I Wish Dish Had ...

[datwell]

Ok, I see the new 922 has Sling, etc. That's all very nice; however, it doesn't do a thing for me.

What I would like from Dish is a 722-type receiver that has more than 2 satellite inputs, and not limiting us to recording a maximum of 2 programs at one time. 3 or 4 inputs would be great!

The location of our home makes the OTA option pretty much impossible and schedule conflicts do arise on occasion.

I'm actually a bit surprised that Charlie & Co. haven't thought of this earlier.

---Doug

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Its been in the works for awhile now. Just not ready for primetime yet.

The new Sling Technology will hold a big key in all of this and how it feeds the signals to the TV's.

 

[datwell]

Its been in the works for awhile now. Just not ready for primetime yet.

The new Sling Technology will hold a big key in all of this and how it feeds the signals to the TV's.

Scott: Thanks much, guy!

Now if Charlie & Co. won't be too greedy, this could be very good indeed!

--Doug

 

[harshness]

Absent a 3+ tuner device, you certainly have an option to acquire another DVR.

We don't need to give DISH any opportunities to charge $20+/month per receiver.

 

[DishSubLA]

It was also stated on a Tech Forum a few years ago by Mark Jackson that Dish indeed had a prototype in use--remember, a few years ago--but that they found that the HDD was getting really beat up and failing much sooner than units with only 2 sat tuners.

So, the technology isn't really the problem, it is how well we design HDD's, and how often Dish is willing to replace the failed (HHD) units, meaning they certainly have a minimum time that is considered good enough economies to do so.

Now, the 722K can record 4 digital streams at one time, punishing to an HDD over time, but such use is only by an extremely small number of customers and won't come close the potentially millions who will be beating up the HDD's very hard with several, extended periods of 4 or more tuners in use in just about any household (some could do with just one of these boxes instead of 2 of only 2 sat tuners). I have no doubt that should such STB's make it to market, Dish will charge an additional premium on such STB's to make them economical for Dish.

Don't even think that such a feature could ever be put on the consumer by limiting such 4+ sat tuners to boxes with external HDD because Dish uses USB 2.0 which simply lacks the bandwidth, as opposed to eSATA which every other STB manufacturer went with over 3 years ago and could handle such demands.

 

[harshness]

Remember also that the hard drives of yore were bulkier, eavier and had relatively tiny caches.

Compare the power required for the old drives versus the new drives.

 

[Claude Greiner]

What they could do is come up with a satellite tuner modual that would insert in the back of the 722 in place of the OTA modual.

You would be giving up OTA recording, but 4 Satellite tuners would be a big plus for alot of people!

 

[cr08]

Along this line of discussion I do really wish Dish could open up their receivers a little bit so that virtually an unlimited number of channels can be recorded at a time (barring disk throughput and load on the receiver of course) as long as they are on the same tuned transponder. Many PC based DVB tuners can already do this. Tune to a given transponder and all the channels accessible there can be viewed or recorded simultaneously. On a single tuner! The technical capability is there. The whole transponder feed hits the tuner and then the box picks out what channel(s) it wants. Just needs some slight software rewrites for the receivers. Maybe shift some channels around on the transponders to accommodate common viewing/DVR patterns?

Though I guess this is more a case of trying to explain why sometimes you can record a dozen channels at once but others just two to some of the 'less technically adept' users.

Though this really isn't a dish specific thing. Not only is Direc equally capable of doing this, but so is any wireline digital cable provider who employs QAM modulation on their networks. But of course none of these people have considered this a possibility either so I'm not going to fault Dish for it either.

 

[TigerpounceTN]

Its been in the works for awhile now. Just not ready for primetime yet.

The new Sling Technology will hold a big key in all of this and how it feeds the signals to the TV's.

I have a question about the Sling technology used to get HD to the second tv. Is there recompression, and therefore quality loss, or does it basically forward the data stream to the other tv?

 

[harshness]

I have a question about the Sling technology used to get HD to the second tv. Is there recompression, and therefore quality loss, or does it basically forward the data stream to the other tv?

The Slingloaded technology, at the very least, transcodes the source. Compression is used as necessary to fit the available pipe.

 

[TigerpounceTN]

The Slingloaded technology, at the very least, transcodes the source. Compression is used as necessary to fit the available pipe.

So there will be at least minimal quality loss. Hopefully it won't be noticeable. I doubt it will be. It sounds like a good solution.

 

[datwell]

Great Idea!

What they could do is come up with a satellite tuner modual that would insert in the back of the 722 in place of the OTA modual.

You would be giving up OTA recording, but 4 Satellite tuners would be a big plus for alot of people!

Will someone please buy Claude a beverage of his choice!?

That's a GREAT idea!

And if old Charlie & Co. wouldn't be too greedy, I would jump on this one! :up

 

[mike123abc]

Remember the first receiver with Dish is currently "Free" (well plus the $6 DVR fee or $10 922 fee).

So, if you had one receiver with 4 satellite + 2 OTA tuners with 1 HDMI/Component with 3 HD slings, most customers would be taken care of with just one box.

It would be like the U-Verse whole house DVR, but at least you would have the option of being able to have another box if you needed more (unlike U-Verse).

In hindsight this is what the 922 should have been (perhaps the 944). But, Dish spent too much time playing with a touchpad remote and other fancy features that really most customers would not care about compared to a central DVR.

 

[TheKrell]

The Slingloaded technology, at the very least, transcodes the source. Compression is used as necessary to fit the available pipe.

Huh. An external Slingbox only accepts analog input. (Ignore models with tuners for now.) So the 922 might in the worst case scenario decrypt and decompress to analog, capture (re-digitize) the analog, compress it yet again, and re-encrypt. Ugh!

Transcoding, on the other hand, implies the video data remain in the digital domain. The 700U description states that it decrypts, transcodes, and re-encrypts. I imagine the 922 could in fact work like a 700U without the extra decryption part (since the signals are all in the same box). But does anybody know for sure that there is no analog stage?

I am suspicious that you are right, and the signal remains in the digital domain. That might be why Scott reports a better looking picture on his 922 than on his Slingbox Pro HD. No analog stage.

 

[mike123abc]

Huh. An external Slingbox only accepts analog input. (Ignore models with tuners for now.) So the 922 might in the worst case scenario decrypt and decompress to analog, capture (re-digitize) the analog, compress it yet again, and re-encrypt. Ugh!

Transcoding, on the other hand, implies the video data remain in the digital domain. The 700U description states that it decrypts, transcodes, and re-encrypts. I imagine the 922 could in fact work like a 700U without the extra decryption part (since the signals are all in the same box). But does anybody know for sure that there is no analog stage?

I am suspicious that you are right, and the signal remains in the digital domain. That might be why Scott reports a better looking picture on his 922 than on his Slingbox Pro HD. No analog stage.

There would be no way to send an HD signal through the USB port in HD analog form, or uncompressed digital form. USB just does not have the capacity for 1080i/60. They would have to send the MPEG-2/4 stream to the 700u (probably encrypted) where it takes the digital stream and transcodes it to sling format.

 

[htrda]

Can someone please help me to get around this site? It tells me to introduce myself but I can not enter anything.

 

[TheKrell]

There would be no way to send an HD signal through the USB port in HD analog form, or uncompressed digital form. USB just does not have the capacity for 1080i/60. They would have to send the MPEG-2/4 stream to the 700u (probably encrypted) where it takes the digital stream and transcodes it to sling format.

Another interesting observation. I think you, me, and harshness are all in agreement. And I apologize for sliding OT like this, but...

The question in my mind is whether there is an analog stage in a 922 (or the 700U) in between the compressed digital stream from sat or OTA, and the different compressed digital stream from the sling part of these boxes. I am hoping that there is no such analog stage, as there is with an external Slingbox. This would explain how the quality might remain high. But it could go down too, as it will for SD sling streams.

 

[Koilvr]

Can someone please help me to get around this site? It tells me to introduce myself but I can not enter anything.

You just did. Hello.