Tech Chat 2/9 - Boom Or Bust

AndyMon

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Supporting Founder
Sep 8, 2003
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1
Long Island, NY
So, what do you think? Will the tech chat be helpful and informative or just the same old same old? What would you like them to address and what do you think they'll address? :what:what
 
First part of show: How to control your tv and vcr with your dish remote.

Second: How to set up a favorites list on your Dish3000. :D
 
This will be the last Tech Chat before the new HD Direct Tivo is released.

They need to show everyone a working model so we wont switch to the HD Direct TV which was shown at CES to be working with OTA with out bugs and it even had OTA guide data.

Seeing is believing. Other wise its just vapor ware as they dont have any display models in any stores.
 
My 921 works fine if I don't use it for OTA recording (infact if it were not for the OTA recording problems the 921 would be an excellent machine)

It would not surprise me if they showed us how the bingo ball machine works. :)
 
Scott Greczkowski said:
Hey they might show us a working 921 finally!
Does one exist? :D

The topics I want are:
New Locals - Dates and city list for the year
"Second Dish" for 105/121
DP+44 release
New HD - At least say they are working on more channels​

D* will be nearly doubling their local markets in the next month - 64 markets to 105 in one fell swoop. They have also announced more locals and named cities on 72.5 (pending FCC approval). E* has been ahead of D* in locals for a while. Now they need to announce plans STAY ahead.

The "Second Dish" mentioned by Charlie needs to be introduced. Charlie made it sound like it was only a couple of weeks away. "Second Dish" will make it possible for more people to get on 105/121 without the heavy SuperDish.

DP+44 was promised ... it needs to come. Ditto for HD.

JL
 
justalurker said:
The topics I want are:...........
New HD - At least say they are working on more channels.........​
JL
They'll say it's a tech chat, not a programming chat. Not their area of expertise ;) It's amazing how they keep passing the buck back and forth from tech chats to Charlie chats, all the while stalling and buying more time. Well, time's about to run short with voom almost ready to come out, maybe, with a full line up within a month or so and with D*'s HD Tivo, free DVR and promised doubling or tripling of HD content on the horizon. Unfortunately, I don't expect much heartening news, as usual. "Wait for next month's Charlie Chat" is probably all we'll hear. :mad:

God knows they could fill up several hours just talking about the bugs and missing features the current crop of receivers have.
 
They will probably show some SuperDish stuff and talk about HD, perhaps we could finally get some info on how they will go about bringing in more HD in the future. Maybe we will even find out about the extra slots that they may end up using for more channels. I do not know if they would show any information about the 322 or 522 since existing customers are not allowed to purchase those or activate them. They would not want them to know about it until they are allowed to activate them on their accounts.
 
Gage your enthusiasm for tonight's Tech Chat.

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being nap material and 10 is "puppy pee the floor", I'm sitting at about a 1.5, barely an eyebrow's raise worth.
 
I remember back when I was on D* I was a bit jealous of the E* folks. Gee, here's a company that once a month or so does a live call in/e-mail in show with either their CEO or the techie's to answer your questions or tell you all the great things that are happening. I switched to E* and started watching these programs and watch them go into the dumpster. Frankly they're nothing but fluff anymore and if they do say anything new/interesting there's a good chance that it will change before the next chat (remember the $299 811 price, remember 50 HD channels on Superdish, remember the 921 coming out in a few months?).

I'm now back on D* and while I can't watch the show I still try to get into Scotts Live Chats to see what the latest cr*p the E* will be dishing out.
 
Hey, let's cut the techies a LITTLE slack. In the last months they have released....

1. 510 (This is working perfectly in my household since November. Easy setup, zero problems, not even a reboot or missed timer)
2. 522/322 (I can't answer to the reliability as I don't have one, butthere are some interesting new capabilities that they introduce over previous generations)
3. 811 (Supply problems do exist (is this due to greater than expected demand or did they allocate insufficient resources for the launch)
4. THE 921. The newest kid on the block is also the most loaded features-wise. They are damned if they, damned if they don't with this receiver. They go with a slow initial launch as they hammer out the most major bugs and alienate those desperate to get one. But if they flooded the market with product, their CSRs would collapse under the weight of the calls (most who have gotten a 921 at this point are a hearty early adopter bunch and have the patience to navigate the minefields to get the unit to work sufficiently). When this unit hits Sears, they need to have a better initial setup routine with more onscreen feedback than they do right now. The blinking green light tells you that a download is ongoing, but the bootup process has MUCH too much time with the silver dollar logo or a black screen. There needs to be more feedback to let us know that things are proceeding as they should (how many screwed up receivers are due to constantly rebooting the unit as it tries to start up and it gets caught mid boot?)
5. The Superdish. First, scheduled to be the HD antenna, now repurposed to be the new locals provider. The 180 was necessitated by the (oops) failure of the bird to get a strong enough signal to the four corners of the Continental US (oops, California, Florida, Washington, and Main are out of luck for HD). This made some people as 110 will now carry HD, but also may have cut down on the bandwidth capacity.
6. 4:4 switch. The SW64 megaswitch successor will be coming out shortly.

This is a HUGE amount of new product (especially when you consider that just about nothing happened between summer 2002 and summer 2003 techwise).

I hope that things improve, but I don't wish that I had that workload to deal with. ESPECIALLY, since Charlie's frugal spending is keeping the department leaner than they would like.
 
BobMurdoch said:
5. The Superdish. First, scheduled to be the HD antenna, now repurposed to be the new locals provider. The 180 was necessitated by the (oops) failure of the bird to get a strong enough signal to the four corners of the Continental US (oops, California, Florida, Washington, and Main are out of luck for HD).

SuperDish also doesnt work in MN, ND, SD, Up of MI, and Northern WI
 
justalurker said:
New Locals - Dates and city list for the year​
Hey...Fort Wayne is coming up on Thursday. Who cares about the rest. :) Actually, with a 3 month wait for SD, I'll probably start looking forward to D* getting us up so I can switch. (See below)

justalurker said:
D* will be nearly doubling their local markets in the next month - 64 markets to 105 in one fell swoop. They have also announced more locals and named cities on 72.5 (pending FCC approval). E* has been ahead of D* in locals for a while. Now they need to announce plans STAY ahead.
Someone said it would take close to 2 months to get everything worked out before things would be able to be used by customers. And a significant number of "released" cities are slated to be on 72.5 pending FCC approval. So D* can't really count their chickens before they hatch. They first should worry about getting it launched on time and successfully.
 

OTA Digital signal strength on the 811

Need help finding larger sized dish, few other questions

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