this solves a problem with the whole TV2 issue Dish will have...
many nice, big HDTVs have horrible analog tuners. For whatever reason, they can't tune in modulated channel 3 or agile modulated worth a damn, and scale it horribly. Yet that same video tuned via a cheapo VCR and then sent to the same TV via a standard composite cable looks just fine. And HDTVs will be dropping the analog tuner altogether quite soon...
And VCRs that tune analog are done. Look around, and most have been discontinued. And DVDRs don't seem to tune analog too well, either. The few that are left that have analog tuners at all, well, suck. With the digital switchover, analog tuners will be a thing of the past.
So where does that leave the dish subscriber who wants the TV2/multiroom setup in the future? Dish isn't about to modulate a digital channel (it's supposed to be very expensive). Well, customers can keep using their old analog non-hd sets, but if you want a larger new HD LCD, you are gonna be basically SOL. Unless, of course, this box tunes and upscales analog TV signals with aplomb. Then it's a godsend. I've held off on a getting an LCD for my family room because the signal would look like crap from my 721 (now a 625 TV2). So my CRT is still hanging on, but it's going south quickly. If the TR-50 works as advertised, I may be a charter customer.