ebonovic,I don't think September was ever a consideration....
October was the target time frame, but the last few weeks, OTA was bumped to fix other critical issues.
December 1st, has been the official CSR statement for probably the last month now.
Late 2006 is the official DirecTV stance (per DirecTV.com)
OTA will NOT be active in the next software update... unless something changes in the next few days.
They are extremely close to having OTA activated.
I was on the phone with an advanced level tech sppt rep w/ D* this past Saturday and we discussed this topic briefly. He seemed very much "in the know" and said that he and several others in that group were testing the OTA tuners on the HR20 and that it is performing exceptionally well. He said that he didn't anticipate any issues in the planned roll-out by Dec 1st...said it was one of their top priorities because they know itis a huge customer demand (i.e. customer satisfaction issue).
This guy also explained to me how the software upgrades are distributed. They come in via the sat signal, not the phone line. The phone connection is essential in the daily call process, but simply exchanges basic info which triggers the download sequence. He said they are somewhat limited by bandwidth on these upgrades...in other words, they don't have the capacity to upgrade the software on every HR10 or HR20 across the country on one particular night. So they distribute the downloads by timezones (some times down to the zip code with spot beams), by products, etc. If for some reason, your download is interrupted, you have to wait until the next time your area rotates back on the upgrade schedule. Could be days, could be weeks, depending on the box and the software upgrade.
Very interesting chat...always enlightening when you get someone on the phone who really seems to know what they are taling about.
ebonovic,
You mentioned that the OTA has been bumped back for other issues,
Did you mean, bumped back to December, or are you expecting it to be pushed back further yet ?
I am eagerly awaiting this upgrade (as is everyone else too)
It will be nice to use the OTA tuner and make this a fully funtional HD DVR, I for one will be very happy when it happens![]()
Now, if I couild get anything in mpeg 4 so I know that dish and receiver are correctly set up.
I think D* should have a MPEG4 "Test Channel" Installer leaves and the sub has NO IDEA weather the mpeg4 works or not.
What do you think about aa Test channel ? Is that possible ?
Jimbo
speculation at this time, says this week...lets just hope it holds up....according to Earl, and earl if I am wrong please correct me if you get this in time, the next update will be a very very important update with new features/changes happening!
What time zones have been updated so far.
How far EAST is the update currently ?
Jimbo