(Updated) Replies to your questions from Dish

[dimi1963]

Scott is the reason why I am a member of this forum, he is the man. He toke it upon himself to get these guys on the phone or whatever medium he used, to have some answers for us the consumers. I feel a little better now knowing that when I have an issue I can count on you Scott.

Thank you very much for the effort, perhaps this will open some doors for communication with E* techs. I think I will go ahead and get the 921.

 

[mike123abc]

Just because Charlie said that they plan on going to MPEG-4 at the end of next year does not mean it is going to happen suddenly and obsolete all the HD boxes. It will have to be investigated by the engineers for quite a while. They might come up with a solution for the 921.

I would count on either the 811 or the 6000 being upgradeable, but yet another year would have gone by and probably a lot better OTA reception chipsets would probably be available for an even less expensive HD non DVR box that they could swap out with year commit. Remember the FCC tuner mandate is going in effect, so OTA tuners are getting more and more common and in theory the price should be going down too.

MPEG-4 could in affect all the standard definition boxes too....

 

[SimpleSimon]

More like big picture little picture syndrome. I've been involved in this type of thing before. The powers that be state a problem and ask the engineering dept to provide possible solutions. The engineering dept. proposes several solutions and the biggies decide on one. At this point one of the biggies makes public statements regarding the decision. The engineering dept. is aghast because they haven't even begun to develop a plan to implement the solution. An all out effort now must be made to try to avoid embarrassing the CO who made the statement and limit the damage said statement caused.

Ahh the memories - Shudder


NightRyder

Oh yeah - been there, done that, got a whole drawer of T-Shirts - yeah really - I oughta drag 'em out and take pictures.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Thank you Echostar, regular feedback would be a benefit...Even if the answers can't be fully divulged at least damage control can be implemented....

Jason

I agree, but the "SEC" excuse only goes so far. As I already said, been there, done that. I DO see it as a valid 'no-answer' reason for some of the questions that were asked, but certainly not all of them.

There's one that I do NOT want to see swept under the rug, and that's E* coming up with an online support forum with bug tracking, etc. It appears that such a thing simply does not exist within E* - just talk to a CSR. They don't seem to have any software capability to even look at what might have been reported. Granted, the average consumer is a different beast than we are, but by that same token, having such a thing here would be VERY beneficial to E*.

To put it another way, many of the members here could be considerd "gamma" testers, and quite possibly provide more information than the existing "beta" testers.

 

[MI_SAT]

You are correct that he answered most of them by not answering most of them, again the tone of his voice gave me the indications for the answers. Which is why I felt comfortable enough to say if you were thinking about getting a 921 the go get it.

Let me be clear that this is in no way an attempt to slight Scott or his efforts. However, Dish also led all of us to believe $839 (or whatever) was a great deal on the 921 via the "group purchase," when in fact a few weeks later it was well under $600.

Given this recent history, I guess I'm not comfortable from anything they say -- much less their intonations -- that buying a 921 is a good idea. Caveat emptor.

Again, Scott, thank you for your website and all of your input. It's great.

 

[MI_SAT]

I then asked him your questions again most he could not answer because of SEC concerns.

This is a major league cop-out on the part of the Dish employee. Your contact his attempting to hide behind Regulation-FD (FD = Fair Disclosure), an SEC regulation aimed at releasing potentially market-moving information universally to the public -- or more precisely, preventing uneven distribution of market-moving information. It seeks to end the age-old practice of Wall Street analysts contacting a company's investor relations department for data/facts that improve the analysts' valuation model.

While I have not seen the list of questions to which you refer, I cannot even remotely imagine that they are the type protected/regulated under Reg-FD. If the questions were along the lines of, "Is Dish buying VOOM," your contact would be prohibited from answering. If the question is, "when are you releasing name-based recording," then refusing to answer under the guise of Reg-FD is laughable.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

He answered the name based recording one.

If you go look at the original questions the members asked most of the were very specific, such as Will Dish be adding Sci-FI on December 1st? Where is CSTV? and so on, stuff that we know about but stuff Dish has not talked about at all. Even questions about the 942 are not good, since we are the only site to talk about and show you the 942, it has never actually been shown to the press before.

As I said while he didn't say a lot, the tones of his voice said volumes which is why I said if you want a 921 go ahead and get it.

 

[NightRyder]

Oh yeah - been there, done that, got a whole drawer of T-Shirts - yeah really - I oughta drag 'em out and take pictures.

Only have a couple of them left, gave most of them to my son who cut off the sleaves and used them under his football pads. Still have my coffee mug and pen and pencil set from UPS though.



NightRyder

 

[ScottChez]

Help me out here. Did I read the above correctly?

MPEG4 on DIshnet will require new Boxes?

After reading this, I think the 921 is a bad investment for a HD DVR

Where the HD TIvo is good investment as it is compatible with there new Sats going up next year which will bring over 1000 channels of HD programming (those new spaceway sats).

If I am wrong about the HD Tivo being compatible with Space way, please correct me. From what I have studied, all you will need is a new Dish, not a new DVR. The Direct TV DRV is good for for ever since its compatible.

If Im wrong about space way let me know. If Im right, then it is clear its time to switch to Direct TV as there HD boxes are compatible and ready for over 1000 HD channels. You wont have to buy all new receivers or pay an upgrade cost or sign a one year contract to get the new receivers.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Help me out here. Did I read the above correctly?

MPEG4 on DIshnet will require new Boxes?

No that is NOT the case... yet... they are working ona few seperate technologies which they can not talk about yet as they are still in devlopment, these decvices include compression couplers which could be something like a switch however in it can decode the MPEG4 signal and convert it to a 8PSK signal which is usuable by 8psk equiped receivers.

As I said they have no solid plans for what they are going to do, this is all is a state of flux at the moment.

Again your receiver that works today will work tommorow will work next year.

 

[Bulldog]

.

To put it another way, many of the members here could be considerd "gamma" testers, and quite possibly provide more information than the existing "beta" testers.

I agree with SS, This site along with the members that are very knowable of the satellite technology can provide very useful feedback to "E".

I for one have complained about issues such as the 811 along with other folks, but I have tried to be constructive. "E" has a valuable asset by utilizing this forum, and with you Scott in providing the diplomatic communication channel it could be a win/win relationship.

"E" will have to acknowledge the benefit of this forum and be honest and straightforward when confronted with real technical issues with their equipment. We as members of this forum should provide a professional attitude in our questions to "E”.

With Scott's communication with "E" and mutual respect from "E" to the members of this forum by providing honest answers with no shall I say "Taurus Droppings" We can help speed up the solutions to problems and create a partnership that will be the envy of “D”.

“E” might be restricted in answering questions about future offerings and direction of the company, since you do not want to give the competition information that would hurt the company. I understand this and I can live with it. So lets not try to insist on answers to “E”s sensitive confidential information. Lets treat it like “AREA 51”.

 

[mike123abc]

No that is NOT the case... yet... they are working ona few seperate technologies which they can not talk about yet as they are still in devlopment, these decvices include compression couplers which could be something like a switch however in it can decode the MPEG4 signal and convert it to a 8PSK signal which is usuable by 8psk equiped receivers.

As I said they have no solid plans for what they are going to do, this is all is a state of flux at the moment.

Again your receiver that works today will work tommorow will work next year.

8PSK and MPEG-4 are very different things. 8PSK is a satellite data transmission format. It does not indicate what data it is transmitting, it is just responsible for getting the bits from the satellite to the receiver. The data could be EPG, MPEG-2 encoded video, an audio track, whatever they want to send.

MPEG-4 is a way to compress a video stream into bits that are transmitted. MPEG-4 does not care how it is transmitted, it could go OTA, via BPSK, QPSK, 8PSK, 16QAM, ethernet, etc.

The 921 is perfectly capable of receiving and storing a bit stream from the satellites in BPSK/QPSK/8PSK/16QAM. The issue is if the bit stream happens to contain a video stream encoded in MPEG-4, will the 921 be able to display it. It will be able to receive and record it since it is just bits like all the other satellite information. Note that the 921 does not do HD PIP, so it only needs to be able to decode and display a single MPEG-4 stream at one time (while in the background up to 2 possible streams are being recorded from the satellite tuners or OTA tuner).

Someone that has very detailed knowledge of the inner workings of the 921 would have to investigate and report on this. It is not something that is likely to be announce anytime soon. It could be possible that some ASIC inside the box could be used for hardware assist and allow the 921 to keep up with displaying an MPEG-4 video stream. It is also possible that Dish could release a PCI card that could be put in the 921 to do the hardware assist on the display, perhaps even enhancing it enough to be able to show PIP HD (probably unlikely). Or is it possible that Dish could decide that there is no pratical solution (i.e. sending in all the 921s for retrofit is to hard) and comes up with some sort of replacement deal.

I believe from reading broadcom's chipset specs that the 921 uses it should be able to take any satellite signal up to 30 mbaud 3/4 16 QAM or about 83 mbit/sec (note enough for 4 uncompressed HD channels per transponder MPEG-2, note that this is not DBS transponders since they are limited bandwidth but more likely the 39MHZ Ka transponders on AMC-15).

The 921 (and 811/6000 plus all the other Dish boxes using the same chipset) are well able to take a lot more bandwidth from the satellites. The MPEG-4 issue is a different animal, it is what to do with the bits once they have received them.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Right-O, Mike. I had just seen Scott's post while chatting with another member and told him the same thing - only you did it much better.

 

[boy921]

Sometime what we are told is not a clear as what we see. What I see today are lots of Dish Network ads promoting the 811 for free with a subscription. If Dish isn't interested in advancing in HD, why would they actively promote getting more HD units to customers? Dish is interested in making a profit. Only a small percentage of customers subscribe to HD. Dish is taking a proactive position on promoting HD which means that they are going to expand their HD programming if they get a bigger percentage of HD customers.

 

[franzius]

Hey Scott,

Good effort at damage control !!!

However, there is one item that remains unanswered and that is whether E* will provide additional HD programming or not PRIOR to the migration to MPEG4. If the answer is No then this is a total rebuke of Charlie's slogan of E* being the King of HD. I believed in what he has been saying for the last 2 1/2 year and did massive upgrade in terms of hardware and programing subscription. I was just about to pull the trigger on the 921 having suffered thru the growing pains of the 811.

There is nothing more valuable to a company than its Good Will. Once that's lost or squandered, it's very hard to recover.

That question needs to be answered in full.

Franzius.

 

[Unthinkable]

Thanks Scott. It seems that some people are happiest, when they have something to bitch about, whether they know anything or not. Like anyone, who has been with Dish for any time, I am aware of, and have endured, the receiver and software problems. However, in all fairness to Dish (or if you prefer, Charlie), I think they have always taken care of their subs, as technology changed.

That makes two of us. I think Dish will do the right thing here same as they've done previously.

 

[Stargazer]

The best solution may be for Dish Network to offer consumers to mail in their 921's to get them upgraded to the MPEG-4 chipsets/boards.

 

[bdemz]

Scott?

"Again your receiver that works today will work tommorow will work next year."

You have repeated this in your posts. My concerns are will they work after next year? $549 is alot to pay for 1 year.

Also when you say they will work, does that mean they will receive the HD content they receive now or will the new HD format channels (whatever that may be) require an updated box?

Thanks for all of your work.

 

[Stever1]

"Again your receiver that works today will work tommorow will work next year."

You have repeated this in your posts. My concerns are will they work after next year? $549 is alot to pay for 1 year.

Also when you say they will work, does that mean they will receive the HD content they receive now or will the new HD format channels (whatever that may be) require an updated box?

Thanks for all of your work.

Let's not forget that "next year" is only 2 months away. Does anyone know if the 942 is equipped for MPEG-4? Is so, then that could be the reason that E* "seems" to be dumping the 921. If not, then it would seem extremely short-sighted of them to be bringing out a new HD-PVR that would not be compatible with, what appears to be, their new direction.

 

[Poke]

Yeah thanks for the Info Scott! I think Dish will take care of the customers but either way Im always for imporvement!