[jacmyoung]

Looked at the thread in HDTV Programming, came off with the following speculations. Some of them were also based on the recent rumor about 5000/mods kill-off.


1) If the merger is not approved, they will not roll out 929.

2) Even if the merger is approved, 929 may be delayed until hardware consolidation picture clears.

3) They have got an ear full from HD content providers on the 5000/mod and proposed HDPVR. I have reasons to speculate that continued existence of 5000/mods or mentioning of 929 may be hazardous to Charlie's vision of being an HDTV leader.


While Mark Cuban clearly will not be bothered by the 5000/mods once Dish adds his new channels, other content providers may, including Discovery HD and those who provide contents to Mark.


Charlie is in a very precarious situation for now. If he waits for merger to go through before he add any new HD channels, he will lose much of his HD base, to DirecTV or even cable. If he does not kill 5000/mods, some new HD channels may not want to go on Dishnetwork, but if he kills 5000/mods, he will lose a good number of his hard core HD subs, unless he came out with the HD PVR--unlikely from his latest comment.

 

[Matt_Stevens]

My problem is I have DISH for CBS-HD and MUST keep it, otherwise I lose out of CBS-HD and I refuse to do that.


I may end up having to subscribe to both down the road, and that will royally suck ass. 3 Dishes on the roof is gonna be ugly and piss the wife off. Not to mention subscription costs.

 

[h2ofun]

Hye, I love the stuff on my roof. 4 30 inch for dbs, 1 10 foot BUD, 1 7 foot parabolic for OTA. Looks like mars.


dave

 

[Glimmie]

Quote:

Originally posted by jacmyoung 3) They have got an ear full from HD content providers on the 5000/mod and proposed HDPVR. I have reasons to speculate that continued existence of 5000/mods or mentioning of 929 may be hazardous to Charlie's vision of being an HDTV leader.

Where does he or any OFFICIAL industry spokes person say this? (Official means studio, network, or MPAA officer or press agent.)

 

[dahester]

Yesterday I consolidated BEV, DTV, and Dish satellite systems down to just two dishes. I have four LNBs mounted on an 18"x24" dish (covering 91W, 101W, 110W, and 119W). A separate 20" dish points to 61.5W. The switching matrix is rather hairy, with an SW64 for Dish, a 4x4 switch for DTV+, and a 3x4 switch to split the 119W LNB. I'm prepared, merger or no merger.


-Dylan

 

[mkerdman]

Dylan


Do you have any wiring and multi-switch diagrams and pictures for your new two dish install?


Thanks,


Murray Kerdman

 

[jacmyoung]

Quote:

Originally posted by Glimmie Where does he or any OFFICIAL industry spokes person say this? (Official means studio, network, or MPAA officer or press agent.)

Hence the speculation.


While I still believe copy protection is an issue when it comes to Dishnetwork HD offering, the official release of the JVC 9000 leads me to speculate that the decision on 929 is more due to Charlie's not willing to deal with another Dishplayer nightmare. Dishenetwork is not techinically inclined to handle complex electronics and they know it. All they can think of these days is merger.

 

[vruiz]

I don't know about the proposed Dish 921 PVR, but JVC just announced its own Echostar HDTV PVR , the TU-9000, scheduled for release as early as September. It doesn't make any sense for them to do that if Echostar had any reservations about an HD-PVR.

 

[dahester]

Quote:

Originally posted by mkerdman Dylan Do you have any wiring and multi-switch diagrams and pictures for your new two dish install? Thanks, Murray Kerdman

Unfortunately I don't. But check out this web page for some good diagrams:

http://www.18inch.com


I know, I know, it sounds like the name of a porn site, but rest assured it's not. Scroll down and click on the 'Wiring diagrams' button. Essentially I use the oval dish/round dish combo described there, with BEV added (the BEV feed does not pass through any of the switches).


The mod I made to the oval dish was straightforward. I use the three standard LNB mounts on the dish to pick up 91, 101, and 110. I found a thin metal plate from Home Depot and drilled some holes through so that I could bolt a Dish 500 LNB mount next to the triple LNB mount. The Dish 500 mount has only one LNB installed for 119W. The LNB mounting screws pass through the metal plate, and hold the two mounts together. Someday I'll have a digital camera and will post some photos.


Surprisingly, I'm getting an upper 80s signal strength on the rogue 119W LNB. 110W is in the upper 70s, 101W is in the 90s, and BEV (91W) comes in last with a still useable upper 60s. It takes a good sized dish to get a perfect BEV signal down in Texas. My friend barely gets to 90 with a 36" dish.


Note that I use the 110W LNB with Dish, as I don't have the special Sat C LNB for DTV. To pick up the complete services of all three systems, I believe three dishes are the minimum:


1. A round dish pointed to 61.5W or 148W (Dish)

2. A Dish 500 pointed to 110W and 119W (Dish)

3. An oval dish pointed to 91W (BEV) , 101W (DTV) , and 110W (Sat C LNB for DTV).


The problem is I don't know of any way to use a single 110W LNB for both DTV and Dish, since the Sat C LNB is non-standard. Hope this helps.


-Dylan

 

[Don Landis]

Dylan-


Somewhere I have seen a picture of an oval dish with 4 LNB's attached where the 91W LNB for BEV was tie wrapped to the 101 LNB so as to get a signal off that orbital slot. I often wanted to try this but don't have a BEV IRD to see the signal quality. Using a sat signal meter the poster had to use some plastic spacers to get enough offset to catch the angle of the 91W. while still receiving the 3 LNBs signals for DirecTV. The coax from the 91W LNB went directly to the IRD so it didn't interfer with the DirecTV stuff, just used the dish for the reflector.

 

[Cambridge Bob]

Regarding jacmyoung's point #3: If I'm a content provider, I see STBs with built-in PVRs as an essential device to implement PPV in a consumer-friendly way. The licensed STB/PVR gives me the ability to allow the consumer to time-delay a PPV movie without making a transportable recording. Furthermore, I can put in a feature that automatically deletes the movie after a certain period that the consumer has agreed to. So... If I'm a content provider, I'm going to be helping Dish and DirecTV and the cable companies with their STB/PVR devices, while I slash away at the likes of Sonic Blue.

 

[jacmyoung]

My point was because of the lingering 5000/mods issue, content providers may use it as a bargain chip, much like the excuses Jack Valenti companies use. Which may put Charlie in an disadvantage when negotiating new HD carriage. May be as the result they want to kill all 5000/mods. On the other hand if they do, they may leave a very had taste in the hard core Dishnetwork HD timshifters, whose loyalty is vital if they want to keep their HD base and sell any new but high priced HD PVRs. It can be a dilemma.


DirecTV does not have such problem yet. I don't consider the 169 product a threat because the number will be very limited and it is not DirecTV's doing.

 

[waters]

"I often wanted to try this but don't have a BEV IRD to see the signal quality"


You can use an OLD DISH IRD to see the signal quality. It will say "wrong satellite", but will still show signal quality. WARNING: This may corrupt the DISH IRD so that it will never receive DISH again.

 

[Glimmie]

Quote:

Originally posted by jacmyoung My point was because of the lingering 5000/mods issue, content providers may use it as a bargain chip, much like the excuses Jack Valenti companies use. Which may put Charlie in an disadvantage when negotiating new HD carriage. May be as the result they want to kill all 5000/mods. On the other hand if they do, they may leave a very had taste in the hard core Dishnetwork HD timshifters, whose loyalty is vital if they want to keep their HD base and sell any new but high priced HD PVRs. It can be a dilemma. DirecTV does not have such problem yet. I don't consider the 169 product a threat because the number will be very limited and it is not DirecTV's doing.

The 5000 modulator users who also have DVHS are probably about 1000 or less. And I'll also bet they all lurk here. I don't think content providers consider this problem as the equipment is long since off the market. Just look at prices on EBAY. This stuff is clearly very rare.

 

[jacmyoung]

Quote:

Originally posted by Glimmie The 5000 modulator users who also have DVHS are probably about 1000 or less. And I'll also bet they all lurk here. I don't think content providers consider this problem as the equipment is long since off the market. Just look at prices on EBAY. This stuff is clearly very rare.

Why then Dishnetwork would spread the rumor of disabling 5000/mods? There is currently not even enough HD content to even have bandwidth concern. Since when Dishnetwork became forward-looking when it comes to new technology (8psk? which the benefit may be in a distant future) to the point that they are willing to foot the bills of the new adaptors for all Dish6000 subs?


Other than the fact they want to kill the 5000/mods at their own loss? May be, just may be without doing so they fear they will lose even more?

 

[DP1]

They didnt really spread that rumor. It was just "what if" scenario's when somebody inquired about it. If we go to this new technology, it may render those 5000/mods obsolete. I dont think they really care about that though if it happens. As we all know, when the mod was developed it was nothing more than a patchwork way for them to get the new HD signals from HBO and Showtime out to the very few people that actually had their own OTA tuners to begin with back then since Dish didnt have it's own true HD receiver slated to be released for almost another year. All this recording stuff was just a nifty by-product. If they had any major issue with that, they would have disabled it along time ago.


As far as being at some sort of disadvantage by allowing that setup into the mix, I doubt it. Both they and DirecTv are already at a disadvantage insofar as the number of HD PPV movies that are made available to them. It was talked about some on the Tech Chat last night. How the studios wont make alot of movies available to them until the copy protections are put in place. Certainly not in regards to any equipment floating around out there in large quantities at the moment (since there isnt anyway, 5000/mod or otherwise), but just in general.

 

[jacmyoung]

DirecTV does get many more HD PPV titles than Dishnetwork.


I certainly don't mean 5000/mods is a significant barrier, but its existence can be used as leverage. Do any of you seriously believe Hollywood's copy protection is to prevent a home-made video spread out on the Net, or their desire for maximum control of profit?

 

[Alan Sh]

Quote:

Originally posted by jacmyoung DirecTV does get many more HD PPV titles than Dishnetwork.

Since 6/1/2001 DirecTV has premiered 14 movies while Dish has premiered 16 movies. Since October DirecTV has only shown New Line movies. Dish has shown the same New Line movies (except for Hedwig and the Angry Inch) plus one Artisan movie(Made) in the same time period.

 

[jacmyoung]

I haven't followed HD PPV lately but remember envying DirecTV's frequent HD PPV titles over Dish, but their PPV timeslot sucked.


I don't know why they even bother with HD PPV. Replace them with a new HD channel and charge an extra $10 a month.

 

[dahester]

Quote:

Originally posted by waters You can use an OLD DISH IRD to see the signal quality. It will say "wrong satellite", but will still show signal quality. WARNING: This may corrupt the DISH IRD so that it will never receive DISH again. [/b]

This may be true (especially if your receiver doesn't have jtag). However, as long as the IRD is not powered off and one does not exit the signal strength meter, a Dish IRD can safely be used to monitor BEV signal strength.


Don, since 91W delivers weak signals in the southern US, I decided to give it a real mounting position on the triple LNB (where 101W is normally). I let the 119W LNB dangle off to the side since its signal is normally very strong (and still pretty strong even with its oblique look at the dish). Maybe I got lucky, but I didn't need any spacers to make it work. It did take an hour monitoring three signal strength meters to dial in the best results (one can throw out any notion of presetting the tilt before installing a quad LNB dish; all three degrees of freedom must be tweaked carefully).


-Dylan