New Technology TV

High Definition Television, or HDTV for short, is the entertainment technology of the future.
It surpasses the quality of standard definition television in many impressive ways. The resolution of High Definition Television is ten times greater than the resolution of standard definition television and the picture is delivered in the same 16:9 aspect ratio of a movie theater. This added viewing area will make you feel like you're part of what's happening on the screen. Sound is delivered through Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, which when used with the right configuration of speakers adds to the sensation of being part of the action.

Of course to take advantage of these extra features, you need special equipment. An HDTV capable television has to have the wide format 16:9 aspect ratio and needs to be able to handle the higher resolution. In other words it needs to be capable of packing more pixels into any given area. The sound system most frequently consists of two speakers in the front of the home theater by the television, three behind the couch or chairs where people watching the television will sit and often a sub-woofer under the couch.

In addition to the obvious equipment, you will need a receiver capable of decoding HDTV satellite signals so the programming can be displayed on the screen. Dish Network offers two major receivers that can handle HDTV.

The ViP211 is Dish Network entry level HDTV receiver model. It has all of the same basic features of any other Dish Network receiver. It displays Dish Network's Electronic Program Guide which gives you a number of ways to control and manage your television experience. The Electronic Program Guide lets you see what's on each channel up to days in advance. It gives program information including when the program was made, who stars in it, rating, and often includes plot information. The Electronic Program Guide allows different family members to make lists of their favorite channels so they don't have to sift through everyone else's channels to get to what they want to watch. It has manual and automatic event timers, and Parental Control Locks. The Parental Control Locks are especially valuable because they allow parents to control what kinds of programming their kids have access to. Parents can block out specific programs, entire channels, or only programs with certain MPAA ratings, while still being able to access the full spectrum of programming. Each Dish Network receiver is also capable of displaying Caller ID information on screen and downloads all of it's software updates from the same satellite signal that it receives programming. It comes with a remote control that connects you with all of the receiver's feature and can be configured to control up to three additional home entertainment components.

The main difference between the ViP211 and Dish Network's entry level receiver is that it can decode HD as well as standard definition programming. It displays television resolutions of 480i, 480p, 720p, and 1080i. It also has a USB 2.0 port and an Ethernet port both for future use and easy upgrades.

DishNetwork's ViP622 DVR is the most fully featured satellite receiver on the market today. It has all of the features of the ViP211 but with the added features of a Digital Video Recorder which allows you to record up to 200 hours of your favorite shows and the ability to send a signal to a second television (with HD programming downgraded to SD format).

Dish Network can provide you with the equipment and programming to bring the future of television into your home today.

There's a media battle going on between cable television providers and satellite TV companies. Both claim to provide the best service, lowest prices, and widest selection of programming. But when you look at a side by side comparison between cable companies and Dish Network, it becomes clear that Dish Network offers dramatically better television service.

Dish Network offers a huge number of value adding features that cable either doesn't bother with, doesn't provide completely, or gives you at an increased cost. For example, Dish Network lets you add additional televisions to your plan at no extra charge while cable companies often charge upwards of five dollars per TV. Dish Network provides all of it's programming in digital format for crystal clear picture and CD quality sound. Most cable companies are still using an old fashioned analog signal that carries more interference than digital. Dish Network often provides free HDTV and DVR equipment, while cable is doesn't bother with DVR and is struggling simply to provide any HDTV at all. Dish Network provides hundreds of channels while cable selection is typically limited at about 90 channels. Dish Network offers a huge amount of optional extra programming packages like MLB Extra Innings, NBA League Pass, NHL On the Ice, and ESPN Gameday. Cable can't offer any extra programming. Cable doesn't offer anything close to the amount of foreign language programming available through Dish Network and Dish Network offers about twice as many Pay Per View channels.

The main reason for this huge disparity is that cable television service simply doesn't have the information transmitting capacity necessary for the television services people demand these days. With a cable there's only so much information that can be crammed into it at any given time. It's a lot like a water main. If you live on a modest residential street where people's main use of water was showering and watering small gardens, there would probably be a small water main supplying the whole neighborhood. But if suddenly everyone put in swimming pools and huge lawns that needed to be watered, the old water main wouldn't be able to supply water for all of that and the utility company would have to dig it up and replace it with a bigger one. Cable is the same way. It was fine for the 80 or so analog channels that people wanted back in the 1980's, but now in the 21st century people want digital television, HDTV, and hundreds of channels. Today's high tech television is a lot like the metaphorical swimming pools and lawns, and the old system of cables simply can't keep up.

Satellite TV technology, by contrast, relies on transmitting programming over electromagnetic signals through air and space. The electromagnetic waves don't have any practical limits on information transmitting capacity. Cable companies have to install new cables while Dish Network gets a free data transmission system.

Cable companies are trying to update the cable networks to meet the new demands of their customers, but this process involves digging up and replacing thousands of miles of cable, which can get very expensive. The companies in turn pass the cost on to their customers in the form of average rate increases of over 8% every year! And that's where the biggest difference between Dish Network and cable TV becomes apparent: value for the money. We all want to know that our money is being well spent. Cable TV's rates are already higher than Dish Network's and the selection is more limited. Dish Network by contrast offers service that's already better, is constantly improving, and does so with stable rates.

If you want the best value, most programming options, and easy accommodation of new technology, then a satellite TV service like Dish Network is clearly the way to go.

In an effort to make their entertainment options even more widely available, Dish Network has introduced a line of portable entertainment systems it calls Pocket Dishes. The idea is essentially to have an ultra compact multimedia entertainment center that you can take with you anywhere you go. Each model of Pocket Dish can download program content from any Dish Network DVR and replay it on it's own integrated LCD screen or on almost any television. Pocket Dishes can also play music stored in WMA, MP3, or WAV formats, can be used to play video games also available for download from Dish Network, and function as a digital photo album.

The basic model, the Pocket Dish AV402E, is super compact. At 2.4" high x 4.2" wide x 0.7" deep, it's about the same size as a wallet. Considering it's small size, it's storage capabilities are really impressive. It has a 20 GB hard drive which can store up to 20 hours of downloaded Dish Network programming, 200,000 digital photos in JPEG format, and 10,000 songs. It has a 2.2" LCD screen with a standard aspect ratio of 4:3, and delivers audio through headphones. One feature that the AV402E has that the more advanced models lack is a built in microphone which is great for taking notes or recording music or interesting sounds.

The mid level AV500E and the top of the line AV700E have many feature in common that the AV402E lacks. Both of the higher models have LCD screens with 16:9 aspect ratios which make viewing movies in wide screen format easy. Each comes with a remote control, docking station, built in speakers, and a stand.

One feature that both the AV500E and AV700E have that's truly impressive is digital video recording capacity. Both can be connected to just about any television, satellite receiver, VCR, or cable box to record video content. Of course they're forced to record in real time with this set up (all Pocket Dishes can download about an hour of programming every five minutes from any Dish Network DVR with a USB 2.0 port), but the real benefit of recording in this mode is that the Pocket Dish's maximum program content capacity can be quadrupled. In other words, the AV500E which can hold up to 30 hours of Dish Network programming can hold up to 120 hours of programming from other sources!

As far as individual specs, the AV500E measures 3" high x 4.8" wide x 0.8" deep and has a 4 inch screen (with the 16:9 aspect ratio). It's 30 Gig hard drive can contain up to 30 hours of Dish Network programming, 300,000 digital photos, and 15,000 songs.

The AV700E really is a full fledged home entertainment system in and of itself. It's 7" screen makes for easy viewing while at 4.2" high x 8.2" wide x 0.8" deep, it's still very portable. It has a big 40 Gigabyte hard drive that can hold up to 40 hours of Dish Network programming (note that this would be up to 160 hours from other sources!), 400,000 photos, and 20,000 songs.

Pocket Dishes are definitely an improvement for portable entertainment over portable DVD players. Not only are they smaller but they hold more programming. And while a laptop computer has a greater viewing area, Pocket Dishes are much cheaper and make it easy to get content through the use of a Dish Network DVR. Pocket Dishes are a great way to take home entertainment with you wherever you go.

It has so many in fact that the choices can be pretty daunting. Dual tuners, HDTV, UHF Pro remotes, and DVR sound pretty cool, but what does it all mean? Fortunately all of the Dish Network receivers have a lot in common and the main differences are the additional features. Once you get a handle on the vocabulary and an idea of the standard features common to all receivers, they're pretty easy to sort out.

The most basic Dish Network receiver is the Dish301 and it's features are common to all the others. It has a single tuner which is the part that actually decodes the satellite signal and sends it to the television in the form of images and sounds. It also comes with a remote control that can be programmed to control up to three home entertainment appliances, such as the television, a VCR, and a DVD player, in addition to the receiver itself. As far as software, it comes with the Dish Interactive Electronic Program Guide (EPG) which gives you information about what's available to watch hours in advance. It will tell you things like the year the program was made, who stars in it, MPAA ratings, and often plot information. It also makes it easy to make lists of your favorite channels, so family members don't have to hunt through each other's channels to find what they want to watch. It also has Parental Control Locks which make it easy to screen out inappropriate content from children.

The Dish322 is just like the Dish301, but with the addition of an extra tuner and a special UHF Pro remote control that can operate through walls and other obstruction at a distance of up to 200 feet. The extra tuner is to send a signal to a second TV located in a different room of the house from the receiver and the primary TV. The tuner for the secondary TV is set up to only receive UHF signals from the second remote, while the tuner for the primary TV only receives normal IR signals from the remote in the same room as the receiver. This ensures that both TV's operate independently of each other and that viewers in separate rooms can't interfere with each other's television viewing. Because of this, the Dish322 is a great choice for the family that has an extra TV that they want to watch satellite television on, but doesn't want a lot of extra bells and whistles.

For the family that wants the added convenience of Digital Video Recording (DVR) technology, the Dish Player-DVR 625 is a great option. It's essentially the same thing as the Dish322, but with the ability to digitally record shows in much the same way a VCR would. The difference between a DVR and a VCR is that the DVR records shows on a high capacity hard drive instead of a tape, and since programming the DVR is done through the on screen program guide, it's much easier to deal with than a VCR.

HDTV capabilities are also available in Dish Network receivers. HDTV or High Definition Television is a viewing format that increases sound quality, picture resolution, and viewing area well above that of standard definition television. Dish Network's ViP211 has essentially the same features as the Dish301 but with the additional capability of handling HDTV signals as well as standard definition programming.

For the ultimate viewing experience, the ViP622 is the right choice as it combines all of the dual tuner and DVR features of the Dish Player-DVR 625 with the ability to process HDTV signals.

If you still have questions, Dish Network's customer support staff can help you find the receiver that's right for you.