For the DBSTalk Users: Monday morning 942 news from the 942 team

[Mark Lamutt]

I was pleasantly surprised to find this in my inbox this morning, straight from the 942 hardware team leader for the benefit of you, the DBSTalk users:

The issue causing the right side video blocking and video smearing has finally been identified. The fix will require a thorough test period, which will begin this week.

We've been fighting this one for a long time, so it's good to hear that they've got it figured out now. Progress...

[lakebum431]

Good news indeed. I'm very excited about this fix. Let's hope it works!

[SteveinDanville]

This is obviously great news. Not to be seen as a whiner, I hope that this fix also fixes the L282 further PQ degradation where it's not just relegated to the right side of the screen. Much more widespread and imminently sensitive to motion. Please, oh, please let them both be related to each other and both get rectified!!!

[Mark Lamutt]

Steve - that's my understanding.

[Mike Johnson]

Great news, Mark! I'm glad a fix is on the way.

[cebbigh]

Great news. Was this something effecting most 942 users in an obvious way?

[lakebum431]

cebbigh -
It really was. It had gotten pretty bad. But it sounds like they have found the problem. Assuming this gets fixed, I have no problems that matter left.

[Gary Murrell]

Holy Shnikies!!

this would make the 942 perfect to me(well other then external drives :) ) , Thanks Dish, can't wait

-Gary

[NTIMID8]

Oh My,it would be nice for a change to get better rather than worse. Again a highend HD units should have pic/sound quality on the primary list, Not widgets and gadgets to be used by the minority of users. Hopefully they would get the lipsync in check as well.
Its sad when I have to fire up my old school 6k to enjoy quality tv. Dish customer support I think is still in shock when I did that.

Phil

[Mark Lamutt]

And here's another tidbit for you...so far it's looking pretty good...

[datwell]

Mark: And how is the external drive for the 942 looking?

--Doug

[Altaman]

Mark: And how is the external drive for the 942 looking?

--Doug

Ditto Q here...what you ppl get on the 942 can be expected on the 9200 in about 3 months.

Alt

[Mark Lamutt]

I can't comment yet on the external hard drive support. My guess, though, is that if and when it appears, it will be archival only, meaning that you won't be able to record to and playback from the external drive because of the bandwidth limitations of the USB2 port. But, that's just a guess. They may yet surprise me.

[Mike D-CO5]

IF you can't access the shows that are archived to the external hard drive , then how are you going to watch them? I mean , what good is the external hard drive if it isn't to make the hard bigger so you can record more shows?

[Mark Lamutt]

Still guessing here, but I would think it would be an interface like currently exists with the pocketdish transfer and the digital photo transfer. You transfer programs to the external drive, and when you want to watch them, you transfer them back.

But, like I said, this is purely guesswork on my part. I don't think the USB2 port will be fast enough to watch from and record to at the same time when we're talking about HD streams.

[srrobinson2]

Good news for folks with this problem. Fortunately, this one has not plagued me. I'm still dealing with audio drop outs 7-8 times per 60 minutes of recorded material. I'm ready to use a sledgehammer on mine! :mad:

[waltinvt]

Still guessing here, but I would think it would be an interface like currently exists with the pocketdish transfer and the digital photo transfer. You transfer programs to the external drive, and when you want to watch them, you transfer them back.

But, like I said, this is purely guesswork on my part. I don't think the USB2 port will be fast enough to watch from and record to at the same time when we're talking about HD streams.

Just to put this in prospective, roughly how long would it take to transfer a 2 hour HD program from an external HHD back to the 942 ? Seconds, minutes, 2 hours ?

I think to be useful any archiving system must be able to retrieve a program fairly quickly. Most people that do archive are used to being able to just grab a tape or disk off the shelf, pop it into a player and go. I'm not sure how many people would want to have to spend a half hour transfering something back to the 942 before they could watch it.

[LtMunst]

Just to put this in prospective, roughly how long would it take to transfer a 2 hour HD program from an external HHD back to the 942 ? Seconds, minutes, 2 hours ?

I think to be useful any archiving system must be able to retrieve a program fairly quickly. Most people that do archive are used to being able to just grab a tape or disk off the shelf, pop it into a player and go. I'm not sure how many people would want to have to spend a half hour transfering something back to the 942 before they could watch it.


Assuming the 942 could transfer at the full rated speed of USB 2.0, it should only take a couple of minutes to transfer a 2 hour HD movie.

[MichaelSargent]

But, like I said, this is purely guesswork on my part. I don't think the USB2 port will be fast enough to watch from and record to at the same time when we're talking about HD streams.
The 942 can store 25 hours of HD on a 250 GB hard disk, so 1 hour of HD takes 10 GB of storage. The 942 can record 2 HD broadcasts while playing back a third, so the maximum bandwidth needed is no less than 30 GB/hour.

USB 2.0 has a Hi-Speed transfer rate of 480 Mbits/sec. That's the same as 60 Mbytes/sec. Given that there are 3,600 seconds in an hour (60 seconds in 60 minutes), the total bandwidth is 216,000 MBytes/hour, or 210 GB/hour.

So, an external USB 2.0 hard drive should have more than enough bandwidth for a dual tuner 942 (about 7 times more).

Let me know if I screwed up my calculations.

Mike

[Altaman]

Well this does indeed open some questions/concerns on how Dish will implement the USB 2.0 port for external drives.

So for discussion SATA 1.0 has a max transfer rate of 150 MB/sec and USB 2.0 has a rate of 48 MB/Sec.


1) What is the speed that is needed to send HD to a HDD for real time recording to USB 2.0? I am no whiz at this but I can not see why USB 2.0 can not handle the needs of the 942.

2) Why could you not watch archived shows off the external USB drive, there does not seem to be any reason why not.

3) The idea of having to move shows back and forth is flawed, what happens if the internal drive is full, you can not transfer a show unless something is deleted.

4) As a side note, why not remove the limitation on the types of drives you can put into the 942. There are now 400 gig drives out there, so why not let the end user swap out the internal drive?

Alt

[LtMunst]

Looks like this thread went from a good news Bug Fix announcent to a general feature request discussion.

Going back to the original topic, Thanks for the update, Mark! The pixellation is the last remaining Big bug needing to be squashed. Looking forward to the next release.

[jcm.oo]

Basically if 1 hour or 10 gigs take less than an hour to transfer then you would be able to watch it off the external hard drive, if it takes longer to transfer 10 gigs through usb 2.0 then you would have to have at least a buffer (start transmitting the video but not playing it for say 5 minutes). I transfer large amounts of content to external USB 2.0 hard drives all the time, 10 gigs will not take longer than an hour. USB 2.0 most certainly can handle transferring the content live to the 942.

MichaelSargent - The math looks good to me.

[jcm.oo]

4) As a side note, why not remove the limitation on the types of drives you can put into the 942. There are now 400 gig drives out there, so why not let the end user swap out the internal drive?

Alt



I used to have an old dish player 7200, one of the webtv boxes. It came with a 20 gig hard drive, I took a 80 gig and threw it in there and it worked great. The receiver did, however, have to download the software through the 56k modem, took about 45 minutes.

[softwiz]

The 942 can store 25 hours of HD on a 250 GB hard disk, so 1 hour of HD takes 10 GB of storage. The 942 can record 2 HD broadcasts while playing back a third, so the maximum bandwidth needed is no less than 30 GB/hour.

USB 2.0 has a Hi-Speed transfer rate of 480 Mbits/sec. That's the same as 60 Mbytes/sec. Given that there are 3,600 seconds in an hour (60 seconds in 60 minutes), the total bandwidth is 216,000 MBytes/hour, or 210 GB/hour.

So, an external USB 2.0 hard drive should have more than enough bandwidth for a dual tuner 942 (about 7 times more).

Let me know if I screwed up my calculations.

Mike

You calculations are correct. I would add that USB 2.0 can transfer data faster than most SATA drives can store it. But most drives do 20-40 MBps... Way more than enough to handle everything the 942 can throw at it.

[jcm.oo]

SATA has not reached its limit yet. Anybody know if the 942 uses a SATA drive and who the manufacture of the drive is?

[CABill]

A 942 can be recording three different HD streams while watching an entirely different pair of streams (and downresing one of them for TV2). That's 5 HD streams to and from the HD (which is a SATA drive). Google sustained drive rates on USB 2.0.

Now, back to Monday morning news.

[Mark Lamutt]

Exactly. And, like I said, this was a guess on my part. Based on how long it takes to transfer programs to a pocketdish, I would estimate that it would take about 45 minutes to transfer a 1 hour HD program via the USB port to an external drive. This could probably be sped up a little bit, but you're talking about a 6th potential HD stream moving through the pipeline at the same time. 5 pushes the envelope very much...my guess is that 6 would break it.

[Altaman]

Exactly. And, like I said, this was a guess on my part.

Nobody is beating you up and you are just voicing your thoughts, but does open up an interesting debate.

The biggest problem I have with the archival & moving the files back and forth is not being able to play a program on the external drive. This would be completely counter productive not being able to do this.

45 minutes to transfer a 1 hour HD program via the USB port to an external drive

Seems a bit high to me, in theory SATA is 3x faster than USB 2.0 and the 942 can record/play 5 streams at a time via sata and I would venture that is not pushing SATA to it's max. I therefore can not see why USB 2. could not handle at least 2 streams possibly even record two, watch one which is what the average user would be doing (I think there is a really small percentile that records OTA).

With proper coding, Dish could program so if you are recording 1 program, it goes to the external drive or the drive with the most available capacity, if two or more one external, the rest internal. It just takes some thought on Dish's part, but they should look at it in a way that increases their CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index).

but you're talking about a 6th potential HD stream moving through the pipeline

No 6th stream, the 942 is still limited to record/play a max of 5 streams no matter where it is going and I think that for most people the max is 3 streams.

The real answer would have been for Dish to have put in a second SATA port in the 942 as the chipset does support 2 sata channels. But it is too late for that! If the 942's Usb can not handle recording/playback via USB then I think that the real answer is to take away the the current limitation Dish has built into the 942 that makes it so the 942 can only use specific drives. Quit trying to hinder the user, look at it from what would increase the CSI.

Alt

[zephyr]

(I think there is a really small percentile that records OTA).

Alt
I record more OTA than Sat. I think there are many of us that use the OTA recording for HD time shifting (and many of us who wish there were 2 OTA tuners).

So it's back to 5 streams. Seems like the software could control/limit the number of data streams, as you note.

Given the number of posts on OTA reception and recording issues, I think there are a lot of us out there in this small percentile. :)

For shows of enduring content, like many from PBS, external archiving would be very nice to have indeed. Even better than hard drive would be DVHS or HD-DVD!

[lakebum431]

I also record OTA more than satellite.

[Altaman]

Well even if you record OTA, there is no logical reason for Dish to not allow the recording to an external drive. The only reason for it would be they do not have the will or programming ability to make it work. I think it is more the case that it is much easier for them to program it like the pocket dish than to give the user real external functionality...it could be that their programmers don't have the knowledge to do it :rolleyes:

Alt

[Mark Lamutt]

Seems a bit high to me, in theory SATA is 3x faster than USB 2.0 and the 942 can record/play 5 streams at a time via sata and I would venture that is not pushing SATA to it's max. I therefore can not see why USB 2. could not handle at least 2 streams possibly even record two, watch one which is what the average user would be doing (I think there is a really small percentile that records OTA).

With proper coding, Dish could program so if you are recording 1 program, it goes to the external drive or the drive with the most available capacity, if two or more one external, the rest internal. It just takes some thought on Dish's part, but they should look at it in a way that increases their CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index).

No 6th stream, the 942 is still limited to record/play a max of 5 streams no matter where it is going and I think that for most people the max is 3 streams.

Alt

I'm starting to get out of my technical depth here, but I think the bottleneck would be in the system pipeline, not in the transfer to the drive. Which brings the 6th HD stream into play - it's not being recorded or played back, but it is being moved through the pipeline from the internal drive to the external drive.

[Ron Barry]

Well even if you record OTA, there is no logical reason for Dish to not allow the recording to an external drive. The only reason for it would be they do not have the will or programming ability to make it work. I think it is more the case that it is much easier for them to program it like the pocket dish than to give the user real external functionality...it could be that their programmers don't have the knowledge to do it :rolleyes:

Alt

Have to disagree Alt.

There might not be a logical reasons as you see it, but there could be technical reasons why this is not possible. Might even have business reasons, but I am not sure what they would be.

In my opinion unless you are familar with the hardware and software and its limitations, I would not make the above statements. Lot easer on the outside looking in to make the above statements but personally I see a number of potential bottle necks with 6 HD streams. I was actually surprised when they were doing 5.

Oh... and far as OTA recording. 90% of my DVR recordings are OTA right now. I am not a VOOM Customer yet.

[Altaman]

Hello Barry:

Actually I stand by what I said. If you take a look at the specs of the chips you would see that the capability is built into the hardware, Dish just has to be able to program it properly.

Here are some snipets and a link to the specs on the BCM7038 (http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/pb/7038-PB01-R.pdf) which is the main Broadcom chip in the 942, the other chips are the BCM4500 (http://www.broadcom.com/products/Satellite/HDTV-SDTV-Video,-Graphics-%26-Receiver-Chips/BCM4500) and the BCM3520 (http://www.broadcom.com/products/Satellite/Digital-TV/BCM3520)!

Now in looking at the specs of the BCM7038:
The BCM7038 supports up to three simutaneous records and playbacks of digital video

Advanced connectivity features include two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 1.1 port, dual serial ATA ports, Ethernet port with MAC and PHY.

The 942 hardly touches what the hardware can do as the BCM7038 can have 3 records & plays at the same time. Dish did not add the second SATA port nor ethernet, nor the USB 1.1 port. The 942 is definately capable of alot more than Dish is allowing it to do, so I stick with my statements concerning Dish and what they could do with respect to the recording/playback of the unit.

Alt

[Ron Barry]

Alt,

In my opinion, it is not about what one chip can be do. I am sure you are aware that the 942 is not just one chip. It is a system of many chips and along with it a number of potential bottle necks along the way. Maybe the BCM7038 can pump that level of data through it, but there may be some other limitations that prevent 6 streams. I never stated the chip could not do it. All I stated that it is possible that the 942 as a system cannot. Since I am not part of the development team I really cant say if it is technically feasible. And if it is technically feasible, is it feasible given current software architecture. It is very possible it 6 streams was not on the road map and therefore not designed into the product.

As a Engineer, I have seen all too many times teams with the companies I have work with that outside teams feel that X and Y is supportable and do not believe the engineering team assigned to the project that the feature cannot be implemented. Usually after hours of discussion they outside looking in team still does not believe the people close to the work. On a number of occassion I have seen teams try to prove the orginally team wrong only to either do one of three things...

1) Change the orginally requirements so as not to be proven wrong. Descope
2) Add the feature only to find it does not behave reliable. Claim victory only to have the feature never work correctly during the life of the product.
3) Successfully prove the orginal team wrong.

In my experience 3 seldom happens. I have sat in numerious meetings where engineers without experience with the code or architecture make these types of arguments. A majority of Engineers tend to oversimplify the work they are not doing. Also a majority of engineers thing ever other engineers stuff sucks. Well that has been my experience anyway.

You might be correct Alt.. The 942 may be able to do it, but then again if 6 streams were possible on a DVR why is there not one doing it today in the consumer space? When I heard the 942 could do 5 HD streams I was surprised... My point is that it is a lot easier and very common here to make the assertion you made above. You may be correct, but personally I give the benefit of the doubt to the person in the trenches. Theoritically it might be acheivable, but the person dealing with it on a daily basis from a development standpoint really knows if it can be. Engineers love pushing the envelope so I doubt it is a lack of motivation and I don't think it is a lack of knowledge.

Nothing wrong with agreeing to disagree....

[jsanders]

Hey WeeJavaDude, a.k.a. Ron Barry,

We've had disagreements like this before with the 921, and I respect that you disagreed with me because you had a constructive counter arguement.

However, in this situation, I completely agree with you.

I would never be so confident about performance when coming this close to the envelope!

Six streams may work in a controlled environment, but what about the practical environment? What happens when the disk drive is highly fragmented? Maybe they don't have a 6th controller on the mother board for the 6th stream to write directly to the hard drive which would require the processor to read the stream, then write it to the disk which would load things down too much.

It is also possible that a 6th stream isn't even necessary. We've had some statements that aren't that well thought out. For instance, someone posted that with the USB2 could transfer a 2 hour show in a few minutes. First off, 2 hours is 20GB, and it will take more than a couple of minutes. Second, if it can transfer the file faster than "real time", why do you need to do a transfer in the first place? If you are talking about the transfer concept at all, then it is assumed that the port doesn't have enough bandwidth to do it real time. If that is the case, it should take longer than it would to record the show. A 2 hour show takes longer than two hours to copy if there is not enough bandwidth to just record it to the external hard drive. Who is going to wait for that?? If it takes less than two hours, if it takes a couple of minutes, to transfer a program to the main hard drive, then there is plenty of bandwidth to just record the stream directly to the external hard drive. If there is enough bandwidth to do that, then why do you need a 6th stream to copy a program? Why not just record it directly to the external drive, then play back from that same drive?? If there isn't enough bandwidth, and you need to copy, who is going to buy something that will take over two hours to copy a movie, then more than two hours to copy it back so that they can watch it? They could call it video with a few hours of delay on demand! Seems to me that it will work well or it won't be a product.

[LtMunst]

We've had some statements that aren't that well thought out. For instance, someone posted that with the USB2 could transfer a 2 hour show in a few minutes. First off, 2 hours is 20GB, and it will take more than a couple of minutes.

USB 2.0 is rated at 480mbs (60Megabytes). That would be 5 1/2 minutes for a full 2 hour HD movie. Maybe a little more than a couple of minutes, but certainly not hours. And again, I did say that was assuming the 942 could transfer at full USB 2.0 speed. That may not be the case.

[jsanders]

USB 2.0 is rated at 480mbs (60Megabytes). That would be 5 1/2 minutes for a full 2 hour HD movie. Maybe a little more than a couple of minutes, but certainly not hours. And again, I did say that was assuming the 942 could transfer at full USB 2.0 speed. That may not be the case.


USB2.0 is fast, but it is highly doubtful you will get that kind of throughput from it. Regardless, I think we can agree that it isn't the bottleneck, right? :) Thanks for the numbers that support my point.

[boody]

Hijacked thread! D'oh!

[RBenson]

And here's another tidbit for you...so far it's looking pretty good...



Pretty quiet around here.. Anything new?

[kspeters]

I think they forgot what they were talking about.