Will you buy a 942?

[Foxbat]

I said "no way" in the poll for two reasons: The only, and I mean only, way I would buy the 942 was if there was, in writing, a 100% trade-in for the 942 MkII (the one they should be releasing with H.264 and WMV hardware decoding).

Also, the 2Wire box that was announced already has MPEG-4 and other AV codecs from the start. It has dual ATSC receivers for OTA DTV vs. one for the 942. The software looks a lot more refined than current Dish fare. And, being an SBC customer, it's a no-brainer for me.

 

[dont24]

I'm not buyin one. Will continue to lease 811 from D* and my 6412 from Comcast. No way am I paying $749 for the 942, after th e921 fiasco.

 

[markusian]

whoever has voted yes, could you please tell us why?

no one should attack him/her. i would just like to know the reason.

I voted yes because:

- There is no lease choice in the vote. Either buy or not buy.

I prefer the lease. But, if there is no lease offered by Dish, I'll buy because:

- It will take few years before Dish really switchs to MPEG4.
- When MPEG4 finally arrives, Dish can't just tell me to go to hell. They have to give me some kind of discount or trade-in offer.
- By then, the 942 will be out-of-date anyway.
- At that time, there will be better PVRs with Tera Byte storage, and god knows what kind of functionality will be available then.
- That will be a good time to upgrade. But I need an HD PVR now.

-Mark

 

[korsjs]

I voted yes because:

- There is no lease choice in the vote. Either buy or not buy.

I prefer the lease. But, if there is no lease offered by Dish, I'll buy because:

- It will take few years before Dish really switchs to MPEG4.
- When MPEG4 finally arrives, Dish can't just tell me to go to hell. They have to give me some kind of discount or trade-in offer.
- By then, the 942 will be out-of-date anyway.
- At that time, there will be better PVRs with Tera Byte storage, and god knows what kind of functionality will be available then.
- That will be a good time to upgrade. But I need an HD PVR now.

-Mark

a legit answer, thank you.

however, i believe these receivers are behind their time now.

 

[Stargazer]

I dont want to spend big bucks on these receivers anymore. They always drop the price on them after I buy them and improve upon them at times in addition to that. I am going to save my money to go towards a new HD television. I have been waiting for HD televisions to develop a little more to improve and drop in price and the same with these DVR's.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Mpeg 4 is coming this fall on Dish , summer on Directv, at least for hd channels and hd local channels. All hd customers will be swaped out to be able to see the new hd channels. It will take a few more years to swap out all the sd receivers , then they will turn off the mpeg2 stream. I figure by the end of 2009 the swap out will be finished. IF Dish was smart they could just recycle the old receivers and use them again with the new mpeg4 hardware and put a new shiny case on the outside. I don't see them just chunking them. I see Dish using this to transition everyone to lease so you could just swap out the mpeg2 receivers for mpeg4 receivers. I am sure if you still want to own, instead of lease, they could swap out for a small fee. But the hd receiver swap out will start by year's end.

 

[dfergie]

Nope, I will stick with my 549$ 921...then weigh my options when D* comes out with the Mpeg4 HD-dvr...

 

[JonUrban]

I waited for over a year for my THOUSAND DOLLAR 921, which is now ALMOST a year old. With all of it's faults and broken promises (firewire), it's not even worth selling on eBay now or in the future (have you seen how many $500 brand new units are not even selling there). The HD channels are about the same as a year ago, with nothing announced to look forward to. No locals, No football, harware upgrades coming.

If my cable company gets HD locals by the time my prepaid Dish year is up, I'm gone. Somewhere. D*, Cable, we'll see. But, no matter, I will NOT get a 942. No Way.

 

[Foxbat]

IF Dish was smart they could just recycle the old receivers and use them again with the new mpeg4 hardware and put a new shiny case on the outside. I don't see them just chunking them.

Ah-ha! THAT explains all the problems with Dish's current receivers... They're all just a bunch of Dish 3000s in "shiny new cases..."

If Dish was smart, they would have designed the new receivers with a mezzanine slot to accept additional memory and ASICs for such purposes. However, the 921 is based on a platform that was designed, oh, what? 4+ years ago? It's hard to design a spot on a motherboard to accept a chip that hasn't even been created yet, for technology that was still being debated in steering committees, let alone being implemented and tuned.

Dish did have PCI slots in the 921, but will they come out with a MPEG4 card for it? The 921 is a dead-end; "long" live the 942! (side note: I was looking at the pictures that TahoeRob published of the inside of his 921 and I noticed that the ATSC tuner in the 921 is that 6000's 8VSB module without the shielding <or the noisy fan>. I hadn't picked up on that before.)

 

[Stargazer]

I have been stressing multiple times in the past that they need to make these receivers upgradable by having additional slots for memory, add-ons, etc. for many possible upgradabilities in the future. It would have been cheaper to have an add-on to the receivers than a complete replacement. They could have implemented certain slots to overide certain components in the receiver (they already implemented this with the cardless card slot). Technology is changing way too fast to not do this anymore. Maybe they will finally learn their lesson. Make certain components plug and play, out with the old memory module, in with the new, out with the old tuners in with the new, out with the old processor/board in with the new. How hard can that be? This could save them LOTS of money.

 

[jsanders]

This could save them LOTS of money.

Actually, their margins are probably higher by selling us a new box. Doing the modular thing would save *us* a lot of money. It isn't possible to make a box that can be upgraded through that many generations, but there is no doubt you can extend a product's life-span.

 

[Altaman]

With the 921 I agree that Mpeg-4 chips were not even developed yet, but the 942 there is no excuse to releasing a box that is not upgradeable. What company in their right mind releases a old technology product after announcing they were going to a different non-compatible technology?

Also as it was brought up in this thread, I would like to chime in on Voom. If you take a look at the E* roadmap from inception you would see that when they started out they had under 40,000 subs their first year, but grew quickly year after year.

When Voom started they should have realized that the first two/three years were going to be big growing pains...it is a fact that most new businesses fail in the first five years and if you think you are going to start a sat company like voom and win out the door, you are nuts.

That being said, the potential of Voom is there, but they need to realize the business they are in, has to be built over time. With the reports of the large growth in HDTV salesthis holiday season, Voom stands to grow big time from this time forward...do they have the wherewithal to do it?

Alt

 

[JohnC]

No Way

Reasons for not buying a 942:

I have a big screen HDTV and I love to watch HD programming. I presently have a 6000 and am able to receive all of the network HD programming (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, WB, and UPN) plus the E* HD pack in good quality HD. I am going to stay put until MPEG4 receivers are available - probably this summer. If E* has not made a serious move to more HD by then, I will be evaluating D* and VOOM and will be switching to one of them or Comcast if they have a better HD offering and/or better deal for HD. I would love to have a HD DVR, but am not going to spend $749 for 5 months of service. By then the resale value for non-MPEG4 capable HD receivers (921, 811, 942, 6000, and the D* HD Tivo) will be low. The present VOOM STB and upcoming VOOM HD DVR are upgradable to MPEG4 and will not be affected by the move to MPEG4.

When I purchased the 6000 on the closeout special 14 months ago, it appeared that E* was serious about HD. Now it appears that HD is a low priority for them and I will have to leave them. They have room for Universal HD and STARZ HD, but will not add them and have only added TNTHD in the last 14 months. The facts that E* is coming out with the 942 that will not be able to receive additional HD programming, that E* has said that they do not know what they are going to do with the new 85 satellite, and that HD appears to be a very low priority with E* and a high priority with VOOM and D* makes me think that I will be forced to leave E* this summer and money invested in a 942 (or 921) would lost in just a few months.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I have been stressing multiple times in the past that they need to make these receivers upgradable by having additional slots for memory, add-ons, etc. for many possible upgradabilities in the future. It would have been cheaper to have an add-on to the receivers than a complete replacement. They could have implemented certain slots to overide certain components in the receiver (they already implemented this with the cardless card slot). Technology is changing way too fast to not do this anymore. Maybe they will finally learn their lesson. Make certain components plug and play, out with the old memory module, in with the new, out with the old tuners in with the new, out with the old processor/board in with the new. How hard can that be? This could save them LOTS of money.

I am starting to believe that Dish feels they are like a new car company that needs to come out with a new model every year. They never seem to care about how they never finish the software for the older model they made the year before.

For example: The 721 - took 18 months to create a working stable receiver . Although now the latest software update creates problems with the Unkown channel 77 banner at the begining of every recorded show. Also the receiver will lose the guide at times and quit responding to the remote control. Not to mention still not all the dish home applications work. Created in 2002 and now discontinued.

The 921 created in 2003 and sold that December and took another 5-6 months till they had enough on the market. Now there are to many bugs and not finished software to discuss here but it is sufficient to say it is discontinued too.

This years model the 2005 / 942. Available by March of this year and will be discontinued due to mpeg4 conversion by years end. That one only gets 9 months and it will be of no use. What do all these receivers have in common?

They are all discontinued LEMONS - especially if they were cars. But I guess that Dish wants ;something new to show at the CES every year. They would be better off making a good hd /sd dual tuner/dual ota tuner dvr that could be upgradable by software to IMPROVE and make the receiver even more feature rich. But in our disposable society I guess it doesn't mean much. But at $999.00 and $749.00 and $549.00 ,that is to much money to be throwing away every year.

I have paid the origional $549.00 on my 2002 /721 model. I then bought another one at $249.00 in 2003 or early 2004 and then $999.00 on the wonderful ,fun filled 921 last May . I will NOT spend any more money on these receivers since they keep discontinuing them faster than I can buy them. Looks like leasing will be the future for me . Hell, Cable might be the way to go if it means no more money up front.

 

[dturturro]

Not so much worried about the obsolete factor just wondering what's the point? The secondary output is SD. Who cares? All it means is if something happens to the receiver you now have 2 TV's with no picture! Just get a 311 for the other room. If it was HD out on both (and someone made long enough cables) than maybe this would be worth it. I just don't see the point of this over a 921 (if you can get it to work).

 

[Altaman]

Not so much worried about the obsolete factor just wondering what's the point? The secondary output is SD. Who cares? All it means is if something happens to the receiver you now have 2 TV's with no picture! Just get a 311 for the other room. If it was HD out on both (and someone made long enough cables) than maybe this would be worth it. I just don't see the point of this over a 921 (if you can get it to work).

I agree! I have an HDTV in my livingroom and a HT downstairs, what would have been smart is to allow the feeding of both from one receiver. If you want SD, there is 3xx, 5xx series of receivers, don't keep putting us back to old technology with the HD/SD combination. Can't E* ever look forward instead of two steps forward, one back?

Alt

 

[Stargazer]

The 942 is a better concept with two HD tuner tv outputs with a total cost of $750 thats an average of $375 per tv cost, lowering the cost to having two independent HD tv's in a house with DVR functionality. That is around the cost of two 811's. I will wait for their MPEG-4 receiver that can do this. These receivers have been in development for a while. You can tell how long the 921 has been delayed when it was released not that long ago and they already have another HD DVR being released based more on the 522 platform (a quicker release unless cancelled).

The only way that Dish Network is getting ahead by hurrying up and releasing the 942 is that they already had some manufactured that they need to rid of and they have more in that DVR than what the new MPEG-4 receiver would cost seeing how electronics is going down all the time. They could still swap out the receivers for the new DVR that cost them less and be out less many than what they would have been and maybe get some of that money back by charging an upgrade fee.

 

[tonyp56]

Though I think putting a poll up on Satelliteguys.us was a good idea to see what people thought, I don't think it will be what will happen when Dish releases this receiver! There will be thousands of people that will be sucked into Dish's crap, and fork out $800 for a boat anchor! (Look at the 921, look at how many people bought that boat anchor) And Dish will know that they are selling people anchors, and won't care, cause they are making $!! The 942 will not be any different, it will have bugs, missing features, problems, and of course it will become a boat anchor after a while!

Is Dish selling these now? No, that means they won't even release them until December, (remember they annouced the 811 and 921 in around Jan. of 2003 and they didn't come out until December, even though they said it was coming out before that at first) then six months to a year from then they are going to add HD using MPEG 4, and the 942 will not be able to get any new channels. Then they will take all the suckers that bought the 942 and tell them, "we'll upgrade you to MPEG 4 for another $200" and of course everyone will say, "uh, ... YEAH, that sounds good" and they will receive a receiver that does MPEG 4, but once again has a bunch of bugs, and problems. I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER RECEIVER FROM DISH AGAIN. I will take my three receivers and throw them in the trash and go back to getting channels OTA, before I ever buy another Dish receiver. But thats me, other people on this board, and of couse other people else where, will buy this POS, and then they will be on this board complaining about a lack of NBR, EPG issues, BUGS, and etc...

 

[Stargazer]

As far as I am concerned these HD DVR's are only worth a little more than the SD DVR's because of the larger hard drive space. The 921 price of $549 (and sometimes seen for cheaper) is not too far beyond what it should be worth seeing the large hard drive space unless we wouldn't have to pay anything (or very little such as $50 or $100) to upgrade these. The number of HD DVR's coming out in such a short period of time proves how much this technology is changing and how it has not developed enough to be ready for the masses. These receivers were never meant to be for the masses, just a start.

 

[SimpleSimon]

The 942 is a better concept with two HD tuner tv outputs with a total cost of $750 thats an average of $375 per tv cost, lowering the cost to having two independent HD tv's in a house with DVR functionality. That is around the cost of two 811's. ...

Unh, sorry. The 942 does NOT have two independent HD outputs. It has one HD and one SD.