CES2004 -- 921 questions and answers

[rudolpht]

142HECD-N

 

[Tahoerob]

142HECD-N

thanks. this is no change from what is on mine!

 

[bytre]

I would be floored if anyone from Dish - engineering or otherwise - would say anything to even remotely advocate user modification or internal mucking with their equipment. Even if they do not have tamper protection in it, they are sure to follow a line of "don't open the box, it is only servicable by us". They might give a wink and a nod, but they are not in the business of selling extensible electronic platforms - they are selling consumer appliances.

I would bet a nickel that there isn't any significant tamper protection between the drive and hardware or OS.

 

[rtt2]

How about $999.05

 

[TheForce]

Today, I got info on shipping-
I was told that within 3 weeks E* would have all preorders and all backorders filled. The slow release is over. There are enough 921's in stock to do this. I have a name for my source on this but will not post it to a public forum. Credible inquiries via e-mail only. If you don't already know my e-mail then I guess you already know if I'll tell you that source info.
Oh, he also said the the 1394 release is done and it will be in a future software update sooner than most have predicted.

I finally got another hour on the E* 921 playing today and it worked fantastic. The one I played with connected to Samsung LCD monitor and the PQ looked fantastic. I actually had two 921's on delay by a few minutes and then stood back and amused myself at people confused that there were more than one playoff game today. I was also having fun with my own instant replay during a fumble.

 

[TheForce]

Robert- That is the same version on the demo 921's throughout the show. I think I was able to check them all!


I would be floored if anyone from Dish - engineering or otherwise - would say anything to even remotely advocate user modification or internal mucking with their equipment. Even if they do not have tamper protection in it, they are sure to follow a line of "don't open the box, it is only servicable by us".

How about D*? They told me they don't care about users swapping hard drives. Are you on the floor yet? Dish explained to me what they have in place on the security for the HD. I suppose if you are a code hacker you could get into the smart card and provision your own drive, figure out the encrypted PW then image the OS and other stuff, and go for it. Considering the fact that I can legally archive to tape... why bother with all that? Seems like an exercise in wasting time to me.

 

[video62]

I am just guessing, but anybody with a little computer knowledge could probably take a Linux box and pull the HD out of the 921 and 'ghost' it to another 250G Maxtor or at least be able to HEX DUMP the contents of the drive. Track & Sector editors have been around forever.

It's more than just copying to a larger drive - the OS is written to only work with certain drives. Take a look at this newsgroup thread on upgrading a 508 - they are probably doing something similar in the 921 - if your drive is not the correct vendor ID/model then it just won't run.

 

[video62]

How about D*? They told me they don't care about users swapping hard drives.

Exactly one of the reasons I switched to D*. For sure, only a small percentage of people are technically capable of doing this[*], but it is yet another factor that will keep me and other tech-savy types using their service. One of my D* DVRs that I had for only six weeks now has 120GB instead of 40GB - am I somehow doing something evil? I guess E* would think so!

I don't know about other techie-types but I'd not be stupid enough to call E* or D* when my attempt to upgrade their DVR didn't work.

[*]But it's not very hard to upgrade your Tivo/DirecTivo when you have excellent technical guides such as http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com . If you feel OK upgrading your HD in your PC or adding a card then you could certainly do a Tivo upgrade.

 

[TheForce]

You all have to decide what is more important-

A DVR with fixed 25 hour capacity and the ability to dump off content to DVHS tape PLUS the plan to implement an HD DVD-Rw drive when that is available

Or a DVR with no archival capability but a simple way to increase hard drive capacity as desired.

Then we have VOOM who is planning a third option; No 1394, no hard drive swap(secure) but an ability to network multiple PVR receivers for increased capacity.


Tim- You probably missed it but the Keyboard was for the same thing as the 721 which is for internet access, mouse too. These were to use the USB port. Look through your menus. I saw the "Internet" somewhere "grayed out" One of the E* people told me that they have put this feature on the back burner on both 721 and 921 for now. There were some issues to work out on connectivity so it is just being shelved for now. The only other use a KB had was to type in search criteria, the remote is used and more awkward than a keyboard. I don't know what the issues were. Being able to surf the web with a 921 is a minor issue for me.

 

[Ray S]

Today, I got info on shipping-
I was told that within 3 weeks E* would have all preorders and all backorders filled. The slow release is over. There are enough 921's in stock to do this. I have a name for my source on this but will not post it to a public forum. Credible inquiries via e-mail only. If you don't already know my e-mail then I guess you already know if I'll tell you that source info.
Oh, he also said the the 1394 release is done and it will be in a future software update sooner than most have predicted.

I finally got another hour on the E* 921 playing today and it worked fantastic. The one I played with connected to Samsung LCD monitor and the PQ looked fantastic. I actually had two 921's on delay by a few minutes and then stood back and amused myself at people confused that there were more than one playoff game today. I was also having fun
with my own instant replay during a fumble.

You were right on track when you said on the AVS forum on12/29/03 "Realistic prediction Feb 2004 should be crancking up the heat for the UPS deliveries on 921's."

 

[orcatek]

Then we have VOOM who is planning a third option; No 1394, no hard drive swap(secure) but an ability to network multiple PVR receivers for increased capacity.

When I asked VOOM about expanding the HD, they were planning on having an external storage that would allow you to add more online storage for more recording capacity. Sounded good. In general I liked the answers I got from the guy demoing the unit. He must have been the expert, as the other sales booth workers were watching and learning.

Sad note for me was the HD Tivo price, I was hoping for it to be cheaper to encourage some deals from E*

 

[TheForce]

Yes, that was also a point of conversation but initially, I was told that to increase capacity for HD and SD content, additional PVR receivers would be the solution.
The concept here is that you should be able to add the one network box for your computer and this would serve up the additional HDTV files. While Patrick Donovan demonstrated the computer for serving a slide show from home office computer to your Home theater screen some migh wonder if the HD content from the PVR can be displayed on the Computer (this would be extrapolation and speculation because they never said it would work that way.) Even if they do it technically, will protected content permit this? You see, this is the trouble with extrapolation/ speculation because it is meaningless until there is a transition of concept to prototype to production and we're still in the concept phase.

Scott- This question and answer has nothing to do with 921, is specific to the VOOM. I don't care if you move or copy it there as it may be of better use there.

 

[Stargazer]

This is the beauty of getting a PC PVR, you have full control of the content. You can watch tv on your PC, pause, fast forward, rewind, record, even have another hard drive and store all the content on that, record to cd or dvd, playback onto the tv.