Black Boxes: EchoStar Dish PVR 501 satellite receiver

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by Stephen Muratore
Winter 2001

EchoStar
(800) 333-DISH
[www.dishnetwork.com]
Stand-alone: $349
For current subscribers upgrading to the "America's Top 150" package: $199.
Free with a new subscription to one of the Dish PVR plans.

Since EchoStar introduced the first satellite receiver-PVR (Personal Video Recorder) combination, the playing field has changed. Competing satellite provider, DirecTV, has introduced another such device into the market: the UltimateTV receiver. Like EchoStar's DishPlayer, the UltimateTV receiver uses software provided by Microsoft. Though EchoStar continues to market the DishPlayer, it has introduced the DishPVR 501 as the first combo unit not to use Microsoft's software. This seems strategically geared toward distancing EchoStar from Microsoft, and the latter's licensing fees. EchoStar created its own software to run the DishPVR 501.

The DishPVR 501 has a user interface that is less polished than the DishPlayer's Microsoft design and more like the graphical user interfaces in Dish's other receivers. The phrase "MS-DOS-like" comes to mind. However, the unit tended to respond to commands more quickly than the DishPlayer does.

Set against its competitors, the PVR 501 seems a first-generation David entering a field already dominated by a couple of second-generation Goliaths. EchoStar makes it easy to acquire even free, by way of one of several deals for new Dish subscribers. But it wants an upgrade to include some of the features that have become standard in other PVRs.

Haves and Have Nots
The DishPVR 501 we tested delivered the channels available through the Dish 500 service's two satellites. It provided a fine picture (well, as fine as the MPEG-2 encoding allowed) and supported both Dolby Pro Logic and Dolby Digital broadcasts.

The Browse buttons on the remote pulled up a transparent overlay over the channel we were currently watching and showed the name of the program on the adjacent channel. The Info button brought up that program's description. Using the Browse buttons, we were further able to scroll through current and upcoming program titles and their descriptions without leaving a full-screen view of the program we were watching. Thumbs up to the 501 and other Dish receivers for this useful feature.

The remote holds buttons for skipping ahead and back, pausing, fast forwarding and rewinding programs. These work whether the programs viewed are "live" or stored on the unit's hard drive. Whereas it costs $9.99 per month ($4.99 for WebTV Plus subscribers) to activate these features on the DishPlayer, they come free with the 501.

The unit has a phone jack, which is currently used only to allow the user to order pay-per-view programs by pressing buttons on the remote, not to connect with an ISP for Web surfing or e-mail.

The DishPVR 501 also has an electronic program guide that allows the grouping and labeling of up to six sets of favorite channels. However, two of these sets are established at the factory and are not changeable by the user: "All Channels," and "All Sub" (i.e. all subscribed channels). So, the user can customize only four sets of favorites, with no more than 120 channels assigned to the four in total, and the labels can contain no more than eight characters. We would have liked to choose from at least one more set of favorite channels.

The electronic program guide allowed scrolling through listings and calling up information about individual programs, but it had no search function. All the other PVRs in the market, both freestanding and satellite-based, allow the user to find programs by keyword, name of director or name of actor. This function seems essential for any device called a PVR, and it is the 501's greatest shortfall.

Unlike the DishPlayer, the PVR 501 does not have an ATVEF-compliant tuner. It is therefore incapable of displaying the data and graphic enhancements transmitted with ATVEF-supporting interactive television programs.

Finally, the guide allowed recording and playing back from the unit's capacious hard drive. EchoStar claims a 35-hour capacity for it. At 21.5 hours recorded, we still hadn't reached its limit.

Stability
After a few weeks use, our unit started showing some eccentricities. On one occasion, all channels went black while we were watching a show off the air. Nothing could coax them back except unplugging the unit, waiting a minute and plugging it in again.

On a few other occasions, the screen would go black while the unit was playing a program from its hard drive. Numerous presses of fast forward, reverse, play and other buttons on the remote brought back the picture with no sound. More presses brought back the sound, out of sync with the video. Powering down and back up fixed the problem, but it was only a few minutes before the screen would go black again, and we had to repeat the process.

On one occasion, we selected a program to view from the hard drive only to see a part of another program for a few moments, and then nothing.

The 501 had started to behave like the first-generation product it is. Hopefully, upcoming software upgrades will fix these bugs.

The Mysteries of the 501
The 501's remote sports a mysterious button just below its PVR control buttons. Labeled with the Dish logo, it draws special attention to itself by glowing red when pressed and doing nothing else. The remote comes with a manual of its own, which carefully describes the function of its every button. When is comes to this "DISH Button," however, the manual falls strangely taciturn, saying only, "You may soon be able to use this button to access the DISH Home." An announcer on a brief repeating program on one of the Dish Information TV channels said that Dish will add a number of "interactive Dish home" features to their service, including sports, entertainment and games, early in 2002. This announcer seemed to imply that these new offerings would be made by software upgrade and would be free of charge. Just where will this DISH Home be? Unlike the DishPlayer, the 501 does not provide features for browsing the Web, so this button will not likely pull up a Web browser showing Dish's home page. Unlike the DishPlayer, the PVR 501 doesn't currently support ATVEF-compliant interactive TV programming, so what kinds of "interactivity" will the software upgrade deliver?

There is a second mystery button also on the remote. This is the "#" button, which is also labeled "search." The manual explains, "The word 'search' refers to a possible future use for this button.

Could it be that either or both of these buttons will someday, by way of software upgrade, provide the types of search capabilities available in other PVRs? If the 501 adds this one feature (with an optional wireless keyboard, too, please), and gets its bugs fixed, this "David" will stand a fighting chance.

CES 2002 Update
EchoStar revealed the answer to the mystery of the “DISH Home” at the company's press conference at the January, 2002 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It turns out that this refers to satellite channel 100, soon to act as a portal to a number of OpenTV-based interactive television services. The first of these, DISH Instant Weather, has been on the channel for over a year, though not identified as part of the “DISH Home” services. Toward the end of February, DISH will download a coordinating home page and a new batch of services to the channel. These will include movie reviews from Zap2it Entertainment Features, games from Playin' TV, a personal horoscope, and DISH Network Customer Support. The base level of DISH Home services will appear, by way of download, free of charge, to all users of OpenTV-compliant receivers: 3900, 4900, DishPro 301, DishPVR 501 and DishPVR 508.

April 2002 Update
One day early in April, we noticed that, without fanfare, the “search” button on the PVR 501's remote had become active. It now takes one to a keyword search screen. The DishPVR 501 can now search its listings for title, actor name or director name; and so joins all the competing PVRs in offering this function.

2003 Update
By software download at the end of 2002, Dish added these features to the PVR 501: