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Posted by Scott Greczkowski on January 14, 2009
Just when you think that the long ongoing feud between Echostar and Tivo is about to finally come to an end somebody goes and throws a monkey wrench into things. Last night a press release came out from Echostar with a statement which read as follows. "We are pleased that the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) granted our Petition for Re-Examination of the software claims of Tivo's '389 patent, which are the subject of Tivo’s current motion for contempt. The PT...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on January 12, 2009
After what may have been the biggest and most important week in the life of Sling Media the visionaries behind the company are no longer with Sling.Blake and Jason Krikorian were the brainchild’s behind the popular Slingbox device. With a Slingbox you can watch and control your AV equipment from almost everywhere. With special software loaded onto PC’s, laptops and cell phones Slingbox owners could watch television programs from their home cable and satellite services anywhere. I personally consider the Slingbox one of the greatest electronic inventions of the last 10 years. Sling Media was acquired in September 2007 by Echostar for $380 million in cash and stock. Earlier this year at a Dish Network retailer’s conference in Nashville Dish Network Sling CEO Blake Krikorian announced that Sling and Echostar would be making a sa...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on January 11, 2009
Way back in May when I first reported about the new Dish Network 922 (then called the 722s) I knew this was going to be an amazing receiver. Now that the receiver has been officially announced it looks like others agree with me as well.In fact the Dish 922 garnered the Best of CES award by numerous media sites including CNET and G4 TV. I am also very proud to call it my own personal pick for the best of CES. To me it is good see others recognize a good thing when they see them and the Dish 922 is a good thing. I got a chance to mess around with the 922 for about an hour with no interruption from anyone. The 922 is great but not perfect it still has lots that needs to be finished and fixed before it is released to the public. For example the 922 does not currently work with all of the Dish Interactive stuff found on channel 100,...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on January 5, 2009
Sure Christmas might have been two weeks ago, but for me Christmas starts on Thursday. What’s Thursday? It’s the opening of the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas! This is the one show that every gadget geek dreams of going to, and for me this will be my 5th time heading to the electronics Mecca!All eyes will be on Echostar and Dish Network this year for all the big satellite announcements, as DirecTV will not be in attendance for this years CES show. So this is Dish Networks chance to shine at the big show, lets hope the don’t blow it. However little birdies have been telling me that somethings shown by Dish might steal the spotlight at the show. Be on the lookout for a Dish Network High Definition DVR which has a built in Slingbox and Slingcatcher functionality. We first mentioned th...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on December 31, 2008
HAPPY NEW YEAR! As you might have seen Viacom was heavily promoting that all 19 of their channels were in danger of being removed from Time Warner Cable systems at the stroke of Midnight Eastern Time.Midnight has come and gone on the East Coast and the channels are still available on Time Warner cable systems. According to the Associated Press a last minute deal was reached between Vacom and Time Warner. Of course as these things go no details of the deal were released. Glad to see this deal get done without the removal of the channels, and I am also glad that we no longer have to see the annoying crawl on the Viacom channels. New HD for Dish in 2009 Another surprise what that Dish N...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on December 30, 2008
The year 2008 was a strange year in the world of satellite television. It seemed like satellite world was set to take off in 2008, but instead as I look back on the year it looks like someone hit a big pause button. The year started off looking bright for Dish Network who announced some big HD plans for 2008 at the Consumer Electronics Show, but those plans were delayed back due to a launch failure the AMC14 satellite. Depending on who’s counting, Dish Network claims currently offer over 100 national HD channels and as of this writing is still advertising “up to 150” HD channels by the end of th...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on December 29, 2008
Welcome to The Satellite Dish, I hope you had a great holiday! Normally, I do not do equipment reviews here in "The Satellite Dish", however I recently got my hands on a "Slingcatcher" unit by Sling Media and I have been so impressed with this unit that I decided to share my review here. If you are a gadget geek like me you might want to look at this product. ...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on December 23, 2008
A lot of the news over the last few weeks has been about Dish Network’s public disputes with some broadcasters over retransmission consent. And if you have been watching it almost looks like Dish Network is the only company which has these types of fights, but they are not. Since Dish Network serves then entire country their programming disputers make the headlines, but if you’re a smaller company such as Charter Communications such skirmishes don’t seem to garner the same attention.
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on December 19, 2008
I was saddened but not surprised to see the news from Linda Moss yesterday of the domestic demise of VOOM HD Networks. VOOM was ahead of its time when it was its own DBS service. And the VOOM spirit lived on after the demise of the DBS service when 15 of the VOOM channels moved onto Dish Network. It was sad to see VOOMs amazing programming slowly turn into nothing more then HD demo material as VOOM turned into repeat city. In May Dish Ne...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on December 18, 2008
Last night as clocks stuck 11pm on the West Coast the local channels owned by Fisher communications were dropped from the Dish Network lineup. Dish Network said that Fisher is "demanding unreasonable contract terms and an excessive programming rate increase of 82 percent for continued carriage." Last week Dish was in a dispute with Young Broadcasting, and the Young Broadcasting channels were removed from the Dish Network lineup for 3 days. Dish is also in a dispute with ComCorp which appears to be demanding up to 2 cents a day per subscriber fo...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on December 17, 2008
Last week we seen a dispute between Dish and Young Broadcasting, and this week we learned of another disputer this time with ComCorp. And now we here at The Satellite Dish are hearing about another local’s dispute, this time with Fisher Communications. Fisher Communications owns such stations as KOMO, KATU, KBCI, KVAL among others. Like the other disputes the stations have websites which inform users of their dispute with Dish Network, however unlike the other disputes there is no mention of how much money is being sought by Fisher Communications. ...Read More
Posted by Scott Greczkowski on December 16, 2008
We were wondering what ever happened to XStreamHD the 1080p satellite service which was introduced last year. The question was answered yesterday when the folks from XStreamHD announced that they have successfully tested its unique transport stream on the AMC-16 satellite. This unique transport system will allow XStreamHD to deliver full HD movies, music and games to subscriber’s homes in the United States. "By unlocking existing FSS (Fixed Satellite Service) capacity, our service delivers Full HD (1080p) content to homes, independent of Internet or cable congestion," said George Gonz...Read More
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