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Over the years I have gone from being the enemy where no DISH employee was allowed to talk to me to being someone welcomed by DISH with open arms. I can't tell you how good it makes me feel to be accepted after all these years by everyone I run into. Sure I may offend some at time when I give my honest heartfelt comments but I think it would be unfair to myself and more importantly our members here is I sugar coated everything to make the satellite companies happy.

To everyone from DISH who stopped me today to say hello, I say THANK YOU and that it means a lot to me.

I know I can be a pain, but overall I feel I am doing my best that I can for both our members and the satellite companies.

Today on the show floor I saw something amazing that I wasn't expecting to see and then there was disappointment for what I wanted to see which was not there.

They thing that amazed me was a prototype of a remote which has a built in keyboard in the bottom. Those who have used a Boxee Box might be groaning but I must say the company that is making these remotes learned a lot from the mistakes of the Boxee Box Remote and have made their remote something amazing. But its not just the remote that's amazing it is also the software that they have running that had me more excited about this product then I remember being this excited for in a long long time.

Since this remote is just a concept there is no guarantee that it will ever see the light of day on DISH Network, and I am saying right now if DISH does not jump on this remote and software concept then they are making a major... major mistake.

The remote and the software bring you the real power of the Hopper. It does SO many things that it would take me an hour to type all the features to you. The software ties the Hopper in with social networking and can make watching tv a community experience amongst friends. Imagine watching a show recorded by Prime Time Anytime and you see a scene that you think a friend would like. You could mark it and tweet it (or Facebook it) and you friend can click on that link and be taken to that exact scene on their Hopper. Or lets say your watching something and you want to tag the scenes you want to access later, just tag the scenes you want, label them and then later when you watch that program you can jump to your scenes like chapters on a DVD.

It has built in messaging and paging system so you can page family members in your house on their TV's, on all TV's in the house or you can chat with friends on the Internet.

Searching for stuff is simple, and the remote can be activated just by turning it over onto its keyboard back.

Tomorrow I am going to try going and shooting video of what this remote can do, as what I have said above does ZERO justice to the remote and its functions. As I said before if DISH does not pick up this remote and its features then they are making a HUGE mistake... this remote and its software has shown the most perfect blending of television and the internet together that I have ever seen and it surpassed some of my wildest dreams in what it can do.

On display they were showing Wireless Joey's. This is another concept they are working with (and to be honest it works now... but if you are a loyal SatelliteGuys member then you already knew that) while it works it may never be officially supported just due to the issues that wireless networking has. I know I wouldnt want to support it.. imagine the complaints when someone is watching the big game and just before a big play someone in the house turns on the microwave to heat up the bean dip... boom your wireless signal drops out due to the interference and you miss the big play... you would be pissed and go online saying "DISH's wireless Joey is JUNK" when its not Joey's fault its an issue with the wireless.

Another surprise for me was seeing the Hopper working with Bluetooth Headphones. While it wasn't surprising to see Bluetooth audio working what I didn't expect to see was Bluetooth working and in sync with the on screen video. I don't know how Mark Jackson and his team did it but they figured out a way to sync the picture on the screen with the Bluetooth audio! If you have ever tried using Bluetooth audio before you might know there is a delay in the Bluetooth. If you have a stereo that support Bluetooth audio pair your phone with your stereo and then try watching any video on your phone or even your Slingbox and you will see how out of sync the audio is from the picture. How they overcome this issue is beyond me, but the audio was in sync and worked well in the demo. It should be noted they had a number of pairs of headphones and also the TV had a Bluetooth soundbar under the screen. The Soundbar had a DISH Network logo on it, but it should be noted that Soundbar was not made by DISH nor does DISH plan on making and selling Bluetooth sound bars.

So what was disappointing to me? Well first and foremost I was excited and wanted to see Dual Hopper Integration. To seamlessly blend two hoppers together to look and act like one Hopper is something that will amaze me... and its something a lot of people have wanted and are waiting for. I was hoping to see this working and would have liked to see it even if it was a little buggy.

The other thing that disappointed me was seeing that there was no working demo of the Hopper with OTA tuning. To me this is another feature which I consider a make or break feature for the Hopper. I did however get to see a prototype of the USB tuner... and WOW was this thing a beast. I put a $5 bill next to the USB Adapter to show how big it was. The tuner is a single tuner and from what I am hearing will only tune ATSC. If you want more then one OTA tuner then you add a second USB tuner to your second Hopper. I was hoping they would have a Dual Tuner setup without needing two adapters.

The guys I spoke with basically promised that both features would be ready and available by the end of Summer. They said these are priority features and they are working hard to get them out the door. Some of these folks are the same guys who told me the Hopper would be out on March 15th... and they hit that date right on target so I am going to believe them on the end of summer statement.

Tomorrow I will go and take more pictures and also try shooting some video so you can see whats going on for yourselves.

Once again I would like to thank our Supporting Pub Members who have made this Team Summit coverage possible!