Innovation Shines in Nashville

Greetings from Nashville, Tennessee the home of Dish Network’s 2008 Team Summit Retailer conference!  The theme for this year’s event is “Leadership Through Innovation” and I got to admit I am very impressed with the innovation I have seen this year.

Among the most exciting thing I have seen this year has to be the upcoming Dish Network 722s High Definition DVR.  This DVR takes the already award winning Dish Network 722 and add Slingbox Technology to the box (and a whole lot more!)

Besides having a built in Slingbox, it offers a completely new user interface which takes full advantage of the HD resolutions it is meant for, a new improved guide which offers more information and channel logos. Plus there is a new remote that uses UHF technology has a built in touch pad and a trigger on the back of the remote, which lets you select the items, you have chosen.  The new 722s also features a built in browser, which will be deeply tied to Yahoo.  The Slingbox technology built into the 722s will use Slings latest technology and will offer Slingmedia’s Clip + Sling and Sling Catcher technology. With Clip+Sling it allows you to take video clips and send them to friends to view, and Sling catcher will allow you to take video from photos from the internet and enjoy them on your HDTV.

Other Innovation announced here at Team Summit is what Dish Network calls its Eastern Arc service, which is an all MPEG4 duplication of the existing Dish Network service that will come from a new orbital location in the South Eastern sky.  This new service will make it easier for installers on the East Coast to hit Dish Networks satellites.

On the HD front Dish Network pushed the fact that they added 22 new HD channels over the past few weeks (yet failed to mention that they removed 15 VOOM channels.)  Dish Network Senior VP of Programming Eric Sahl state this morning that more HD would be coming this summer and another wave will be coming this fall.  Dish Network intends to meet and pass the 100 national HD channel goal this year.  Dish Network has 2 more satellite launches scheduled for this year, ne happening in July and the other scheduled for December.

Dish Network CEO Charlie Ergen briefly talked about Dish Networks plans for it’s 700 Mhz spectrum this morning, his vision is to have people be able to watch and enjoy Dish Network anywhere they go.  And with the innovation shown his this week, Dish Network will be able to pull it off with style.

My thanks to the folks from Dish Network for the hospitality they have shown me this week.