Dish DTVPal / Echostar TR40 digital to analog converter - Page 158

Here we get TBS with Comcast limited lifeline basic, so it's really not that bad a deal.

at first glance that seems somewhat silly on their part. "no, we dont want your money"

then again maybe not, as Kevin told me the other day that they're not really making money on the CECBs. They might make some on the TR-50...but not the DTVPal, and certainly not the TR-40. So if they took your old DTVPal, it would likely cost them more money in handling it and getting it prepped and out to sell to someone else than it would justto give you two Pals back. I dunno.

Such discussion should likely be reserved for the Gvt shortsightedness thread, but since you brought it up, try telling that to the poor people who cant afford new equipment for this transition, much less a few HDTVs like you apparently can. Just because they lost their job, or the two or three jobs they have doesnt pay enough to afford them cable, a nice home theater and such, doesnt mean they should be punished by the transition and forced to enjoy a lesser quality of life than they have been enjoying with their meager income.

It's easy to sit there and thumb ones nose down at the ones having problems when one has little to none of their own.

I agree with you both - there are a lot of people which this will hurt - but there is also too much repetitive, unproductive whining around here in general.

OTA television is essentially free to the viewer, whether you care to admit it or not. When I watch television, I am not compelled to purchase the products advertised. I am not even compelled to view the commercials. I can take it or leave it as I choose.

On the other hand, I could also make the argument that television is not free because I pay taxes to the government that regulates the airwaves and insures that I am not compelled to pay for the privilege of tuning in. I could also argue that television is not free because it costs time to watch and time has value.

We could make all kinds of silly arguments, but that's what they would be, no matter how much we dress them up as serious discussion.

I've been away for a while. Now I'm trying to find the post that tells the procedure to get a replacement DTVPal?

Thanks in advance. I've been spending time with my son before he goes to Iraq.

Nah. I was spot on accurate.


Nope. Nobody's been whining about losing something they've never paid for. People are expressing opinions about things related to television, a source of entertainment, and you know what? After the digital changeover, OTA television in the States will STILL be free! And people who watch it STILL won't be moochers!

Didn't you and I have an exchange about this the other day? I know it was with someone...

Someone said that there's no free TV, and I pointed out that while you have to pay for cable and satellite, OTA is free. The claim was made that OTA isn't free, because of taxes and commercials, but I then countered, successfully, that those are still there even if you're a cable/satellite customer AND you have a monthly bill to boot.

The only difference is that if you're NOT a cable/satellite customer, but instead view OTA only, you DON'T pay for your television.

THIS is a fact, and thus is the only point of view.

Now, someone might tell you that giraffes are actually Russian spies, but the evidence says otherwise. They might be said to have a "point of view", but I can't quite call it that.

Facts are facts.

That too.

Also, for those that dont read the TR-50 thread, I wanted to make a correction to something I said the other day. The TR-50 will have both USB and Ethernet ports, but no wireless capability, and data transfer via those ports is intended to be one way, to the TR-50. Sorry if I mislead anyone.

For further information, see the TR-50 thread here.

Of course not.

They might have initially, but they're losing money on them now due to the first batch having been defective and them having to replace them for free.

(Plus there's a big difference between the price of the converter boxes and the rumored $300 sticker they've got planned for the 50. )

Of course many people who can't afford to pay for tv service also take public transportation to work. Should the government provide them cars so they can travel like the rest of us? After all transportation is a necessity while tv is just a diversion.

And Rammitinski, after all of the problems with the TR-40/DTVPAL, you think the TR-50 will be worth the extra money? Too be honest, I'll believe that there will be a TR-50 when I see it. I almost consider it vaporware right now. It's too bad Gemstar didn't bring out their own DTA box to go with all of the soon to be orphan TVGOS boxes that will be out there.

Almost every recorder out there with TVGOS has a manual clock setting option, and can still have it's timers set manually.

And no - I don't think the TR-50 will be worth $250.00-$300.00 if it uses a PSIP guide instead of TVGOS - even if it doesn't have all the bugs of the Pal.

Even if they do add a manual clock setting option, the PSIP data is woefully inadequate. And just because they're cutting off analog OTA is no guarantee that they're going to put any more effort into maintaining it - there's not necessarily going to be any more incentive than there is now.

It was just a suggestion - at least something to keep an eye on.

I did snapshot of a screen when the box try to find new FW thru the air - look for posts above.
And yes, FW is in flash memory (8 MB) as all your settings and station's info.

I don't think your analogy applies. I think a closer example would be if the government were to ban the sale of gasoline and only permit the sale of E85 or Hydrogen. Suddenly cars that used to work would be useless without some sort of modification. People would be looking for some sort of relief if that were to happen abruptly.

The Zinwell ZATs run nice-and-cool, and have the same VCR/DVR Timer as the DTVpal.
I like how my 75-year-old mother put it:

- "The air belongs to the People. Just as we have a right to breathe clean air, we have an equal right to use the radio waves to hear music or watch television.

"If these rich corporations are going to abuse the People's airwaves, then they should lose their licenses and give the stations back to the public. Let the stations be run by US, the private citizens."

Sure, when the "people" ante up the billions to buy the infrastructure they can have the airwaves. These rich corporations got rich by taking risks and investing tons of money. The higher the risk, the higher the potential reward.

Yea, my mom is 80 and she too is a child of the depression where FDR was a god. I've heard this socialist crap before.

And this whole thing is due to the government wanting the airwaves for other uses. If the "people" want better control of it then throw the bums out of office who decided this.

But this whole thing is getting out of hand. I'll be glad to discuss this at the Gov't Shortsightedness thread.

Socialist? My mom's a republican - the antithesis of socialist.
These corporations are only LEASING the airwaves, and just like any other landlord, the People can revoke the lease if its usage is abused.

Same applies to corporations who pollute the air; it they are found to be abusing its usage to the point where the air in a community is unbreathable, the corporation can be blocked by the People (via government agency) from continuing that practice.

Read the Declaration of Independence sometime. The People are the rulers, not the corporations.

ah and there's the rub: you not getting a digital signal =! abuse

A very Pollyanna view of our pseudo-democracy. Hard to do when the electronic machines are rigged. But let's get back on topic . . .

Well one of the advantages of being the Landlord is you don't really need a justification to revoke a lease & reclaim your property. The FCC (on behalf of the people) has done this several times. The biggest example is when they flat-out revoked the leases on channels 70 to 83, because it was determined the television stations were not properly using that property, and it could serve a more-important function (analog cellphones in the 80s).

how did you get the dtvpal to do this? does the tr40 also do this?

I was dead set against the tr-40/Pal because of the problems people were having and the lack of buttons on the box. However, as I have just received my coupons and really started looking at the choices, I realized that the echostar is one of the few that has (or at least claims) to have the features I want such as timers.

Here is the $64K, for those of you who already have the box, is it worth it, and would you get another?

Run away from the TR-40crap and the DTVpal!

Buy a Zinwell ZAT instead - the hardware is basically the same, but the software is not broke like it is on the TR40. (For comparison the Zinwell is like Windows XP versus TR40's BrokenVista.)

And if there were a CECB comparable to Linux, it would really ROCK! Zinwell is the next best thing. I am really liking mine. It WORKS!!

Thanks for the suggestion. I am checking out the Zat thread.

There could not be a CECB like linux because it would have 10x more features, be way more efficient, cost a lot less and would not be dictated by the government.

I just wish the ZAT-970A had been manufactured with the Microtune tuner, like some of their other models, and be more sensitive than my APEX DT502.

That's about it in a nutshell.

Just got my replacement... exchanged an F101, and got a F106 from the UPS guy a few minutes ago. I put the old box in the mail (USPS priority mail) on Thursday (Sept 25) around noon, received the replacement exactly 1 week later, to the hour.

The carton had a new Pal and a power supply, even though I didn't return the old power supply. Fired everything up and the initial setup went OK. Will report on timer/clock behavior when I have some mileage on it.

--Gary

There are plenty of liberal Republican's. I live in Michigan and the we had a Republican governer in the 70's who was more liberal than his Democractic replacement.

And corporations do have legal rights. Just because the people are rulers doesn't mean they're allowed to be dictators. The constitution sets up majority rule, but prevents a "tyranny of the majority".

And this relates to the topic 'Dish DTVPal / Echostar TR40 digital to analog converter' how?