Problems with RCA 450RG receiver?

I also have the DRD450RG. My receiver is extremely fast and I have never
seen any freezes. Love the receiver, I definitely wouldn't exchange it for a
Sony or Hughes. Besides, with Circuit City selling these boxes at $80
compared to the Sony A65 box at $150, the deal simply can't be beat. I
really don't like to have any of my components displaying a label with the
Sony name. I like them to last significantly past their warranty and that
label guarantees to me, that they won't.

Sounds as your receiver is defective. Watch out for the Sony's. I had a Sony
SAT-T60 Tivo and it had a low internal satellite signal. Somehow it had a
high internal resistant which cause the signal strength to be much lower
than what it actually was. My installer experienced this problem with many
standard Sony receivers.

You might try a reset and let the receiver do a complete download again.
This may fix your slow menu and your freezing.

BTW, there has been a freezing problem with the actual signal from Direct
TV. There had been threads of many with all different boxes, experiencing
this pause/freeze. I had it on my RCA Ultimate TV 3 times in a month(spotted
twice on recorded programming and once on live programming) but haven't seen
it recently. Never did see it on my RCA DRD450RG. I did do an internal
software reset to make sure it wasn't the Ultimate TV. So either it might
have been a UTV problem( doubt it as everyone was experiencing this) or
Direct TV has fixed this problem in their signals.

BTW, what are you comparing the speed of your 450 with? I have had the Sony
SAT-T60 Tivo/Direct receiver(the slowest), my RCA DWD490RE Ultimate TV
receiver(pretty fast), a Dish Network 4700 receiver(same speed as RCA DWD490
Ultimate TV receiver but with much longer program description waits of 1 - 4
minutes) and my RCA DRD450RG(the fastest). I have had 4 satellite receivers
now, and the DRD450RG is the fastest by a good margin. RCA has excellent
features and options with the 450 also.

You get what you pay for. By all means, get the Sony A65.

Using 3 Sony's here and couldn't be happier; great performance, a fast
guide, and more ways to customize displays than you can shake a stick at.
They're half the fun of watching TV.

I realize the trend is to lambaste big corporations like Microsoft and Sony
etc., but I'm sure glad I didn't let any Sony bashers influence my decision.