Why keep 942 if MPEG2 HD going away?

[RobertsD]

When did you activate the receiver? Was it before or after Feb 1, 2006? I am curious to know if anyone has been able to activate a 942 since Feb 1. Thanks!

I have not activated it yet, but I have talked to multiple tech support guys, and they have all said that they will still activate the 942 for SD, and OTA HD, and if you are allready subscribed to the old HD pack(which I am) you will also recieve that on it too.

They will not(cannot) activate the HD pack on a 942/921 or 811 if you are not already signed up for for the old HD pack, but if oyu are, it works fine.

ALso, if you are signed up for one of the new DishHD matallic packs, you can activate a 942/921 or 811 and get all the channels that are still MPEG2 on Voom and the old HD pack.

 

[malcolmhardin]

Since the DVR-921 was released, on at least two Charlie Chats, CEO Charles Ergen stated that the DVR-921 recievers would be replaced at little or no cost. On one occasion over a period of years was indicated. I believe that if we owners of one or more DVR-921's are patient, Mr Ergen will honor his committment!

 

[angiodan]

Welcome to the board, but you have to remember one thing about what Charlie has said during chats.

99.9% of the time, his information is completely wrong. And if you spend some time on these boards, unfortuantely, you will quickly begin to see that.

Since the DVR-921 was released, on at least two Charlie Chats, CEO Charles Ergen stated that the DVR-921 recievers would be replaced at little or no cost. On one occasion over a period of years was indicated. I believe that if we owners of one or more DVR-921's are patient, Mr Ergen will honor his committment!

 

[BobMurdoch]

EVENTUALLY, they will have to pay to swap them all out when they want to grab back the Mpeg2 bandwidth.

He's doing it this way right now to get US to help subsidize the switch. Many want the HD LILs or the new mpeg4 channels, so we'll pay to make it happen sooner rather than later. Once they get enough machines in the pipeline, they will make the switch mandatory. My guess is that that will take 12-24 months.

 

[BobMurdoch]

Welcome to the board, but you have to remember one thing about what Charlie has said during chats.

99.9% of the time, his information is completely wrong. And if you spend some time on these boards, unfortuantely, you will quickly begin to see that.

My rule of thumb is to ignore everything he says EXCEPT for those items which are backed up with a powerpoint slide. THEN you can take it to the bank....

 

[dlsnyder]

Didn't they have a Powerpoint slide about the NBR upgrade to 50x DVRs?

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Since the DVR-921 was released, on at least two Charlie Chats, CEO Charles Ergen stated that the DVR-921 recievers would be replaced at little or no cost. On one occasion over a period of years was indicated. I believe that if we owners of one or more DVR-921's are patient, Mr Ergen will honor his committment!

I would bet money that the April 1 rebate deal, wherein your 921 can be upgraded to a 622 and your dish and switches will be upgraded too, if necessary, for a grand total of $99 after rebate, would be regarded by Charlie as having fulfilled his promise.

 

[KeithInDallas]

I have not activated it yet, but I have talked to multiple tech support guys, and they have all said that they will still activate the 942 for SD, and OTA HD, and if you are allready subscribed to the old HD pack(which I am) you will also recieve that on it too.

They will not(cannot) activate the HD pack on a 942/921 or 811 if you are not already signed up for for the old HD pack, but if oyu are, it works fine.

ALso, if you are signed up for one of the new DishHD matallic packs, you can activate a 942/921 or 811 and get all the channels that are still MPEG2 on Voom and the old HD pack.

Well that is good news in my mind, that they will still activate old 942's 921's, etc. That will make the 942 viable for some time to come. However, after all the conflicting things I have heard from Chats, CSR, etc, I am a little gunshy about believing what they tell us until it actually happens. Please let us know when you do activate it, and how smoothly (hopefully!) the process goes... I think there are several of us who would be encouraged by that. Thanks RobertsD!!

 

[KeithInDallas]

Since the DVR-921 was released, on at least two Charlie Chats, CEO Charles Ergen stated that the DVR-921 recievers would be replaced at little or no cost. On one occasion over a period of years was indicated. I believe that if we owners of one or more DVR-921's are patient, Mr Ergen will honor his committment!

If you consider the $200 rebate deal that starts in April for owners of 921's to turn them in for a leased 622 as the honoring of his commitment, then he in fact has. If not, I am guessing you would be out of luck.

 

[RobertsD]

Well that is good news in my mind, that they will still activate old 942's 921's, etc. That will make the 942 viable for some time to come. However, after all the conflicting things I have heard from Chats, CSR, etc, I am a little gunshy about believing what they tell us until it actually happens. Please let us know when you do activate it, and how smoothly (hopefully!) the process goes... I think there are several of us who would be encouraged by that. Thanks RobertsD!!

It should be coming in the mail in a couple of days, so I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[Jason Kragt]

I don't want to "upgrade" because they are asking me for property I own to be given back for a lease' because the new HD channels don't have a lot of compelling content for me; because I don't want to pay even more money then I have already spent on receivers; because the new HD package price has gone up; because my 942 will continue to receive all my channels for at least a year (or so they say); and because I watch HD OTA the most. That about covers it!

I'm thinking in a similar mode as Keith. I had the old HD pack for a while (and considered adding VOOM), but just wasn't watching or recording those channels much, so I cancelled. The picture quality was beautiful, but the content seemed weak to me.

I do record and watch local channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and PBS) in HD a lot. The 942 makes sense for this because there is no lease fee nor an "enabling fee". With AT60, locals and DVR, my monthly bill is just $41. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the Bronze package with locals, DVR (and lease) run me $66? That's over a 60% increase in my monthly bill for stuff I wouldn't watch much anyway.

I would change my tune if Dish were to offer most of AT60 (minus the shopping and public interest channels) in HD, but I doubt that could happen anytime soon.

 

[treiher]

When I ordered my 622, I asked what was going to happen to mpeg 2 and I was told that E has over 12 million customers and that only a very small percentage of those customers are actually interested in HD (us).

You know, I really think Dish and all the other service providers are missing the boat big time with this mind set. Almost seems like they are fighting it, and slowly giving in to the eventual demand, rather than embracing it and making it work to their advantage. In my opinion, they should be a lot more focused on not shipping any more SD boxes rather than MPEG 2. Why not supply new customers with only HD boxes? You don't have to have an HDTV to view it, provided it has a converted 480i output. You might wonder what's the point, if you can't view it in HD? But it is still in widescreen and also includes Dolby Digital sound. We got our 942 several weeks before our new plasma, and so it was hooked up through TV2 to our old JVC 32" tube set. And you know, I would up watching Monday Night Football on the HD-OTA feed over the regular SD feed. Really liked the widescreen view of the game and the Dolby Digital sound was very obvious on my surround sound system. I wonder how many people realize there is benefit, even if you don't get the enhanced resolution? How many people would start considering an HDTV if they were exposed to these benefits? Just a thought and I'm sure there are reasons not to. But I keep wondering, why not? Why not shipping only HD boxes, as long as they can downconvert to standard TV's? Wouldn't that also simplify their support and lower costs if they had fewer boxes they were selling?

 

[MikeD-C05]

Probably because they have a large existing stock of sd receivers and have less inventory of hd receivers. Maybe when the sd receivers finally run out , then they can convert to all hd ones.

 

[navychop]

"...Why not supply new customers with only HD boxes? ..."

All future E* STBs will be HD, MPEG-4, ethernet & 8PSK compliant. The current SD boxes that are still available will disappear (from E*) as soon as production of the new boxes is sufficient. They can "rush" the HD customers, and maybe some LiL customers, into a switch, then take years to phase out the old boxes. At some point, I'd imagine they'll refuse to activate the old boxes, so they do in fact "go away."

 

[vurbano]

Why upgrade? The answer seems obvious. SO you can see and record the new channels. I think its despicable what Charlie is doing to existing 942 owners. This is a policy you had better get him to change or he could use it to maximize profits every couple of years. Maybe He'll start adding header information to his video for each model of reciever and only those with this years model will be able to recieve this years new channels every year. Sounds far fetched, but he has set the stage for it.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

It will be harder for Dish to do this in the future, as the number of HD receivers in use grows.

Right now we are a relatively small group that can be jerked around. And this small group was divided, as many non-DVR HD subs jumped on the immediate $49 upgrade.

The number of subs with HD DVRs was/is one of Dish's smallest subscriber groups.

 

[navychop]

And it's likely to become it's fastest growing group. Convert 'em over now when it's cheapest, get max returns in future.

 

[PEP]

942 Activated Last Week

I purchased a used 942 off of Ebay on Saturday 2/11/06, received the unit on 2/15/06. I activated the 942 on 2/16/06 with no problems (after getting the previous owner to decativate the unit from their account). I spoke with 2 different CSR's and had no problems whatsoever on activating it. I did not ask for any HD packs and they did not offer. I am strictly using it for SD/OTA only. So you guys thinking of getting a 942 for use on SD/OTA, go for it. IMHO it is the best way to go right now for those of you that have a good local OTA selection.

Patrick

 

[RobertsD]

Well that is good news in my mind, that they will still activate old 942's 921's, etc. That will make the 942 viable for some time to come. However, after all the conflicting things I have heard from Chats, CSR, etc, I am a little gunshy about believing what they tell us until it actually happens. Please let us know when you do activate it, and how smoothly (hopefully!) the process goes... I think there are several of us who would be encouraged by that. Thanks RobertsD!!

The 942 came today, I hooked it up, called dish network, had them activate the 942, then deactivate the 811.

I'm recieving all the old HD channels, and the 942 works great

 

[Paradox-SJ]

The 942 +family pack ot AT60 and locals with a good OTA solution is a VERY good deal.

There is more current HD material broadcast for free OTA than anywhere else...

Add a HD DVD player or at leat one that upconverts and Blockbuster/Netflix account and you have more HD material than you have time to watch.

The only thing thats missing is ESPNHD for mondy nite football...so if you can live without it...and dont mind saving a bunch of money...go with the 942