I hope it's not bandwidth that is Dish's issue! Good grief. The guide data already come down (IMHO) very slowly. And most of us have connected equipment, which woujld come down rather rapidly if speed of guide updates is a concern.
That could be another concern: Dish not wanting to slow down the guide downloads even further, by having to download guide data for a bunch of additional subchannels. I remember in my early days with Dish, the new receiver models would have relatively speedy guide downloads, at first. Then, as Dish continued to add more channels, the guide downloads got slower and slower. This was in the days before the OTA stations could even be integrated into the guide.
Later, with ViP equipment, my hobby was dxing: trying to find as many OTA signals as possible from as many markets as possible. Since the ViP receivers would allow you to keep stations in the list that are not actually coming in at the time when you re-scan, I was able to build up quite a long list of OTA channels in the guide. Even without guide data for most of the subchannels, nor for channels that Dish did not carry at all, that still slowed my guide downloads to a crawl.
As far as even using the internet connection, and/or a guide app as others have suggested before, I am seriously starting to doubt the processing capacity of Dish's current line of receivers. It seems like every time lately when Dish adds a new app, they have to remove another app or remove something else to make room for it:
- Before Locast was added, Dish removed Hopper Arcade.
- Before the Gallery app was added, Dish removed the More Video Services app.
- Even with the latest update, to add Amazon Prime to (some of) the Joeys, Dish had to remove the Home Media from the main menu for all receiver models.
So, Dish receivers may not have the capacity to handle guide downloads over the internet, until they come out with the next brand-new line of Hoppers, or unless we want them to remove some other apps or some other functionality to make room for that feature.
