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 In January, 2006, the Dish Network announced that they were restructuring their offerings to provide new channels with MPEG4 compression. The old standard had been MPEG2 and that eventually would be phased out to allow for more stations and greater coverage. The first serious wave of this switchover involved several MPEG4 capable boxes. Of particular interest to me was the newly introduced Dish ViP622 HD MPEG4/MPEG2 DVR. Not only did this dual tuner DVR carry on the name-based programming design of the Dish 942, but it also offered the ability to get all the new channels. As soon as these units became available in early February I was able to order one from Dish and I’ve installed it in my Home Theater.
Because I was already set up to receive signals from three separate satellites (located at 61.5, 110 and 119 degrees) I already had all the dishes (2) in place to receive all the stations, new and old, at my location in NY. In addition, Dish was rolling out all the local stations in HD in NY at the same time as well as several additional stations so now I have over 30 HD channels at my disposal! The only hardware modification I will be making within the next month is to upgrade my Switches and LNBs to Dish Pro Plus (DPP) and Dish Pro (DP) status. This will allow me to use a single cable to each room to supply the two signals required for these two tuner boxes. My “legacy” switches and LNBs cannot take advantage of this “signal separation” that is designed into DPP switches. I will probably end up with a total of 4 HD dual tuner DVRs (not because I need to record 8 simultaneous events but because DVRs offer instant pause and review of program material.) In addition, all the new Dish HD DVRs are of the dual tuner variety, thus the need for DPP switches.
I realize that the 622 is a “bleeding edge” situation and I might be in for some surprises. But each new generation of Dish DVRs has improved on the previous one and the 942 series was quite stable to me when the 622 replaced it. In the brief time I’ve had the 622 it has done an excellent job as a full-functioning HD DVR and I’m enjoying the new High Definition content on my 1080p display.
Click here for more information about the Dish ViP622
Click here for some pictures of all the new equipment in place
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