# Ask DBSTalk: Rectangular plate on 921 front, future use.



## anderdea (Jan 13, 2004)

In the latest issue of Stereofile Guide to HomeTheater, at the CES show, a writer for the magazine talked to a DN rep regarding the 921. The Rep said that the front rectangular cover will be removed and in the future (early summer) a DVD recorder will be available. HD will be downconverted so it can be burned to a one time or RW DVD. Given the present status of the 921, that sounds like a lot further off than mid 2004, if ever.

Don


----------



## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

I personally think it will be further off than this summer as well, but stranger things have happened...


----------



## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

Hey, if the usual development lag occurs, we might wind up getting a blu-ray drive for 2006 and then we COULD record HD.....


----------



## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Does that mean that you would have the capabability to view the HD programming in SD for SD tv's or to record it to VCR tape as well?


----------



## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

If they do this, it'll be the first time dish has ever upgraded a box in this fashion. Who know if this will even be a user do-able upgrade. Does the top have to come off the box?

I suppose they will also be able to play standard dvds over DVI? That's pretty cool.

Now, in my dreamland they'd add a wm9/mpeg4 encoder/decoder card to one of those PCI slots and let us record HD onto a 4.7 gig DVD. Now that would create a buzz.

Things like that, and firewire, would blow the HD TiVo out of the water. Sure would be nice to see Echostar get on the ball for a change.


----------



## BarryO (Dec 16, 2003)

As I said over in Satelliteguys, I find this a completely uninteresting "upgrade". The whole point of the 921 is HD. Making downconverted DVD's of the HD shows I've recorded is something that's thoroughy unappealing to me.

I hope this isn't being viewed as some sort of "consolation prize" alterative to the Firewire ports. New 921's are being shipped with the ports, and the labels underneath them, obliterated by a foil label. That has me worried. The label's not very easy to peel off, so why would they put it on if they expected customers at some later time to remove it?

Note the USB port, also unused currently, is not so covered.


----------



## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

We need SOME kind of HD recording methodology for archiving. I prefer a discbased solution and a BluRay drive would be a way to solve the problem. 2nd best choice is DVhs. A poor third choice is SD DVD, but we need something onther than the current method of VHS archivingn through the SD downconvert function......


----------



## tm22721 (Nov 8, 2002)

Can we schedule shows from the guide to burn directly to DVD ? Or must the program be recorded to the HD first then burned later in a separate step ?


----------



## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

Another thought...
How can they support a DVD recorder without an Mpeg 2 encoder? None of E*'s material is at the proper SD DVD resolution.

I suppose they could encode in software, but it's gonna take awhile.

Recording HD would be a different story since scaling and reencoding would not be required.

Hmmm, I wonder if it's possible to get SD material out the firewire port either? Can a DVHS handle 640x480 and 522x480?


----------



## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

While the signal coming from the satellite may not be at the DVD "standard" resolution, all of the other parameters are in fact fine for a DVD, although the excessively long GOPs are a little odd. And actually, re-encoding the source material would not be a very good option if one wanted to preserve quality.

As long as one has 480 lines, one can actually burn the material (be it 640x480, 544x480, etc. etc.) and mark the DVD as being 720x480. The DVD should play back normally in most devices.


----------



## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

Slordak said:


> As long as one has 480 lines, one can actually burn the material (be it 640x480, 544x480, etc. etc.) and mark the DVD as being 720x480. The DVD should play back normally in most devices.


I tried this and found the opposite. Except for my mighty $35 Apex, most of my other players refuse to play DVDs at 640 and 522. This would be a very consumer unfriendly solution (how many people know what the standard resolution of a DVD is).


----------



## Slordak (Dec 17, 2003)

Well, there's some bad news then... The 921 does not have the CPU or memory to transcode an MPEG2 video file in real time with any normal algorithm. It's really just a low end computer with some specialized hardware. Hence, re-encoding an MPEG2 movie using proper methods (i.e. without doing a hack job that leaves the video looking like junk) would take it many many hours. Maybe any DVD recorder add-on would have a specialized transcoder built-in...?

As far as DVD players go, it depends a lot on whether the DVD is marked as 720x480, or is marked at the custom resolution. If the DVD is marked at the custom resolution, I agree that most players refuse to play the DVD. However, if the DVD is marked at 720x480, but the actual video file is not converted (e.g. it's 544x480), then many players will still actually play the disk.


----------



## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

As this thread has turned into a discussion, I'm closing it. If you want, I'll merge it into the other 921 DVD writer thread that's in the Dish DVR forum.

Anyway, please continue the discussion in this thread: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=26023

or in this thread: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=25757


----------

