Dish Earnings Conference Call and reported HD Plans...

[jsanders]

The comcast DVR box here (San Jose) are the 6412... Two tunner w/120GB HDD. BUT comcast is lacking FOX/UPN/WB digital locals...which is a considerable amount of programing.

Do you have one? I heard it just came out here, I live in San Jose too. I'm guessing you can't connect an OTA antenna to it.... The lack of HD locals from comcast is a main reason I got Dish, I get HD locals over the air.

 

[SimpleSimon]

... If Comcast doesn't look like the perfect candidate for a lawsuit by your definition, I don't know what is. They aren't being sued. I don't see any weight to your argument about Dish not providing firewire based on legal reasons.

I'm 100% in agreement. I firmly believe that E* dropped the firewire due to technical issues, not legal ones. Part of this is because of certain rumors from around that time that implied they were working on a solution to the problem.

 

[Unthinkable]

Think about it, Comcast offers a DVR that allows archiving perfect digital copies of copyrighted HD content. Comcast *also* offers high speed internet access to make that perfect digital copy of copyrighted HD content available for download. I personally have a Comcast cable modem, providing me with three mega-bits per second, quite fast enough to download a movie. If Comcast doesn't look like the perfect candidate for a lawsuit by your definition, I don't know what is. They aren't being sued. I don't see any weight to your argument about Dish not providing firewire based on legal reasons.

Here is a link about this website on Comcast's website:
http://www.comcast.net/News/ENTERTA...ews/0fb34ddc-af5b-42aa-a298-a31002ef4e15.html

Have we even established that the firewire ports on these HD Motorola DVR Comcast boxes are active? I just read an exceptionally long thread in a PVR forum about these exact receivers in which people repeatedly posted the firewire was disabled/dead. Appears to be much the same solution that Dish has currently with the 921.

Saw a full page ad in yesterdays USA Today from the MPAA listing names and IP numbers along with a tagline at the bottom that the lawsuits are coming.

 

[jsanders]

Have we even established that the firewire ports on these HD Motorola DVR Comcast boxes are active? I just read an exceptionally long thread in a PVR forum about these exact receivers in which people repeatedly posted the firewire was disabled/dead. Appears to be much the same solution that Dish has currently with the 921.

Your asking me if the boxes are active? It seems unthinkable, Unthnkable, that someone who is making an argument would ask the other guy for the burden of proof.

Anyway, here is your proof, an article from the October, 2004 issue of PCWorld:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,117346,pg,1,00.asp

Here are a couple of blurps from that article:

"The PC World Test Center in San Francisco has a Comcast set-top box for TV testing; its FireWire ports work (for now), but Comcast may disable them."

Here is the MPAAs view on all of this:
"The MPAA has pressed hard to restrict unfettered access to HD signals, fearing massive losses should content end up on the Internet. The group has even lobbied Congress to mandate that component-out ports--the only available HD connections on millions of HDTVs--be dumbed down to standard definition (SD) TV levels to prevent unauthorized copying."

I really hope that the MPAA doesn't manage to get component out ports dumbed down! The funny thing is that won't prevent unauthorized copying, it will just mean the copy isn't the same quality as the broadcast. You need a real time HD MPEG encoder for that anyway, I haven't seen one of those yet.

Anyway, according to that same article, the FCC REQUIRES Firewire on cable boxes!

"In April the FCC began requiring that cable operators provide set-top boxes with FireWire outputs--a welcome development even if these ports will likely be encumbered with copy protection. However, the 8000HD set-top box likely won't receive a firmware update to enable its FireWire outputs until the end of this year or early next. Even then it will continue to bug me that I have to watch HD shows on someone else's schedule."

This copy protection they are talking about is that broadcast flag I mentioned earlier.

Regardless, if the FCC requires it, then I don't think comcast will disable their ports....

I have provided enough proof to support my argument Unthinkable, I don't think your argument has any credibility.

 

[jsanders]

I'm 100% in agreement. I firmly believe that E* dropped the firewire due to technical issues, not legal ones. Part of this is because of certain rumors from around that time that implied they were working on a solution to the problem.

I remember the rumors flying around at the time. One was that they were trying to figure out a fix, but that the news got leaked too fast and they stopped because of that. (Oh brother ) I don't know how true that one is though. If memory serves, it was something like they were trying to add some sort of encryption layer, and they ran out of bandwidth or something. Do you recall SimpleSimon? The funny thing is that if such a thing is true, then the question has to be asked, "Why does it have to record real time?" Seems that if you were limited by the hardware that you should still be able to record from the hard drive to the tape at, say, 1/2 speed or something. It doesn't have to be 1x, 2x, etc.. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the DVHS deck doesn't allow a slower speed.

 

[Stever1]

It seems to me that I recall that the new Scenium DLP's have an HDMI connector and 2 Firewire ports and that they also sell an HD-PVR that connects to the Firewire port. I understand that you can feed the set through the HDMI connector and the set will output HD through the Firewire port to the HD-PVR. BTW, the set also has a high-speed Ethernet (NetConnect) port and a built in browser (IE, running on Windows CE).

Here's a link to the DLP set with Firewire "DTVLink" (Scenium model# HD44LPW165). This one is 44", and there's also a 50" and 61" model. It has a Digital Cable Ready tuner (with CableCard slot), as well as OTA (ATSC) tuner:
http://www.rca.com/product/viewdetail/1,2588,PI701111-CI700294,00.html?

Here's the link to the HD-DVR (Scenium model# DVR-10): http://www.rca.com/product/viewdetail/1,2588,PI700686-CI700335,00.html?

Soooo, would this be an alternative to a 921, or 942 for that matter. Seems like it might be the best of all worlds. It wouldn't matter where you're getting your HD content, OTA, CableCard, Dish, Voom, DirecTV, etc., you wouldn't need a specific content provider's proprietary DVR with this combo, would you? Or am I missing something? The promo material for the DVR (see 2nd link) lists this as a selling feature (i.e. the TV outputs HD content being sent to it, out to the DVR via DTVLink to be recorded for future viewing). Has anyone seen, or tried this hardware, and does it work as advertised? I would consider this as a viable alternative to getting locked into any one media vendor's hardware.

 

[Unthinkable]

Your asking me if the boxes are active? It seems unthinkable, Unthnkable, that someone who is making an argument would ask the other guy for the burden of proof.

Anyway, here is your proof, an article from the October, 2004 issue of PCWorld:
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,117346,pg,1,00.asp

Here are a couple of blurps from that article:

"The PC World Test Center in San Francisco has a Comcast set-top box for TV testing; its FireWire ports work (for now), but Comcast may disable them."

Here is the MPAAs view on all of this:
"The MPAA has pressed hard to restrict unfettered access to HD signals, fearing massive losses should content end up on the Internet. The group has even lobbied Congress to mandate that component-out ports--the only available HD connections on millions of HDTVs--be dumbed down to standard definition (SD) TV levels to prevent unauthorized copying."

I really hope that the MPAA doesn't manage to get component out ports dumbed down! The funny thing is that won't prevent unauthorized copying, it will just mean the copy isn't the same quality as the broadcast. You need a real time HD MPEG encoder for that anyway, I haven't seen one of those yet.

Anyway, according to that same article, the FCC REQUIRES Firewire on cable boxes!

"In April the FCC began requiring that cable operators provide set-top boxes with FireWire outputs--a welcome development even if these ports will likely be encumbered with copy protection. However, the 8000HD set-top box likely won't receive a firmware update to enable its FireWire outputs until the end of this year or early next. Even then it will continue to bug me that I have to watch HD shows on someone else's schedule."

This copy protection they are talking about is that broadcast flag I mentioned earlier.

Regardless, if the FCC requires it, then I don't think comcast will disable their ports....

I have provided enough proof to support my argument Unthinkable, I don't think your argument has any credibility.

No need to be a wiseass. Nothing I've ever posted towards you to date has ever been condescending or inflammatory to the degree you've done above. My contention was that I bet the MPAA had threatened Dish with potential lawsuits along with DirecTV, Comcast, and all the other major cable/sat players not to enable firewire ports that could allow a one-for-one digital copy of an HD program. Seems pretty commonplace that a whole lot of firewire ports aren't currently active on HD DVR's with all different multichannel providers right now from what I'm reading. Exactly what part of this assertion have you proven has no credibility so far? Like I said, I read through various threads last night where not one person posted they had a working firewire port on their HD Motorola Comcast boxes so how does this warrant Dish Network being singled out for being the only provider in town damning their subscribers with lies, lies, and more Charlie Ergen despises you to lies again?
Hell, you posted this on the 11th:

Comcast leases you a receiver that has firewire outputs, and people can archive to tape with it, why don't they sue them?

I'm not finding any people that are currently transferring HD programs from their hard drive to tape at the moment through firewire with these receivers. Maybe some folks are doing it with software and hardware hacks here and there, but it doesn't appear at all to be a common everyday practice even though you seemed to assert it was in stating it this way. I have yet to see anything posted so far that suggests Hollywood as an entity didn't threaten impending legal consequences to providers which offered HD solutions which included active firewire ports which is what I posted previously. All were really establishing here is that copy protection is everything to the MPAA and that they want controls over every output when it comes to HD movies, films, and shows. I'm well aware of the HD broadcast flags imbedded within datastreams set to restrict recordings to a limited degree of options, but I haven't heard they are being utilized by any of the major networks yet. The downrezzing of an HD signal through analog component video to prevent perfect HD copies and protect the future HD-DVD marketplace has been talked about for a long, long time now as well.

 

[Paradox-SJ]

So my $1000 921, which now sells for $549, will be totally useless next year for the new HD channels.

True but you dont have to worry about Charlie adding any new HD channels as there isn't anything out there that is compelling?

 

[jsanders]

No need to be a wiseass. Nothing I've ever posted towards you to date has ever been condescending or inflammatory to the degree you've done above.

I did not say anything inflamatory to you, I said that I didn't think your argument had credibility. I didn't say anything about you not having any credibility. There is a big difference. I didn't call you names either. You, on the other hand, have done this.

My contention was that I bet the MPAA had threatened Dish with potential lawsuits along with DirecTV, Comcast, and all the other major cable/sat players not to enable firewire ports that could allow a one-for-one digital copy of an HD program. Seems pretty commonplace that a whole lot of firewire ports aren't currently active on HD DVR's with all different multichannel providers right now from what I'm reading. Exactly what part of this assertion have you proven has no credibility so far? Like I said, I read through various threads last night where not one person posted they had a working firewire port on their HD Motorola Comcast boxes so how does this warrant Dish Network being singled out for being the only provider in town damning their subscribers with lies, lies, and more Charlie Ergen despises you to lies again?

If you "bet" the MPAA threatend lawsuits, then prove it. If you don't have evidence to support your claim, then drop it.

I'm not finding any people that are currently transferring HD programs from their hard drive to tape at the moment through firewire with these receivers. Maybe some folks are doing it with software and hardware hacks here and there, but it doesn't appear at all to be a common everyday practice even though you seemed to assert it was in stating it this way. I have yet to see anything posted so far that suggests Hollywood as an entity didn't threaten impending legal consequences to providers which offered HD solutions which included active firewire ports which is what I posted previously. All were really establishing here is that copy protection is everything to the MPAA and that they want controls over every output when it comes to HD movies, films, and shows. I'm well aware of the HD broadcast flags imbedded within datastreams set to restrict recordings to a limited degree of options, but I haven't heard they are being utilized by any of the major networks yet. The downrezzing of an HD signal through analog component video to prevent perfect HD copies and protect the future HD-DVD marketplace has been talked about for a long, long time now as well.

Okay, you want me to give examples of people using their firewire ports to archive HDTV??

First, the link I posted previously from PC World said that the firewire ports ARE active. If that doesn't satisfy you, then this article should:

This is from the washington post, August 29th 2004. Here, Jim Hawk reviews the comcast DVR with a JVC DVHS deck. In it, his first box did not work, the second one did, and he has no problem recording from the DVR to tape.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40786-2004Aug28.html

Would you like more examples??

Not only are people using the 6200 to record to tape, they are using it to record to the hard drives on their PC or their Mac. Apparently it is easier to do on the Mac though. Here is a quote, and a link. There are discussion boards that explain in more detail about how to do it:

"I've had a DCT 6200 box from Comcast for about 2 months now and have been able to make recordings off it over its firewire connection since I got it. The only thing you have to check for is that the firmware of the box is at least 7.07 and preferably at 7.10. Once that's set, you can record HD (1080i, 720p, 480p) or SD (regular 480i) content alike to any Mac with a firewire connection and the VirtualDHVS software from Apple. You'll also need the AVCBrowser tool that comes with the FW SDK to properly setup the 6200 to record, it involves prepping the proper channel number on the FW bus for VDHVS. You can find all the info and discussion on this thread I started at AVSForum, as well as this more Mac-centric one."

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20040426151111599

Here is the thread from the AVS forum:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=353608&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

To wrap it up, there doesn't appear to be any legal reason for Dish to drop firewire.

There is an FCC mandate (April, 2004) that states all cable set top boxes must have firewire available for a consumer that wants it.

Comcast leases these boxes to their cable customers. The firewire ports work, and customers are able to record to DVHS, or even a hard drive on a computer! Comcast also allows that same user with a "perfect digital copy" of that program on their computer's hard drive to use Comcast as an ISP for high speed internet, with the possibility that they might break the law and make that copyrighted content available for download. Yet, even with all of that, Comcast isn't being sued by the MPAA.

There is a broadcast flag that is designed to prevent unauthorized use of copyrighted material.

I have provided enough proof to support my argument Unthinkable, I don't think your argument has any credibility. Please give it up.

 

[nippjas]

OK guys grab a shower and cool off....Closing....