# firewire plug.



## aszulc (Feb 5, 2004)

Does anyone know what the firewire plug in front of my 921 is for?


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## boylehome (Jul 16, 2004)

aszulc said:


> Does anyone know what the firewire plug in front of my 921 is for?


Fire Wire? Mine has a USB port on the front. Supposedly, a keyboard.


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## aszulc (Feb 5, 2004)

boylehome said:


> Fire Wire? Mine has a USB port on the front. Supposedly, a keyboard.


What would a keyboard be used for?
I guess I also have a USB port.


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## DVDDAD (Dec 21, 2002)

aszulc said:


> What would a keyboard be used for?
> I guess I also have a USB port.


Mostly for typing!:lol:


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## TonyB (Jul 5, 2004)

aszulc said:


> Does anyone know what the firewire plug in front of my 921 is for?


I think only the earlier model 921's had a firewire port. E* then said it would not work for now, then changed it to permanent non support. The box was then reengineered to physically remove the firewire port. Mine does not have one at all (bought 7/04). Technically it COULD have one (inside the box) but the exterior sheet metal does not show a connector. I think its pretty clear that the 921 will NEVER have one - later models, who knows.

On the front mine has the card, a round connector (don't know what it is) and a USB - for keyboard use for tech support I assume. I would expect that once a keyboard or PC is connected, the 921 could be seen as some device which would allow diagnostics, s/w changes etc to be done - probably how Eldon folks load new s/w without a sat hookup. I would not expect E* to EVER tell us how to hook the 921 to a PC or keyboard.


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## Cyclone (Jul 1, 2002)

The little round connector is a mic jack. At least according to the 921's manual.


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## ibglowin (Sep 10, 2002)

Its for "dreaming" about archiving your HD recordings on to something else.


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## TonyB (Jul 5, 2004)

Cyclone said:


> The little round connector is a mic jack. At least according to the 921's manual.


Oh, for the soon to be released capability of voice commands!!!!!!! Seriously, does it say anywhere what its for other than "future use"???


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## Cyclone (Jul 1, 2002)

It will never ever be used. The only reason its likely there is because the audio chipset used likely already had its support built in. Maybe they wanted to perhaps one day support USB WebCams and this was the mic for it. 

I'm sure back in 2001 when this HD DVR was being dreamed up, it was going to have internet support and all kinds of features. Hence Firewire and USB ports, removable front panel which could allow for DVD recorder or additional hard disks, and two spare PCI slots for potential MPEG4 cards.

But instead it looks like the 921 is going to be put out to pasture.


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## TonyB (Jul 5, 2004)

Cyclone said:


> It will never ever be used. The only reason its likely there is because the audio chipset used likely already had its support built in. Maybe they wanted to perhaps one day support USB WebCams and this was the mic for it.
> 
> I'm sure back in 2001 when this HD DVR was being dreamed up, it was going to have internet support and all kinds of features. Hence Firewire and USB ports, removable front panel which could allow for DVD recorder or additional hard disks, and two spare PCI slots for potential MPEG4 cards.
> 
> But instead it looks like the 921 is going to be put out to pasture.


Can you imagine the customer reaction if you bought a cellphone/Radio/TV/car/camera/just about anything else, and AFTER you bought it the mfg told you that they had changed their minds about the system specs and that the features ststed would a) not work and b) would NEVER work! The concept of upgrading equipment after the sale as is done for computers and s/w is a great idea, but should be expected to improve things over time, not take away functionality. Imagine HP or Dell telling you 6 months after you bought a PC that they would now be disabling the parallel port of video out support! They would never get away with it, yet that is exactly what E* has been doing with the 921.


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## DeCleaner (Nov 9, 2004)

Cyclone said:


> The little round connector is a mic jack. At least according to the 921's manual.


I thought the last tech chat mentioned that they will be implementing karaoke through the satellite boxes.... Or it could be that short term memory loss thing kicking in again.


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## Michael P (Oct 27, 2004)

Yes, the mic jack is for karaoke! But first they have to get the Dish Interactive channel 100 running on the 921. One of the reasons I didn't get the 6000 was because it didn't have Dish Interactive. So I buy this latest top-of-the-line model and guess what...no Dish Interactive 

BTW: has anyone tried playing the lame games that are on the 921? The response on the remote control is so slow you can't play for long withiout getting hand fatigue.

__________________
The 921 from Dish! 
[small print]mic not included[/small print]


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## Amphicar770 (Dec 17, 2004)

The 921 was designed either by or in collaboration with JVC. The idea was that the 921 would work with the JVC DH3000 High definition VCR which uses a firewire input. This would have been awesome for enabling the archiving of programs beyond what the hard disk is capable of storing.

Unfortunately, DISH never activated the software to enable the port. I found this particularly irksome as one of my main drivers in going back to DISH was this offering.

In some ways this is no different than what happened with the very early DISH receivers. DISH kept promising the ability to control your VCR. They later put the feature only in the newer boxes and told the original customers, "too bad".

The 921 shoud have been the standard bearer for PVR systems. For whatever reason, DISH seems to have kind of given up on them. The larger issue is that once you make a commitment to your customers you should not later say, "oopsie, changed our mind".


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## TonyB (Jul 5, 2004)

One thing I have learned from the 921 is to wait until a receiver does 100% of what you expect BEFORE buying it. Promises made are not necessarily promises kept. Also, by the way, when it does 100% of what you want, the price will also have dropped. As the 921 gets fixed - look at what happened to the price!

For me, whether it be E* or D*, only when the next generation compression, as well as OTA and DVR and at least 2 channels and some link for making DVD's (8GB+) is available will I change - and that means it all works as advertised. 

I am currently going over all the channels that we watch to see whether I should downgrade to the 60 or 120 package. It's going to be one or the other so as to take some $ from E* because of the OTA EPG screwup. So far I think I have only found about 2 channels that we have ever watched that we would lose.


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

TonyB et al-

All who posted here so far were either guessing or were just trying to yank your middle leg on this issue.

Amphicar was the only one who answered you factually. In addition to what he said, I might add that this is an extremely sore subject with people who vigorously defended the 921 product only to be spit in the face by Echostar. Many are bitter over being conned by them and rightfully so. Your conclusion is a correct one, that is, we can never believe anything DishNetwork says they promise to do and in addition, it is a wise thing to never base today's buying decision on the promise of something to be added in the future.

The Dishwire ports (2) are located on the back of the 921 and are a special application of IEEE1394 (firewire) They were built and tested in the lab to offer a dump of the hard drive content program by program to a DVHS VCR as tested with the JVC30K and was in test with the JVC40K at the time of cancellation. They had control problems with the Mitsubishi and no cooperation from Mits. so they dropped that VCR early on. The Panasonic VCR control protocol was never developed as that VCR had been discontinued. There was much speculation as to why it was cancelled but the real answer, I got directly from the project (Dishwire) director was that the Dishwire system was having serious problems in compliance with the security requirements licensed under 5C. The actual testing was a success and the content was dumped off to the DVHS VCR with a few minor issues that were typical for any DVHS VCR playback at the time, i.e. microglitches, but otherwise worked fine. The combination of a tape technology that was not quite up to 100% reliable and the issues of security to remain in license compliancy was enough to kill the project, a decision made by the Echostar Technologies Corp executives. 
Mostly, the official word from the Charlie Chats show was that of security of content was an issue and they tried to make it sound like it was Hollywood's fault. Well, indirectly it was because Hollywood was responsible for the original 5C security aspects in the first place, but, the real fault was in the lack of the developers in being able to successfully implement a product that satisfied the license agreement. To Date, nobody has a product that does this part of the license agreement.

The current Dishwire ports are covered over and reference to them has been removed from the publications. Early 921 manuals and publications referenced these ports as "Future use" only.



The USB port was installed for the purpose of adding external USB keyboard capability as it is USB 1.1 (slow speed) compliance. This may still be added in the future but I haven't heard any reports on the development of this in over a year. Personally, I would rather have the softwarte add a wireless IR keyboard capability. I did send in that suggestion directly to the developers in England and to my contact at ETC over a year ago.


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