942 Will It Get External Hard Drives?

[Tony Trent]

Are there plans by Dish to allow External Hard Drives for the 942? If it does happen, would I be able to copy saved recordings to the External Hard Drive, buy a new 622 or 722, and copy them back to the 622/722? Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[pdxsam]

Doubtful.

The 942 is a dying breed . I don't think you'll see much in the way of new updates for it. They want you to upgrade to a 722 so they can get away from mpeg2 streams eventually.

 

[Jason Kragt]

No.

No.

I use a 942 now as well and I don't expect any enhancements whatsoever. Perhaps we will get an update if it needs to see a new satellite location or work with a new switch or something, but aside from these absolutely necessary enhancements, I think it's a safe bet that we will not see any new features of any significance on the 942.

 

[boba]

When pigs fly or Jay Bush gives Duke the secret recipe.

 

[Foxbat]

As it was explained in other threads, the 942 uses USB 1.x, so it would probably take longer to transfer an MPEG 2 HD program than the program actually ran. When this news came out last year, I signed up for the ViP package and now have external storage on my ViP622.

I transfered everything I wanted to keep on my 942 over to DVD via the video out. It took a week or so, and no HD, but the quality was pretty darn good, considering it was HD material on an SD-DVD.

622/722 External Hard Disk: It works, it's real, and it's been available for some time.

 

[Tony Trent]

Thanks for the news guys, even if it was bad news. I have had a 622 since they came out and I'm using a Seagate 750GB external with it. I only held on to the 942, besides the fact I purchased it, because it had some HD shows that haven't been on again in a long time. I'd hate to lose them, or down-convert to SD and record on DVD. That may be my only choice, if I want to upgrade the 942 to a 722.
I guess I could borrow a professional HD recorder from work and bring it home and record them, but then I wouldn't have a way to play them back at home.
If only the Lawyers and the Studios would back off and let them introduce HD-DVD or Blu-Ray DVD recorders in the USA I'd have no problem. They have been available in Japan and Europe for 2 or 3 years now. Curse our Litigious Society!

 

[n0qcu]

the 942 uses USB 1.x,

The 942 is USB 2. It was the first with USB2, every thing older is USB 1

 

[Pepper]

One slight chance. If Bell Expressvu decide they want to offer the feature on their HD DVR (which is 942 hardware) they pay Dish to add it to the code, AND Dish decides not to strip it out of the 942 build.

That's based on a big AFAIK that Dish is responsible for the base code that runs on the BEV receivers. I am pretty sure that is (or was) true but I have been known to be incorrect at least one other time.

 

[abricko]

Time to upgrade that 942 (sorry, you paid big money i know, but that's how it goes with technology) the 622 is a great receiver and you can get them for a decent price now... AND you'll get so many more HD channels! MPEG-4

 

[Foxbat]

The 942 is USB 2. It was the first with USB2, every thing older is USB 1

Boy, I'm going to have to give up my SatelliteGuys hat at this rate. Another bad bit of information I handed out. I guess I should have looked at the Recorded Event Archiving slide from CES 2006.

Although, of course, Dish was wrong about the 942 archiving...

 

[loves2watch]

I still have my 942 as well as some 622's and use it daily. I just wish it could have a MPEG 4 decoder as well as external hard drive usability. I love my 942 and it has a great OTA, both analog and digital.

 

[cebbigh]

Are there plans by Dish to allow External Hard Drives for the 942? If it does happen, would I be able to copy saved recordings to the External Hard Drive, buy a new 622 or 722, and copy them back to the 622/722? Thanks in advance for any help.

Dish needs to move just as fast as it can to all MPEG4. Not only to add more channels but to improve PQ. I think it would be smart to allow one way transfer off MPEG2 models to an external drive that could then be played using an MPEG4 receiver on the same account. I think this would be an incentive to move people more quickly to all MPEG4.