When I looked for dish satellite receivers, I found that there are two main categories of receivers :

• Dish satellite receivers for HD (High-definition) content
• Dish satellite receivers for SD (Standard-definition) content

Then each of them I divide into two sub categories, receivers with DVR (Digital Video Recording) capability and receivers without DVR capability because I think this feature is very important to consider when buying a receivers.

If we have dish satellite receivers with built-in DVR capability, live television can be paused, recorded and replayed so we will not miss any of our favorite show.

Regarding with DVR capability we have to know its recording capacity, i.e. how long you can record the show. The ViP722™ Dish Network DVR, for instance, has recording capacity up to 55 hours of HD programming and up to 350 hours of SD programming.

If we concern about sound, we have to look the imaging quality, such as surround sound & home theater capability. ViP722™ DVR, DirecTV HR23 HDTV, DirecTV H21 HDTV MPEG4 are some dish satellite receivers have Dolby® Digital 5.1 Surround Sound.

Another feature has to look if we want to independently view programming on 2 TVs. The receiver must have two satellite tuner inputs which allow us to select from two viewing options.

The last feature I’m talking is Parental Control/Locks. It allows us to lock out objectionable programming so that we get piece of mind over what our children are watching.

There are so many other features you may find. It depends on your priority but I believe that we all concern about price. The most expensive receiver I found is dish satellite receivers for HD with DVR capability, following by HD receivers without DVR / SD receivers with DVR and SD receiver without DVR at last, as you can see at the following comparison pricing chart :