I've enthused often about WebTV. I'm a big fan. Ever since the WebTV Plus came out (and the service was upgraded to support timed VCR recording), I've relied on it to manage my television viewing. I'm never really ready to watch TV before 2am, so a tool that manages the recording of my favorite shows is essential if I want to watch anything other than infomercials. I'm also a big fan of WebTV because I can do some of my necessary Web-work sitting in a couch, not hunched over a monitor -- a big win for my back and shoulders.

The DishPlayer is a funky variant of the WebTV Plus. Like the WebTV Plus, it has a Web browsing side and a TV listings side (what they call TV Home). And, like the WebTV Plus, the DishPlayer can display all of the satellite service listings (although it organizes it a bit better than the WebTV Plus). Unfortunately, it appears the DishPlayer can only store about four days of listings, while the WebTV Plus handles about a week.

Weirdly, the DishPlayer also has games: Solitaire, Doom, and You Don't Know Jack. They're actually somewhat fun, but because they're implemented so strangely, there's little likelihood anyone's really going to play them. When you choose a game (they all work the same way) from the Games menu on the DishPlayer's WebTV main screen, the system literally reboots into a special game-only mode. It even flashes the screen a few times with random refresh garbage. Once you're in the game mode, you can play that game. Want to switch to another game? Reboot into WebTV mode, choose the game, and reboot into that game's play mode. As I said, it's a bit strange.

Lastly, the DishPlayer has a video pause function. You can, theoretically, store up to 30 minutes of video on the DishPlayer's hard drive (so you don't lose what you're watching if the phone rings or you need a pit stop). It's a cool feature, but I've found it to be somewhat unreliable.

The WebTV-based DishPlayer is unquestionably cool, but it's also buggy. I'm hoping future downloadable upgrades will overcome some of the problems.

WebTV technical support
Unfortunately, WebTV technical support is also a bit buggy. The WebTV hardware is supposed to be supported by the hardware manufacturers (i.e., Phillips, Sony, EchoStar, etc). The software and the network connection (because there's also an ISP relationship) are supported by WebTV (which is now part of Microsoft).

On the up side, WebTV's technical support is open at 10pm EST on a Sunday night. On the minus side, it might as well not be. I now own two WebTV units: my old WebTV Plus and my new DishPlayer (I gave my original WebTV to a friend last year). Once I got the DishPlayer working in the "movie room", I tried to hook up the WebTV Plus in my bedroom. I ran into connection problems. The box would dial into the network, establish a connection, and then get completely lost.

The support people at WebTV were a lot like that. I found myself trying to talk to a helpful person, getting redirected a whole bunch, getting disconnected, and finally, after giving my username, phone, full spelling of my name, and description of the problem to the 26th person, being transferred yet again.