[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!

 

[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?