Black Boxes: EchoStar Echostar/Dish Network Model 7100 Satellite Receiver

The WebTV Plus EPG
Like that in the EchoStar 5000, the DISHPlayer offers two-click programming of one's VCR from its EPG. Select any program from the listing to get info about it; then click "record." The unit tunes to the appropriate channel and sends infrared (IR) "record" and "stop" commands at the beginning and end of the program.

However, the DISHPlayer shows up to a full week of programming in its EPG unlike the model 5000's up-to-two-days; and where the 5000 can hold only 10 programs in memory, the DISHPlayer has no such limit. This is one of the areas the unit's 8.6 gigabyte hard drive must come in handy.

Searching for programs, one can cruise through a TV-Guide style onscreen grid showing all available channels, jump to the listings for a specific day and time, search for programs by categories, or search by keywords. Here, you enter words from a title or a name of an actor or director to get all matches for the next week.

However you find a title, one click brings you details of the program, another pulls up its associated Web page (if it has one), another sets a reminder that will signal you before the program begins, and still another will record the program on your VCR.

Through most of these maneuvers a picture-in-picture (PIP) frame continues to show a TV channel. This can serve as a window into any channel you scroll to in the listings grid, or, if you choose, it can show you only one channel as you cruise through listings and information about programs on the others.

To this couch surfer, the WebTV Plus EPG is the single most valuable feature of the DISHPlayer. This alone justifies the cost of the unit by the search time it saves and in the tight matches it achieves between viewer preferences and "what's on." The WebTV Plus program listings are downloaded into the DISHPlayer free of charge, whether or not one subscribes to the WebTV Network Plus service.

EPG: Improvements Needed
Three suggestions for the EchoStar/WebTV Plus development team: first, and most importantly, bring back inclusion of local channels in the EPG. Tuners like the EchoStar 5000 have RF connections for TV antennas or cable TV cables. These units display listings for the local over-the-air or cable channels in the EPG grid along with the various satellite channels. They allow the viewer to program reminders or VCR recording for all available channels (satellite and local) through a single, simple user interface. The DISHPlayer takes a giant step backward from this integration. It has the RF input alright, but its EPG does not list the local stations. If one wants to program a VCR to record a show on a local station, he would have to do it the old fashioned way—which for many means "not at all." Even then he would have to keep one eye on the DISHPlayer’s TV Planner to make sure he doesn’t set the VCR to record a local show when the DISHPlayer will signal it to record a satellite show.

Worse yet, the viewer must turn the unit off and switch his TV set to its low-quality antenna input to view local stations at all. This technical bias against the local stations seems either an unresolved WebTV Plus engineering problem (that EchoStar had resolved in its previous tuners) or a ploy for forcing broadcasters to allow Dish to deliver their local signals via satellite.

Second: enable complex searches in the keyword search engine. Instead of limiting the viewer to one search at a time, this would enable a single search for any of a number of words; e.g. Kubrick OR Kurosawa OR Fellini. Also, make it possible to save such search strings to be run again at will. With this, one could create a kind of search engine macro, say, for all one's favorite directors, and run it weekly to pick up all the next week's matches at once—or let the unit automatically run it weekly.

Of course, when they arrive late this year, the features of Personal Television Service might obviate the need for such macros, substituting, perhaps, the ability to learn user preferences and automatically record to hard disk any program that seems to match.

Finally, allow the player to retain a few functions even while recording a program. In its current rendition, the only function available while recording a program to a VCR is "stop recording." At very least the viewer needs to be able to pull up the datascreen for the show being recorded so he can make an on-the-fly decision as to whether to continue recording or not. The ES5000, for example, allows the viewer even to continue surfing through overlays of listings even while recording. That would be even better.

The WebTV Network Plus Service
For viewers who choose to subscribe to the WebTV Network Plus service the DISHPlayer provides Web surfing, e-mail and enhanced television capabilities.

Contrary to its treatment of local stations, the player achieves an integration of television and Web content on a couple of interesting fronts. When one calls up program information from the EPG or the remote’s "Info" button, an icon of the letter "i" (for "interactive") will appear in the information screen if the program has a companion Web page. Clicking on this "i" will launch the WebTV browser, pull up the companion page and place the television program in a PIP over the Web page.

Similarly, in the course of certain programs a translucent "i" logo will appear in the upper right corner of the TV program frame itself. This indicates that the program itself has "interactive content" or program data enhancements. Clicking on this "i" will pull up a different view of the TV program: typically one that wraps or overlays the TV picture with hyperlinked printed information. It must be said that even those few networks making use of this technology are not making great use of it. For example, MSNBC which uses it in practically every program, typically uses it to wrap the screen with a number of current hyperlinked news headlines. This display is not so much an "enhancement" to the story on the TV screen as a distraction from it. One would expect, rather, deeper reporting of the same story. Be patient, however: enhanced TV is only in its infancy. Soon the networks will use it to deliver pertinent stats during the game and to take our pizza orders during half-time.

When the viewer clicks "Web Home", he is taken to Web TV Network’s home page. This provides links to a number of Web sites which have been designed specifically for television viewers, and Web sites related directly to television content.

Further, the e-mail program is made for TV. The front panel of the player holds jacks for camcorder video and audio inputs. With cam plugged in, you can snap a still picture and record an audio greeting straight to any e-mail message. Or, you can snap a still frame from any TV program and e-mail that.

Late this year, Dish plans to offer its Dish 500 offerings to users of the DISHPlayer. These will include access to local broadcast channels in many areas of the country and more data services. The Dish 500 service will require the installation of a wider-than-usual dish which can pick up signals from two of EchoStar’s satellites simultaneously.

WebTV Networks Plus: Improvements Needed
Dear EchoStar, please make the PIP moveable: it seems always to land on the part of the Web page I need to read. Currently, the PIP over Web pages can be closed, but not moved.

Dear WebTV: often the "companion" Web pages for programs give little more information than already given in the EPG. The WebTV Network has elected to automatically link many movies to their listings on a movie listing site. Again, these listings add little to the EPG information. WebTV Network site developers and the editors establishing its links should drill a little deeper.

Though WebTV Plus technology does support streaming audio (though not video), we were unable to get the DISHPlayer to play streaming audio files. Certainly the engineers are working on this, for the most compelling content on the Web for the TV viewer consists of moving pictures and sound. We suspect, however, that this capability might come at the cost of another hardware upgrade.

Personal Television Service
At this writing, the DISHPlayer sports only the first of a bundle of Personal Television Service (PTS) features. This is "TV Pause," a feature that allows you to pause a program for up to 30 minutes while it is being broadcast. Return from your bathroom break and, voilá, you haven’t missed a thing. The unit has recorded onto its hard drive the segment you would have missed, and it now plays it back as it continues to record the rest of the show ahead of you. DISH is scheduled to add rewind, fast forward, the ability to record hours of programming to the hard drive, and instant localized news and weather; all this by software update, late this year. Like the WebTV Network Plus service the Personal Television Service comes with an additional monthly subscription fee. A guess: perhaps this player, or its successor, will also come to remember and predict viewer preferences in features such as those developed by TiVo and RePlay.

Small Details
The DISHPlayer provides on-screen caller ID for those who subscribe to this telephone service. If your phone rings while you’re watching TV, your screen tells you who is calling.

You can hook any of a number of printers to the unit to print e-mail messages and Web pages.

The unit also comes with a small wireless keyboard and remote. You can program the latter to control your television and audio amplifier. Unlike other remotes in EchoStar’s line, however, these communicate via infrared (IR), not radio frequencies. This means they can’t control the unit through walls or closed stereo cabinets.

Summary
With the DISHPlayer, EchoStar/DISH has added WebTV functionality to its satellite service, and has simultaneously begun to join its competitor, DIRECTV, in offering personal television features.

Its major design flaw is the lack of integration of local stations in its EPG; after that its lack of data delivery while recording a program. Hopefully, these can be corrected—and my other wishes realized--for this model by software update only.

One big wish for the successor to this unit: an integrated DVD player.

The DISHPlayer is one of a new generation of products that deliver a television experience far richer than has been possible until now.

-- Stephen Muratore

Tech Specs: Model 7100 Satellite Receiver

Suggested Retail Price for the DISHplayer $199

WebTV Plus Service

$24.95/month, $14.95 if using your own ISP (OpenISP Option. Can't use AOL, CompuServe or MSN.)

Television Programming Packages

$15.00/month and up
Personal Television Services: $5.00/month for WebTV Plus subscribers, $9.95/month for non-subscribers

Components

Phone Modem (Kbps): 56 Kbps v.90 capable

Memory (RAM, ROM, Flash): 16MB, 4MB, 2MB

Processor: 167Mhz QED 5230; IDT 3041

Hard Drive: 8.6GB

Caching: Yes

Call Waiting Support

Universal Remote Control

Wireless Keyboard: Included

Mic Input

Printer Port: Printing Support for Select Hewlett Packard and Canon Printers

IR Flood: for VCR control

Dolby Digital Output

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