Dish Network came to CEDIA and left the gloves behind, as it proudly (and rightfully, at the moment)
proclaimed to be "the leader in HD" while simultaneously disregarding that
other company who'd likely disagree. Within the booth, however, there were a number of enticements, including a placard that stated that Dish On Demand HD would be "coming soon" to the
ViP722. Additionally, a wide array of Dish STBs and DVRs were out on display, and one particular ViP722 was located above a sign which announced that "Dish Network IPTV" would be "combining satellite and internet-based entertainment" in the not-too-distant future. Finally, the firm had a demo of how
Movies on Demand would be handled and also had a couple of its receivers
hooked up to external HDDs, so make sure you peep the gallery for all the photographic minutiae.
posted Sep 7th 2007 4:02AM
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Dish is the current content leader. promised channels look great on paper, but i prefer ones i can watch now on my tv.
They the current leader and will probably stay that way for a while because all anyone else has is promises. Directv has been making promises for over a year, and they still have none of the promises. I know that they are adding some this month, but hey they will still be about 130 channesl shy of their 150 HD channel promise.
I'd just be happy if they could get the stinkin' networks (NBC,CBS,Fox,CW,ABC) in HD. Sure they have a ton of obscure HD channels, but where are those core 5 that make up a majority of my viewing... Especially when football season gets in full swing.
I have my networks in HD. You can also grab them via an Over The Air Antenna and they will show up in your program guide along with the channels you recieve from Dish. Nice for me because I live between two markets and now I can get both in HD.
There is a rumor that next week they will be adding as many as 10 new channels, include CNN, Big 10 HD, and TBS.
I agree, we need the network channels in HD. I am a new Dish customer (in my first month) and the one and only thing I miss from my HD Cable are the local HD channels. I did go out and purchase an over the air HD antenna. This works decent, but don't always get everything, and the HD still isn't quite as good as it could be. For example, last night I was unable to watch the Thursday night NFL game in HD, my antenna did not pick up the HD feed. So I was stuck watching the game in Standard Def. Can someone explain why we do not get the local channels in HD?
I've got Dish and I get every one of those channels in HD except for the CW.
I have Dish and have my locals in HD... Might just depend on your area though. I am in Pittsburgh area
I get the HD versions of these as part of my local channels...
Do you have an OTA (Other The Air) antenna? If you can pick up local stations in your area on a tv tuner, then they probably also broadcast digitally.
I just bought a OTA for $37 and can get all the networks in HD now--and those channels look MUCH better than Dish, Cable, or Direct TV.
Although my Dish HD channels are nice, but it's ALL ABOUT THE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE! With my own expansion I currently have a 1.25TB DVR, and it's only half full :)
Not only does DiSH have more HDTV channels (over 30) than DirecTV (only 10), DirecTV has had to pre-empt TNT and a vast amount of Pay-Per-View events every Sunday because of bandwidth constraints caused by NFL Sunday Ticket in HD.
Unfortunately for them, NFL Sunday Ticket in HD broadcasts in MPEG2 this year to serve existing subscribers with older gear. It was too late to upsell every Sunday Ticket subscriber to the new MPEG4 gear before the season started. The use of MPEG4 would have increased bandwidth by a factor of 4. Instead it consumes so much bandwidth they couldn't hide it by pre-empting PPV this year.
Dish is the leader in HD but it's not quantity, it's quality that matters. If you've checked their lineup, it's channels no one will ever watch. Honestly Verizon offers the same selection as far as channels you actually watch, and it's in fiber optic. Which means no clouds are going to ruin my reception. Like how many people watch Kung-Fu HD or GamePlay HD? The only REAL channels they have over competitors are Science and Animal Planet. I can guess that most stuff on Animal Planet probably isn't broadcast in HD anyway. Kind of like LMN. By the time Dish has more channels anyone will actually watch, so will the rest.
No offense, but since you clearly haven't seen any of these channels, your speculative statement doesn't carry much weight. I have been a Dish HD subscriber for a few years now, and I can assure you that their channels carry plenty of compelling content, and the lineup is being aggresively expanded constantly (Dish just added about 10 more HD channels in the past month). While I may not watch the kung fu channel constantly (though I did check out a couple of Bruce Lee classics), I do enjoy the Rave channel for instance. That particular one features live music 24 hours a day in beautiful 1080i high definition, commercial free. Equator HD is also a wonderful channel, think of it as video version of the National Geographic magazine. Speaking of which, yes, Dish also carries the National Geographic HD channel for a good measure. The point here is that there is a huge variety of great high definition programming, and it's all about choice. Everyone likes something different, and Dish caters to a wider audience with their HD lineup than anyone else. As someone else above stated, while DirecTV has been promissing this stuff 'soon' for the past year, Dish has been delivering it, and there are many Dish subscribers like me who are quite pleased with it.
I just recently got DISH HD with the new VIP722 box and I couldn't be happier. I live in the Atlanta area and my major networks (ABC, Fox, NBC, CBS) are available in HD. I think it depends on your local market right now. More local markets should be getting HD over time.
No, I get my local channels through Dish. I think that it is 5 bucks a month for local channels in SD and HD.
Is this only for the ViP722? What about the ViP622? They're the same thing except for the hard-drive size and the color of the box. Wonder if any of those 'On-Demand' will be in HD.
Great to hear about being able to add DVR capability to the ViP211. Now I don't have to replace that one in my bedroom. Just add a hard-drive. Glad to finally use those externals I've got laying around.
I think thats really cool to add a hard drive to the 211. All I really want to do is share one external hard drive with both boxes, wonder if thats possible.
DirecTV's HD DVR (the HR20) supports external hard drives as well.
i just got the ViP722, it's not bad. the programming is not bad, but indeed - one can only watch so much kung-fu. adding TBS HD in time for the playoffs was key. I'll be stoked for CNN HD and i'm keeping my fingers crossed for comedy central/southpark HD. now that'll be sweet.
re: ext. HDD - i read somewhere that you have to pay $35 to have it "activated". is that true, or what? just curious how it works to get the drive working. thanks.