Team Summit: General Assembly Thoughts and Pics

[stardust3]

So far team summit leaves more questions than answers. The technology sounds really cool, but aside from this site & people here, there are a lot of technology challenged folks out there. If they want to appeal the masses they need to keep it simple to use & affordable.

 

[Stargazer]

If it's MOCA 2.0 then RG6 or straight IP if it uses Ethernet.

If it uses straight IP then does that mean that you can put it on a network and broadcast it that way such as a wireless router to transmit and then a client device to receiver from the wireless router to connect to some sort of sling extender or even to a laptop?

 

[whitewolf8214]

TY MikeD-C05 I DIODNT SEE THESE ANSWERED.... So some questions I would like answered:

1) What is connected by a "thin client" mean ,in regards to the new 813 and the 110 boxes?

2) Does the new 813 have room for an ota tuner module like the 722k does?

3) What price will the 110 boxes cost PER MONTH? This is DISH and I don't see them leaving any money on the table here in regards to made up FEES, that they can charge, just because they can .

4) What happened to the much talked about SLING EXTENDER? It was supposed to be released last year and has been pushed back every quarter. Is this idea now dead due to the "SOON" to be released whole house dvr? All I needed to finish my house was the sling extender and I would be complete.

Without ota modules the new 813 would be useless to me . The hd picture from ota look much better to me than satellite for network tv. As for the "Thin Client" I am really hoping that means rg6 cable, that can be easily run to the other rooms in the house to the 110 box,which looks like a cable router. I guess the sling extender is now defunct. I have been waiting on that release for two years since I first heard about it. Now lets try to guess what kind of monthly fee that DISH will charge for MRV ? This is DISH here we are talking about. I can not see them giving up the additional receiver fees unless they can charge for the 110 boxes individually. OR one big $20.00 MRV monthly fee.

 

[Stargazer]

Maybe this whole Blockbuster thing (New Netflix) will be touted as movies on demand anywhere with sling technology. I was hoping to hear something about them buying Hughes and that wireless spectrum that they bought. Hmm, they got Hughes and wireless spectrum. Sounds to me like they are wanting Hughes as downstream and use wireless spectrum as the upstream. Maybe they would offer those with a HughesNet system that have Blockbuster subscription to not have those particular downloads for those movies count towards their FAP. Now that would be really interesting.

 

[stardust3]

As a Netflix & Dish sub it will have to be something really impressive to get me to drop Netflix for blockbuster. Price is a big factor, having movies 28 days or whatever it is before the others is NOT a factor. Heck I watch a lot of movies for the 1st time that are several years old. They are going to have to WOW me.

 

[stardust3]

While I'm into it. This brings up another point. Will Blockbuster be streaming or recorded for later viewing. That is the appealing part of Netflix, the instantaneous ability to watch shows with a very quality picture. When browsing for something to watch I sure don't want to wait on a download or on the other hand watch something streaming that looks like a bad you tube video stretched beyond a decent viewing quality. Netflix strives for customer satisfaction with the constant surveys on how was the picture quality of so & so. Will Dish strive for the same standards? Netflix has definitely gone through some changes and in my opinion has been groundbreaking to date as I type this. Can Dish effectively replicate what Netflix is doing? I guess only time will tell................

 

[TG2]

TY MikeD-C05 I DIODNT SEE THESE ANSWERED.... So some questions I would like answered:

1) What is connected by a "thin client" mean ,in regards to the new 813 and the 110 boxes?

this was answered. The 110 *is* a thin client ... in this case thin means that its a break out box, decodes video, has chips that break it down to HDMI, Component, & Composite... See Scott's other picture thread
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/254534-scotts-team-summit-photo-dump.html

Also look at what MoCA is
http://www.mocalliance.org/index.php

the pictures show you the back of the 110 has HDMI/Composit/Component out the 110 then is a basic video converter much dumber than Dish's Vip211k receiver... mentioning that because the 211k is only 99 to 109 in stores ... so think of that for the probable price point of the 110 boxes, and most likely without a monthly fee per 110 box unless you're leasing them.

The rest of your questions should be extrapolated from Scott's pictures in the link I've posted just above.. except prices..

Special note.. the picture of the 813 shows *no* OTA module plate on the back... I would hope they have some other plan to allow for at least passing OTA into the cables ... much like the use of Diplexers that would allow an amplified OTA Frequeny set into the single cable through the system, and break out a seperate port at your TV's ... this would also make recording potentially gone **OR** the 813 tuners might be dual band/dual purpose.. Sat tuner & ota tuner ... don't know.. as the picture shows it as "sat in / home video network"

 

[DustoMan]

I don't know. There's no mention of OTA on any of that hardware. Unless they plan on having a USB add-on module with OTA connections, I don't see anywhere to plug your antenna into. Nice that there's Sling still in there though. That is some shiny hardware. Me want NOW!!!

(Oh and to the nay-sayers... there's your Sling Receiver.)

 

[lakebum431]

As a Netflix & Dish sub it will have to be something really impressive to get me to drop Netflix for blockbuster. Price is a big factor, having movies 28 days or whatever it is before the others is NOT a factor. Heck I watch a lot of movies for the 1st time that are several years old. They are going to have to WOW me.

I agree. Especially since 2 of my TVs (Panasonics) have the Netflix widget built into them (which works amazingly well), my PS3 has it on another TV and my iPad and iPhone both have the Netflix app that give me access to Netflix basically anywhere. Dish's Blockbuster service is going to have to replicate that experience before I drop Netflix for Blockbuster. Oh, and did I mention all of that is available for the low low price of $8/month. So if the Dish service is more than that they are still without a customer. I think the 28 days could be a real competitive advantage for some customers, but means absolutely zero to me.

 

[bobvick]

Yes, something about paying $99 and getting a $99 cash card, more or less free.

I guess those of us who are early adapters who had to PAY for our Sing Adapter got screwed again, which always happens. It would be nice if they would offer us something. It is the same way with the $40 external HDD fee. I really don't know why I am complaning, I know it will do no good, but I guess it makes me feel better.

 

[powerhouse1960]

I agree. Especially since 2 of my TVs (Panasonics) have the Netflix widget built into them (which works amazingly well), my PS3 has it on another TV and my iPad and iPhone both have the Netflix app that give me access to Netflix basically anywhere. Dish's Blockbuster service is going to have to replicate that experience before I drop Netflix for Blockbuster. Oh, and did I mention all of that is available for the low low price of $8/month. So if the Dish service is more than that they are still without a customer. I think the 28 days could be a real competitive advantage for some customers, but means absolutely zero to me.

My question would be is that agreement that allows the none 28 day wait a lifetime agreement between blockbuster and the movie distributors or will it need renegotiate in a year or so ?
If dish has to renegotiate the contract all the content may be 180 days or all leave it to beaver shows

 

[dishcomm]

I just returned from the Team Summit General Assembly, this is the place where all the announcements are made.

DISH Network surprised us by having a special guest host for today's assembly, that being Jason Alexander who played George Costanza on the hit tv show Seinfeld. Jason was a great host and had us laughing the entire time he was on stage.

For consumers you might not say it was an exciting event, but if you a retailer DISH has laid the foundation of something huge!

DISH has owned Blockbuster for about a week now so there are many ideas they shared some idea of how it can benefit the retailers, including the possibily of retailers have their showrooms in Blockbuster Stores, having Blockbuster DVD rental kiosks in front of their stores to bring dealers more foot traffic and more.

DISH is taking my advice from something I wrote in one of my MultiChannel News articles a few years ago and that is taking the reins and making DISH Network into THE company known for Movies. Indeed with the aquisition of Blockbuster, Dish has more movies then anyone else PERIOD.

DIRECTV can be the company known for sports and DISH is the company known for movies.

As a consumer looking in this is just the start of something big, you are going to see over the next year or two DISH Network taking all of its acquisitions and making something big, something that no other company will be able to do.

DISH understands that the way of watching television is changing and they want to be on the forefront of it. And in many ways they are leading the way.

Tom Cullen the Executive Vice President of Corporate Development for DISH told us DISH is in this for the long haul.

Ira Bahr, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer for DISH Network told us about the excitment of Blockbuster and how they can beat Netflix as they can deliver movies 28 days earlier then Netflix and Redbox.

Ira also announced the two new programs for new DISH Customers which is effecive May 18th, those being new customers get 3 months free of Blockbuster service. In addition new customer can get a free Sling Adapter when they sign up as well.

Dave Schull the Sr VP of Programming for DISH Network and talked to us and showed us all the HD that has launched this year on DISH Network, GSN HD was listed as was Viera HD (which has not launched yet).

Dave told us by this summer DISH Network customers will be able to enjoy movies from Blockbuster on their receivers.

He said that 3D Linear channels are coming to DISH this summer but did not give any details. He also mentioned that 722's will support 3D shortly.

A video was shown and it said that HBO on Demand was coming soon to DISH Network.

They showed retailers the DISH World IPTV Box and announced a new WIFI enabled DISH World IPTV was coming soon.

Vivek Khemka, Vice President of Consumer Technology came out and talked technology. He went into talking about GoogleTV a little bit and said that Google will announce next week the support for Google Apps on the Google TV platform. That should be kind of exciting, Google TV has so much potential, this will give it the kick in the pants it needs.

He then showed a new DISH Product they are calling The Tailgater. Which is a rebranded Vucube from King Controls. The price is attractive at $349, and it requires a DISH 211 to operate it.

For me as a consumer the MOST exciting announcement was the new Multiroom Viewing equipment. This new equipment allows full HD viewing in all rooms of your house with full trick play and the ability to share all recordings in any room.

The boxes we saw photos of were the XiP 813 and the XiP 110.

The XiP 813 is the heart of the system, it contains 3 satellite tuners and the hard drive for storage of your recorded shows. The XiP 110 is the box that hooks to your TV and is connected to the XiP 813 via a thin client. You need one XiP 110 on each TV.

The beauty of this system is its expandable, want more satellite tuners just add another XiP 813. Everything is automatically shared and expanded. And you can hook it up to as many TV's as you want. This is a lot more advanced then DIRECTV's MultiRoom Viewing in all ways.

The rest of the assembly was on retailers and DISH was giving them all the tool they needed to make sales easier including releasing a new DISH Sales App. DISH is even going so far as giving away Motorola Xoom's so that retailers can take advantage of the app.

So there you have it... from the consumer end not to much to report other then we see the stepping stones to something big... Rome was not built in a day... But for retailers selling DISH Network just got a bit easier and in many cases a lot more profitable.

Ah ha! Each tv requires an XiP 110. Those are connected via coax. Am I to understand that the XiP110 then feeds HD to each tv? If so, looks great.
I'd like to see a schematic of the set up to get a better understanding. I would do my own connections and wiring.
I also wish to know if the XiP 813 needs to be connected to a tv or is it more or less a distribution box?
In other words, can the XiP 813 be located in a closet where a distribution panel might be?
The idea is to use the existing wiring in for example, my home which is already wired, and simply use the 813 as a distribution box to feed the three tv's in my home.

 

[dishcomm]

this was answered. The 110 *is* a thin client ... in this case thin means that its a break out box, decodes video, has chips that break it down to HDMI, Component, & Composite... See Scott's other picture thread
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/254534-scotts-team-summit-photo-dump.html

Also look at what MoCA is
MoCA :: Multimedia over Coax Alliance

the pictures show you the back of the 110 has HDMI/Composit/Component out the 110 then is a basic video converter much dumber than Dish's Vip211k receiver... mentioning that because the 211k is only 99 to 109 in stores ... so think of that for the probable price point of the 110 boxes, and most likely without a monthly fee per 110 box unless you're leasing them.

The rest of your questions should be extrapolated from Scott's pictures in the link I've posted just above.. except prices..

Special note.. the picture of the 813 shows *no* OTA module plate on the back... I would hope they have some other plan to allow for at least passing OTA into the cables ... much like the use of Diplexers that would allow an amplified OTA Frequeny set into the single cable through the system, and break out a seperate port at your TV's ... this would also make recording potentially gone **OR** the 813 tuners might be dual band/dual purpose.. Sat tuner & ota tuner ... don't know.. as the picture shows it as "sat in / home video network"

It appeared to me that Scott described "the connection" is via thin client.
Now in that context, what is a thin client?.
Please answer that question in plain English. No techie jargon. No abbreviations....Please!

 

[navychop]

It appeared to me that Scott described "the connection" is via thin client.
Now in that context, what is a thin client?.
Please answer that question in plain English. No techie jargon. No abbreviations....Please!

Thin client just means the XiP110 is a simple box. It passes commands to the XiP813 for processing, and displays the results, maintaining a certain level of security. The XiP110 does very little and is rather simple. The XiP813 does all the work.

 

[dwarren2]

I guess those of us who are early adapters who had to PAY for our Sing Adapter got screwed again, which always happens. It would be nice if they would offer us something. It is the same way with the $40 external HDD fee. I really don't know why I am complaning, I know it will do no good, but I guess it makes me feel better.

I was planning on ordering one in the next couple of weeks. We're going to visit the in laws on Nantucket at the end of June. There is only 1 tv in the house and if there is a Red Sox game on, my fil will be watching that. With the sling I can use my laptop to watch something else. I'll now wait till after the 18th.

 

[harshness]

And then diplex the signal back to the cable junction to split it out to the 110's.

See the picture dump for the node devices used to distribute the streams.

 

[harshness]

So far team summit leaves more questions than answers. The technology sounds really cool, but aside from this site & people here, there are a lot of technology challenged folks out there. If they want to appeal the masses they need to keep it simple to use & affordable.

We're interested in the technical stuff because that's how we narrow down what's going on. Using the technology doesn't require an intimate knowledge of how it works.

 

[Dr.Pepper]

Didn't think I would ever see anything that would make me want to kick my 722 receivers to the curb, but this may be it. Like what I'm seeing and hearing of it so far.

 

[harshness]

It appeared to me that Scott described "the connection" is via thin client.

A thin client is a box that connects to (or is built into) the remote TV. In this case, "the connection" would be what it takes to adapt the output of the XiP813 for display on a conventional TV. The word choice of "the connection" was unfortunate as it includes the network media as well as the STB.

The physical connection between the XiP813 and the XiP110 is cabling (coax or Ethernet) and maybe wireless and has absolutely nothing to do with the "thin client" that is uniquely the XiP110.

You must let go of the idea that the "thin client" has anything to do with the network connection technology. From the pictures, it is plain to see that both MoCA and Ethernet are supported.

 

[harshness]

Didn't think I would ever see anything that would make me want to kick my 722 receivers to the curb, but this may be it. Like what I'm seeing and hearing of it so far.

If they've written off OTA, it will be a show stopper for several of us.