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DishPVR 721 Review
An anonymous submitter writes "TiVo's not the only Linux based PVR in the US market anymore. Echostar's Dish Network is now offering their own Linux based PVR, the dual tuner, 120 GB DP721. The first review can be found here at DBSTalk.com." Another anonymous person (how hard is it to give yourself a handle? sheesh) describes the gizmo and notes a possible problem: "Echostar is now shipping a Linux based set-top box called the DishPVR-721 that won best of show at CES. It has a 120GB drive, a pentium like processor and supports dual channel PVR. Also, from my call to their technical support this morning, they aren't planning on giving up any of the GPLed source code they have modified. I've got one in front of me right now, ugly silver box but nice specs. I'm going to open it up this morning and start taking it apart."
Would you trust a company whose CEO is a professional gambler:
Charlie Ergen is not a name that slips readily from medialand lips. Outside America his name is unknown. But today he has earned his place in TV history - the 48-year-old former professional gambler has torpedoed one of Rupert Murdoch's most ambitious plans - to set up a global TV network straddling America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
And although 22 years his junior, the deal to buy DirecTV in the US is a personal triumph for Mr Ergen, who fought Murdoch once before and won.
As Mr Murdoch seethes over his defeat, he will be reflecting on a personal feud that goes back five years.
The pair first clashed in 1996 when Mr Ergen bid against Mr Murdoch in an effort to force up the price of the last remaining satellite licence in the US. He succeeded, forcing Mr Murdoch to pay almost £281m over the odds for the licence.
After paying so much, the media tycoon's telecoms partner, MCI, pulled out of a proposed joint venture, forcing him to go cap in hand to EchoStar. The two rivals agreed to a merger deal that would have seen them sew up the satellite market between them.
However, Mr Murdoch subsequently pulled out in the face of opposition from the cable giants and a furious Mr Ergen filed a £5bn lawsuit against him.
The saga was eventually settled when Murdoch - left with two satellite operations and a satellite licence he couldn't fund alone, - was forced into a humiliating settlement with EchoStar. Mr Ergen ended up with the satellite business and Mr Murdoch was left with just an 8% stake in EchoStar.
Mr Ergen, who abandoned his blackjack card games in Las Vegas when one of the casinos accused him of "counting cards" (a practice sharp-eyed gamblers use to work out where cards are in the pack as they are dealt), has now gambled again and apparently won.
A workaholic, the Echostar boss knows the value of the money he has just borrowed to secure the deal. According to reports he watches every penny affecting the bottom line - he makes bearded linux hippies take night flights to save money and apparently requires them to double up on hotel rooms.
Barring a late return of Mr Murdoch to the negotiating table or a rejection by competition authorities, the DirecTV deal will be crowning glory of an illustrious career for Mr Ergen.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
According to this link:
Dish Network is planning a late 2002 introduction of a new model 921 STB that combines a HDTV receiver for both over-the-air broadcasts and Dish satellite programming with a HDTV capable personal video recorder (PVR). The PVR is reported to incorporate a 160 GB hard drive that will provide for somewhere between 10 and 20 hours of HDTV recording capacity. This unit will also include provisions for web browsing. It will include a DVI/HDCP digital video interface in addition to the standard analog monitor interfaces.
According to this Sonicblue's Replay 4500 is also Linux based.
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time Windows crashed... Oh wait, he does.
I know several people working on this project. Echostar is going to release all the source code that they are required to. Just because a call-center person who is trained to help people hook the box up to their TV doesn't know about it doesn't mean the code is not going to be released.
This is a new platform for Echostar and it may take a while to get everthing in place. Based on my understanding, they have every intention of following all GPL requirements.
Not everything is GPL.
Excellent point.
If they've made modifications to the Linux kernel itself, they're legally obligated to release their modified kernel source. But in all likelihood, all they've done is develop dynamically loaded device drivers for their hardware. If that's the case, then there's no legal requirement whatsoever for them to release their device driver code.
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