Idea for new type of Dish Network receiver

[m3repair]

I am not sure if anyone has pitched this idea but here goes, Why not make a receiver that is HD but has multiple outs in OTA format, so the idea is the receiver has 4 tuners inside and outputs to 4 tvs via this one box, now the problem how do we send an HD signal to the TV's ? Well of course we cannot use HDMI way to long of a cable run for most homes, the idea that I am thinking of is, most newer HDTV's have a built in HD OTA tuners built in! Why not utilize them by have the receiver output a HD OTA signal for each of the 4 tuners so just like you tune to channel 60 or 73 for Tuner 2 on the 622,722,722K, ect..... the idea would be you tune to a OTA ATSC HD channel ? And the best part is of course no receiver to have to hide if you have a wall mounted tv, just put this box into your main cable junctions, i.e maybe near a electrical panel or furnace room or maybe even in one of the rooms your tv is. as for the remotes they will be most likely UHF or 2G just like on the 922 and of course all will be on different channels to accomidate the TV's

What do you think guys? Is this a good idea or am I just way off the charts here?

 

[boba]

And how much will this cost?

 

[m3repair]

And how much will this cost?

Its an idea, and I haven't the slightest clue, the idea was to see if maybe there is a market for this type of device in this configuration

 

[TheKrell]

Is this a good idea or am I just way off the charts here?

I'm afraid it's simultaneously a good idea (for customers and even Dish) but off the charts according to content providers. They will not allow unencrypted retransmission of HD channels in their pristine digital glory, because it is so easy to copy and save on your computer and give it away to your million closest friends.

 

[m3repair]

I'm afraid it's simultaneously a good idea (for customers and even Dish) but off the charts according to content providers. They will not allow unencrypted retransmission of HD channels in their pristine digital glory, because it is so easy to copy and save on your computer and give it away to your million closest friends.

I have to say very good point, something I completely missed To bad though, would have made things so much easier but it isn't a long shot though, I am most certain someone at dish most likely thought of this first before I did so I am sure this isn't the first time, man can only dream

 

[whatchel1]

I have to say very good point, something I completely missed To bad though, would have made things so much easier but it isn't a long shot though, I am most certain someone at dish most likely thought of this first before I did so I am sure this isn't the first time, man can only dream

Also ATSC modulators are SUPER EXPENSIVE. It would add around 750 to 800 to do what you ask.

 

[digiblur]

I'm afraid it's simultaneously a good idea (for customers and even Dish) but off the charts according to content providers. They will not allow unencrypted retransmission of HD channels in their pristine digital glory, because it is so easy to copy and save on your computer and give it away to your million closest friends.

Bingo!

 

[DishSubLA]

To the OP: TheKrell hit it on the head. Dish did (some years ago) in fact have a prototype (or at least definitely plans on paper--I think they built a prototype) of just what was suggested: a "Whole Home DVR" that was centralized and everything was to be re-modulated in ATSC, so all one would have to do is tune to one ASTC channel to view all the content and a different ATSC channel for the 2nd room and so on. The content owners did NOT like their stuff being re-transmitted UNENCRYPTED. In fact, DirecTV had to drop a really good wireless "Whole Home" system because they had problems ensuring encryption.

Don't feel bad. It is a really good idea. Engineers are pretty smart and it isn't that no one has thought of a solution, it is just that content owners have shot down and still shoot down some great innovations. It is what they live to do.

The good news is we have the forthcoming XiP 813 that will do pretty much the same functionality and content owners don't have a problem with it. Technically, it sounds GREAT. My only concern would be cost. We would need maybe 3 of those boxes and I hope the fees aren't so high that it becomes impossible for this sub.

Keep thinking of the good ideas, and be prepared for a "already thought of, but content owners said, "NO, no, no!"

 

[m3repair]

To the OP: TheKrell hit it on the head. Dish did (some years ago) in fact have a prototype (or at least definitely plans on paper--I think they built a prototype) of just what was suggested: a "Whole Home DVR" that was centralized and everything was to be re-modulated in ATSC, so all one would have to do is tune to one ASTC channel to view all the content and a different ATSC channel for the 2nd room and so on. The content owners did NOT like their stuff being re-transmitted UNENCRYPTED. In fact, DirecTV had to drop a really good wireless "Whole Home" system because they had problems ensuring encryption.

Don't feel bad. It is a really good idea. Engineers are pretty smart and it isn't that no one has thought of a solution, it is just that content owners have shot down and still shoot down some great innovations. It is what they live to do.

The good news is we have the forthcoming XiP 813 that will do pretty much the same functionality and content owners don't have a problem with it. Technically, it sounds GREAT. My only concern would be cost. We would need maybe 3 of those boxes and I hope the fees aren't so high that it becomes impossible for this sub.

Keep thinking of the good ideas, and be prepared for a "already thought of, but content owners said, "NO, no, no!"

This idea has been sitting on the back burner of my head for awhile, just thought I would finally post, and another good point about how the modulators for ATSC are expensive, another reason the idea kept coming to my mind the fact that the TV2 feed for all the 622/722/722K ect, didn't have a second HD feed for TV2 hence why I thought why not just do it for multiple tuners,

all say this though lets here it for the future because maybe something similar will pop out of the industry!!

 

[KKlare]

Is it that general-purpose ATSC are expensive or can one make a single-purpose one (single frame size and rate) for a lot less?
-Ken

 

[digiblur]

This idea has been sitting on the back burner of my head for awhile, just thought I would finally post, and another good point about how the modulators for ATSC are expensive, another reason the idea kept coming to my mind the fact that the TV2 feed for all the 622/722/722K ect, didn't have a second HD feed for TV2 hence why I thought why not just do it for multiple tuners,

all say this though lets here it for the future because maybe something similar will pop out of the industry!!

Something like this will never popup in the future. The content providers will not allow it. You'll have to have encrypted video transmitted to do something like this, which is exactly what XIP receivers will accomplish.

 

[Bradtothebone]

Is it that general-purpose ATSC are expensive or can one make a single-purpose one (single frame size and rate) for a lot less?
-Ken

You've really got two (technical) issues. Let's say you want to distribute a satellite channel, which is MPEG4. Since the ATSC standard only uses MPEG2, you have to first decode the MPEG4 and recode in MPEG2 in something close to real-time. Then, you need to modulate the bitstream in ATSC. Could this be made affordable in quantity? Probably, but, as noted above, there is no (mass) market for it because of the lack of DRM (digital rights management) capability. If we can ever get over that hurdle, this scheme might be affordable, but there are other ways to do this over coax (e.g. XIP series) now, so we'll probably never see ATSC outputs.

 

[m3repair]

This idea has been sitting on the back burner of my head for awhile, just thought I would finally post, and another good point about how the modulators for ATSC are expensive, another reason the idea kept coming to my mind the fact that the TV2 feed for all the 622/722/722K ect, didn't have a second HD feed for TV2 hence why I thought why not just do it for multiple tuners,

all say this though lets here it for the future because maybe something similar will pop out of the industry!!

I think a general purpose one is more expensive then a single purpose only because then only certain frequencies are used to deliver the channels, again I could be wrong

 

[harshness]

I think a general purpose one is more expensive then a single purpose only because then only certain frequencies are used to deliver the channels, again I could be wrong

Agile modulators aren't all that much more expensive than fixed frequency modulators in the grand scheme.

The MPEG2 conversion and ATSC multiplexing are the hard parts.

 

[DishSubLA]

I think that Dish's cost while not necessarily cheap, would have been far less than many think for the ATSC modulators as Dish would have a critical mass that interested companies would exploit to bring the price per down significantly so that it would make economic sense for Dish. In other words, Dish would not have paid anywhere near what you or I would at retail.

I don't know how much Dish is paying for all the internal HDD's in its DVR's, but I am certain that while it is relativity expensive, Dish is NOT paying anywhere near retail and probably far, far, less than even one finds on Amazon because of Dish's (and other DVR makers) critical mass that the major HDD makers exploit that brings it much closer to the cost to manufacture to get the business.

This is a total speculation on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if Dish pays close to $20 or so for each 1TB (maybe less) HDD simply because Dish needs hundreds of thousands, if not MILLIONS of them, and for that they can get a darn good price with that kind of critical mass and a lot business for the HDD maker with that huge economy of scale.