This is actually a big joke to me. I don't think this feature will ever make it. E* has such a hard time getting their $#!+ together.
Where is USB External Storage for the 942/ViP622?
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Well they certainly got their act together with the ViP622- it sure beats the "20" from D* and is a lot more responsive than Tivo.
Anyway- you want rumors? Big, nice, juicy rumors? Well, here's one for you- maybe the USB external storage is delayed because they are figuring out how to use half the added storage space for VOD.
Anyway- you want rumors? Big, nice, juicy rumors? Well, here's one for you- maybe the USB external storage is delayed because they are figuring out how to use half the added storage space for VOD.
If they enable the USB port, I can almost guarantee you that not every USB Hard Drive will work. They will enable it but only the USB Hard drives sold by Dish Network will work. More money for them.
I say this because I see a lot of people saying that they have their "500 GB USB Hard drive ready". Well most likely those hard drives won't work.
I say this because I see a lot of people saying that they have their "500 GB USB Hard drive ready". Well most likely those hard drives won't work.
Yes, I'd guess it's 2 to 1 that the ones that will work will be limited, and sold by DISH. Not only would that be a profit center for them, it would limit support expenses. Imagine the calls and difficulties if just any USB drive could be plugged in- tech support would go nuts!
At the very least, if they allowed any USB drive to be dedicated to the task, I'll bet they'll only provide support for certain ones.
At the very least, if they allowed any USB drive to be dedicated to the task, I'll bet they'll only provide support for certain ones.
RandallA said:
I disagree with you there. From their demonstrations so far it appears any brand will work.
Don't get me wrong, I really hope to be wrong on this one but think about it. Like navychop said, it will be easier to support only a few brands and they'll make money selling the hard drives.
And additional ( heavy ) argument is - all DVR have very limited number of supported [approved] disks, around only 10 models.
GRRRRRR 
I will not be happy if I can't buy my own drive. This is CRAZY! Drives are an interesting consumer item, they are very expensive full price, but can be found on sales and deals very easily at far cheaper prices.
The other interesting thing about drives is they are really a commodity. Once they are formatted however Dish wants them to be, it really makes little difference what the drive specs are.
In fact, if they implement it the way we expect, i.e. only backup storage, not actually allowing you to play video off the drive, then the need for any specific drive specs vanish.
I will be REALLY mad if the only option is a Dish Drive. Just yesterday I saw an ad at a local brick and mortar for a 300 GB drive for $69 with no rebate. I saw a 500GB drvie last week for $110.
I will NOT buy a Dish branded $300GB drive for $300, when I could supply my own for $69.
It is a rip off.
I will not be happy if I can't buy my own drive. This is CRAZY! Drives are an interesting consumer item, they are very expensive full price, but can be found on sales and deals very easily at far cheaper prices.The other interesting thing about drives is they are really a commodity. Once they are formatted however Dish wants them to be, it really makes little difference what the drive specs are.
In fact, if they implement it the way we expect, i.e. only backup storage, not actually allowing you to play video off the drive, then the need for any specific drive specs vanish.
I will be REALLY mad if the only option is a Dish Drive. Just yesterday I saw an ad at a local brick and mortar for a 300 GB drive for $69 with no rebate. I saw a 500GB drvie last week for $110.
I will NOT buy a Dish branded $300GB drive for $300, when I could supply my own for $69.
It is a rip off.
Well, it would be nice if the brand and model of USB drive didn't matter- but experience says otherwise. Timing differences, onboard caches, drive speeds, etc, can all throw a wrench into the works. It's that 2% that are off a bit that would cause headaches.
I'd love it if they let us hook up any USB drive, even if it was formatted, encrypted and cursed to where it would only work with Dish. No problem. But I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than count on something that may not happen.
Ripoff? Dish might think they're being ripped off with support calls for hardware they didn't sell or approve, and that they made no money off of.
Anyway, it's been posted that the implementation is to let you play directly from the external drive. That appears to be working. Getting it to work with any ViP on your account is the part that they seem to be having problems with, and may be a later added feature.
I'd love it if they let us hook up any USB drive, even if it was formatted, encrypted and cursed to where it would only work with Dish. No problem. But I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than count on something that may not happen.
Ripoff? Dish might think they're being ripped off with support calls for hardware they didn't sell or approve, and that they made no money off of.
Anyway, it's been posted that the implementation is to let you play directly from the external drive. That appears to be working. Getting it to work with any ViP on your account is the part that they seem to be having problems with, and may be a later added feature.
At CEDIA, I was told by the holiday season of 2006, and that generic USB drives would work.
Cheers,
Cheers,
navychop:
I saw a Terabyte external for < $500. I'd worry about that, because it's probably two striped 500GB drives to get to the TB size. Plus with smaller drives, you minimize your failure exposure
I wish there were RAID5s that were accessible via USB instead of as SANs. It would be neat to mount up 1.5 or 2.25 Terabytes of RAID protected storage on something like an Infrant ReadyNas.
Cheers,
I saw a Terabyte external for < $500. I'd worry about that, because it's probably two striped 500GB drives to get to the TB size. Plus with smaller drives, you minimize your failure exposure
I wish there were RAID5s that were accessible via USB instead of as SANs. It would be neat to mount up 1.5 or 2.25 Terabytes of RAID protected storage on something like an Infrant ReadyNas.
Cheers,
At the current prices, I can see having 3 or 4 300s, if the ViP will support that sort of thing.
I noticed that the drive used in the videos from CEDIA was of the Maxtor OneTouch variety. I recognized it, as it was the same make as my newly purchased 1TB. I bought the drive for use w/ my Media Center laptop, but have sort of resigned that that will change if E* brings this USB archiving feature to 'life'
I would imagine that they will offer up a list of specs/min requirements for use w/ the USB archive feature or a short list of models they treat as 'certified'. I personally don't see them actually selling the drives. Most importantly, they'll offer very narrow/defined support...i.e. support for the feature and the vip622 et al box, but little to nothing to do w/ the hard drive itself.
I would imagine that they will offer up a list of specs/min requirements for use w/ the USB archive feature or a short list of models they treat as 'certified'. I personally don't see them actually selling the drives. Most importantly, they'll offer very narrow/defined support...i.e. support for the feature and the vip622 et al box, but little to nothing to do w/ the hard drive itself.
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navychop said:
I would not buy ANY drive for the 622 until E* announces whether you will be able to use your own drive. They may very well force users to purchase a drive from them. I pushed them at CEDIA about this, but got no real answer. I would wait until it is announced.
And anyway, price on external drives continue to drop. Buy it when they say we can and you'll get more drive for less $$$.
rockymtnhigh said:
I couldn't agree more.
I just wanted to warn people that it's possible for E* to just allow their hard drives to work. Everyone was already saying "I have my USB hard drive ready to go" but you could be in for a big surprise. So like rockymtnhigh said, just wait and let's hope that there are no surprises when they enable the USB port.
Since there is NO difference in functioning internal vs external disk in terms of electrical and physical parameters of HDD, we will see SAME approved list. Don't believe ? I'm bet my 750 Gb Seagate against same size of your .
.Smith said:Since there is NO difference in functioning internal vs external disk in terms of electrical and physical parameters of HDD, we will see SAME approved list. Don't believe ? I'm bet my 750 Gb Seagate against same size of your
Huh? I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but an external USB has nowhere near the performanace of an internal SATA.
In any case, the implementation they are talking about only requires 1 stream to the external drive.
In general, the specs aren't going to make much difference. The speed limiter will be the USB interface. When burn DVDs with my external burner, the speed maxs out at around 12x (15.84 MB/s). The HDD should be able to go faster.
I timed my pocketdish transferring 10.9 GB of data.... Took 45 mins, 9 secs...
I believe thats 4.12 MB/s. This time it's probably limited by the 4200 rpm 1.8" PocketDish Drive.
In any case, 10 gig is about 1 hour of Hi-Def. Since it took 45 mins to transfer this to the pocket dish, 1 real-time stream over USB should be fine.
David_Levin said:
720p OTA is roughly 4-5 GB per hour and 1080i is roughly 8-10 GB per hour
My HTPC records at 16 MB/s
ABC and fox HD content is usually 4.5 GB per hour (average). (720p)
CBS @ 1080i is usually 8.5 GB (average)
If you'll notice on the 942 and 622, the time consumed by channels at the different resolutions deduct more or less time from the "record time remaining" counter.
My 622 recording an ABC or Fox OTA station (720p Mpeg2) uses about 40 minutes of the "available record time" for an hour show. While (1080i Mpeg2) CBS OTA uses an hour.
So in essence you can certainly get more than 30 hours of HD record time from the 622. (If you record only 720p channels).
Not sure what MPeg4 channels are using. Haven't recorded any.
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USB2.0 is rated for 480 MB/s (More than capable of archiving HD content and streaming it)
Ethernet standard is @ 100 MB/s
Wireless g @ 54 MB/s
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