# EchoStar To Roll Out Portable DVR Device



## Chris Blount

BY REINHARDT KRAUSE

INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY

Satellite TV broadcaster EchoStar (DISH) is about to find out whether portable video players will strike consumers' fancy as much as Apple Computer's iPod.

EchoStar Communications, the No. 2 satellite broadcaster behind DirecTV, (DTV) plans this summer to unveil the first portable DVR in the U.S. To be called the PocketDish, the gadget would store TV programs as well as audio, photos and Internet content.

The PocketDish will download a full-length movie in less than 10 minutes from an EchoStar DVR, say people who know details of the product. It will feature hard-disk drives with up to 40 gigabytes of storage. That's far less than a conventional DVR, but is enough to store 180 hours of standard TV content or 25 hours of TV recorded in the ultrasharp, high-definition format.

EchoStar is readying three versions of PocketDish - with 2-inch, 4-inch and 7-inch screens.

People who know about the product say users won't be able to transfer content stored on the PocketDish to other devices.

Since it's so small, the PocketDish won't have the processing power of a regular DVR, which might lower picture quality.

PocketDish will work with several video formats, including MPEG-4. This standard squeezes more content onto hard-disk drives than earlier MPEG technologies.

*Full Story*


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## JohnGfun

WOW...I'd like to have one of those...Any word on when that are going to be out or on the price?


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## Richard King

You can read about one of them here: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=42274


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## yaesumofo

http://tinyurl.com/8z8ly
http://tinyurl.com/exqfy

will get you to a bit more information on this.
Yaesumofo


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## Jacob S

Another amazing feat Dish Network comes out with first for satellite. Dish Network likes to be the first one to come out with things.


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## Bob Haller

40 gig 180 hours, anyone say picture quality? I guess it doesnt matter on such a small screen?


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## zmark

Bob Haller said:


> 40 gig 180 hours, anyone say picture quality? I guess it doesnt matter on such a small screen?


That works out to an average of 500kbps, which is an acceptable bitrate when you consider the smaller resolution of the screen and that it's mpeg4 encoding rather than mpeg2.

For compairson, most channels on Dishnetwork run at around 2000kbps - 2500kbps at 544x480. (for the curious, audio is 192kbps mpeg2)


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## Jacob S

Will these work with the MPEG-4 recievers coming out? I assume it will since getting the data off of the hard drive has nothing to do with how the data is getting sent to the reciever or the reciever's hardware to get that information.


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## scottchez

Any update on this?

Are we thinking this summer still or this fall?

My B-day is in September (I want one).


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## Allen Noland

I bet we get more information about this on the tech chat (either Monday, or a week from Monday). I hope they hurry and get this product out also. The sooner they get this out the sooner they start working on the USB external storage device.


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## Richard King

Here's a similar product from the same people on sale.
http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=90136733&adid=17654&dcaid=17654


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