Introduction My father is pretty high-tech for a guy in his early sixties. He has an iPhone and can make his Mac laptop jump through hoops, including wirelessly pumping music (and often vintage jingles from his days as a program director at WIBG in Philadelphia in the late 1960s) to his Wilson Audio and Krell-based audiophile system in his living room. His music students at the University of Southern California demand this level of tech savvy, but where he had admittedly fallen behind was with his home theater system. Installed in an odd niche in his house in Scottsdale, Arizona, this system was pretty state of the art in its day, with a big Sony CRT standard-definition television set, a DVD player and a custom installation in a nifty cabinet. However, by 2008 standards, a 40-inch standard-definition tube TV (which is ...

Introduction Every time I hear about a new high-def DVR from Dish Network, I get excited. “Will this be the one that finally has dual-zone HD output via HDMI?" I ask myself. I have been successfully using Dish Network’s line of non-high-def and high-def dual output DVRs for years. The one feature I have been waiting for is dual HDMI support, so I could run two HDTVs independently and simultaneously. I currently have a mirrored version of the picture on my big screen also going to the smaller kitchen LCD, but ideally I want to be able to have two different high-def shows on simultaneously. Dish Network has been a real innovator in the DVR market for several years, as they were the first company to feature units with multi-room capabilities. This not only saves the consumer on monthly DVR fees, but ...

Introduction Nothing stays stagnant in nature or in consumer electronics. The VCR, one of the last vestiges of the analog world, is about to meet its successor and I don’t mean digital videotape. Personal TV (PTV) is a brand new product category. One of the first units comes from a joint venture between service provider TiVo and consumer electronics manufacturer Philips Electronics. More than just another black box, PTV uses an attractive and intuitive graphical user interface that overlays the TV broadcast signal. It’s possible to record shows and store them on the PTV’s internal hard drive. TiVo can also time-shift material, functioning as your own personal instant replay system. There are two differnet PTV components. For $499 you get a PTV unit capaible of recording upto 14 hours of TV programming. For $999 you can buy a machine with more hard drive space providing up to 30 hours of recording time. On top of ...

Introduction For almost a year, I have enjoyed having the ability to record and play back high-definition programming from Dish Network on my Dish Player 921 satellite receiver/PVR combination machine. It has been a true workhorse, recording my favorite shows without fail, having virtually no downtime and other than the occasional lock-up that usually just requires a simple re-boot (these PVRs are essentially computers in an AV-like metal box), it has been a nearly flawless performer. It has powered my main home theater and has given me hundreds if not thousands of hours of HDTV viewing bliss, but something was seemingly missing. I recently cooked up the idea of adding a second television to my living room/kitchen area downstairs, but I didn’t want to have to install a second dedicated satellite receiver and PVR to control this TV. Enter the Dish Player 942 dual mode HDTV satellite receiver/PVR. Dish Network last year released an ingenious product ...

Introduction After owning my new 61-inch rear-projection HDTV for about 30 minutes, I started jonesing hard for a High Definition PVR. When I finally made the move to HD, tacking on a few thousand dollars for the set and a extra few bucks to my monthly satellite bill, I somehow had justified in my mind that I could just live with my standard definition TiVo running into my TV and that someday later, I would own an HD PVR. That “someday” came about a week later for me. I called up Dish Network to inquire about the cost of their 921 receiver and, much to my chagrin, it was in the $1,000 range, priced comparably with their HD TiVo competition from DirecTV. (Note: The 921 is currently priced at $549 according to Dish Network.) This price point is a barrier to entry for most home theater enthusiasts, but it just so happens that ...