Oldest box Dish made?

[Hopper27]

Just wondering what the oldest box Dish made was.

My first Dish box was the 4000 which I had for a few years way back when. Then I moved and dropped Dish service for awhile.

Then I resigned up with the 501/301 box combo which is what I have today.

All I remember from the 4000 days was the guide was slow, pressing info took awhile to get anything to come up, and it didn't have transparent menus for awhile

It was however, better than cable. :)

So, was the 4000 box the first Dish made, or was there something older?

Jason

[Steve Mehs]

Either the 1000 or 2000. I think the 2000 was the first receiver, but the 1000 was the most basic.

[Hopper27]

Does anyone still use those old 1000/2000 boxes?

I ask mostly because I'm curious to know if Dish plans to support the old stuff forever, or if there will come a time when they say, "enough", time to upgrade.

Jason

[Tomsoundman]

my boss has the 4000

[raj2001]

If you're talking about the oldest boxes that Echostar made/branded, remember they made C-Band systems way before Charlie started DISH network.

[Hopper27]

No, I don't mean C-Band stuff. I'm aware they existed and such, but I just mean the pizza dish systems. :)

Funny, I remember back in the day when they had the Dish Top 40 and then I think the Dish Top 50. It was $19.99 I think for the 40 and $23.99 for the 50. I could be wrong, that was a long time ago.

Jason

[boba]

Yes it was a long time ago, 7 years this month. Dish started broadcasting in March 1996 the model 2000 was the first receiver it could be ordered with either a single or dual LNBF. The 2000 was a UHF only receiver and there are still a few being used.

[Hopper27]

7 years this month? Wow, how cool is that! :)

I must have been one of the early buyers then, cause I think it was around 97/98 when I signed up.

My old 4000 box actually said, "HTS" on the front which I think stood for Houston Tracker System, or something like that.

It came with the first year of programming included, it was like $450 or so including installation and the programming.

Will Dish always support the 1000/2000/3000/4000 series of boxes?

Jason

[Chris Freeland]

Originally posted by boba
Yes it was a long time ago, 7 years this month. Dish started broadcasting in March 1996 the model 2000 was the first receiver it could be ordered with either a single or dual LNBF. The 2000 was a UHF only receiver and there are still a few being used.

Yes, I am one of the old timers, I got my 2000 system with a single LNB and UHF remote back in April of 1996. I still own the 2000, since I purchased my original equipment I have done a Dish 500 upgrade, added a duel LNB and a 2nd receiver (2700/2800).

When I first got my system, AT40 was $19.99, Dish Picks (pick any 10 channels from AT40 except Disney) for $10, PT East or West $3.99 or both East and West $5.99 and Premium movie services $10 each (5 HBO's or 3 Cinamax's, or 3 Showtimes, or 2 TMC's). Just a few months latter AT50CD (ancestor to todays AT100CD) became available for $24.99. :)

[Richard King]

My old 4000 box actually said, "HTS" on the front which I think stood for Houston Tracker System, or something like that.

It came with the first year of programming included, it was like $450 or so including installation and the programming.You have your history correct. The original HTS boxes were all sold with prepaid programming. Other boxes did not contain any programming, but required a 12 month commitment if I recall correctly. This was very hard on dealers who had to inventory the different "styles" of boxes.

[MikeW]

I've still got a 1000 as my bedroom receiver. Don't see any reason why it couldn't continue to be supported.

[gpflepsen]

I've got a 3000 and 4000 from about 1998, plus a recent addition of a 6000.

[Steve Mehs]

Yes it was a long time ago, 7 years this month.

Now your remind me :D Earlier this week I was thinking about posting a happy birthday Dish Network thread, but forgot all about it. March 4, 1996 is the birthdate of Dish Network. Happy belated Birthday :D I still remember watching the March Charlie Chat back in '99 when at the end of the show they brought out the cake. Anyone remember the Birthday Bear :)

[Hopper27]

Originally posted by MikeW
I've still got a 1000 as my bedroom receiver. Don't see any reason why it couldn't continue to be supported.
I would think that at some point, they will add so many channels and so many sats that the older boxes run out of memory or CPU power to process it all.

In addition, the cost to continue to update and "patch" the software that comes in the older boxes must also be a drain.

Just a thought anyway...

Jason

[Crazy 1]

I have an old 4000 that I got back in 1996 it died in Oct. 2001 and like Hopper27 said, the guide was getting pretty slow due to lack of memory. My father-in-law had a 3000 until Jan.2003 and it also had memory issues, Dish even took out the signal meter to allow more space for memory on the 3000, it was getting really slow.

[Hopper27]

Dish had to take the signal meter out of the 3000 to make it work?

Sheesh, that box must really have been memory starved!

Does anyone know how much memory was in all the boxes Dish made? It would be interesting to see the memory and CPU power in each box, just to see the trend.

Jason

[MikeW]

They could add as many sats as they wish, I only need 110/119. I have a SW21 and old dish. I was able to see three sats on the 1000. I don't think channel additions will be a problem. I had guide problems like everybody else (Info Not Available), but that seems to have gotten MUCH BETTER over the last few weeks.

My 508, OTOH, is a different story.

[Hopper27]

What's wrong with the 508?

Re: the guide, I've read on the forum that they compressed the guide which was supposed to fix that.

I've been using a 501 for so long, I am starting to forget what it was like waiting for the guide! :D

Jason

[Randy_B]

I was one of the original 2000 buyers also, we paid a pretty penny for that thing as well. It was replaced by the 3000 and when the VCR control software was added, it became a 3200. The 1000 actually came along later.

[Kerry High]

Originally posted by Rking401
You have your history correct. The original HTS boxes were all sold with prepaid programming. Other boxes did not contain any programming, but required a 12 month commitment if I recall correctly. This was very hard on dealers who had to inventory the different "styles" of boxes.

Not initally. The HTS 2000 I got in April 1996 didn't have any pre-paid programming. I believe that the prepaid programming with the HTS started later that year.

Also, back then, the 2nd reciever fee was $1.99, and PPV wasn't even on the air yet, just 6 channels of "Dish-On-Demand Coming Soon." Also, it had a bug where channels would say Info Not Available, and the channel would be viewable, even without a subscription.

[Hopper27]

Ahh yes, I remember the $1.99 fee now for the extra box.

What happened to THAT? :D

Jason

[Crazy 1]

:lol: Inflation, a sign of the times

[Lori H]

Hi, I was just visiting and discovered this thread. Hard to believe it has been 7 years. I signed on the first year. A week ago I replaced both my 3200's for a 721 and 301. Things had gotten so slow with the old receivers otherwise they are still working. Also finally got around to adding the Dish 500 at the same time.

[Marcus S]

Blonder Tongue was E*'s 1st receiver. It was dual C / Ku Band. Designed to allow people to sub to both and decide if digital was worth the switch. EPG compression is not the biggest problem, it is E*'s current algorithm to prioritize 3 hours of EPG summary info vs info detail. It used to be 3 hr summary #1, 3 hr detail #2, 6+ summary #3, 6+ detail #4 and summary only, 9+ hours. Then E* got stupid and released a new algorithm that figured you would want summary and detail on the 6+/6- channels around the channel you where currently watching (cable mentality) thus starving any summary or detail info if you jumped 10 channels +/-. I explained this to E* lead engineer years ago and was told it was not worth fixing. He is now gone and know one else appears to have figured this out. "Gee we implemented EPG compression and yet people are still complaining about Info not Available in the 3h summary." Humm...

[Sparkman87]

I have a 1000 box, 2 4000 & a newly purchased 6000. All still working fine. Don't ever really use the guide, so the fact that it is so slow isn't a big deal.

[MrAkai]

Blonder Tongue is a third-party box though, isn't it, since Blonder Tongue is it's own company.
(http://www.blondertongue.com/) right?

[Marcus S]

Yes. Manuf of BT1 less than 6mo, not many sold. 2000 came out Mar 96 if I recall and was manuf by JVC for E*.

[Richard King]

The 2000 was manufactured by a large contract assembly company who's name escapes me at the moment (they have since merged with another large contract assembly company). I don't think JVC actually made any boxes (although they had their name stamped on a few) other than the D-VHS box. Blonder Tongue is a professional equipment supplier and I don't believe they ever made any Dish boxes for the consumber market (although they did make a few for the professional head end market. See page C1-5 http://www.blondertongue.com/media/pdfs/catalog2002/btHeadend_2002.pdf

[Marcus S]

BT only makes prefessional head end receivers designed for mutl-distribution today. Keep in mind however. how expensive C-Band receivers cost at one time. I don't believe the industry really thought there would be home applications. It's simply a legacy today. It is hard to remember that far back on the 2000, I skipped that generation and become a full DBS adopter when the 4000 shipped. I just remember reading something in the Denver Post years ago that E* & JVC had a joint partnership with producing the 2000 and E* was building a technology / R&D division @ Inverness to build next generation receiver models. I believe most of the general assembly is now performed out of the country.

[Richard King]

I wish I could recall the name of the company that assembles the receivers for Dish, but I think that brain cell has died a while back. The spectrum analyzer that I use for installations is a Blonder Tongue.

[garye]

Originally posted by Rking401
I wish I could recall the name of the company that assembles the receivers for Dish, but I think that brain cell has died a while back. The spectrum analyzer that I use for installations is a Blonder Tongue.

Both SCI Systems and V-Tech manufactured receivers for Echostar. You might have been thinking of one of them...

[Richard King]

SCI Systems You just woke up that dead brain cell. That's the one I was trying to think of. I believe they have since merged with another company and are still the largest builder of Dish boxes.

[Marcus S]

That rings a bell as well I believe it is now Sanmina-SCI and E*'s prefered builder of Open TV capable receivers today. All other legacy receivers "non-open TV capable" but excluding the 2000 where built by several other out sourced partnerships as Charlie was trying to find the least expensive manuf.

If you recall E*was forced the consolidate down to 1 or 2 manuf's because of high batch failure rates coming out of specific manuf / locations. Now that mouthfull said, I am not sure Sanmina-SCI will be the manuf of the PVR921 though they do manuf the PVR501/508/721.