BREAKING VOOM DVR News from CES!!!

[techweb]

Quick question, I know I must be missing something incredibly simple here, but. I keep reading (and hearing in the video) the DVR can be 'networked' with the STB and vice versa. Where are the network connections? All I see is USB, is that what we're to use?

I think I read somewhere on this forum that a dongle will be used from the USB to either Ethernet or coax. I would assume the USB port is 2.0 since 1.0 wouldn't be fast enough.

 

[B.Greenway]

USB to ethernet adaptor makes sense, thanks techweb

 

[Ronald_Jeremy]

USB to ethernet adaptor makes sense, thanks techweb

usb to ethernet is slow and is sh*t!

 

[gutter]

So much was focused on the DVR that the other questions were not answered as to when will everyone be able to get all new channels from both satellites? How and when will new dishes be deployed? when will these annoucemntes or information come out? From what I have read nobody seemed to ask.

 

[B.Greenway]

'Ronald Jeremy' colorful choice of words, however USB 2.0 tops out at 480 Mbps, while a real world speed would likely be closer to 300 Mbps. That should be adequate.

 

[rudolpht]

Originally the DVR was networked via Coax, not to be confused with Ethernet Coax, for those old enough to remember it, Xerox PARC, etc. The adapter to PCs did the connection for media files etc. I know that Voom invented USB ethernet (sarcasim), but at the the rish of discussing the virtues of a technology tangent, let's focus on the DVR again.

As above, and more specifically the senior Voom rep, Ed (forgot last name but will find card when I get home), said the DVR WILL be available in Mar no many how many times I tried to game or nuance the question.

 

[rudolpht]

So much was focused on the DVR that the other questions were not answered as to when will everyone be able to get all new channels from both satellites? How and when will new dishes be deployed? when will these annoucemntes or information come out? From what I have read nobody seemed to ask.

See post 22. The logistics of how DVR upgrades, dish upgrades, beyond it would make sense to have less truck rolls than one for each activity, have not been worked out.

 

[vurbano]

How do you connect the DVR to a remote STB? USB to cat5??? I assume the cat5 could run to a router as long as Ip's are setup right. That would solve my problem. I didnt see a coax connection for it on the photos. I find myself wanting to go buy a usb/cat5 adapter just to see what would happen with the existing moto. Anyone tried it?

 

[Sean Mota]

Let's keep the new channels discussion in that specific thread... And let's keep this thread for the DVR discussion. Thanks for your cooperation... Moving those posts in a while....

 

[Walter L.]

Getting back to the DVR, I think that the question about connectivity is an interesting one. THe back panel drawing doesn't show any coax output to connect clients and the possibility of a USB-to-coax adapter doesn't make any sense for me.

 

[Robert Fritsky]

Despite all the parsing of words, it is hard to see how this is not great news for those of us that want VOOM to win.

Thanks to Scott, Don, Ilya, and Sean for this update, I am a month of ahead of the information curve thanks to this thread.

Thanks to all.

 

[SeattleVoomer1]

Hey, Don Landis, thanks for the video. And to all the others that were/are at CES to bring us the latest news. Hopefully, next year we can go and help keep you'll posted on the latest and greatest (?) from VOOM.

Watching HDTV under 2" of melting Seattle snow, Gill

 

[gutter]

Let's keep the new channels discussion in that specific thread... And let's keep this thread for the DVR discussion. Thanks for your cooperation... Moving those posts in a while....

But Sean, this Thread is not titled to be exclusive about the DVR. It is about News or news we wanted to hear about at CES including the DVR among otheres I assume.. I thought my question was correctly placed in this thread. I am not saying you should move the DVR discussions to another. Perhaps you should change the title of the thread to be CES DVR NEWS.

 

[FreddyvsJasonvsAsh]

I have a question....where on the FCC site can you look for the channels pending to be picked up by the cable and sat companies? A CSR at VOOM told me I could go to the FCC website and look this up. I can't find anything anywhere. Can someone help me?

 

[Sean Mota]

But Sean, this Thread is not titled to be exclusive about the DVR. It is about News or news we wanted to hear about at CES including the DVR among otheres I assume.. I thought my question was correctly placed in this thread. I am not saying you should move the DVR discussions to another. Perhaps you should change the title of the thread to be CES DVR NEWS.

Yes, you are right... I am going to re-title it to be CES DVR NEWS. Sorry about the confusion.

 

[TheForce]

I have a pic I took of the DVR today.

http://www.TV-Shopper.com/CES/VOOMDVRback.jpg

It shows a diplexer combo (I don't know what they call it) for combining and splitting the OTA antenna two feeds plus the 2 sat feeds to one coax clamped on the back. The display card above shows the DVR with the coax "diplexer" removed for direct connection. It is held on the back with a simple twist-lock knob.

I got some good info on the nitty gritty of the DVR networking from one of their tech people who made me promise not to take his picture etc. I could talk about it but I think it is best not discussed at this time since this phase of the DVR network is not finalized yet and there are options they are investigating. All I would say is that does not look like this end of the system will hold up their planned March delivery.

Also, to clarify the questions earlier in the thread, yes, the actual demo was running inside a closed cabinet and the VOOM boxes on the display wall were "dummies" I saw the real system this morning and it really was two VOOM boxes, one DVR and one straight tuner. The Motorola rep was their and really said nothing about the system other than they were still making some tweaks to it. I saw she had a laptop connected to a dongle plugged into the side port on the box.

I am quite surprised that no one has offered some opinions on what they would be willing to pay for this DVR from VOOM. I have my budget and have decided what it is worth to me but what do you all think?

 

[BFG]

Are you sure your last P is right. How can you not record and watch something simultaneously if it has 2 OTAs and SATs

 

[Indy]

Are you sure your last P is right. How can you not record and watch something simultaneously if it has 2 OTAs and SATs

That is the way I saw it too. From the photo of the back of the DVR you can see 2 LNB rf connectors and what appear to be 2 antenna rf connectors in the right corner. This may be a antenna in and out. They are not labeled.

 

[TheForce]

Hair trigger, Bryan- I made the correction as fast as I could, within a minute of the post. Teach me to type and carry on a conversation with my wife at the same time.

 

[Sean Mota]

Don,

personally it will be hard to invest in a DVR these days. It seems like new features and more advanced DVRs will be in the future. It will be hard for me to decide in buying one of these. I would say that the larger population of current VOOM subs would think that the best option would be to lease since by the time this DVR reach us, it could possibly be outdated.

Did they expand or talk about the possibility of releasing the DVR with just the DVR functions and upgrading via software the networking software? It seems to me like the network software is important but I believe that the DVR functionality is more important at this point.