First Look: Dish 942 HD/SD Receiver (Updated 1/24/05)

[BFG]

Well I think you can read from people on here that do.

I guess you don't know about it to understand the benefit...

 

[ocaddict]

You're right dude. I'm clueless.

 

[WorkOutMN]

Timmernator:

I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I've posted a few times about my experience having now switched from Dish almost two weeks ago, but I can't remember the thread. (I've actually posted on a couple of them.)

In any case, I have two 8300's in the house now -- one HD and one non-HD -- as well as a high-def 3250 box. I'm so far impressed with the 8300's. On one occasion a recording had a half-hour break in the middle, and on another occasion I had a soft reboot. Otherwise, I've had no problems recording, no problems tuning into any channel I want, and I've never had a hard freeze -- things I don't think any owner of a 921 can say.

I haven't paid for the multi-room DVR service to be activated, but I've gone through the manuals already to figure out how it would work and it sounds pretty slick. The DVR broadcasts a "DVR Channel 1999" that the other receivers in the house pick up, and when you tune to that channel, you're presented with a list of programming on the DVR you can watch.

The only thing I see the 8300 really lacking right now is in playback of DVR material, there's no real way to do a fast scan of material -- say, jump to the one hour mark in a two hour movie. You either have to fast-forward your way there, or it has to be the last thing you watched in which case it'll start playback from the same moment where you stopped watching before.

--Kyle

 

[GaryPen]

When will the 942 be for sale?

It will be on sale 3rd quarter of 2005. It will work fairly well about 18 months to 2 years after that. It will work as advertised when hell freezes over.

 

[JohnC]

Great Timing!

It will be on sale 3rd quarter of 2005. It will work fairly well about 18 months to 2 years after that. It will work as advertised when hell freezes over.

It sounds like the 942, which can not be upgraded to MPEG-4, will be released about the time that E* starts adding new HD channels with MPEG-4 compression. That is truly impeccable timing!

 

[Smith P.]

Scott, ppl reported Dish spooling beta software for DP922 not DP942 now.

Are they changed model name to be honest with us ? Yeah, 2 sat and 2 OTA tuners !
Really should be named DP922.

 

[BFG]

No, you got the number wrong. The 522 is getting the software update.

 

[StevenZ]

Yeah the whole firewire thing is crazy. How come the FCC requires that cable companies supply a firewire box upon user request, but the satellite doesn't need to do the same thing

Because the cable industry volunteered. They put forward a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that bound them to a timetable for 1394 support. Since last April, they have to offer HD STBs with working 1394 on request. Starting July, the only HD STBs they can acquire have to have a working 1394 port.

E* and D* didn't volunteer, but they'll respond, sooner or later, if cable companies successfully hype the connector or customers start actually using it to connect to the handful of TVs or other things that can use it.

 

[Smith P.]

No, you got the number wrong. The 522 is getting the software update.

You're totally out of the subject - an identification is different, a size of the FW is much bigger - 16 megabytes.
I'm doing cut'n'paste from that report:
==========================================================
New FW:'ACM1'
List of BootStraps and BuildConfigs: '111[0A]' 'MA[BD][A-DJ]'
IRD Model: DP922
List of Serial Numbers: [36]
67035233 67035216 67035184 67035190 67035137 66980404 67035146 67035144 67035208 67035100
67035191 67035115 67035136 67035228 67035230 67035148 67035107 67035188 67035116 67035154
67035223 67035083 67035186 67035201 67035224 67035214 67035123 67035196 67035232 67035195
66980412 67035207 67035203 67035169 67035135 67035127
==========================================================

 

[BFG]

Oh well um ok then. Where did you find that?

 

[gpflepsen]

So, there's only 36 receivers getting this update. DP922 (?) Next generation of MPEG4 DVR?

 

[BFG]

Spec sheets from Dish has been posted and lots of other goodie infos.

New thread is located here: http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=44050