Rumors of Charlie Selling Giving Second Thoughts to HD and Buying 921

[Nick]

I'm on track to get my HDTV as soon as another round of price drops happens. Also, I had planned on ordering the 921 PVR when it comes out, but with all the talk about EchoStar selling out has made me have second thoughts about the future of HD on DishNetwork.

Investing ~$1,000 in the 921 is a stretch for me under the best of conditions, but now I am beginning to wonder if HD programming will be lost in the shuffle if Charlie sells out. I know the answer lies in the 'tea leaves' for now, but if there is a sale, the future of HD via DBS is dependent on who buys E*.

I'm still reeling from my lost $100 investment in the VideoGuide, the thinking man's solution to cable's channel scroll.

[Lee L]

Well, by the time the 921 comes out, the current rumor will have been proved true or false. You could always buy the HD DirecTivo when it comes out and switch to D*.

IMO, the future of HD on DBS is limited anyway by bandwidth. At some point, they will just not be able to load the transponders any more. For a while, most fo the HD is going to be on the OTA stations and a few channels like HBO, SHO and such so the 921 should be a good investment even to just record the OTA stuff.

I got most of my money back from Videoguide, did you not send your's back?

[sampatterson]

Just my option, but with the way technology is changing (using different co-decs and encoding techniques) you will be able to have 4,6 or possibly 8 HD feeds per transponder instead of the maximum of 2 right now (8PSK-MPEG2). For example, Microsoft (and a host of others) are starting to push their HD compatible co-decs instead of MPEG4 or MPEG2. They can compress a typical HD stream to 8Mb p/s instead of the 19.x that MPEG2 does. Granted we all have to wait and see what artifacts or degradation occur from any kind of new compression. I guess bottom line is that eventually technology will overcome this for normal HD. Super Duper next generation HDcoming in 3 or so years <grin> with its 16000x9000 pixels progressive 100 frames a second is a different story may push transponder space yet again...

[Nick]

"I got most of my money back from Videoguide, did you not send your's back?"

Uh, no I didn't. Makes a neato paperweight, tho. :)

[bhroam]

If the rumored-specs are correct, the 921 will work as an OTA HD-PVR... so even if dish drops all HD, it won't be a complete waste... either that or you can record the 300+ hours of SDTV =]

In any case, its a sweet device *drool* can't wait

To think that I'm living on 30 now with my 501... I guess it all depends though... my friend with his 721 has problems finding space =]

Bhroam

[Bill D]

I think both E and D, will have to start making HD more affordable, a friend of mine was just telling me he gets all NY locals in HD and HBO via Comcast.. I was shocked that they are already up and doing this. There is no way either has the bandwidth to offer any more then a national HD feed. Of course no PVR functionality on this system but still very impressive. But they also don't have to purchase any equipment