Huge feature for Vip 922 Final Release

[aplus]

I have been searching everywhere and can't seem to find this feature so forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere.

I think Dish could get a lot more people to switch or upgrade if they offered something unique to their receiver - I realize it already has won CES awards and such but truly, I think they could offer a feature that would be very helpful to people who use windows media center or Vista media center: REPLACEMENT OF MEDIA CENTER...

This means ability to play movies on a hard drive like you can do in media center. So many people rip their movies now for easy access on a hard drive, and if you could just plug in your hard drive or usb flash drive and have it be able to show a Media Center-like style so you could play back your VOB folders, DIVX files.... of your home movies of course.

I realize there would be a cost involved for licensing rights to play dvd or divx content but perhaps could be an optional feature, like the optional connect an external hard drive fee to cover it. (Or will the 922 ALREADY do this?)

 

[hendrix04]

the 922 will not do this...

There has been a tight lipped project between echostar and microsoft having to do with media center extender type stuff but i don't know if that will go anywhere.

 

[aplus]

the 922 will not do this...

There has been a tight lipped project between echostar and microsoft having to do with media center extender type stuff but i don't know if that will go anywhere.

So is a media center proprietary only to Microsoft? 'Cause we surely don't want Dish in another big lawsuit like Tivo. But come on, really, isn't Microsoft rich enough off their OS and other ventures?? Do they have patents covering Media Center such that no other computer or system could work the same way? Because it surely seems like vip922 is doing the same type of things...

 

[Symbol]

Just plug any media center device along your receiver on another TV input
dish cant even do this since the purpose of the receiver is already planned ,they are just working out the bugs for what it can do
if they planned this feature in the start they could have gotten it
and It really looks like if dish even decided to add anything else to the receiver it would cost us more waiting time to get our hands on it...or it would make dish rush it and make bugs for it, to just make it a crappy receiver in its release

I would say stick to loving whats already on the menu before asking for a custom meal...

.

 

[TheKrell]

I think they could offer a feature that would be very helpful to people who use windows media center or Vista media center: REPLACEMENT OF MEDIA CENTER...

You mean something like this?

 

[aplus]

SORRY, but NO. You would have to hook up your computer to the DirectTV box. I am just talking about hooking up the hard drive only. So I don't have to mess with another GUI, it would just do it all! I want the custom meal!! How bout a new firmware upgrade LATER ON to add this feature. Get the first release out and working - don't delay it any longer!

 

[TheKrell]

I was referencing the DirectTV feature tongue in cheek. But I agree this would be a great feature to turn a VIP box into a media player, whether or not the medium were an external hard disk or a network share. IMHO a network media player (like the DirectTV HDwhatever) is far more powerful a concept than a simple external hard drive.

Note that Dish already has an external hard drive available for VIP DVRs, and you can play back programs stored thereon. The problem for the way we want to use it is that it's restricted to programs already on the Dish DVR. Perhaps a little reverse engineering is in order. We can definitely write to the ext3 file system that Dish is using. I wonder if...

 

[922guy]

I would like to see the 922 have an icon on the desktop for MLB.TV.

Since its hooked up to the internet there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to watch MLB games on my 922.

 

[lakebum431]

Didn't they say we would be able to make our own widgets? Or was that just something they talked about at CES but didn't actually announce. If it has a web browser then there is no reason that it shouldn't work with MLB.TV

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I don't think that the 922 supports Flash. I hope it does by the time they release it or it makes the browser useless.

 

[lakebum431]

Agree Scott. That is a huge issue. If the receiver won't be able to do flash then that is a HUGE disappointment.

 

[tornado]

I agree with Scott.

 

[tornado]

the 922 will not do this...

There has been a tight lipped project between echostar and microsoft having to do with media center extender type stuff but i don't know if that will go anywhere.

I do not know if this is what you are talking about but I got this link from another thread.

Media Center DISH Network tuner is on hold indefinitely

 

[carway925]

is this where i come to ask questions about dishes

 

[lakebum431]

is this where i come to ask questions about dishes

This site yes!

This forum no.

 

[jevans64]

Playing media from an external source probably isn't going to happen unless some thought was put into it during design. You never know though. If the 922 processor is fast enough to handle decoding, then it wouldn't take much to get ffdshow and the necessary open-source splitters and codecs in the box. You've got $100 DVD players out there than can handle mpeg4 stuff.

 

[harshness]

You mean something like this?

I think the question was more of a replacement for a media extender, not something that requires converting the formats of your music picture and video libraries.

 

[harshness]

If the 922 processor is fast enough to handle decoding, then it wouldn't take much to get ffdshow and the necessary open-source splitters and codecs in the box. You've got $100 DVD players out there than can handle mpeg4 stuff.

As it is, satellite receivers don't use the main processor to decode audio or video. That's why DIRECTV's implementation demands that the files be of a particular format (JPEG, MP3, MPEG2 or MPEG4). CODECS are a bit much to ask; especially as varied (and variable) as they are in the Windows world.

You just know if they allow playing of MP3 files, someone is going to want WAV, AU, Ogg Vorbis or FLAC files instead.

If you want a media extender, buy a good one. Don't expect your DVD player or satellite receiver to give you equivalent performance.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Playing media from an external source probably isn't going to happen unless some thought was put into it during design. You never know though. If the 922 processor is fast enough to handle decoding, then it wouldn't take much to get ffdshow and the necessary open-source splitters and codecs in the box. You've got $100 DVD players out there than can handle mpeg4 stuff.

The box was supposed to have a "Slingcatcher" built in to it, but no mention has been made of that in the beta.

 

[harshness]

There was mention of eventually being able to do streaming audio and IP video but I can't recall hearing anything about SlingCatcher capabilities. The SlingCatcher capabilities that I do recall hearing about where embedded in the monitor.