12 HD Days of Christmas: Day 1
By Kevin C. Tofel 
posted Dec 11th 2005 5:52PM
posted Dec 11th 2005 5:52PM
"It's the most...wonderful time....of the year..." If you could hear me
sing that, then you would very much appreciate the fact that I'm a
blogger and not a stage performer. In fact, I think our cats just ran out the
front door. Anyway, it's time to kick off the HD Beat "Twelve HD Days
of Christmas!"Each day for twelve days, Matt, Richard and I will highlight a high-definition related product that we would love to see under our tree. We figure, if they're good enough for us, then you might want them too, so we'll share our reasons for the choices. This gives you plenty of time to get out and get one of these great HD products for
I'm up first and I'm highlighting Echostar's model Dish-Player 942 HDTV receiver and PVR for Dish Network. Find out why after the jump!
So what's the love-relationship I have with this satellite receiver? For starters, it has three tuners in it. Two of the tuners are for your satellite reception and the third tuner is a built-in OTA (over-the-air) tuner to catch your local digital and high-def broadcasts. At the moment, Dish doesn't provide local channels in high-definition, so you can add your own antenna to the 942's ATSC tuner and catch your locals in HD for free, depending on your location.
The 942 also takes advantage of multiple outputs because you can use this box with two televisions at the same time. On TV1, you can view HD content or upconverted SD content. On TV2, you can view SD content or downconverted HD content. In either case, you can watch live or recorded programming on either television.
As far as recording, Echostar provides a roomy 250 gigabyte hard drive which provides storage for 180 hours of SD, 25 hours of HD or a combination of the two. By the way, remember that built in OTA tuner for your free local channels in DTV and HDTV? You can record those channels on the unit too.
Two separate remotes are included with the 942; one for each TV. The remote you use in the same room as the 942 is Infrared, while the "remote" remote for TV2 utilizes RF, or Radio Frequency, to communicate with the receiver.
DIRECTV also offers a receiver with similar qualities, but the reason I'd prefer to see the Dish unit under my tree is because of the HD content. Earlier in the year, Echostar nabbed the VOOM network channels from Rainbow Media. This gives Dish up to 21 high-def VOOM channels. Currently Dish only offers ten of these channels, but plans are in the works to provide the other eleven once Dish frees up some bandwidth after the MPEG-4 transition.
Aside from the ten VOOM channels, Dish also offers HBO-HD, Showtime-HD, ESPN-HD, Discovery-HD, TNT-HD, HDNet, HDNet Movies and pay-per-view movies in high-def. Sure, you could get one of the less expensive HDTV receivers from Dish, but the extensive PVR capability paired with a solid lineup of high-programming has the 942 on our "Dear Santa" list.
got my 942 waiting for the hookup. It looks like it'll be a great box. Especially hooked to my new Hitachi PDP! I'll let you know how it shapes up after Friday.
Still debating on adding Voom. Not sure if there's enough worth watching on it. Anyone have any opinions??
The Voom channels are a bit hit-or-miss right now, maybe when they add more channels there will be better choices. I like the concerts they are always showing, but even when they do show movies, it seems like they have the showings labeled wrong (wrong title and description).
The OTA locals aren't available on the second output, even though all the other HD channels are available in a downconverted format.
I've got the Dish 942 and its a great unit. I couldn't be happier. It combines the OTA channels with the guide as well. Plus the second TV control is great. It allows DVR features on both TVs.
I'm holding off on Voom until more channels are released. Supposedly mid 2006 for the rest of Voom...
"Currently Dish only offers ten of these channels, but plans are in the works to provide the other eleven once Dish frees up some bandwidth after the MPEG-4 transition."
But will this receiver even be compatable with the upcoming MPEG-4 transition? I'd buy it, but I'm afraid of replacing it a year from now like the DirectTV subscribers are forced to do.
If you're concerned about the MPEG4 thing, then your best bet is to "lease" the 942 -- that costs (or did when I got mine) about $250 vs. $650 to buy outright, and it more or less makes upgrading it Dish's problem.
The downside is that the last I heard they were only offering the lease option to new Dish customers (this may have changed.)
I've had my 942 for about 6 months, and I'm still fairly pleased with it. The interface isn't nearly as nice as Tivo or MCE, but it's tough to argue with three tuners and a fair amount of HD content.
The Voom stuff is a push -- there's a lot of repetition there at the moment, but supposedly Dish is adding more channels, and Voom is adding more content (particularly since their deal with Verizon and FIOS TV), so I'm going to stick it out awhile longer.