Absolutely agree. They need to go back to the old format. There was nothing tech about last nights show.

it was a waste of time. I would like to know how much bribe money Target paid to dish.

This is what happens when a company lets their marketing team get control of something. Within 30 seconds of the start of the show, it was clear that Tech Forum had been hijacked by marketing and no useful dialog would be presented. This shouldn't have been a surprise, because the same thing happend in the last Charlie Chat. Why doesn't Dish just admit, they really want to stop hosting thier Tech Forum and kill the show altogether. Instead they open and close the show with marketing spin trying to explain away the radical change in format just to avoid admitting the truth. Tech Forum and Charlie Chat are officially over. The main thing we can gather from last night's Tech Forum is that as of yesterday Dish Networks no longer is interested in maintaining a dialog with their customers. Nor do they wish to provide any meaningful customer feedback mechanism to get a pulse of what thier customers have to say about thier product. Really, is the Dish Marketing team that stupid to not know what a Q&

A forum is supposed to be like? It's clear they had no interest to actually host a public Q&A session with thier customers. From here on out, Dish's marching orders come from Marketing, and the only news and information their customers will get will be through whatever flashy propaganda they get around to producing.

This tech chat was terrible, nothing like what I have come to expect from previous tech chats, very disappointing, glad I dvr'd it, after reading how it was presented just watched brief segments and definitely skipped the target info commercials

I actually thought I tuned into the wrong channel. I thought it was a new shop-at-home channel, DISH can always use another one :)

I would like to know who I can contact at Dish about getting that half hour of my life back. I tune in to salivate over the cool new gadgets and receivers and tech dish has on the horizon, not to see the same commercials that I can see at any given time (I mean really, these are the commercials they have to get people to subscribe, I already subscribe, why do I need to see an ad for what I already have?) or to see a live rendition of the Target ad from my Sunday paper. Shame on you Dish for putting up this colossal waste of time and conning me into watching it by giving it the name Tech Chat.

I wonder if they will do this to the next "Charlie Chat?" They might do this to avoid questions about going contractual struggles with GOL TV and various local broadcast stations.

I wonder if Mike Jackson was miffed that he had to lie through his teeth during the last chat, as he bragged about the addition of those additional HD channels, three hours before they killed Voom. Either way, raising the level of professionalism is a good thing, but I think they are missing out by eliminating the Q & A with viewers. We WANT them to get things right, as most of us have a large investment in E*, but dealing with the CSRs is a waste of time on most tech issues. Tech Forum for Dummies is NOT what we want. Bring back the engineers and lock the marketers in the closet next time....

ha! dish is gone. the company we knew is no longer the company we knew. the stock price and Ergen's renewed interest in a D*/E* merger now takes front stage while customers are now left to bring up the rear. in short, "

...in short, *Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.* dish is dead, melting away like the bad witch...

I tuned in... and then quickly TUNED OUT. This is not a Tech Chat or a Tech Forum. It was an obvious disappointment, and DISH should have seen this before they ever aired it. I enjoy DISH a lot... but this I cannot say I enjoyed. If they had any viewership following before for the TECH Chat, it just diminished drastically. Are they aiming for the "new" Dish subs or for those they wish to keep? I would think they would aim try to cater the programming for the current DISH subs that they might want to keep... seeing how they lost subs overall for the first time during the last quarter. We might as well just tune to channel 100. What's the difference? See ya Tech Chat.. I'll get my news else where. What a dis-service... or should I dare say.. dish-service? :-(

I wanted to make one additional comment... Did anyone see the email segment? One of the questions asked if Dish was going to come out with a DVR with two HD Tuners. They answered saying that actually.. Dish does have a DVR with two Tuners, and went on to explain that both tuners record HD content, and actually that the OTA will record a third. The person asking the question obviously wanted to know if they were going to come out with a DVR that would OUTPUT to two HD displays. Leslie even as far as to point out that even though it will record the 2 or 3 HD tuners, it will only output to one HD device. Couldn't she have answered the original question? It was an email, it wasn't a question they got on the spot... they had plenty of time to address it. So the question is still out there for anyone who watched the show, will DISH come out with a HD DVR that will output to 2 HD devices? Some of us already have an idea about this, but that's because we frequent forums like satguys. If I recall correctly, I think I remember hearing that someone is working on sending HD through existing COAX and or the powerlines through the houses. Let's hope for this solution.... rather than something for a specific DVR.

Yea the Tech forum was borrrrring. Who cares about what Target has to offer.If I want to watch shopping channels I will.I mean Dish is king of that department.When people tune in to the Tech forum they want to know the latest about software or hardware from Dish.It was a complete waste of time.They looked like they tried to kill about 10 minutes of the show with Olympics highlights.I hope Dish abandons this and goes back to the way the Tech forum use to be.I liked the set however.Get the guys back that use to be on there.

It was pathetic! Like watching an infomercial for Target. Nothing Tech about it and doing canned questions rather than live gives the appearance of not wanting to or unable to answer certain questions.

We got more information in the Satelliteguys.US Chat room than we got from this "Tech Forum". Bring Back the real info, and if it's not going to have technical information, don't put the Tech name on it. I was NOT impressed :(

What "Tech Forum" nothing technical about it at all...

I wasted 30 minutes of my life last night that I’ll never get back or benefit from. If I want to watch commercials I’ll get rid of my DVR so I can’t skip past them when watching TV. Dish has gone from monthly chats, to quarterly chats, to this. If this is how they are going to have open communication with their customers they should save the satellite bandwidth for something more useful like another shopping channel or was that what they had in mind when they showed all that stuff from Target?

Missed the chat, busy watching the Olympics but after reading this I am sure glad I did!

Missed the chat, busy watching the Olympics but after reading this I am sure glad I did!

I've grown accustomed to hearing about new features and equipment, as well as, answers to some well thought out questions. Last nights show was a complete joke! I felt like I was watching a Target infomercial just without the annoying red target they like to put everywhere in their commercials. To Dish: "When I want to hear reviews about tech stuff, I go to cnet. Keep the 'Tech Chat' TECHNICAL and kick the marketing team out of that part of the building."

I've grown accustomed to hearing about new features and equipment, as well as, answers to some well thought out questions. Last nights show was a complete joke! I felt like I was watching a Target infomercial just without the annoying red target they like to put everywhere in their commercials. To Dish: "When I want to hear reviews about tech stuff, I go to cnet. Keep the 'Tech Chat' TECHNICAL and kick the marketing team out of that part of the building."

I was going to tune into the Tech Chat as I love to hear from the people actually developing the new technlogy and features what they are planning and how to get the best use out of the equipment already out. I LOVE that live calls can be taken and answered on the spot. But when I went to the Satelliteguys Chat before I got home to see what was going on... I got home and deleted the DVR event before i saw it. I'm happy I didn't have to waste an hour of my time! I wish it would have been worth watching though.

I did not like the so called new Tech Chat. It was just a commercial for Target. Dump this bad show & do something that resembles a Tech Chat.

This was a sales presentation, and not even close to a "Tech Chat". Also promotions for HD on a VHS 6hr. speed quality is like showing racing tires on a Yugo. No reason to tune in again if this is what we'll see.

The tech chat was a waste of time, I will never watch it again. only a small percentage of DISH customers may have watched the chat but it kept their tech savvy customers happy, they obviously no longer care about that segment of their customers base anymore, they don't really seem to care about any of their customers anymore or they wouldn't offer the new turbo HD package to new customers only. DISH is headed downhill fast.

I cannot believe what a waste of time that was. I expect a tech chat to be TECHNICAL. While I can see why you would explain things in a non-technical way, there should be SOME technical content. The whole Target thing was completely inappropriate. I did not plan to watch an infomercial. Keep the new set, but ditch the new format.

I was disappointed and thought we would have what we did in the past. At least they gave Satelliteguys a mention for the DTVPAL spot.

In two words; IT SUCKED!

who directed this piece of junk CNET & Target

That was the worst half hour of TV that I have ever watched. Things at DN at just getting worse and worse. The person who decided to change the format should taken out behind the studio and SHOT !!!! By the way, I"m really getting tired of hearing about TurboHD, Directv is adding 30 new channels in a few days, they are still kicking TurboHD A** !!!!

Degeneration X has to words for DN and the new Tech Forum "Suck IT" !!!!!!!!

I have always hoped for MORE tech, not less. The old tech forums were hardly tech, and the new one is even less! It looks like they figured it out though. I just watched the next one, and they went back to the old format. They had a good segment on the Cheyenne uplink center, and several at least partially tech segments. At least we're back to status quo.