Sony STB for Voom?

Seawaves

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
May 10, 2004
567
0
Los Angeles, CA
Why the heck can't Voom contract with one the best STB makers in the satellite business? If the Voom goal is to offer the best in HD why not offer us the best in equipment? I know many of those here in this forum would agree the Moto box reeks.

If any of you here has owned and used a Song HD-SAT200 or SAT300 you know what I'm talking about. They NEVER need to be rebooted, they will decode local cable TV sigs. for those that want to keep cable for whatever reason (like HGTV, FSN, DIY, etc.) and will do a auto or manual scan on the OTA's.

Hey Voom- most of us here of have invested thousands in our TV's and other home theatre equipment and want the highest quality picture that we can get.

So why would Voom support all of that with a junkie STB from Moto?

Voom...go Sony or go broke! (or maybe even LG)
 
Seawaves,

Sony et all wouldn't produce a receiver for the current volume of VOOM STB sales. They have to expect sales in the hundreds of thousands before they will have any interest in producing a box at current margins in the industry. The VOOM STB is based on the Motorola DSR550 hardware platform, which was already available; only VOOM's software is new.

Note that Sony hasn't produced a DirecTV satellite receiver of its own since the $1000+ HD100. The sales volume and reduced profit margins of DirecTV HD STBs weren't sufficient for them to justify another design after the HD100. Instead, they simple relabeled the Zenith HD520 (Sony HD200) and LG 3200A (Sony HD300). DirecTV has the best HD STBs in good part because Hughes, LG, and Sony effectively pooled their resources for a single design. DirecTV has also had HD receivers around for years, which has given them plenty of time to improve their software.
 
Voom uses Digicipher II encryption.

The only company that produces set-tops for this technology is Motorola. They own the patent.
Even if another set-top manufacturer was to make a Digicipher II box they would still have to license from Motorola and buy the chip-sets from Motorola.
Similar to the reasons why Motorola is the sole producer of set-tops for the consumer digital CBand industry. They are also the sole producer of set-tops for Star Choice.

Voom chose Digicipher and therefor is limited to only Motorola set-tops unless they change encryption.
 
Seawaves said:
If any of you here has owned and used a Sony HD-SAT200 or SAT300 you know what I'm talking about.

Really. The HD100 was a dog...actually you could use it as an easy bake oven it ran so hot. Then the HD200 (which I own) was plagued with problems from the get-go (firmware updates made it good). It was replaced with the HD300 which also needed firmware upgrades immediately after release. All one has to do is go over to the AVSforum and do a search to see all that complained of issues.

I will say that the PG on the Sony's is light years ahead of the present state of the V* STB. I really do miss that.
 
rtt2 said:
Voom uses Digicipher II encryption.

QUOTE]

I don't think so. I have a Motorola4dTV receiver with digicipher and it will not do HD. I agree with that that quality of the STB sucks compared to my previous Sammy T165 and that is supposedly not considered the best. Even the OTA is crushed. I hope they upgrade the firmware for the video in the STB. I think that is the only way it is going to look decent. Until I got the DSR 550 and Voom, I had no idea that the STB would make that much of a difference.
 
Mr. Biggles said:
Really. The HD100 was a dog...actually you could use it as an easy bake oven it ran so hot. Then the HD200 (which I own) was plagued with problems from the get-go (firmware updates made it good). It was replaced with the HD300 which also needed firmware upgrades immediately after release. All one has to do is go over to the AVSforum and do a search to see all that complained of issues.

I will say that the PG on the Sony's is light years ahead of the present state of the V* STB. I really do miss that.

Mr. B.

I will agree the SAT-100 was/is a dog. Way too hot and very noisy even when it was turned off. But the 200 & 300 I've had and I loved. I think you'll agree they are far better than the Moto Box that Voom uses. I miss that real program guide. Voom needs to get one soon to stay in the race.

We all look forward to seeing Voom use Mpeg 4 but I can only imagine all the problems Voom will have supporting it. Yikes!
 
rtt2 said:
Voom uses Digicipher II encryption.

The only company that produces set-tops for this technology is Motorola. They own the patent.
Even if another set-top manufacturer was to make a Digicipher II box they would still have to license from Motorola and buy the chip-sets from Motorola.
Similar to the reasons why Motorola is the sole producer of set-tops for the consumer digital CBand industry. They are also the sole producer of set-tops for Star Choice.

Voom chose Digicipher and therefor is limited to only Motorola set-tops unless they change encryption.

RTT2-

I thought the smart card made by NDS does the encryrtion? Is the chip made by moto doing something different?

Thanks.
 
Seawaves said:
Mr. B.

But the 200 & 300 I've had and I loved. I think you'll agree they are far better than the Moto Box that Voom uses. I miss that real program guide. Voom needs to get one soon to stay in the race.

I guess I was trying to say I haven't given up hope that the V* guide can be made more intuitive/user friendly.

I always used the Sony STB's after my RCA DTC100 ( a real dud PG wise...slooowww) because I loved the guide. So, in that regard I totally agree with you. I also like D* approach because we actually had choices when it came to STB's....not locked into one particular brand.
 
Could one of you post a screenshot of the HD200 or HD300 guide so people --like engineers at VOOM who might be reading this forum -- know what you are talking about?

Here's a shot of the translucent program guide from the $1000 HD Tivo for DirecTV:

directv_guide.jpg
 
Ken F said:
Could one of you post a screenshot of the HD200 or HD300

Love to help on this one Ken but my HD200 is sitting in it's box collecting dust waiting to see what/when/if D* does with additional HD programming.
 
Yeah, I have sold mine on ebay.

The one thing that even if Voom still uses the Moto which i understand they may have to, is the abilty to also decode cable and view it the program guide!

The SAT200 & 300 do this seemlessly for Rupert.

Voom needs to be as cutting edge with the hardware as they are with the programming to win.
 
Seawaves said:
Voom needs to be as cutting edge with the hardware as they are with the programming to win.


Boy do I agree with you. I was also going to sell my old STB on EBAY but I decided to wait and see what VOOM does to improve the PQ overall.
 
Gutter,

It's funny- I'm all over no program guide but I'm still here (with Voom) because of the amazing HD PQ. My SD'd pretty good, too.
 
Seawaves said:
RTT2-

I thought the smart card made by NDS does the encryption? Is the chip made by moto doing something different?

Thanks.


VOOM is using Digicipher II right now. Wilt has said the NDS encryption is not yet enabled but will be at a later date. At that time they will be using a dual encription scheme Digicipher II with NDS.
There is a safeguard that shuts down the receiver now if you remove the smart card.

When the DVR comes out the content will be encrypted using NDS encription technology onto the Hard Drive. The signal from the satellite still will have the Digicipher II technology.

Just look at lyngsat and you will see that it will even tell you that Rainbow 1 satellite uses Digicipher II encryption on a 8PSK signal.
http://www.lyngsat.com/rain1.html



The guy who said that 4DTV cant get High Def is wrong. It can with a 920. But it looks like CBand will not be getting a whole lot of HD channels as that medium dies away.


The problem with VOOM is that they have a cable company mentality and went with a preferred vendor (Motorola) and now have to stick with them.
I really have never come across a very good Motorola set-top from satellite or cable.

The problem also with Motorola satellite boxes is that they have a battery in them that will only last for about 10-15 years. The battery is part of the Digicipher II encryption technology. Replacing this battery involves taking out the mother board and soldering on a new battery. The operation can cost hundreds of dollars and is not covered by the warranty.
 
Seawaves said:
Gutter,

It's funny- I'm all over no program guide but I'm still here (with Voom) because of the amazing HD PQ. My SD'd pretty good, too.

Seawaves, I mean absolutely no disrespect at ALL (seriously), but have you ever seen Dish Network's HD PQ?
 
Chet,

Yes I have. I think Dish PQ on HD and Rupert's for that matter are very good. I think Rupert just has a better STB than Voom and Dish, which matters alot.

My Voom PQ on Hi-Def just kills. Lakers game looks awesome tonight, True Lies on HBOHD Friday was sooo nice, as was the DD 5.1 on my Kefs.

I think Dish is a good company and I know you love them Chet. I do think Voom won't make you as a happy as Dish will. I was of Charlie's first 6k sub's, same as I am with Voom.

I really have Voom for what I love from them- which is HD content.

That said..I sure wish they has a PG as nice as Dish!
 
rtt2 said:
VOOM is using Digicipher II right now. Wilt has said the NDS encryption is not yet enabled but will be at a later date. At that time they will be using a dual encription scheme Digicipher II with NDS.
There is a safeguard that shuts down the receiver now if you remove the smart card.

When the DVR comes out the content will be encrypted using NDS encription technology onto the Hard Drive. The signal from the satellite still will have the Digicipher II technology.

Just look at lyngsat and you will see that it will even tell you that Rainbow 1 satellite uses Digicipher II encryption on a 8PSK signal.
http://www.lyngsat.com/rain1.html



The guy who said that 4DTV cant get High Def is wrong. It can with a 920. But it looks like CBand will not be getting a whole lot of HD channels as that medium dies away.


The problem with VOOM is that they have a cable company mentality and went with a preferred vendor (Motorola) and now have to stick with them.
I really have never come across a very good Motorola set-top from satellite or cable.

The problem also with Motorola satellite boxes is that they have a battery in them that will only last for about 10-15 years. The battery is part of the Digicipher II encryption technology. Replacing this battery involves taking out the mother board and soldering on a new battery. The operation can cost hundreds of dollars and is not covered by the warranty.

Thanks for the info. It's too bad they won't change the way the think and get bleeding edge.
 
ChetK said:
Seawaves, I mean absolutely no disrespect at ALL (seriously), but have you ever seen Dish Network's HD PQ?

I am beginning to think I must have a bumb DSR box because the pq is very very poor. Even my 4DTV channels look better. I did know that HD is available on 4DTV however Motorola hung all C-bander's out to dry and stopped producing them. So untless you find one on EBAY you can't get HD on digi on C-band. And to get HD you needed two units. Combined Motorola charged almost $1500.
 
I think Dish is a good company and I know you love them Chet. I do think Voom won't make you as a happy as Dish will.

At one point, I did like Dish Network. I was ignorant to all of the HD content available. Now that I have Voom, you're wrong about me. I do like Voom very much. Voom's picture quality will not make me as happy as I was with Dish, you're right there, but everything else is 10 times better than Dish. More HD channels, East and West feeds, and, yes, I do like their program guide. With the 6000U if I wanted to view the guide, I couldn't see any programming. At least with voom, I can see the current channel in the top right corner. I can scroll through the various channels at the bottom of the screen with the programming in full-screen.

Sure, there are some things they could improve upon, but I think Voom is committed to excellent products and will eventually get their picture quality issues worked out with mpeg-4 and wm9. I can't wait to see that.