Thoughts on the Echostar TR-50

It feels great to be home again after a long CES trek.  Its not until you actually sit down and reflect that you actually understand most of what you saw in Las Vegas.

I was very happy and impressed that Echostar won the CNET Best of Show award for its TR-50 ATSC Converter / DVR.  From what I am hearing the response to this unit was surprising to Echostar who didn’t expect this device to get any attention at the show. 

And while I am excited for Echostar’s win, it also shows me how bad this years CES was for new product announcements.  Walking the floor all the companies were showing off their new Plasma and LCD TVs but after a few moments it was clear that if you seen on 1080p HDTV then you have seen them all.

The same can be said about MP3 players, it seemed every company had their own MP3 players to show off this year.

Last years CES was all about the Apple Iphone,  no  mater which booth you went to the one question asked was “Have you seen the Iphone yet?”  This years big question was “have you seen the 150 Inch Plasma TV yet?” Everyone seemed to see it, but hardly anyone could remember what company made it so while it was cool to see it didn’t gain its maker any real notoriety.

The Echostar TR-50 was a different product, one that should have the folks at Tivo shaking in their boots.  While it does not give you program suggestions like a Tivo it uses Echostar’s award winning DVR software.  If you have ever played with a Tivo and a Echostar DVR side by side, the speed and ease of use of a Echostar DVR beats Tivo hands down every time. (Of course that’s my opinion)

Because the TR-50 is also IPTV compatible, it will be interesting to see what services it can be used for.  Since Echostar is now separate from Dish Network this receiver is not tied into Dish Network programming making the IPTV possibilities endless.

I am very excited about the TR-50 hopefully Echostar can properly market the TR-50 as a cool exciting product and not treat it as its some generic product like they did for many of their Dish Network products (including Dish Network itself.)  This should be marketed as a cool hip product that lets you watch TV on your time.  The folks at Echostar can build the best receiver ever (and I am not saying this one is or is not) but without the proper marketing these things may never sell.

Lets hope that when the Echostar folks get home from CES they sit down and think and reflect and perhaps they too will be able to understand the big picture.

Hats off to the engineers for making the TR-50 the CES Best of Show award winner, it will be interesting to see where things go from here.

Have a great weekend everyone!