544 & rumors

[Bob Haller]

Hey heres a nice rumor. In perhaps a year a 544. A 4 receiver server! Modulated outputs of 4 seperate PVR decoders for a whole house operation. Rumor futher says NO mirror fee since it will have just a single smart card.

Of course receivers like this MUST be highly reliable. One could have all tv viewing down if it failed.:(

522 release date looks like late 1st quarter to mid 2nd Appears no mirror fee either just like the 721:)

The end of mirror fees will really make DBS competive with cable!YEA!:rolleyes:

[bogi]

1 smart card for the whole house?? Pirates dreams... LOL

[Bob Haller]

Hey perhaps a NEW much more pirate proof model?

[Scott Greczkowski]

I have seen that the new yellow cards being shipped with 301's has already been hacked :(

That didn't take long.

[Curtis0620]

Probably cost $1,000.

[Darkman]

yellow card? - what is that..maybe yellow is only new look or something....

I know of Green card...but not the yellow card :)

[Chris Freeland]

Bob, have you herd anything about cost for new 522 and possibly 544 receivers.

[David_Levin]

If they are that concerned about multi box access fees they could just remove the ones they all ready have. Does it actually cost them money to stream to multiple cards?

There will be some picture quality loss due to use of composite video and no Dolby Digital on the extension sets.

[Bob Haller]

Sorry no pricing info...

[Jacob S]

I read somewhere else on here that they did not change much on the new card compared to the old card. There could still be some surprises to the hackers though in which Dish could bring forth in encrypting their card that the hackers do not know about, maybe more power for Dish to stop it.

[MrAkai]

the 522/544 models are excelent for getting joe sixpack and his parents on Dish :)

Imagine the turn-around ads "Your Digital Cable requres a box for each TV, but with the new PVR544 from Dish Network you can have 4 TVs with Digital service, live TV Pause, and more!"

For those of us who think S-Video is a compromise, it is not designed :)

[DmitriA]

Yeah. Until of course Joe realizes that the 4 TVs will be all be tuned to the same channel

[scooper]

You're not reading this right - 4 Tuners + 4 outputs in 1 box ! - This would be a cable killer.

[DmitriA]

Are you serious??? Is that really what it does?

Never mind. Didn't see the '4 PVR decoders' thing... Wow that's really cool, but if the 721 costs almost $600, I don't even want to think about how much 544 is gonna cost

[Bob Haller]

I suspect and hope there not that expensive. The 721 price will likely drop some in the near future. One of its advantages was no PVR fee and now that D cut theirs substanyially I am looking for Charlie to drop the price. Once its no longer in short supply.

[Richssat]

Interesting concept, having a central server for satellite. The only problem I could see is trying to wire one of these. As near as I can tell. 4 lines from dish to 544. 3 lines going back out to 3 other tv locations for a total of 7 lines going in and out of a wall. Should be fun to explain to customers that you have to blow a 2in hole in their wall and run 7 lines all over the side of the house.

Could be good for newer prewired houses tho. Run lines to cable demark (usually in garage out here). Put 544 on shelf in garage, hook prewire feeds into 544 and viola, a 4 tv install.

Neat.

RR

[Bob Haller]

Put server in basement. Probably possible to support DD and other stuff by multiplexing on cable. Why have 7 cable runs? One cable with 4 modulated channels acting as a mini cable head end feeding the existing RG59 leftover from cable tv. Nice easy install.

The only downside, a failure that takes out the entire box wipes out tv watching for a entire family. No moving receivers around.

[Mike123abc]

It would make more sense if the box broadcast UHF stations. That way you could put the box near the satellite dishes and you tune your TV to an UHF station to pick up the signal. It would be like a mini cable system.

The UHF solution could be used 2 ways... each person in the house could have their own channel if you have a ton of TVs, or if you just have a few TVs each TV could be tuned to a different station.

Another advantage is that if you have PIP on your TV you could get it to work. If you want to whine about not having SVHS connectors on each TV, this is not the box for you. But, if you just want to hook up a bunch of "other" televisions around the house it would be ideal. Put an HDTV receiver at the home theater big screen, and one of these for the bedroom TVs.

[johnsmith22]

If the switch is built into the receiver using Dishpro you could get away with two cables from the Dish to the central server.

Taking it to the extreeme, why not have a little slave box at each TV connected by Category 5 Ethernet cable to the main server box, then each slave box could receive a digital signal for the channel to be watched and output S video and Dolby sound to the TV. This box could also receive commands from an infrared remote and send them back to the server box over the Ethernet cable.

[Chris Freeland]

The way I would set it up at my house with 3-tv's and 1 VCR would be to locate the PVR544 in my entertainment cabinet and de-activate my old 2000 and 2700. I would only need S-Video and stereo audio on my main 27" Toshiba and A/V cables connected to VCR, two RF's would run to my daughters bedroom 13"tv and to my wife and I's bedroom 25"tv (do not have or need S-Video or stereo sound in these rooms). The 4th tuner would be used for recording one live program while watching three live programs or many different combinations that this system would allow, what potential flexibility WOW!!! This could be a cable killer. Unfortunately it will likely be too expensive for my blood, my guess is that the 721 will come down in price and the 544 will run about the same price that the 721 runs now. Bob, how big of a hard drive is the 544 going to have?

[Scott Greczkowski]

I wonder if the box will have Moxie? (Anyone remember them?)

[Dmitriy]

I think this is what you are talking about http://digeo.com/prodserv/mediacenter_multipletv.jsp?r=mc1

[Bob Haller]

Dont know the HD size, likely its not decided but it will be hugh, capable of recording 4 programs at once. This box and lack of mirror fee will overcome the big complaint. Cable lets us watch as many as we want and satellite doesnt:(

[Richard King]

Moxie has a rather interesting history. Steve Perlman (of WebTv fame) started the company and Echostar was an original investor. The first Moxie box was to be produced for Echostar. Moxie ran into problems and was sold to Digeo, which is majority owned by Paul Allen, also the majority shareholder of Charter Communications. The Chairman/CEO of Charter is Carl Vogel, former presdent of Dish Network. Carl used to be a fixture on the very earliest Dealer Chats and was known. In any case, I doubt that you will see a Moxie box for Dish Network for some time.

[xxxx]

Originally posted by Rking401
The first Moxie box was to be produced for Echostar. Moxie ran into problems and was sold to Digeo, which is majority owned by Paul Allen, also the majority shareholder of Charter Communications. In any case, I doubt that you will see a Moxie box for Dish Network for some time.

Methinks that you are correct as Paul Allen is a cable guy. He is working with Motorola. Here are there 1st 2 cable "media centers"
http://www.digeo.com/prodserv/motorola.jsp

These won't even be released to Motorola's DCII satellite customers. Motorola and Star Choice have developed a dual HD tuner/PVR now in beta testing. But it won't be released until fall 2003 (after Anik F2 is operational) when SC adds more transponders.

[cws80us]

Enough with the PVRs!!! I think E* is trying to see just how many variations of a PVR they can come up with. Let's see, we figured out how to make a PVR (501), now let's put a bigger hard drive in it (508), then put an extra tuner in it (522), heck, we mine as well put 3 extra tuners it (544)!!! Not to mention the Dishplayer, the 721, and the forthcoming 921 and 9000. That's 8 PVR receivers either already on the market or in the pipeline.

Really, how big of a market do they think they'll be for a 4 tuner receiver? Instead of wasting time and resources on crap like this, how about some new non-PVR receivers? Maybe a new non-PVR HD receiver?

And why can E* afford to let us have a single receiver supplying four different signals to four different TVs for no extra charge, but must charge us $15 extra if we have four separate receivers? It just shows what a crock the extra receiver fee is.

[sorahl]

Actually I think there would be a good market for a 4 tuner reciever. The big argument, as prevously noted in this discussion, is the problem with having to have a reciever per program. I think of just in my situation right now I share a reciever between our master bedroom and my office, and another reciever downstairs. If I could put down a one time fee for equipment and drop my bill by $5 a month for the second reciever that would please my wife. Add on top of that regaining with ease the PIP functionality in my tv downstairs, plus different feeds to the master bedroom and my office. Real bonus....
Right now I do have PIP but it is because I ran another RG9 cable from the MB through the attic, down the chase, across the basement and up inside the wall to plug in to the tv down there. All I have to do is bring a remote downstairs when we want to use it. this is an ok situation but.. one reciever in the basement with the outputs going out to any room I want from there, an excellent situation.
NOW the only additional feature I want is what you get with the sonicblue equipment....

Just my 15 cents worth! :)

John

[Bob Haller]

Well I think the day of the NON PVR receiver is quickly coming to a end. Does ANYONE know ANYONE who had PVR and went back?:)

With VOD, bigger guides and everythiung I think NON PVR receivers are dead. Higher end customers once they see the features will stick with PVRs.

The extra receiver fees are clearly flood control for folks sharing services.

Dish could easily sell subs PVRs that are sold at lower prices, come with VOD and get a montth of PVR for FREE.

After the month how any wouldnt for over a $100 for lifetime PVR?

PVR subs are dishes BEST customers, chrn is very low. Thats why nearly all new receivers will have hard drives.

[Geronimo]

I a m not trying to be sarcastic but I know DP owners who gave up and went back.

PVRs are great when they work but when they don't they can be maddening. The DP in particular has a troubled record. If you aren't technically literate it can be frustrating and even when you have at least a passing acquaintance with the technology as I do you start to wonder about the wisdom of your purchase when it does some of the weird things that mine has done periodically (see my recent thread and a few others).

[Mike123abc]

The tune time on a regular settop box is annoying at 1-2 seconds per tune. Having to go to 5-10 because of it being a PVR is annoying enough to make me not to want to own one. Of course there is no reason to have such a long tune time on Dish PVRs, it is just poor programming/cheap hardware.

[Chris Freeland]

I believe that their will be a basic non pvr receiver in the lineup as well for the non techno croud and people who want to get satellite for the cheapest possible price, however any receiver above the most basic inbtroduced in the future including HD will have pvr capabilities. I also beleive pvr receivers will come down in price to the point that their will likely be only a $50 or less price difference between basic non pvr receiver and lowest tier single tuner pvr models. I also believe all receivers, both pvr and non-pvr, in the future will be available with at a choice of 1 or 2 tuners in non pvr receivers and a choice of 1,2 or 4 tuner pvr models, this will allow for maximum flexibility. Bob is right, the extra charge for extra boxes is for security reasons, a problem that will not exist when there is 1-4 tuners in a single box sharing a single ces card. PVR and multi-tuner receivers are the wave of the future and will help dbs stay competitive with digital cable and its VOD and SVOD options.

[JBKing]

5-10 seconds channel change?! :eek2:

Are there any PVR's that slow? MY DP's take maybe 2-3 seconds.

[Bob Haller]

Mine arent thatt longf either, just a second or two.

Guide management and VOD will be dramatically helped by receivers with HD. The non HD receivers days are numbered.

[Bill D]

A 544 would be very cool, I think even the 522 should be very popular depending on price but...
The 544 would probably cost close to a grand and we wouldn't see for another 2 years at the earliest. They were so behind on the 721, about 8 months later then originally reported. The 721 still has a decent amount of annoying bugs that in 4 months they haven't fixed much. Add in the promise of internet capability, the 721 should keep software engineers busy for atleast another year fixing problems and adding features. Then they will have to start dealing with 522 problems.
I love the 721, but they either need more software engineers or some that work more quickly and get things correct the first time before they start talking about all of this new technology.

[cws80us]

E*'s R&D cycles are so slow it's pathetic. Charlie obviously realizes this because on the last chat he took a pretty big dig at one of his engineers. The engineer said that slow motion and frame advance would be available on the 501 and 508 by Christmas. Charlie said will if the engineers say it will be done by December, that really means April or May of next year. My question about this is, if he knows there's a problem, then why doesn't he do something about it? Hire more/better engineers or contract out some of the work or something. Hardware is one of the areas where E* really lags IMHO.

[Richard King]

I think he was joking. He does this every time they give him a date on a chat. It's a normal routine.

[lee635]

How about the commercial applications for this server. For a hotel or apartment complex, instead of buying 20 standalone receivers, you could install 5 of these puppies.

I wonder how versatile the outputs will be, like will the units only output on a few VHF channels, or can you select from vhf and cable or uhf channels for outputs? It would seem with the problem of local channel interference that these units would need a robust output capability. And if the output capapbility is robust, commercial applications would avoid expensive conversion equipment to get the output from the receiver onto the appropriate channel for distribution. For commercial applications, this product may "have legs".

Different subject: to change any of the four channels, would you be provided with 4 uhf remotes that operate on unique frequencies? Is that how you avoid a slave box on top of each tv?

[zimm0who0net]

Originally posted by lee635
How about the commercial applications for this server. For a hotel or apartment complex, instead of buying 20 standalone receivers, you could install 5 of these puppies. 

Echostar already has such a system for commercial applications.  Check out http://commercial.dishnetwork.com

 

[Karl Foster]

Will it have four separate hard drives? How will a single HD handle running four programs at once?

[Rick_EE]

Hard drives are much faster than the bitstream. You can also do some memory cacheing to make up any difference.

[pschuckert]

Originally posted by Scott Greczkowski
I have seen that the new yellow cards being shipped with 301's has already been hacked :(

That didn't take long.

That is because the yellow cards are not "new" cards. Just Rom10 with a fix in the ATR reporting.

[cws80us]

Originally posted by Rking401

I think he was joking. He does this every time they give him a date on a chat. It's a normal routine.



It's not joking if it's the truth. E*'s engineers have consistently been 5 to 6 months (or more) late in delivering new hardward and/or software upgrades. The 721 for instance was close to 18 months late. The 921 has already been pushed back several times and still has no solid release date. I don't know when these guys will learn to quit giving out dates that they know they can't meet.

[EvanS]

Originally posted by Rick Densing
Hard drives are much faster than the bitstream. You can also do some memory cacheing to make up any difference.

very true - but the more cacheing you do will also increase the time it takes to change channels...correct? :shrug:

[pschuckert]

Originally posted by cws80us




It's not joking if it's the truth. E*'s engineers have consistently been 5 to 6 months (or more) late in delivering new hardward and/or software upgrades. The 721 for instance was close to 18 months late. The 921 has already been pushed back several times and still has no solid release date. I don't know when these guys will learn to quit giving out dates that they know they can't meet.


My mom has a saying that is fitting for the Echo engineers:
Excuses are like @$$holes. Everyone has one.

That being said...there is no reason that E* can't get out a product on time. Either the engineers need to get their act together, so when the engineers give a release date someone in the office should add 9 to 12 months to that date.

[J. Allen Head]

You could have 4 UHF remotes with seperate addresses - one address on each remote for each tuner -

or make them addressable as most are now and put your own address # on each remote yourself

It would be easier if the remotes already came addressed with different #'s though

Problem solved

[Bob Haller]

I believe it will have 2 Hds. Just like the 721.

[Jean Pierre Le Puck]

Las Vegas odd on release of 744 before 2005 are now posted as 2350 to 1.