# What are the chances that the 921 could be made hardware upgradable to MPEG4?



## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

Presently in the 921 resides one OTA and two satellite tuners all of which are PCI cards. A simple solution could be producing replacement boards for the two satellite tuners that now contain the MPEG4 decoder chip. This could be (in theory) customer replacable and also a low cost solution compared to purchasing a whole new receiver. 

Many people have added PCI cards in their computers before so this would be same situation. The only things you need to know is to unplug the unit from the AC and use the static protection wrist strap supplied in the upgrade kit. The old board could be sent back to dish after the unit is tested.

I'm fairly certain (correct if I'm wrong) that MPEG4 is downward compatible with MPEG2 and MPEG1 methods so nothing is lost by doing the upgrade.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

Oh one more thing I forgot to mention, this would apply to units "off warranty" because everyone knows opening up your box will void it.


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## LASooner (Jan 24, 2005)

'Doubtful' is really not a strong enough word.


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## Jon Spackman (Feb 7, 2005)

Even if that worked, i doubt the software to make it work would be implemented, we still have many issues with mpeg-2 let alone thinking about mpeg-4...

I wish, but not gonna happen.

Jon


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## ntexasdude (Jan 23, 2005)

From what I've read here and other places, aint gonna happen. Even if it were tehnically possible Dish wouldn't ever go for it. They're gonna bend us over a table and makes us buy new ones. :nono2: :nono:


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## tahoerob (Mar 22, 2003)

Plain English - SOL :lol: :lol: :lol:


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## lazaruspup (Mar 18, 2005)

This is DISH we are talking about here. Their track record for upgrades area disaster. I don't see any type of program for the MPEG2 to MPEG4 conversion coming soon. In fact unless Charlie gets Rainbow-1, consumers may not have to worry about MPEG4 for a real long time. We'll see. As for the upgradeability of the 921, not being a techie myself, you've seen the unanimous "no" from the board. Given the fact that DISH hasn't even gotten MPEG2 to work right on the 921, I don't think you have to worry about MPEG4 ever being on it.


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## Cyclone (Jul 1, 2002)

lazaruspup said:


> This is DISH we are talking about here. Their track record for upgrades area disaster.


Honestly Dish has pretty good record with upgrades. They had two expansion modules for the 6000 which they utilized. They also had cheap upgrade promotions for the 6000, 811, and the 510. They have also had "dish'n it up" going for while now. Often people have posted about $50 upgrades for 311s and such for those people who are running way old 3000 or 4000 models. Oh, and they also had a special upgrade offer for 5000 HDTV users to the 921 when Dish went 8PSK only.

That said, I don't expect anything specific for the 921 owners. I do likely suspect that Dish will have real good offer for upgrading to their Mpeg4 HDTV DVR once the MPEG-4 channels begin to appear.


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

I think it would be quite possible to provide an MPEG-4 upgrade for the 921 using an available PCI slot on the motherboard. But, I do not see Dish doing this. It would require them to design a piece of hardware, and write a bunch of software for a box that they no longer sell (and they have enough trouble trying to come up with stable software).

I would not be suprised if Dish came out with a very low cost MPEG-4 HD box that did not have an OTA tuner, it would get the LIL HD from satellite instead of OTA. They could pretty much just give these away (it would just be a souped up 522). If Dish were to roll out HD LIL to the top 50 markets, they would find out that most of their customers no longer needed OTA HD (top 50% is 2/3 US households).


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

Actually if MPEG4 versions of the two satellite tuners were produced it should utilize the same hardware interface as the existing board (assuming the same manufacturer makes the boards). Since the decoder chip itself performs the uncompression, dish should not need to design any new drivers or software updates once they start sending the new compression. This would be true at least on paper. 

Allot of you feel that dish would never agree to this and would favor selling newer receivers and you're probably correct based on the routes they've taken so far. But if other alternatives are suggested by enough of the customers maybe they might consider it. After all it's the programming that makes them money not selling equipment. Regardless if they choose the requirement of new receivers versus upgrading old units the burden will fall on them to provide a cost effective solution if they expect customers to buy the future HD channels.

Personally I don't feel that equipment should become instantly obsolete in just a year or two. I feel it should be good for at least 3 to 5 years based on the prices they charge.


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

jergenf:

You need to think about the hardware architecture. The mpeg4 decoding has nothing to do with the tuners. After being tuned, data is simply spooled to the hard drive (still compressed).

Believe me, you do NOT want to decompress before storing data on the hard drive. I suppose they could decompress, then recompress with mpeg2 but this is complex, expensive, and you don't want another lossy compression cycle.

They could add a stand-alone mpeg4 decoder board, but this would sill be a fairly complex beast. Security, decoding, and scaling would have to be on this board. All outputs to the TV (DVI, Component, S-Video, Composite) would have to move to this card (unless pre-planned, there probably isn't a hardware path to get uncompressed video from PCI to the scaler chips).

For the reasons above, this is very inlikely to happen. There's just not enough 921s out there. The cost of hardware/software development would probably be higher then swapping out the boxs.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

Thanks for clearing that up David. 

I knew the encrypted compressed bit stream was stored to the hard drive before it was processed but I thought the tuner boards themselves contained the MPEG decoders and forwarded the final uncompressed data to the motherboard for final processing. If the MPEG decoder is on the motherboard itself then upgrading would not be possible unless this was inherently designed for that.

So the bottom line is there's only one MPEG decoder that receives all compressed data from all three tuner (2 sat and 1 OTA) cards. Correct?


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

I can only infer....

The 921 can only output 1 signal at a time (there's no "TV2"). There's no reason to have more then 1 mpeg decoder. There's also only 1 scaler. That's why HD (1080/720), cannot be active at the same time as SD (480). It's also possible that the decoder and scaler are the same chip.


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

Another remote possibility for the 921 (don't think dish would even attempt this) would be to send out the bit stream via the fire wire to an external box that had an MPEG-4 decoder in it. The box would simply decode either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 (or WMV if Dish wanted to support it) and have HDMI, component and SVIDEO/composite outputs on it. This would solve the problem of not being able to output both SD and HD at the same time.


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## Jason Kragt (Dec 20, 2002)

David_Levin said:


> For the reasons above, this is very inlikely to happen. There's just not enough 921s out there. The cost of hardware/software development would probably be higher then swapping out the boxs.


Agreed.

Here's what will happen: The current HD lineup will stay in MPEG2, with perhaps the addition of one new channel. Beyond that, new HD offerings will be in MPEG4. Current 921 and 942 owners will lose nothing, but won't be able to get any new HD choices either. As soon as MPEG4 services are offered, a low-cost upgrade path will be available requiring a one-year programming committment, credit card autopay and either an additional fee or HD package commitment. This upgrade will be a totally new receiver, not an external unit, not a PCI card. The new receiver will simply be a new version of the 942 modified to decode MPEG4. The current HD offerings and all SD offerings will remain MPEG2 for a long time.

As much as I would like to see Dish do something that would make my 921 obsolete and require replacement, I don't think they will for some time to come. Remember, as bad as the whole DishPlayer 7100/7200 experience was (which in my opinion was much worse than the 921 experience), those receivers are still in use today (and not just by hackers).


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## Foxbat (Aug 1, 2003)

jergenf said:


> Presently in the 921 resides one OTA and two satellite tuners all of which are PCI cards.


BTW, the 921's 8VSB card is not a PCI card, but is the 6000's 8VSB module with a 90° adapter to plug it into the 921's main PCB.

IF (and it's a big IF) Dish were to try to put in an MPEG4 decoder on a PCI card, it would supercede the motherboard's DVI and component outputs. In fact, I would think that it would have no analog outputs at all, strictly HDCP digital, probably HDMI. That way, they don't have to worry about pushing 178 MBytes/sec through a PCI bus that is rated at 132 MB/s or fitting three YPrPb connectors on the bulkhead plate.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

> If Dish were to roll out HD LIL to the top 50 markets, they would find out that most of their customers no longer needed OTA HD (top 50% is 2/3 US households).


Do you really want satellite delivered HD locals? Both DBS and cable providers have been fighting must-carry of subchannels. I get them now OTA (albeit sans EPG data).

I love the PQ I'm getting on my OTA locals. The last thing we need is for these signals to get compressed like they do now with the SD locals.


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## jergenf (Mar 31, 2005)

I guess we can close this thread. The end result is that the 921 is not up-gradable to MPEG4 because the decoders are not in the tuner cards but rather on the motherboard itself. The proof lies in the fact that if the decoder was in the tuner it would have to pass uncompressed data at 178MB/sec which exceeds the bandwidth of the PCI specification (not to mention they're two of these card running, a hard drive and various other I/O ports all connected to the same PCI bus).
Thanks everybody for you input we were able to solve this situation without even opening a unit.


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## tnsprin (Mar 16, 2003)

jergenf said:


> I guess we can close this thread. The end result is that the 921 is not up-gradable to MPEG4 because the decoders are not in the tuner cards but rather on the motherboard itself. The proof lies in the fact that if the decoder was in the tuner it would have to pass uncompressed data at 178MB/sec which exceeds the bandwidth of the PCI specification (not to mention they're two of these card running, a hard drive and various other I/O ports all connected to the same PCI bus).
> Thanks everybody for you input we were able to solve this situation without even opening a unit.


Actually its totally upgradeable. The mpeg4 signal, still compressed, could be passed to a card that then the card would have to have the outputs on it and not pass it back to the motherboard. This is what is done on most Video cards in PC's anyway. But I don't expect them to do it.


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## ayalbaram (Aug 4, 2003)

Why would you want to upgrade the 921 there are to many problems as is.


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

Foxbat said:


> BTW, the 921's 8VSB card is not a PCI card, but is the 6000's 8VSB module with a 90° adapter to plug it into the 921's main PCB.
> 
> IF (and it's a big IF) Dish were to try to put in an MPEG4 decoder on a PCI card, it would supercede the motherboard's DVI and component outputs. In fact, I would think that it would have no analog outputs at all, strictly HDCP digital, probably HDMI. That way, they don't have to worry about pushing 178 MBytes/sec through a PCI bus that is rated at 132 MB/s or fitting three YPrPb connectors on the bulkhead plate.


How you count the "178 MBytes/sec " ? Current HD programs taking 15-16 MBit/s, and we saw how Dish tested 3 HD per transponder with 8PSK modulation. 
It would be easy to suggest switching to MPEG-4 will not extend the bandwith, but reduce; so they will probably fit 3 or 4 HD channels per one transponder (8PSK).
Also for your better consideration DVR921 have 3 MCA slots, perhaps on PCI bus.
I don't see such big problem to add 1,2 or 3 boards for process the two MPEG-4 streams.
As usual it is money spending question - willng Dish to pay own developers or hire contractors for make the boards if they really made around 50000 921 receivers ?


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## Mike123abc (Jul 19, 2002)

I believe the capacity of the satellite TP chipset that Dish has in the 921 is 30 megaSYMBOLs/sec. Operating in 8PSK that would be 90 Megabit/sec before error correction. They currently operate the 8PSK TPs at 21.5 megasymbols/sec before error correction. VOOM is using 22 megasymbols/sec.

Note that this is just raw TP input. Then you have the individual program streams encoded inside this, so a single stream has of course less.

The PCI bus issue is if you send the compressed mpeg4 stream to a card on the PCI bus, the card will have to output the analog/DVI outputs of the uncompressed data stream since the uncompressed 1920x1080x60 fps is beyond the PCI bus. You can send the compressed MPEG-2/4 data to the card, but you cannot get the output back over the PCI bus. The card itself would have to connect to the output jacks.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

Jason Kragt said:


> Agreed.
> 
> Here's what will happen: The current HD lineup will stay in MPEG2, with perhaps the addition of one new channel. Beyond that, new HD offerings will be in MPEG4. Current 921 and 942 owners will lose nothing, but won't be able to get any new HD choices either. As soon as MPEG4 services are offered, a low-cost upgrade path will be available requiring a one-year programming committment, credit card autopay and either an additional fee or HD package commitment. This upgrade will be a totally new receiver, not an external unit, not a PCI card. The new receiver will simply be a new version of the 942 modified to decode MPEG4. The current HD offerings and all SD offerings will remain MPEG2 for a long time.
> 
> As much as I would like to see Dish do something that would make my 921 obsolete and require replacement, I don't think they will for some time to come. Remember, as bad as the whole DishPlayer 7100/7200 experience was (which in my opinion was much worse than the 921 experience), those receivers are still in use today (and not just by hackers).


I agree with your comment 100%. Couldn't have said it better myself.

And I have two Dishplayers on my account active in my kids' rooms. They were doing JUST fine until about 3 weeks ago when they sent me the new yellow smart cards which were a colossal failure. The new card wouldn't take the Personal TV activation code on either unit, and it took me several hours to even get to THAT point because it would keep locking up on the download listings screen. It finally cleared up overnight, but the personal TV code was still the issue. Finally solved the issue by getting them to reactivate my old blue card.

But BAM! another letter shows up with another yellow card telling me that my REinstalled blue card needs to be swapped out again. Sigh. I'm REALLY starting to feel like Charlie Brown and E* is Lucy with the football.

At this point I'm going through the motions with the hope that they CAN'T get it to work with the new yellow cards and that they will give me some reconditioned 508s or 510s to swap them out.


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## welchwarlock (Jan 5, 2005)

jergenf said:


> I guess we can close this thread. The end result is that the 921 is not up-gradable to MPEG4 because the decoders are not in the tuner cards but rather on the motherboard itself. The proof lies in the fact that if the decoder was in the tuner it would have to pass uncompressed data at 178MB/sec which exceeds the bandwidth of the PCI specification (not to mention they're two of these card running, a hard drive and various other I/O ports all connected to the same PCI bus).
> Thanks everybody for you input we were able to solve this situation without even opening a unit.


Once decoded, the data is still compressed...it is encoded 4:2:2, which the video card can uncompress in real time, without any throughput hits. Basically the required bandwidth off of the card with the 4:2:2 data is 1920 x 1080 x 30hz x 1.5 bytes/second 93MB/Second. The encoding is simple, there is one pixel of color information for every 4 pixels of luminence, just like on DVD. No need to unpack the 4:2:2 before sending it to the video processor.

It is therefore possible to build an MPEG4 decoder board and put it into the same architecture without significant architectural changes to the system.

Regards,

Robert Cook


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## Mikey (Oct 26, 2004)

Can they do it? Maybe.

Will they do it? I doubt it. More cost effective to push out new boxes.

And by the way, the FCC should mandate that all DBS and cable receivers have an ATSC tuner capability, for OTA digital signals. I don't want to be held ransom by the providers for content that is available to me for free OTA, and with better signal quality.


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## welchwarlock (Jan 5, 2005)

Mikey said:


> Can they do it? Maybe.
> 
> Will they do it? I doubt it. More cost effective to push out new boxes.
> 
> And by the way, the FCC should mandate that all DBS and cable receivers have an ATSC tuner capability, for OTA digital signals. I don't want to be held ransom by the providers for content that is available to me for free OTA, and with better signal quality.


I disagree. I had a 6000, and they produced an ATSC card, and that was an upgrade, then they changed their HD compression scheme and released another upgrade card, so they do have a history of making upgrade cards. If there are 50,000 units out there, as estimated, you could make a new card with $1,000,000 of NRE, and an RE cost of $200, sell the upgrade card for $220. The cost of replacing the boxes would be much higher.

The real question is whether E* takes the High road, or the Low road. The High road would be to build upgrade cards and give them free to their customers (This is in fact what they did on the 6,000. The low road would be to tell you to buy a new box. The Low road would probably push a lot of people over to the competitor...

The FCC did not mandate ATSC tuners for cable and satellite customers because it would force price increases to those customers in order to cover the cost of giving everyone a tuner. I would have liked them to force Cable and DBS companies to get off of NTSC transmissions just like OTA...It's bad enough that a loophole allows them to sell you the "HD Pack". It is illegal to sell the HD feed at a higher price than the standard feed, so they just create sister channels..."Discovery" & "Discovery HD".....

Regards,

Robert Cook


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## tm22721 (Nov 8, 2002)

The Dish Marketing Dept. is laughing at us right about now.

The 921 is only discussed in hushed tones at E*, one of their most embarrassing failures beyond that of the 7200.


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## Cyclone (Jul 1, 2002)

Mikey said:


> the FCC should mandate that all DBS and cable receivers have an ATSC tuner capability, for OTA digital signals. I don't want to be held ransom by the providers for content that is available to me for free OTA, and with better signal quality.


Why should the FCC mandate what you can obtain on your own? If you want a OTA ATSC tuner, then they sell them as "stand alone". You are not held ransom by either Cable or DBS. So just go buy one.

Its a shame when people are already free and they don't even know it.


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## ClaudeR (Dec 7, 2003)

Cyclone said:


> Why should the FCC mandate what you can obtain on your own? If you want a OTA ATSC tuner, then they sell them as "stand alone". You are not held ransom by either Cable or DBS. So just go buy one.
> 
> Its a shame when people are already free and they don't even know it.


AMEN to that! We keep wanting the Government to intervene, but only when it's convenient. We truly are all a bunch of whiners...

BTW - I have two Dish 500's on my house. Bush should eliminate DishNet because I let them put up 2 dishes.


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