Some Interesting Dish Info

[wase4711]

Dish has never marketed the USB port as being for external storage, have they ?? The main ViP622 brochure mentions nothing about external storage.

Now, when Dish demo'd external storage back in Jan or Feb at CES (?), all anyone cared about was "when, when, when". Did Dish suggest or allude that they planned to charge for this feature ? At some point they did but I can't recall when I first heard it.

well, no, its not mentioned anywhere in their brochure as for external storage, but, please, anyone who posts on a board like this knows EXACTLY what that would be used for...Sort of like Comcraps hddvr box; it has all sorts of ports on it that they have yet to enable, but, once they figure out how to make $$$ enabling it, they surely will!
And, Please don't get me wrong; if folks want to pay the 40 bucks to enable that port, then that is their perogitive; I just won't do it, since 250 gigs is plenty for me, especially since most of what you see is usually repeated sometime in the future, and/or is available/soon to be available on the DVD/BD rental market...plus, I will bet that if they read the various web boards, and they see their is alot of resistance to paying 40 bucks for that, they might re-consider the amount....

 

[SpenceJT]

I'm glad not all posters have that 'stockholders' syndrome.
And so far only real argument presented in the long thread:

Dish do it because they can.

If we as consumers ( I'd like to to pitch the case to Consumer Union panel ) treated that way and will raise our voice then those have-money-don't-care-ppl will skim the benefit of the resistance with a smile.

• I do not own stock in any broadcasting service.
• "real" arguments have two or more differing viewpoints (i.e. "Dish do it because they can" vs. "Dish does it for profit".

SmithP, you have yet to answer any of my questions.

1. What are the value of your posts in this forum?
2. Enlighten me as to the specific incident/s "propaganda" that you speak of?
3. Have I been somehow incorrect in the nature of business?

Since you have remained silent, I will take a stab at answering them for you;

1. Your posts hold no greater value in this forum and no lesser value than anyone in this forum. All viewpoints are equal and no name calling is warranted (although 'stockholders' syndrome did make me chuckle)
2. Your use of the term "propaganda" appears to increase when you are unable to constructively argue with facts.
3. No, I have not been incorrect in stating that "profit" is the central driving factor in business.

Feel free to point out any additional "propaganda".

Cheers! :

Spence

 

[SpenceJT]

well, no, its not mentioned anywhere in their brochure as for external storage, but, please, anyone who posts on a board like this knows EXACTLY what that would be used for...Sort of like Comcraps hddvr box; it has all sorts of ports on it that they have yet to enable, but, once they figure out how to make $$$ enabling it, they surely will!
And, Please don't get me wrong; if folks want to pay the 40 bucks to enable that port, then that is their perogitive; I just won't do it, since 250 gigs is plenty for me, especially since most of what you see is usually repeated sometime in the future, and/or is available/soon to be available on the DVD/BD rental market...plus, I will bet that if they read the various web boards, and they see their is alot of resistance to paying 40 bucks for that, they might re-consider the amount....

While external storage may be the most likely use for a USB connection, there are others that have been in use and marketed for many months now.

• Data transfer to Pocket Dish?
• Data transfer of photos from USB thumb drive?

• Future possibility of USB or USB based wireless keyboard?

 

[wase4711]

good points, Spence...

 

[SpenceJT]

good points, Spence...

Pocket Dish got me thinking for a couple of minutes.

It was an instance where Dish Network did not charge any enabling fee in order to download data to the device, but then in thinking further, it was a device that was only available via Dish Network, and it wasn't exactly inexpensive.

...not at least for the first half of the year anyway.

Cheers!

 

[Smith P.]

I hope you know meaning of the word "propaganda".
So, anything posted here 'pro Dish' falling into same bin.
Dish didn't reveal any standing point for the fee, but many of you here did that.
Congratulation !

 

[SpenceJT]

I hope you know meaning of the word "propaganda".
So, anything posted here 'pro Dish' falling into same bin.
Dish didn't reveal any standing point for the fee, but many of you here did that.
Congratulation !

You may have missed it, but when the external device was originally demonstrated, fees were mentioned, but no set price had not been decided upon. At some point the words "enabling fee" were used, perhaps in a different broadcast or Charlie (or Tech) chat. It was many months ago (winter I think), but it was mentioned as having an enabling fee.

...and I do know the meaning of the word propaganda, and you have still not been able to provide me with exactly what I have posted under which your seemingly ubiquitously applied label is falling.

Cheers,
Spence

EDITED - Okay, after re-reading your post, I am not sure I understand what you meant by

Dish didn't reveal any standing point for the fee, but many of you here did that!

If you are saying that you knew that there would be an enabling fee and that Dish hadn't settled on it, if that is what you had intended, I am sorry if I have misunderstood.

Out of curiosity. are you from another country? The term "standing point" isn't one that I see used.

 

[ccash]

I'm glad not all posters have that 'stockholders' syndrome.

maybe time to buy SP, No?

 

[foghorn2]

Everytime Dish does something, you get these complainers that whine but continue to subscribe, or maybe even PIRATE.

Its getting a bit old and it to the point of amusing now. The HD lightweights are a majority of these whiners and I'm seeing a pattern in their behavior.

I's wish they'd go to Direct or Cable and quit the whining.

 

[Hall]

Out of curiosity. are you from another country? The term "standing point" isn't one that I see used.

I suspect English isn't his native language too.

 

[Foxbat]

A comment was made by someone that programming is repeated. Live sporting events in HD may be repeated, but usually not past the week in which it occurred. I have the 2007 Superbowl locked on my 622's HDD and it will be one of the first things that gets archived. Likewise, the HDNet broadcasts of the Shuttle launches I want to keep (silly me) and F1 races on Fox & Speed. To me, the $40 is an acceptable fee to provide this feature that was not available before.

I'm sure Echostar ran several studies on cost vs. # of adapters when coming up with the $40 price. First, the money taken in must exceed the costs of the developers and programmers that have been working on this over the years. Plus, and patents and licensing of technologies used must be taken into account. Price it too low, and you're not taking enough in to cover your costs. Charge too much, not enough customers pay for it, and again you're losing money. $40 may not be our favorite price point, but it's probably what the bean counters came up with.

Or (insert favorite conspiracy theory here) Scott is told $40 to "float the trial balloon" (put the toe in the water) and see what the Dish customers on SatGuys think. Then, maybe, Charlie can come out on the Tech Chat and say the enabling fee will be $xx (less than $40) and more people jump at this than would have jumped at that price originally because we've had two to three weeks of hashing out the $40 fee. Some, like me, would pay $40. Others won't pay $40, but would they pay if it was $25? Others will never pay because archiving has no interest for them. We'll know on August 15th.

 

[wase4711]

I like the "float the trial balloon" theory...It WOULD be a sharp marketing move to do that, then announce a 20 buck "discount" to do it in the first 30 days or something to that effect..
do you think there are licensing/patenting issues at this point, or wouldnt that have been "covered" when they first decided how much to "charge" for the 622?
Unless they have to pay some sort of "royalty" for the software/firmware that will be needed to make this work..I have to believe they wrote that code intenally, so the costs for that would be minimal..

 

[Hall]

Or (insert favorite conspiracy theory here) Scott is told $40 to "float the trial balloon" (put the toe in the water) and see what the Dish customers on SatGuys think.

If that turned out to be true, and we'll NEVER be told it was the case, what does that say about any information Scott is given ?? Is it real or a "trial" ??

 

[ericha]

There certainly seems to be a lot of discussion about the $40 fee! Has anyone considered the possibility that this fee is simply to see if people really want bigger storage? If Dish didn't charge some kind of fee, it might be difficult to find out how many customers want extra storage over what is available in the box.

Food for thought...

 

[CJPC]

Well if it was just a survey, they could have charged maybe $5, woulda been quite a bit more reasonable

 

[MikeD-C05]

I just wonder how they will market this new external hard drive to the customers. Are they going to advertise it online, by mail, over the dvr by video? I also wonder just how many regular customers will actually go for external hard drives for $40.00 enabeling fee? How many regular customers know as much about what is going on with DISH, or software updates ,new technology, etc, anyway? This $40.00 maybe the price because DISH thinks only a small group of high tech subs will actually buy it anyway. So make as much as you can on the few that will use it.

 

[Hall]

There certainly seems to be a lot of discussion about the $40 fee! Has anyone considered the possibility that this fee is simply to see if people really want bigger storage?

I'd like more storage capacity but my budget will restrict for the time being. Sure, I can put together an HDD in an external enclosure for some amount.... Then there's another $40 just for the privilege. For now, even if the fee was $5, I'll be waiting.

Thing is, the day it's available, it will be announced here loudly. Don't worry, we'll see plenty of posts from users who've done it and who will then announce "it works". People did the same thing before HD-DVD and/or BluRay players were available. Over at AVS, the majority were saying "I'm buying neither until a standard is set". Well guess what ?? They've got active forums over there .... for both players.

 

[JoeSp]

This is a one time fee. You can buy your own usb harddrive -- heck you could buy a couple and use them. Remember -- one time fee. Why is it folks always want something for free?

As I have always told my kids, nothing in life is free except for death. That won't cost you but it will cost your survivors.

 

[SpenceJT]

This is a one time fee. You can buy your own usb harddrive -- heck you could buy a couple and use them. Remember -- one time fee. Why is it folks always want something for free?

As I have always told my kids, nothing in life is free except for death. That won't cost you but it will cost your survivors.

Air is free.

...but clean air will cost ya.

I'm with the others in that, my storage is hovering at around 12 hours of HD recording capacity. I'm waiting before I jump in, to see if anyone ends up successfully a TB drive (Scott mentioned something to the effect that Dish's external storage feature 'offically' supports up to 750GB, but in fact may support more depending on the drive). If I buy (or build) an external, I'll be going for "larger" than I expect to use, because as my wife has often taught me, you can never have enough storage space.

Cheers!

Spence

 

[wase4711]

Why is it folks always want something for free?

Free? Last time I checked, most of us are send Dish between 50-100 bucks PER MONTH....Nothing "free" from them....