Social Feed

I'm not sure DIRECTV is up to offering a Homezone receiver given the seemingly random development of their current HD DVRs.

harshness said:

I'm not sure DIRECTV is up to offering a Homezone receiver given the seemingly random development of their current HD DVRs.

Click to expand...

How much functionality that's in the Homezone offering is missing from the HR2X receivers now? The HR2X's have DVR functions, you can watch pictures from your computer with music if you want, you can remote schedule, you can get VoD content. So they market it with AT&T DSL service and DirecTV and to me it looks the same, what's missing?

rad said:

So they market it with AT&T DSL service and DirecTV and to me it looks the same, what's missing?

Click to expand...

The actual integration. It is very hard to work cooperatively with an entity who develops like DIRECTV appears to be flailing at it.

There may or may not be a requirement for OTA that couldn't be reasonably served by DIRECTV's current designs. This is probably fixable. The current Homezone receiver has two OTA/cable inputs.

There is also the nagging issue of not having integrated agile RF distribution. This is also fixable.

There is also some question of whether or not DIRECTV's agreement with TiVo could be extended to a third party like 2wire (or whether or not there is anything TiVo left in there to fuss over).

harshness said:

The actual integration. It is very hard to work cooperatively with an entity who develops like DIRECTV appears to be flailing at it.

There may or may not be a requirement for OTA that couldn't be reasonably served by DIRECTV's current designs. This is probably fixable. The current Homezone receiver has two OTA/cable inputs.

There is also the nagging issue of not having integrated agile RF distribution. This is also fixable.

There is also some question of whether or not DIRECTV's agreement with TiVo could be extended to a third party like 2wire (or whether or not there is anything TiVo left in there to fuss over).

Click to expand...

What actual integration? AT&T provides the standard DSL modem they do now which you can plug a HR2X into.

The HR2X's do support ATSC OTA now with an addtion of a AM21.

The agile RF distribution will become less and less of a desired feature as more and more folks get HDTV sets, nobody's going to want to connect a NTSC signal to their nice new HD set.

Don't understand your Tivo/2Wire comment, why would D* need to contract with 2Wire when their HR2X's do just about all the 2Wire box does now from what I can see?

AT&T $500 Million Demand...a Head Fake?

Just a thought.

Could it be that AT&T still has some interest in Dish and is making the $500 million notes demand as a strategic maneuver?

This would drop the Dish share price in anticipation of making a lower offer in a short time. They still need the customer base and front-end infrastructure with FIOS.

rad said:

The HR2X's do support ATSC OTA now with an addtion of a AM21.

Click to expand...

This is the integration of which I speak. Features that the 622HZ has that the HR21 doesn't:

OTA tuner
PIP/Side-by-side
HomePlug networking
RF Distribution
USB mass storage archiving support (as opposed to married eSATA)
IR Blaster (ability to control recording devices)
Full keyboard remote (unique to the HZ)

The agile RF distribution will become less and less of a desired feature as more and more folks get HDTV sets, nobody's going to want to connect a NTSC signal to their nice new HD set.

Click to expand...

I've got more than one HDTV, but I still have more analog devices (both TVs and recorders) than digital devices.

Don't understand your Tivo/2Wire comment, why would D* need to contract with 2Wire when their HR2X's do just about all the 2Wire box does now from what I can see?

Click to expand...

They would need someone like 2Wire to bring all of the things together in a functional package. DIRECTV hasn't finished what they've started with the HR2x series after almost two years and rather than finishing it, they seem to be engaged in creeping featuritis. AT&T is looking for a finished package (that's why they did the HZ version of the already great ViP622) and DIRECTV hasn't demostrated the discipline to get it done.

ERSanders said:

Could it be that AT&T still has some interest in Dish and is making the $500 million notes demand as a strategic maneuver?

Click to expand...

It could be that AT&T doesn't want to cut their investment in half in the event that they have to cash their shares out.

harshness said:

This is the integration of which I speak. Features that the 622HZ has that the HR21 doesn't:

OTA tuner
PIP/Side-by-side
HomePlug networking
RF Distribution
USB mass storage archiving support (as opposed to married eSATA)
IR Blaster (ability to control recording devices)
Full keyboard remote (unique to the HZ)

Click to expand...

That's assuming that AT&T says that those features need to be made available in one box. And get off your horse about the OTA tuner, so it's a box that sits on or under the HR21's, it provides an OTA tuner.

harshness said:

I've got more than one HDTV, but I still have more analog devices (both TVs and recorders) than digital devices.

Click to expand...

That's you and that's now, I'm the opposite I have more HDTV's then SD and even the SD sets have HD STB's on them for better PQ. You're also assuming that the RF distribution for a SD signal is a must have, I don't assume that.

harshness said:

They would need someone like 2Wire to bring all of the things together in a functional package. DIRECTV hasn't finished what they've started with the HR2x series after almost two years and rather than finishing it, they seem to be engaged in creeping featuritis. AT&T is looking for a finished package (that's why they did the HZ version of the already great ViP622) and DIRECTV hasn't demostrated the discipline to get it done.

Click to expand...

Yes, DirecTV hasn't finished the HR2X series, they do keep adding new features/functionality to it. That's something that I like to see, new value added features being added to existing hardware vs. having the consumer go purchase some new hardware like E* does (have a 622, want HD VoD, sorry, go buy a 722). What AT&T IMHO will be looking at is which company will get them the most customers and make them the most $'s. If AT&T really wanted to make sure their customers had a finished package I'd be able to get voice mail or call waiting caller ID on my POTS line, sorry AT&T doesn't provide those services on our switch.

I'm with ERSanders, $500 million converted to a stock buy out nets something like 16 Million shares.

Given the split into content (Dish) and hardware/satellites (Echostar) I wonder how the voting stock stands these days? I seem to recall that CE had a majority of the voting shares but I don't know if that remained the case.

Cheers,

John Kotches said:

I'm with ERSanders, $500 million converted to a stock buy out nets something like 16 Million shares.

Given the split into content (Dish) and hardware/satellites (Echostar) I wonder how the voting stock stands these days? I seem to recall that CE had a majority of the voting shares but I don't know if that remained the case.

Cheers,

Click to expand...

You can be certain of that! If he is anything he is a control freak (which has worked to my advantage I might add).