SatelliteGuys Exclusive: Dish 942 News

Scott Greczkowski

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Sep 7, 2003
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If you have a Dish Network 942 are serious about HDTV and you want additional storage options I urge you to take advantage of one of Dish Networks 622 upgrade offers. SatelliteGuys.US has learned that Dish Network has officially pulled the plug on the USB external storage on the Dish Network 942 High Definition MPEG2 DVR, which has been in beta testing since this spring. We understand that some folks including testers were informed of this early last week.

According to one source at Dish Network who wanted to remain anonymous the 942 was “having problems” with playback of some of the HD Content. I was also told by this contact the this issue was “not an easy fix.”

I was also told that the 942 issues were holding back the rollout of the USB External Storage on the 622, as they wanted to roll the feature out to both receivers at the same time. SatelliteGuys was told that it is very possible we will see USB storage on the 622 within 45 days, in time for the holiday season.

When I first heard the news about this last week, I had thought of black helicopters in my head thinking that Dish was trying to kill off the remaining 942’s. However after speaking with this person I now feel that this is not the case and that this is more of a technical problem, I do know they were working hard on the external storage feature for the 942 for quite a long time, so I can understand that dropping this planned feature was not an easy decision.

Ultimately as more HD Channels go online they will be in MPEG4 (and there are more HD channels coming) people will want to upgrade to a 622 anyways to get the new offerings. And now with external storage being available only for the 622 it makes upgrading to a 622 a no brainer.

I expect there to be a lot more on the upcoming Tech Chat with Mark Jackson and Dan Minnick.

Stay Tuned!
 
This sucks! I bought my 942 last November. I just leased a separate 622 about a month ago, and kept the 942, because I didn't want to lose the purchase value. Now what? I can swap my OWNED 942 for a 622 (if they let me, which is doubtful, since I just got a 622) and lose all the money I paid, PLUS pay DISH a frickin' $199 lease! BS!!
DISH once again is screwing their customers.
 
Sucks for the 942 users, BUT great news for the 622 crowd -- USB support within 45 days would be a VERY NICE Christmas present.

But I'll believe it when I have a USB drive connected and working; and when the new software required doesn't trash my receiver. :eek:
 
Thank you for the info. Not as bad as I expected, but certainly not good. Let's hope the ViP622 does not have problems with external storage. I'll probably be one of the early adopters on that one.
 
So why can't you still do that? Watch or copy in SD onto DVD. It was not likely you would have been able to offload to external and then view on a new unit. Initially, only the DVR that made the copy could view from external storage. The account-wide sharing is a later (if ever) development. And may not work "after the fact" with recordings made before the feature was activated.
 
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Not as bad as I thought.

I thought they were going to annouce that the 942's would be shut off to all HD since they were migrating everything over to MPEG-4.
 
Scott: Our house has a big need already for some external storage for the 622! I have already told Santa this is what I want for Christmas! I hope satelliteguys.us gives us a really in-depth report on this one, including all of our options ( I have heard there are devices that allow one to aggregate hard drives - for example two 500GB HDs would appear as one terabyte.)

Some more HD content would be great too!

--Doug
 
I wouldn't exactly consider this a "bombshell". Hell, its not even that disappointing. Most of us already have a couple of 622s. When I move, my 942 is going in a guest bedroom.
 
I was going to be more of a negative bombshell, but that was until I spoke with one of my friends who works for Dish in the Engineering department last night who got me calmed down a bit. :)
 
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