Dish Network HDTV - Page 11

Comcast Sportsnet Chicago is a MUST HAVE for me right now as well...especially with home and away games in HD this year...

I believe CSN is available full-time on D* whereas its still game-by-game on E*...that too is something I'd be taking into consideration when evaluating product as well.

I think you get your RSNs with your locals, so it ought to be included in the "40 for 30" deal. Right?

No - I never said THAT. I said :

"It has to do with the facts that sales of HDTVs are WAY UP, including millions of first time buyers. Those are the people that have lots of questions, and in the huge mega-stores like CC and BB - they will be guided by a $300 savings on the TV as well as the other new customer offers from D* (and commisssions to the CC and BB store clerks), and the now reduced price of the HD-DVR. It has to do with Oct-Jan being the PEAK TV buying season, culminating with the SuperBowl. It has to do with the unfortunate circumstances that had DN's sats get delayed last year -and also the mounting frustration since DN is not being as forthcoming about it's plans as they should be at this time. So, without having any need to lay blame, it just appears that the cards have been dealt at this time to favor DirecTV.





I mentioned very little about DirecTV's marketing.

But you did mention DirecTV's marketing, and I agree with what you said with regards to DirecTV's marketing, and stated why I believe thats perhaps the most significant.

And most importantly, I attempted to stick to the thread topic.

Why does Pay TV feel allot like extortion? They need our money more than we need all those crappy stations they cram down our throats.

So then the Tail is constantly wagging the Dog., We end up being the losers, and all we can do is complain on message boards.I am tired of being forced to pay out monies for something I dont even want..EXTORTION! What else can you call it?

Just to get my local RSN, I have to pay dearly, and we still dont even get it in HD, even though its being broadcast in HD at the source.

What else can one do other than just cancel, keep my money in my pocket till they offer a fair package at a fair price, with every Channel on my TV being what I am willing to pay for (BECAUSE I WANT IT), not what they want me to pay for, because they are forced to package it that way for whatever reason..There really is something fundamentally wrong with that.

It's not extortion if you choose to pay for it.

Dish is (kind of) taking orders for the "stand alone" - that's what they call it- $29.99 HD deal. I get a call back Friday morning to officially schedule the install, which happens Saturday or Monday. The only hidden cost is state tax, which is only 89 cents here, and the $5 and change DVR fee.

I couldn't find anything about this on Dish's web site. Is there a link for this deal, or do I need to call one of their reps? I have Dish 500. Would this let me keep that service and just add some HD channels?

Thanks.

JC

Don't forget the price of the locals if you want them.

Don't they even give you the option of getting the non-DVR tuner?

Locals and forced DVR rental extra - and no RSN's. What a deceiving and practically worthless come-on.

I would be all for such effort except two things:

Pepole complain about not having those channels and swtich to D* which pay up to carry those channels without a fight;

E*'s cost is getting more close to D*, often higher than D* when HD and DVR are added in.

As far as this new $30 all HD pack, I think we can all agree it is a desparate attempt to attract a small HD demographic, simply because E* can't in the short term compete on HD front. And it is this $30 pack made me realize continued wait for new HD from E* would be hopeless. And since I am not in that demographic which the all HD pack can serve, the only conclusion is to switch.

Now had E* been able to lease me two more HDDVRs, I might have stayed because I do like what the E* HDDVRs can offer. Then again going back to the cost issue, many DVRs from E* can cost you dearly since they charge a $6 per DVR fee. D* only charges a $5 DVR fee per accont regardless how many DVRs.

Welcome to the cable world. My local cable co is blitzing the market with commercials about receiving all of your locals in HD free of charge despite the fact that I only receive 2 of the 4 locals in HD when they're all sending out HD signals. Complete false advertising.

So, do you know what your final bill is going to be with the DVR fee and extra box rentals (aside from taxes) ?

the hell with adding these crappy hd lite channels. just give me a decent hd signal.

e*:
stop the compression. increase the bitrates. improve the hd pq.

PLEEEEEAAAAAAASE!

They all know about it, it just not officially available to order until Friday. It is a stand alone deal and not available with any other package, but you can add locals and premiums and equipment, all for more money, of course.



There is no forced DVR rentals. If I didn't want a DVR the total monthly bill would be $30.86/month, INCLUDING a regular HD tuner, which I'm assuming is still the 211. I get all of my locals just fine with a small antenna in HD, so I'm not going to pay to get them in SD.


My total will be $29.99 plus whatever the DVR fee is. I think she said $5.62/month.

Thanks for the response. I'll give 'em a call.

JC

Yes! HDLite rears it's ugly head... Too bad D* pq still doesn't beat E*. I go into many homes each day and have yet to see a D* setup that beats E*. Too bad no one here posts up-to-date comparison screen caps anymore (yes it's doable with mpeg4).

You know...I've said time and time again that the lack of substantial PQ evidence around here was disturbing at best. Especially when, like you said, there was such an abundance of evidence before! Oh well...I guess if the concrete evidence doesn't support the 'higher good', you use subjective evidence, which one can easily pretend is true.

When it comes to evidence and mpeg4, I'm curious...how did we determine that E*'s new mpeg4 channels were all 1440 to begin with? I seriously can't recall...

I believe it was via R5000 captures, which does not work with the new MPEG4 STBs from DirecTV.

So I've been told...often...

Seriously though...is there a legitmate reason for the lack of compatibility? Is it literally a huge difference in the hardware that prevents this? Or is some copy protection software/firmware that prevents images from being captured. Like Macrovision or something...

I'm literally clueless when it comes to the hardware here so please pardon my curiosity...

I don't remember the exact details, but it has to do with how the signal is handled hardware-wise with the DirecTV STBs. Apparently, with the Dish equipment, the MPEG stream can be captured at a specific point in the signal path, a point that can be accessed/tapped by an "add-on" piece of equipment.

With the DirecTV equipment, no such point of access is available. The point where the access needs to be made is "inside" the chip, whereas the Dish equipment uses 2 chips and therefore the signal can be tapped in between.

Something like that anyway, I can get the exact details, but it may take a few days.

That's what I was asking - if they give you a choice.

So, does this mean that I could get the dual-tunered 222 for no extra tuner fee, instead of the 211, since I'm wired for that anyway now with my 322?

Not that I'm sure I'd want it anyway, if the only signal I could send to the 2nd set would be letterboxed versions of that stretched crap they show so much of - and the non-linear stretched stuff would be even worse. Don't know if I could live with not having the option of the correct ratios on the 2nd, 4:3 set.

No need (unless I was planning on modifying my equipment myself. )

I was just curious, thats all, so you've explained plenty! ...thanks!

Interesting! Does the 2-chip setup in E*'s HDDVR have to do with getting around the Tivo patent? I remember reading that the whole point of the Tivo patent is able to record and playback at the same time with one chip.

As far as PQ comparison, if enough people say one looks better than the other after seeing both, reasonable people would accept such opinion. Insisting that screen captures be used for proof, well is kind of being argumentative.

Ya, I completely spaced that fact. I'd still like to see new caps of downrezzed E* mpeg4 compared to ye ole mpeg2 fullrez days. Also wondering if a 1440 mpeg4 frame looks any different than a 1440 mpeg2 frame? It must, but none have been posted that I know of.

And this is what makes me hang onto cable a little bit longer. Is my cable company severly lacking in HD content? Heck yes, but the PQ is fantastic on what I do get. I don't think more is always better when you suffer such a PQ loss.

I can't swear that it's actually a 2-chip solution, only that it apparently works similar to how you can get an SDI output on some DVD players as you can tap directly from the MPEG decoding chip before the signal is sent to the scaling/processing chip, and with some DVD players you can't as all the decoding/scaling/processing is done on 1 chip. I believe the DirecTV STBs are a similar architecture.

There are other ways, I believe using a on-scope on the STBs outputs, but I've only seen that method once and it was on an earlier MPEG2 STB.

Bottom line, the problem, AIUI, is that there is a place to tap the un-processed signal in the Dish boxes whereas there is no similar place in the DirecTV boxes to do the same.

really,

that's interesting as it is contrary to the common perception on this forum that
d*'s mpeg 4 is superior to e*'s. all i know is my friend pq on cable is superior to mine. i get motion blur and macroblocking on sports on my xbr2 which has a response time of 2.5ms and my friend with cable sees no such distortion on his lcd with a response time of 5ms. can't switch to cable cause they just don't have nearly enough hd channels i regularly watch.

our phone provider here in los gatos is verizon. why aren't they offering fios?

Has anyone heard anything about Dish adding USA-HD? Last I heard, they were expected to do so right around Christmas.

It's almost February...

Actually I don't see very much wrong with E's HDPPV channels. The mpeg4 stuff looks very good with no blotchy crap or sh!ty low level details or bad blacks. Mind you it doesn't look quite as good as my XA2, but through my Barco Cine8 onto a 7' wide screen it does look very good most of the time.