with Bell I will stay with them, but if they start jerking me around I'll leave them again within 2 years.

Don't make promises you can't keep, we should have had updated firmware a year ago that everyone was aware of, a year later and we are all still waiting. The new satellites will not go up until 2011/2012 (it looks like 2012) at the earliest and it seems that SD is in no rush to get the MPEG4/DVB-S2 receivers available to us anytime soon.

Good idea, I'm also making the jump to Telus & called them last week. It's been far too long for SD to get even the basics running properly on this PVR. I'm still having to reboot this thing constantly ( this is my 2nd unit after the 1st one cratered).
It seems to me that after how many years now, they are unable or simply unwilling to commit the resources needed to correct the issues that have plagued this receiver, or as some have suggested, the receiver can't be corrected for whatever reason. In any case, I do hope things get better for the people who remain loyal. good luck all

My contact at S-D indicated the 600 series timeline is now showing public release for mid 2010

that's still a long wait.