# CES Offers Hope for Dish Network



## BigEFan (Jan 7, 2005)

THe link is to CNET's next big thing, which offers hope for a better tomorrow for staellite tuner. dvr users

http://www.cnet.com/4520-10602_1-5619054-1.html?tag=hot


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## David_Levin (Apr 22, 2002)

Does this box do mpeg4?


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Interesting Box... Wonder if with the SBC/Dish relationship Dish customers can get a hold of this one. I would be willing to move back into the DSL realm with this box for sure. Dual Sat and Dual OTA. Through Online access and WiFi Connectivity. Pretty sweet..


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## BigEFan (Jan 7, 2005)

More info:
http://sev.prnewswire.com/computer-networks/20050103/NYM02203012005-1.html


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

And if you want the real dirt.

http://www.2wire.com/?p=11

It does mention the following client playback.

Video formats: WM9, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, Real Video

However, I would be cautious. The MPEG-4 that they are mentioning might not be the MPEG-4 that Dish refers to. I know that sounds odd. But at one time there was such thing as the Microsoft MPEG-4 and real MPEG-4. They were not compatible. This might not be the case, but just because something states MPEG-4 does not mean it can do the Dish MPEG-4 stream. Nice looking box. Nice UI screen shots too... Looks like 16x9.

Now how do I get one.


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## ocnier (May 8, 2003)

Yeah, but if dish has anything really substantial to do with the making of the box, then it's doomed from the get go. Their track record with equipment is sooooo bad. If 2 wire is completely running the show under the SBC umbrella then this maybe the thing we are all waiting for (personally I wouldn't hold my breath with regards to dish though). Also it's very short sighted to be slaved only to SBC access. SBC doesn't cover the entire country by any means. It's a bandaid at best with regards to SBC coverage in relation to Dish's greater scheme.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

ocnier said:


> Yeah, but if dish has anything really substantial to do with the making of the box, then it's doomed fromed the get go. Their track record with equipment is sooooo bad. If 2 wire is completely running the show under the SBC umbrella then this maybe the thing we are all waiting for (personally I wouldn't hold my breath with regards to dish though). Also it's very short sighted to be slaved only to SBC access. SBC doesn't cover the entire country by any means. It's a bandaid at best with regards to SBC coverage in relation to Dish's greater scheme.


Looks like a pretty good bandaid to me.  <Not taking the flame bait>


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## JM Anthony (Nov 16, 2003)

I've been with E* for a long time, invested in a 921 at the full retail price days, but I'm not even going to *think * about any future upgrades with them until their products are better tested in the marketplace. When D* offers HD in the Seattle market, I'll take a serious look at their products.


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## Scott Greczkowski (Mar 21, 2002)

I actually got to see the unit in action and took plenty of pictures.

This was actually the best thing I saw at CES.

It's a shame that an outside company makes a better Dish Network receiver then Dish Network. 

See it all at http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=41842


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## jerbea (Jan 11, 2004)

Well for those of us who have Dish and sbc dsl already it could be the mother load. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

WeeJavaDude said:


> And if you want the real dirt.
> 
> http://www.2wire.com/?p=11
> 
> ...I would be cautious. The MPEG-4 that they are mentioning might not be the MPEG-4 that Dish refers to. I know that sounds odd. But at one time there was such thing as the Microsoft MPEG-4 and real MPEG-4. They were not compatible. This might not be the case, but just because something states MPEG-4 does not mean it can do the Dish MPEG-4 stream....


Well, that's a good point. MPEG-4 does not refer to a specific set of parameters, but a large suite of possible parameters, different levels of which will result in very different PQ, depending. There are a lot of flavors of MPEG-4. But, any MPEG-4 decoder should in all likelihood decode any flavor of MPEG-4, or at least that's what SMPTE had in mind.

MPEG-2 also refers to a suite of possible parameters, but the range of parameters for MPEG-4 is pretty diverse. MPEG-1 is pretty narrowly defined, on the other hand. It's kind of like how "Dolby Digital" refers to one specific thing narrowly defined, yet "THX" refers to a set of minimum standards, while "high fidelity" can mean almost anything.


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## Jacob S (Apr 14, 2002)

Hopefully both Dish Network and DirecTv will use the same MPEG-4 standards.


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## Mike D-CO5 (Mar 12, 2003)

Jacob S said:


> Hopefully both Dish Network and DirecTv will use the same MPEG-4 standards.


 They don't use the same standard now on Directv as Dish. Directv uses something like 1.5 mpeg standard vs mpeg2 by Dish. Directv has a working mpeg4 stream , who knows if Dish does.

The same can be said about the standard on the hd dvds vs the blue ray standard. The standards are not standard , thus the wonderful confusion for the customers who want to buy a hd dvd player. Reminds me of the vcr vs the betamax players.

Sooner or later everything will be using mpeg4 from satellite providers and hd dvds. Time will sort it all out. I just hope the picture quality will IMPROVE with the new mpeg4 standard instead of go down. It would be nice if Dish would take this time to make the picture quality the best in the business instead of status quo.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

DirecTV has been using full MPEG-2 for many years. When they first debuted in 1994 they used some gear that was not fully MPEG-2 compliant, but that has since been replaced long ago. There is no actual "MPEG-1.5" standard issued by SMPTE, although some wags did dub the DTV stuff as such, as it was sort of MPEG-2 "light", yet still better than MPEG-1.

As far as digital encoding, they both use the same format, which is MPEG-2. As far as delivery, they use very different standards. DISH uses a variant of DVB, which is pretty much what everybody uses, except DirecTV, which uses a proprietary method.

Whether either vendor or both use MPEG-4 at the same or different profiles or levels has no bearing, even on folks that have both services, as the delivery method is still different and precludes any possible compatibility. If they both used the same delivery method that would allow 3rd-party vendors to make receivers that would pick up either system as long as the card could be authorized, but that is highly unlikely, as neither vendor wants to give subs any excuse to switch over and away from them. What we should really hope for is that both configure MPEG-4 to provide similarly good PQ.


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## Charise (Jan 25, 2004)

Scott Greczkowski said:


> It's a shame that an outside company makes a better Dish Network receiver then Dish Network.


I don't read that people love D* receivers but they all love Tivo. Sounds like your statement works for them as well, Scott.


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