Some PocketDish Info

[Scott Greczkowski]

Here is some info on the upcoming Pocket Dish Units.

Software support for the Pocket Dish is scheduled to roll out to 942's in mid September. The firs tunits should be reelased around that time as well.

These are the official specs on the Pocket Dish unit.

Happy Reading!

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[T2k]

Interesting. I wonder how it looks like compared to my PSP which is now, as v2.0 firmware arrived, became fully MPEG4 AVC enabled and sports a very nice 480x272 16:9 screen...

 

[Sirius_Rich]

I have to have one of these, but I just have a DiSH 921. :river

 

[trafter]

I wonder why they are widescreen if they only show standard definition programming??

 

[TuxCoder]

I was wondering the same thing.

Perhaps a "future software-enabled feature"?

 

[Sean Mota]

So can it get HD Programming from the 942 even though it will be displayed in SD?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

No you will not be able to transfer HD or PPV movies to any model of the Pocket Dish. (Unless you do it through the Docking Station in real time)

 

[ocnier]

While I commend Dish for what looks like a promising product, I still must say that they're attitude towards controlling the customer is way overboard in terms of docking station and their controls over what content can be downloaded. Oh well it might change in future.

 

[Poke]

They said they will have a converter for them so that way you can hook them up to the 811 and 921. So they are not just for DVR units.

 

[Sean Mota]

No you will not be able to transfer HD or PPV movies to any model of the Pocket Dish. (Unless you do it through the Docking Station in real time)

I guess it will not be for me until they can find a way to downgrade the HD stream and make it download to the unit. How difficult could that be?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

You can do it if you hook it up to the standard video outputs (composite video)

 

[TuxCoder]

I would hope it can do zoom/stretch modes then, in which case encoding widescreen content from composite video in, with bars at the top and bottom, might be a decent compromise for some people. The local LCD display itself is not HD anyway...

 

[David_Levin]

Part of the appeal is the quick transfer of data.

Converting from one resolution to another is anything but fast. I've seen in take 6-8 hours to convert a movie on my A3500+ (and that wasn't HD source). I don't believe any of the current PVRs have anywhere near that processing power.

Obviously, the portable doesn't have the hard drive space or processing power to deal with an HD stream directly.

Now, the widescreen could be useful if it can playback DivX/Xvid/mpeg4. The Archos branded models support this, so hopefully Dish's does as well.

 

[Faw]

I saw the chat where they talked about the PocketDish. It connects to the receiver through the USB and it is the receiver who sends the video. While I was watching I was thinking "How long until someone makes a 'PocketDish emulator' for a PC?" Hook up an USB cable between PC and receiver and have it think it is a PocketDish.

 

[mrplow]

Do you think it will work with Itunes ? If so, so long Ipod.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I was wondering the same thing MrPlow.

 

[Seanb61]

Apple will not allow anything but the Ipod connect to itunes.

 

[tujumaster]

You can connect other music players to iTunes so it may be possible. But I'm still trying to figure out what the point of this unit is. It's good for kids in the back seat, but what about the rest of us? You can't walk and watch TV and you sure can't drive and watch tv. The subway is okay, but you should be paying attention to your stops. I just don't see a point to all of this. How portable can video actually be? The PSP makes better sense because it is a video game product and therefore requires you to pay more attention to the unit and you need to be sitting while playing, but portable tv requires a whole new concept for it to work. It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[TuxCoder]

No stops to pay attention to on a 4-hour cross-country or 8+ hour international flight.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

The battery only lasts for 4 hours though, so scratch it out for international flights.