dish

After a delay of several months, Dish Network will be releasing the DTVPal DVR in mid-December. The antenna-friendly HD DVR will retail for $250 (after a $50 instant rebate).

You may remember the DTV Pal DVR as the EchoStar TR-50. That's the name under which it was launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, where it garnered CNET's Best of CES award for the home video category.

The latest iteration of the DTVPal DVR is pictured above. While the name and look of the product have changed a bit, it appears that it retains its core feature … Read more

There's a good chance you've never heard of Pace, but back in April, the company--a developer of cable and satellite set-top box digital video recorders--acquired the set-top box and connectivity solutions business of Royal Philips Electronics. That fact has very little to do with this post, other than to give you an idea of the size of Pace and how it has its DVRs running in more than 17 million homes. (Pace DVRs work in any regions that are serviced by Comcast and/or Dish Network.)

So maybe you have a Pace box in your home right now … Read more

Sound & Vision magazine's Brent Butterworth conducted a test comparing the video quality of Dish Network's 1080p video-on-demand service with that of a Blu-ray movie, and found very little difference.

Dish offers a very few select VOD movies in 1080p resolution, the highest-definition available today, only one of which was available at the time of the comparison: Speed Racer. Comparing the 1080p Dish VOD version with the 1080p version on the Blu-ray disc, Butterworth "could detect only subtle differences" from a normal seating distance, reporting that both "looked fantastic."

Dish overcomes bandwidth constraints by … Read more

The Supreme Court announced Monday it is refusing to take up EchoStar Communications' appeal against a patent infringement suit filed against it by TiVo.

A jury in 2006 found that EchoStar's Dish Network digital video recorders infringed upon a patent held by TiVo and ordered it to pay TiVo $73.9 million in damages. A federal appeals court upheld the ruling in January, as did a second U.S. appeals court in April.

The Supreme Court's decision to deny EchoStar's appeal leaves the company responsible for paying full damages plus interest to TiVo--for a total of $104 … Read more

Natali says she giggles when she sees guys using the tiny little Eee PC. But she doesn't question their manliness. Engnr_Chik thinks Netbooks are for everyone. Plus we speculate on the rush to release a prebeta of Windows 7, demand Wal-Mart do something about their forlorn DRM music tracks, and I'm possibly moving to Japan. Or New York. Or space.

Listen now: Download today's podcast

Japan to get 1Gbps home fiber connections http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/27/1757211

SpaceX orbits success with Falcon 1 http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-10053326-76.html… Read more

AT&T is switching its satellite TV provider.

The telecommunications giant announced Friday that it will drop Dish Network and replace it with DirecTV, after January 31. AT&T has had a joint marketing deal with Dish since 2003.

Financial details of the new deal were not released.

AT&T had announced in early summer that it would not renew its current deal with Dish. It was not clear at the time, however, whether it would renegotiate its agreement with Dish or switch to DirecTV, the other primary satellite TV provider in the U.S.

Telecoms have … Read more

Way back at CES 2008, Dish Network announced a DTV converter box called the TR-40 that was going to cost $40, include an electronic program guide and it seemed like it was going to be a simple, cheap choice for buyers looking to handle the upcoming analog-to-digital TV transition. Shortly afterward, the TR-40 became the DTVPal and the price went up to $60. Then the TR-40 CRA came out, which was exactly the same as the DTVPal, except it cost $40. And, as of now, you can buy both products from the DTVPal Web site, essentially giving you the option … Read more

We just finished a major update of our popular chart of HD programming compared and the new winner, in terms of national and local HD channels, by our count, is Fios TV. Bringing a hefty 83 such channels to bear in the New York City area, the fiber-optic-based TV service from Verizon comes out ahead of perennial satellite champions DirecTV (67 channels) and Dish Network (68) as of today.

The key here is our definition of "national and local." The big three all tout HD channel counts near or above the nice round number of 100 in their advertising campaigns, and by our count of "total channels," they all come more or less close enough, but we took a closer look at the channels themselves, and broke down national and local channels we consider important. That includes local broadcast channels like PBS (which neither satellite service offers), ABC and Fox, premium movie channels like HBO and Max (formerly Cinemax), and the myriad niche channels from ESPN to Mav TV to Palladia to World Fishing Network. We specifically exclude Regional Sports Networks, exclusive channels like Voom (which is only available on NY-area provider Cablevision), and duplicate feeds of premium movie channels, such as HBO (east) and HBO (west) carried by DirecTV and Fios.

Check out the updated HD programming compared chart.… Read more

Even those of us with the best dishwashers in the world have at least a few dishes and kitchen tools that we wash by hand. Grandma's china, the big cast iron skillet--there are plenty of things in our kitchens that just aren't dishwasher-friendly. If you do any amount of hand-washing, though, you know the importance of a solid dish rack. Sure, you can get a small plastic dish rack from Wal-Mart, but there are some better options out there.

Simplehuman's new Steel Frame Dishrack is one of those options. In addition to its much nicer appearance, the … Read more