942 Upgradeable to MPEG4...

[bhawley]

(921 owners will be offered the choice of a kick in the groin, or a poke in the eye.)

I'll pass. Already been bent over my 921

 

[David Dietzel]

I spoke to an advanced technical support fellow a couple of months ago regarding another issue and he indicated that at the last technical meeting he attended, the engineers discussed upgradability of the 942 to MPEG4 as something they were working on and expected to have a viable solution.

Naturally, the solution may never be implemented for various reasons.

He also said he got to play with a DishPlayer prototype and indicated it was pretty impressive.

Hey, whatever happens with MPEG4 and the upgrade issue is all really speculation until Dish makes an announcement of policy.

But, it's kind of fun to speculate.

 

[Purogamer]

What you'll do is put your 942 under you pillow when MPEG-4 rolls out. Now, as you're sleeping, the remote-control-tips fairy will come by and swap it with a 942 that's MPEG-4 compatable. When you wake up, you just plug it in and you're ready to go! Couldn't be easier unless that tooth fairy bitch steals it...

 

[rkrenicki]

This one http://www.broadcom.com/collateral/pb/7411-PB04-R.pdf

Yep, thats the one.. I have seen the datasheet for it, but I couldnt remember the part number to find the Product Brief for.. I keep forgetting they are calling it AVC instead of "MPEG4"

 

[CivicOnBoostEK]

Where did you guys find the information for the 962? I know for sure the 411 is being released. It looks good so far since it has hdmi.. But it has an IR remote.. I dont like that part of it.

 

[GaryPen]

Is there in fact only a single chip whose sole function is to decode MPEG2 data? Why can't the decompression be just one function of one of the multi-function chips? Taking it fiurther, why not be the chip, or chips, that is/are firmware upgradeable?

After all, video codecs can be added and changed in your PC's. There is no hardware-locked MPEG2 decoder, or MPEG4 decoder. These codecs are all added and updated via software.

 

[John Kotches]

Is there in fact only a single chip whose sole function is to decode MPEG2 data? Why can't the decompression be just one function of one of the multi-function chips? Taking it fiurther, why not be the chip, or chips, that is/are firmware upgradeable?

After all, video codecs can be added and changed in your PC's. There is no hardware-locked MPEG2 decoder, or MPEG4 decoder. These codecs are all added and updated via software.

Because these aren't general purpose computers, these are Application Specific Integrated Circuits.

They are cheap (on the order of a few dollars) and are designed to do one function. An ASIC is not intended to be as flexible or extensible as a general purpose computer.

On the other hand, because it is for all intents and purposes a hard wired device, it's actually more powerful, since it's only doing one job and doesn't have any OS overhead to deal with.

Cheers,

 

[John Kotches]

If you all look carefully, this Broadcom ASIC can also be used for HD-DVD and Blu-ray players as it supports MPEG-2, MPEG-4/AVC and VC-1 (aka WMV-9).

That sounds vaguely familar, I'm certain I said this before

Cheers,

 

[M Sparks]

for all intents and purposes

HOORAY! Someone who uses this phrase correctly!

(Well, for all intensive purposes, anyway )

 

[John Kotches]

HOORAY! Someone who uses this phrase correctly!

(Well, for all intensive purposes, anyway )

I do have a college education, and even though neither my major nor minor courses of study were English I like to pretend I'm well educated

On a good day it shows... On a bad day, I need to go back to high school english class

 

[Purogamer]

you ain't kidding is you?