# What is being done for the 921?



## welchwarlock (Jan 5, 2005)

Can anyone confirm that there is actually work going on to fix the bugs on the 921? Many of us have been waiting for over a year for fixes that have not been delivered. 

A year of software development is a very long time in this day in age. 

Entire product development cycles from a clean sheet of paper are typically 9 months, all we are looking for are fixes...

WW


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## ebaltz (Nov 23, 2004)

Ha! Right. They are just buying time until they have a new machine that works that we can "upgrade" to with MPEG4 for $500.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

They have been working on fixes, however one "fix" may cause several new bugs. How many "revisions" have they spooled so far? FWIW 215 worked the best - ever since that one the pause has jitters. I realize there are some bugs that affect only a few so the revisions continue.


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## motrac (Jan 5, 2003)

Michael P said:


> FWIW 215 worked the best - ever since that one the pause has jitters. .


The problem with 215 though was that it gave us`all a free guide with OTA channels and once the corporate crooks at Dishnetwork realized that they could no longer shake us down for the extra charge for their locals they quickly came out with 216. How I miss my OTA guide!


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

Since the much cheaper 811, which BTW also has no extra fees, gets OTA guide info with no LIL sub requirement, I don't understand why so much effort is being put into depriving 921 owners of the same thing.

After having monthly releases last summer they now seem to be on a roughly 3 month cycle. There are too many reliability and usability issues remaining as well as recently introduced major bugs to allow them to slow the schedule that much.

Wild speculation: we _may_ see something around late Sept/early Oct since L215 came out 6-28.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

BTW: I heard for an advance tech that the 811's "free" OTA guide was a mistake too, however it was a hardware issue in the 811 as oposed to a software issue in the 921.

The "corporate crooks" want everyone to take LIL's so they can recoup the investment in spotbeam satellites as well as to help pay the greedy station owners who demand outrageous fees from E*, D* and the rest of the "MSO's" for something they provide for free to those lucky enough to afford an antenna and are within range of their OTA signals.

Ever since I first got cable abdck in the 80's I wnated a way to avoid paying for what used to be free - the local stations. I got that chance in '97 when I first subscribed to E*. There was no way to legally buy the off-air networks then for someone in my situation ("City Grade" on nearly every station). About the only thing I enjoyed was the ability to see ion the EPG what was on the "big 4" networks in the red on the DNS channels that appeared in everbody's guide back then. Then they took away the DNS listings from the EPG.

FWIW: I would subscribe to the West Coast DNS if it was legal, but there is no reason for me to sub to the east coast DNS or my own DMA's LIL's - I get a better picture on those channels OTA i.e. UNCOMPRESSED!


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

921 is still being worked on. The next version is currently in beta.


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## motrac (Jan 5, 2003)

Mark Lamutt said:


> 921 is still being worked on. The next version is currently in beta.


Will it give us an OTA guide without giving Dish an extra $6 for their locals


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## Allen Noland (Apr 23, 2002)

Mark Lamutt said:


> 921 is still being worked on. The next version is currently in beta.


What he said.


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## Allen Noland (Apr 23, 2002)

motrac said:


> Will it give us an OTA guide without giving Dish an extra $6 for their locals


Nope, it isn't a software limitation, it is a business decision to charge for guide data.


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## welchwarlock (Jan 5, 2005)

Mark Lamutt said:


> 921 is still being worked on. The next version is currently in beta.


Can you be more specific...what bugs are they planning on fixing?


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

You should have learned by now that Mark or any E* employee will not discuss what they are working on for future release. They may, on occasion, tell you what they did do on the most recent release with release notes. The best way to learn what was done is to read the posts here from users who state observations on how the software performs.


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## kzosat (Aug 22, 2004)

DonLandis said:


> You should have learned by now that Mark or any other E* employee will not discuss what they are working on for future release. They may, on occasion, tell you what they did do on the most recent release with release notes. The best way to learn what was done is to read the posts here from users who state observations on how the software performs.


So you are saying Mark is an E* employee? I didn't think he was an actual employee.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

No Mark is not an E* Employee. none of the Moderators or Admins are E* employees.


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## Cyclone (Jul 1, 2002)

kzosat said:


> So you are saying Mark is an E* employee? I didn't think he was an actual employee.


Mark is not an employee. That sentence was just worded improperly. Take out the word "other" and the sentence works fine.


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## kzosat (Aug 22, 2004)

Cyclone said:


> Mark is not an employee. That sentence was just worded improperly. Take out the word "other" and the sentence works fine.


Yeah, but how am I suppossed to know to take out that word. I asked, and got an answer, that is all I was checking.


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## motrac (Jan 5, 2003)

Ron Barry said:


> No Mark is not an E* Employee. none of the Moderators or Admins are E* employees.


I don't know, seems he always has EchoStars back.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

motrac said:


> I don't know, seems he always has EchoStars back.


Sorry about the English, I always said English is my second language, bad English is my first! I'll correct it with the suggestion if that makes everyone happy.

Yes, Mark has told me personally he is not an employee of E* as in on the payroll but he works for them in the testing program and is under contract with a Non Disclosure Agreement. Mark is alowed to state that fact but many who are involved with testing programs aren't even allowed to divulge that much. Mark takes his non disclosure agreement quite seriously as it should be.


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## welchwarlock (Jan 5, 2005)

DonLandis said:


> You should have learned by now that Mark or any E* employee will not discuss what they are working on for future release. They may, on occasion, tell you what they did do on the most recent release with release notes. The best way to learn what was done is to read the posts here from users who state observations on how the software performs.


That's not true. They talk about the future plans and products all the time (Open TV, Name Based Recording, etc), unfortunately they never seem to apply to the 921. 

I really don't see the need for secrecy on posting a list of know bugs, and which release they are planned to be fixed in. I have personnaly opened 4 tickets on the same problem, never once a call back from dish, never a clue when the problem might actually get fixed.

So what harm would there be in telling us, for example, when they plan on fixing the sd/hd direct mode button that they broke last november and have not put back?

WW


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## dturturro (Nov 24, 2004)

OK, warm up those flames... what is Open TV?


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

_"That's not true. ...

I really don't see the need for secrecy...

So what harm would there be in telling us, for example,..."_

yada yada yada, go cry on CEO @ echostar .com or whatever if you don't like the way they run things. We've all heard these cry baby comments before and nothing's changed. You want specifics on what Mark is working on, call up the people he reports to and ask them. See if you get anywhere, but I'm sure Mark will keep the NDA he has sworn to keep. Dish trusts him and for good reason!


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

The harm in laying out for you exactly what's going on is that if for some reason something changes along the way that makes a statement by me invalid, two very specific things happen: 

1. You get pissed at Dish because whatever I said was "promised" to you.

2. You get pissed at me because I "lied" to you.

Both of which not only are generally bad things, but also suck very much for me personally (heat from Dish or heat from you). So, I tell you what I can, when I can. And no, I'm not nearly as free with information as some others. That's the way it is.

Several of the bug fixes are in beta right now. There's a lot of work going on behind the scenes to get the OTA guide data back that was lost back around L212/L213, and to get more guide data added into the mix. This statement does NOT mean that if you lost your OTA guide data back then that this release will fix it for you. It will definitely fix some of the channels, but I would bet that it won't fix all of them. Also, this statement does NOT mean that if you are missing guide data for one of your OTA channels, especially the minor ones, that you will start getting guide data for them. Some will, some won't. 

There is NOT work going on to get you OTA guide data if you don't subscribe to your locals package. 

That's all I can and will say at the moment.


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## welchwarlock (Jan 5, 2005)

I really was speaking about Dish, not Mark. Mark gets blindsided by Dish on a regular basis, I suspect he didn't even know when he posted yesterday that they would be releasing something new today, or even what the contents are.

A more basic piece of info would simply be release notes (provided by Dish), which do not come with every release.


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## Mark Lamutt (Mar 24, 2002)

You'd be correct about that, welchwarlock.


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