Dish Innovation Shines Again
If Dish Networks management and marketing department was as smart as its technology department at Echostar there is no question in my mind that Dish Network would be America’s top DBS service.
Imagine if you will you have a standard Dish Network HD receiver. It has no bells or whistles it just does what it is supposed to it is your basic HD satellite receiver. Now imagine taking that receiver and plugging a USB hard drive in back of the unit and having that basic satellite receiver turn into a full blown DVR. Well that time has come and the folks at Dish Network and Echostar are the ones making this amazing conversion possible.
Now any Dish Network customer who has a 211 or 211k satellite receiver can go to any electronics store and purchase any off the shelf USB hard drive from 50 GB in size up to 750 GB in size and plug it in to their satellite receiver and be able to turn that basic receiver into a fully fledged DVR.
Of course being Dish Network there is a fee to turn this feature on, however this fee is a onetime $39.99 fee, and this fee is good for activating the DVR feature on all the 211’s you might have in your house. Unlike other Dish Network DVR’s there is no monthly DVR fee, instead the customer pays the onetime fee and then they are done.
I can only imagine that this feature was thought of years ago long before there was a 211 receiver. It is this forward thinking by the folks at Echostar who make their equipment two steps ahead of everyone else.
Hats off to Mark Jackson and the rest of his team at Echostar for showing their innovation again! I can’t wait to see what they have in store for us at CES in January!
DirecTV Adds More HD Locals
Today DirecTV added another 6 more cities in HD to their ever expanding HD rollout. Today DirecTV launched HD Locals service in the following areas, El Paso TX, Rockford IL, Fort Wayne IN, La Crosse WI, Peoria IL and Des Moines IA.
Dish Network launches DishMEXICO
Today Dish Network launched its new DishMEXICO programming package. The package is geared to Spanish speaking people of Mexican descent. For $19.99 a month DishMEXICO customers get 50 channels of Spanish and English programming.
Two new channels available in the US for the first time are Bandamax which is a Spanish entertainment channel and a channel from the BBC called Cbeebies which is a Spanish kid’s channel. (Looking at the demo material I was shown on this channel, my kids and I would love to see this channel in English!)
More information on the new DishMEXICO package can be found at Dish Networks website.
tm commented:
Well if they do not winn the second part of the Tivo suit they will have to turn off all DVRS. The only way to make them legal will to make them just record but now allow you to backup live programming or pay a fee to tivo since they swiped all the DVR ideals from the Tivo patents. ALsdo they might be converting those receivers into DVRs so they can claim a higher # of DVRs in use when in court and try to get the judge to go against Tivo
Dick Lenghty commented:
I liked Dish Network, but FiOS TV is so much better than Dish Network in terms of quality (it's not even close), and they offer a much better value...especially after adding the fastest and most reliable broadband service around. The one area Dish Network outshines all others is there incredible HD DVR; it is simply head-and-shoulders ahead of all others on the market. I would love to see EchoStar make the next generation of FiOS DVRs. The TiVo HD isn't much better than the Verizon box, and it was more expensive too. Hopefully, Echostar will market their cable set-top-boxes straight to the consumers since Cable/Telcos seem to have a lovefest with the clunky Motorola/SA boxes.
Kyle Luna commented:
The BBC (or Discovery who's basically their main distributor in the USA) would probably have trouble getting an English version launched here since PBS has the rights to the bulk of the BBC's children's library, even the ones that are not currently in rotation on PBS Kids or Sprout.
