Whats the latest rumor with the MPEG4 HD Reciever?

[musicmaker2020]

Hey all.... I heard rumblings a while back about the 962 box. Any new updates?

[Bill R]

Last time I asked someone I know at DISH I was told that "something" might be announced in November. I believe that there is a Tech forum in November (or is it a Charlie Chat?). Maybe we will hear something then.

[hdaddikt]

Something to consider, and I know others will correct me if I am wrong. In the simplest terms, the main purpose of mpeg4 is more compression so we can have more channels (like HD locals) with no drop in quality. That also means all broadcasters on board with the same technology.

In otherwords, even if they had mpeg4 capable receivers today, does it really matter? And I say, not for a while.

[Mikey]

Something to consider, and I know others will correct me if I am wrong. In the simplest terms, the main purpose of mpeg4 is more compression so we can have more channels (like HD locals) with no drop in quality. That also means all broadcasters on board with the same technology.

In otherwords, even if they had mpeg4 capable receivers today, does it really matter? And I say, not for a while.Negative. It's the DBS service that introduces the compression. Broadcasters have nothing to do with it.

[dwcobb]

I am hopeful, because my 921 stinks and I don't want to wait a year for a replacement.

But another part of me says Dish will not want to announce any new DVR based box until AFTER the Tivo suit is done. They may want to do business as usual, but I am betting on yet another chat with no info about the 962. Just more "exciting things coming soon...surely we will tell you about it next time, right?"

Eventually I will have to make a hard choice I think. If DirectTV hits the market with MPEG4 much sooner than Dish, I will be strongly incented to switch back to them. I have to reset my 921 at least 3x a week lately, and I am kind of fed up with it. Actually, to be factual, I reset it 3x just yesterday, and then had to rescan my locals (again). And that wasn't all that unusual.

But..I will wait a bit longer. I wouldn't bet on any news in November though. People have quoted the "next time" style comments often on this board and others, and nothing comes of it. I would be surprised if this time were different with the Tivo case going on but we will see. I hope I am wrong.

[CCarncross]

The last news I heard was some impatient soul asks about it almost every day by starting a new post instead of just reading the info that is already here. When there is news it will be posted here very quickly, I'm sure noone doubts that...

[SimpleSimon]

... In otherwords, even if they had mpeg4 capable receivers today, does it really matter? And I say, not for a while.You've got it backwards. You need the boxes in the field before you can really start chewing up bandwidth for MPEG-4 transmissions.

[DRJDAN]

My guess it that Dish will implement MPEG4 the same way that Direct TV is doing it--one city at at time. They need to get the local HD signals into the local markets to be comptetive with cable. There are not that many extra national HD channels to add at this time.

Currentl Dish approach of telling people to use an antenna to get local HD is very counter to their approach of the past. A lot of their customers took down antennas as they converted to sat.

[James Long]

Currently Dish approach of telling people to use an antenna to get local HD is very counter to their approach of the past. A lot of their customers took down antennas as they converted to sat.Voom DBS changed that approach, installing quality OTA antennas as part of their setups. Until all the markets are uplinked it is a fairly good plan. The main issue being with stations where the digital signal doesn't cover the entire DMA. But the bonus is that customers instantly get any station their antenna can receive.

JL

[DRJDAN]

I agree. I have no problem with using OTA for locals. I do wish the 942 had two OTA tuners. When I said their prior approach, I was referring to the days before digital OTA signals.