Can someone explain to me . . . ?

[AT&TDishman]

I just counted 43 (more or less) receivers that Dish has listed in it's Tech Portal. Does Dish still support all those receivers? I understand that technology changes every few months, but I can't figure out why anyone would want a receiver that is 10 or more years old, other than they bought it years ago for big bucks and don't see the need to replace it to watch Barnaby Jones reruns 24/7. I would think that Dish could save, and make, hundreds of millions of dollars by only having 4-6 receivers to cover every possible home configuration. I understand that Echostar did not invent satellite TV and that anyone can make a receiver that can receive their signal for a price. Perhaps they are working on a solution to replacing all the "legacy" receivers. Anyone know for sure?

P.S. I imagine the same goes for all the different dishes and switches, etc. that are in the Dish system. Just seems to me a big mess.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yes they support them ALL, and they all still work today (for the most part).

 

[AT&TDishman]

Yes they support them ALL, and they all still work today (for the most part).

Thanks Scott for the reply about the receiver support. Can you add anything to my other musings?

 

[digiblur]

Thanks Scott for the reply about the receiver support. Can you add anything to my other musings?

I'd assume it's cheaper to support them than to pay for them to be swapped out. Let them break and let the customers slowly change them out as needed.

 

[odbrv]

Yes they support them ALL, and they all still work today (for the most part).

The level of support varies. I bought the JVC D-VHS receiver. At the time it sold for $795. It was the first foray by Dish into digital recording. It still works. However, it has never been upgraded to receive all the dish satelites nor all the SD channels. It cannot get Dish 100 nor can it map down local channels to their OTA channel numbers. It takes minutes not seconds to go out a day on its EPG. Even though it can record HD material, Dish never upgraded it to view HD or the 129 satellite. So all of you who reported taking a financial beating to switch from 921 or 942 to a 622. You can now see it is just a basic part of Dish business practice to screw their high end customers. They know we are so invested in their product and will lose even more to switch to a competitor.

I have never been contacted by Dish to replace this receiver with a DVR model. When I contacted them, they had no deal for me. I keep the unit because it is the easiest receiver I have to record material I want to archive or share with friends. A D-VHS tape can hold about 18 hours of SD with great PQ.

 

[navychop]

No one can legally manufacture a receiver without permission from Echostar.

E* is moving to the ViP series of receivers. These will eventually replace all previous models (with the possible exception of the short lived 411). I say this because all programming is expected to transition to MPEG-4, and the older receivers will not work after that.

Yes, certainly it would be much cheaper to drop support for older, "non-standard" receivers, after a certain point.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

When I went to the Dish HQ and Call Center, they had a entire WALL with ever receiver, LNB and switch ever made.

It was kind of cool actually. I found myself saying WOW I remember those a few times!

 

[mike123abc]

Dish continues to use the same DVB/QPSK/MPEG-2 format they started with, so supporting old receivers is pretty easy. Until the invention of the DVR they were pretty simple boxes. Worst case you had to unplug and plug back into the wall to fix just about anything the receiver did. Only thing about the only receivers is that they do not have enough memory to support more than just the base satellites, and are slow on program guide.

Until Dish does something like change to 8PSK or MPEG-4 they will all pretty much continue to work.

 

[Jared Twomey]

There are many many legacy boxes still out there... and a ton of them work perfectly... just a little bit slower than the new boxes.

And I don't think they do much to "support" these boxes nowadays.
If it breaks, they aren't going to fix it for ya (except they may let you buy a refurb 2700 or something every now and then).
I don't see many, if any, new features or updates being pushed for legacy boxes.
And as far as a CSR having to be able to help a customer troubleshoot... all these boxes menuing systems are layed out about the same and they all work very similarly.

 

[Satellite_Guru_X]

Older EQ.

AT&TDishman we gets many service calls where customers still have these type of receivers (older legacy).

One problem is that many are owned by the customer and they dont have the protection plan so D-Net wont swap out for free. In some cases D-Net will replace receiver if customer has been loyal for many years.

If you signed up with D-Net and using leased equipment then D-Net will sometimes upgrade receiver for free if you do a Dishing it upgrade extra room or Hdtv upgrade. Mover also gets new equipment if not working after install. { must sign 18 month contract }.

Loyal customers seem to get alot of perks. {paying bill on time}!

My 5 cents:tux:

 

[BobaBird]

Many of those receiver models are badge-engineered for sale through JVC or Philips channels. I track 38 models on the EKB's Dish Network Receiver Software Versions page. Three of those (2000, 3800, 4700) no longer have current software. The latter 2 were upgraded to 3900 and 4900, I'm not sure if the 2000 still works anymore. The 2700, 2800 and 3700 have been combined into one model (never understood the difference anyway). The 381 and 781 are lease-only badge-engineered versions of the 811 and 921. Counting the 7100/7200 and 501/508/510 as one line each knocks us down to 28.