New Receiver DISH 311K
- Thread starter Scott Greczkowski
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programers should not care..they would NOT lose any viewers in EA, Programming is EXACTLY the same between HD and SD..sounds like a pretty stupid excuse to me
It wouldn't make sense for dish to change the contract until they can remove SD from EA and WA.. After thinking about this a bit I realized Ole Charle would try to cut payments to programmers because fewer eyeballs would see the SD versions if they were removed from EA only..I finally see the light
Because they would have to make more 311s? If MattG is right and they have surplus 322s it's a firmware update and a plate over the TV2 outputs.
I understand the desire to free up "all that bandwidth" and go MPEG4, but if the QPSK/8PSK swap frees substantial bandwidth, is cheap and is fast, why not?
Facing shipping and support costs anyway, it would probably be a good time to offer the targeted swaps(or at least better accounts in the group) some sort of deal on an HD or HD/DVR upgrade - no install fee, DVR fee credit for a year, reduced 1 yr commitment, etc.
Why not just keep the 322's as 322's and drop the TV2 fee? Then discontinue the single 311 receivers. I think that would be cheaper than converting all 322's to 311K's.
Hear hear. This almost certainly is why there is a surplus of 322s in the first place.
Bizarre way of crippling a perfectly good already constructed receiver. Why not leave the tuner there and make it a 312 identical to the 512 (dual tuner solo SD DVR)?
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I figure that their system having the additional fees for the 322 is why they are having to do this, just like how they had to turn the 522 into 512's. It is causing them to need more receiver models. It is causing even more complications.
Why can't they just leave the hardware as is and change the software to allow or disallow functionality of tuner 2? They could activate it through the satellite like they do with programming if they were smart enough. It makes too much since so they won't do it.
I think they need to make all receivers at least dual tuner capable and then they could "turn on" the tuner 2. Then the only thing they would need is a 722 type of receiver. They could make them without the hard drives and if you wanted DVR service you add the hard drive on like you do with the 211. They charge you the applicable fee to what services you want turned on. It would also result in fewer returns due to hard drive failures as only the hard drive would need to be replaced and not the whole receiver. They could also make slots for the tuners to add or remove them in the receiver. This would eliminate all this trouble.
Why can't they just leave the hardware as is and change the software to allow or disallow functionality of tuner 2? They could activate it through the satellite like they do with programming if they were smart enough. It makes too much since so they won't do it.
I think they need to make all receivers at least dual tuner capable and then they could "turn on" the tuner 2. Then the only thing they would need is a 722 type of receiver. They could make them without the hard drives and if you wanted DVR service you add the hard drive on like you do with the 211. They charge you the applicable fee to what services you want turned on. It would also result in fewer returns due to hard drive failures as only the hard drive would need to be replaced and not the whole receiver. They could also make slots for the tuners to add or remove them in the receiver. This would eliminate all this trouble.
If they are planning out to 5 years, it might not make a lot of sense to force WA subs to mpeg4 equipment when there is acceptable mpeg2 equipment still available. Why? Because 5 years from now, all the receivers likely will have changed again. When that happens all new WA installs can go to that new equipment. Second, they would likely have to manufacture a lot of mpeg4 equipment to change everyone on the WA over that would end up having to be replaced once again. Why not just wait until there's a newer generation of equipment if they can make do with existing.
I'm curious why Dish decided to go EA MPEG4 but WA MPEG2, I mean, what was the business reason behind it. I'm pretty sure they have had/will have to replace quite a few receivers on the EA.
I'd like to hear that story too. But I'm sure all we'll get is speculation, as Dish is probably in no hurry to give the competition an insight as to their reasoning, which might tip off future plans.
.....If they convert all the SD on the Western Arc to 8PSK then they gain around 40% of their bandwidth back.
And a future conversion to MPEG-4 would cut another 50%, roughly?
With the new "whole house" DVR I suspect there will be a lot of upgrades over the next two or three years. So Dish could easily be buying themselves 5 years of breathing space, when (as noted above) newer, cheaper boxes will be out. And they can still speed that timetable up by offering new features only on new MPEG-4 boxes, or putting premiums in MPEG-4 only. Spread the costs out over even more years.
There was no mpeg4 when the original arc, the WA, was created many years ago. The EA was only created a few years ago. All new installs have been mpeg4 on the EA from the start. Several of the designated EA markets were already on the WA and those existing subs did not need equipment changes. A year ago, 20 dual arc markets previously designated as EA markets were moved back to the WA for new installations.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/235590-20-dmas-moving-back-western-arc.html
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/235590-20-dmas-moving-back-western-arc.html
It is too bad that the satellite providers don't have the same power as cell phone providers. The cell phone folks drove analog phones out of the game and very aggressively.
Unfortunately there are far too many people with equipment that prefer to stay status quo. Look at the number of people that bought converters instead of upgrading to digital TVs.
I think most of us would prefer Dish to have a drop dead date for getting MPEG-4 receivers in the near future. Can you image the howls of the "what I have is good enough" folks, even if there was no cost to do it.
Unfortunately there are far too many people with equipment that prefer to stay status quo. Look at the number of people that bought converters instead of upgrading to digital TVs.
I think most of us would prefer Dish to have a drop dead date for getting MPEG-4 receivers in the near future. Can you image the howls of the "what I have is good enough" folks, even if there was no cost to do it.
Dish started out with 110 and 119 satellite locations, plus a couple of minor variants.
Everything was MPEG2, even HD was MPEG2.
In 2003 when the ViP series of receivers was introduced, being MPEG4 (much more efficeint compression) they created EA as an MPEG4 only set of satellites to serve the east coast.
In SD times even east coast subs had dishes aimed at 100 and 119.
When the ViP receivers cameout they also added 129 to WA for MPEG4 HD, leaving MPEG2 HD on 110.
With the phasing out of the old 921 and 811 and other MPEG2 HD receivers Dish converted all HD on WA to MPEG4, but SD on WA had to remain MPEG2 because there are so many people with legacy receivers from waaaaay back that are QPSK MPEG2 only.
As time goes by many of the really old QPSK SD receivers have been replaced with SD 8PSK receivers but now with the final push to 8PSK for all of WA the final remnant of QPSK SD receivers are being replaced with an 8PSK equivalent.
When this intermediate changeover is complete, Dish will start pushing for upgrades to ViP series receivers on WA so when the final conversion of SD to MPEG4 occurrs the actual number to be exchanged will likely be small enough that it can be done quickly like the current conversion.
Everything was MPEG2, even HD was MPEG2.
In 2003 when the ViP series of receivers was introduced, being MPEG4 (much more efficeint compression) they created EA as an MPEG4 only set of satellites to serve the east coast.
In SD times even east coast subs had dishes aimed at 100 and 119.
When the ViP receivers cameout they also added 129 to WA for MPEG4 HD, leaving MPEG2 HD on 110.
With the phasing out of the old 921 and 811 and other MPEG2 HD receivers Dish converted all HD on WA to MPEG4, but SD on WA had to remain MPEG2 because there are so many people with legacy receivers from waaaaay back that are QPSK MPEG2 only.
As time goes by many of the really old QPSK SD receivers have been replaced with SD 8PSK receivers but now with the final push to 8PSK for all of WA the final remnant of QPSK SD receivers are being replaced with an 8PSK equivalent.
When this intermediate changeover is complete, Dish will start pushing for upgrades to ViP series receivers on WA so when the final conversion of SD to MPEG4 occurrs the actual number to be exchanged will likely be small enough that it can be done quickly like the current conversion.
MPEG4 is still too expensive to hand out to everyone, but 8PSK is cheap and most customer already have a number of 8PSK compatible receivers already.
8PSK will be very important for DISH shortly.
I buy that... Thanks Scott (and Matt)
I seem to remember they tried this awhile back with the 322. Called it the 322R or something like that. Rumor was that Charlie knew nothing about his and put a stop to it. But hey, if their going to start using this and swapping current 311 users, seeing I work for Dish, it's job security for me. I love when they do stuff like this, like moving internationals to 118 a few years ago, then deciding NOT to and leaving a majority on 61.5, now we are in the middle of the same migration of internationals to 118.7 again. These great decisions keep me working!!
Yeah but those same decisions can also be annoying too. This is the one thing that has always bugged me about Dish: They always have to make things more complicated than they have to be. Oh well. It looks like they're all set to switching to 8PSK only for sure so hopefully after this 1st transition ends, the customers can get something nice in return like full time HD RSNs.
I seem to remember they tried this awhile back with the 322. Called it the 322R or something like that. Rumor was that Charlie knew nothing about his and put a stop to it. But hey, if their going to start using this and swapping current 311 users, seeing I work for Dish, it's job security for me. I love when they do stuff like this, like moving internationals to 118 a few years ago, then deciding NOT to and leaving a majority on 61.5, now we are in the middle of the same migration of internationals to 118.7 again. These great decisions keep me working!!
It keeps you working, but those conversions cost money. And ultimately one of the areas where it will be made up at, is from your salary. PI changed the game for in-house, and not paying for additional tuners and guaranteeing a job for 60 days (no matter what the reason) changed the game for subs.
