[Chris Blount]

You can see live Dish Network press conference coverage with pictures at the following link:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/live-from-the-echostar-press-conference/

 

[Ron Barry]

Hmmm... This sounds rather interesting.. What is is it? I don't have a clue what VC-1 is and the number is really strange. Also first time I have heard of the 612.

ViP 22-1 will have 500 GB HD and support VC-1 for VOD. Supports off the shelf USB HD for extra storage.

 

[Earl Bonovich]

Not to pick at the feature...

But I though earlier reports was that the USB port was not fast enough to handle three HD streams (recording two and playing back one)

 

[Ron Barry]

My guess is that USB Extra storage comment means in terms of Archival. Being able to roll off content off the main drive based on how the USB archive support has been described in the past. I doubt it is in terms of additional storage that can be used for upto recording three while watching two back.

 

[Earl Bonovich]

My guess is that USB Extra storage comment means in terms of Archival. Being able to roll off content off the main drive based on how the USB archive support has been described in the past. I doubt it is in terms of additional storage that can be used for upto recording three while watching two back.

Ahh... gotcha.

 

[cornflakes]

Compatibility of the USB Hard Drives, it has worked with every unit tested, but they plan to test more.
Are there any capacity issues, currently the 1TB unit doesn't work, but they plan to release updates to support larger units.
Drive will be locked to your system to protect content. There will be a repair method in the vent of STB failure.
They expect a mid-year release.

It seems like they're pushing the release from 1Q'07 to mid year now...

 

[koralis]

My guess is that USB Extra storage comment means in terms of Archival. Being able to roll off content off the main drive based on how the USB archive support has been described in the past. I doubt it is in terms of additional storage that can be used for upto recording three while watching two back.

BUT, it could be done so that this is transparent to the user. In the background while the DVR is "off", it could copy the movies to the USB drive and flag the data on the DVR itself as "Available to delete" if neccessary and show the space remaining as if it's already been deleted.

If you want to watch a recording that's still actually on the DVR then it plays directly just as it is now. If you want to watch a recording that was nuked to make room, then it starts playing over the USB stream.

Theoretically you might need to be able to supply 2 streams of read data from the USB in this instance, but the odds of both tuners needing access to archived-only data simultaneously is very very low and they might simply make a note on the feature that it can only support 1 HD (MPEG2)+ 1 SD stream at a time, 2 MPEG4 HD streams, or 2 SD streams, or somthing similar. (does USB 2.0 have the bandwidth for two MPEG2 streams?)

If you have any restrictions like that, dish might also introduce extra types of "protect" for the recordings... like "Local only" to prevent it from being moved.

 

[cdub998]

Hmmm... This sounds rather interesting.. What is is it? I don't have a clue what VC-1 is and the number is really strange. Also first time I have heard of the 612.

VC-1 is an encoding process made by Microsoft that HD-DVD uses for their disks. It looks really good and has low bandwidth reuirements compared to mpeg 2.

 

[BobMurdoch]

The first BluRay releases were in Mpeg 2. When compared to the VC-1 material on HD DVD, the BluRay suffered in comparison, so it sounds like VC-1 is becoming the more preferred format.

 

[bobukcat]

Am I just paranoid or does anyone else take the 622-1 moniker to mean that it will be a new model and existing units won't be upgradable?? If it had a 500 GB hard-drive the need for external storage wouldn't be as great (I'd still want it though, of course! ) unless they use too much for HD VOD. When are they going to realize that we don't care very much about VOD compared to the other features they've yet to deliver on!?!??!

 

[James Long]

Theoretically you might need to be able to supply 2 streams of read data from the USB in this instance, but the odds of both tuners needing access to archived-only data simultaneously is very very low and they might simply make a note on the feature that it can only support 1 HD (MPEG2)+ 1 SD stream at a time, 2 MPEG4 HD streams, or 2 SD streams, or somthing similar. (does USB 2.0 have the bandwidth for two MPEG2 streams?)

I suspect that it will be a very limited feature ... perhaps usable from only TV1 (which would not be the best). I do not expect an integrated list with events on your DVR. They are treating the "TV Entertainment", "Movies on Demand" and "DishONLINE" as separate program sources from "My Recordings". (Based on the photos of DishONLINE it is an entirely new interface.) I expect that USB recordings will have their own menu.

Perhaps one of the guys at the show can play around and find out.
Of course, it would be beta software on the show models (quick, press MENU MENU).

 

[ScoBuck]

Unless I missed it, I didn't see anything regarding any ADDITIONAL HD nationals for 2007, and neither did I see any mention of any more HD local markets coming.

They did mention one new bird launching E11. But the published word on this sat is that it is a backup for the existing fleet, As DirecTv9s is).

They are touting their 30 HD nat'ls, but as that includes the lowly rated VOOM programming, I not sure that they will have much of a bragging right in 6 months - after DirecTV10 is up and running. The new promotion of 'free' HD-DVR is obviously just a way to get new HD subs BEFORE D* takes the lead IMO.

 

[Chris Blount]

In case you haven't seen them yet, pictures from the press conference are here:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=75621

 

[Dino]

vc-1 is pretty awesome, microsoft uses it for xbox live movie downloads. you can get v for vendetta, a 132 min. movie, at 720p, at about 6.1gigs, which is very impressive.