Scott's Team Summit Blog

[Scott Greczkowski]

Howdy everyone from Denver, the home of the 2006 Dish Network Team Summit!

I woke up in Connecticut this morning at 4am and now I am sitting in my Hotel Room in Denver. Denver is HOT! My hotel room is really cool I got a great view out my window of the Rocky Mountains. The room also has a 40 inch Samsung LCD HDTV. (Although no channels on it are in HD)

In just a few minutes I will be on my way to the Uplink Center in Chyanne, Wy.

I have registered and got my badge and took a few pictures. I had a chance to sneek in the the floor of the tech expo (the place where the new equipment will be shown) and nothing is setup yet. But I snapped some pictures anyways.

Here are some photos to get us started (Much more to come). More to come I am bringing my Camera to the uplink center.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

The Slingbox works fine with the 622 as I am using it with mine.

I do wish they had better support for different remote addreses.

I should note I have seen nothing here from sling yet in my walking around except for a DishCOMM/Slingbox training room which will host a class on iit tommorow.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

An update...

Greetings from the uplink center in Chyanne where we just completed our tour.

The HD Channels are launching TOMMOROW not today. They will turn them on durring a seminar here at Team Summit.

For those of you who have been asking about VOOM and HDLite the wod is that nothing will be changing on Dish Networks end and that it is VOOM who is down resing the channels. Dish is sending what they are getting from VOOM.

I actually saw where VOOM is being uplinked from.

In addition NFL HD and StarHD are being slightly downresed because of mpeg4 encoder issues, however they feel that the PQ is good now and the decease will not be noticed by most consumer hdtvs which can not display the full 1080i resolution anyways.

I should note that they would not let us take cameras inside but I did take a lot outside which I will upload later.

For now I am back on the bus for te hour and a half ride back to denver.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

OK back from the uplink now, Team Summit does not officially start until tommorow. So here are some of my photos from the Uplink (remember they would not let Cameras inside)

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Team Summit Opening Day!

Today is the Official Opening Day of Team Summit with the Opening Ceramonies tonight at 7pm Mountain Time, this will be followed by the comedy and impressions of Rich Little (Yes he is STILL alive) and he will be followed by a special concert by the Beach Boys (Now that they are all close to 60 years old are they still Boys?) and that will be followed by the opening of the Tech Expo floor at 11pm Mountain Time.

But even though the official start is not until tonight, the day starts off with the Dish Network DishCOMM / Slingbox Training session. What does it mean? We will find out today at 9AM Mountain Time.

At 11am we will be taking a trip to one of Dish Networks Call Centers and Dish Networks headquarters.

At tonights opening ceremony we expect to hear an announcement about "Dish Broadband" which will be launching shortly. We are hearing (just a rumor of course) that Dish Network will be selling a repackaged version of the WildBlue Service.

More as we know it!

Finally just one thing I would like to ask, many of you have posted questions that you want me to ask the Dish Network folks, and I have asked those questions. Some of you have not liked their answers, I ask that you don't get mad at me about their replies I am just passing along what is told to me. I am here to bring you all the breaking news first, something SatelliteGuys does very well. So I ask please don't shoot the messenger.

Thanks an enjoy the coverage (Since most of the stuff is happing LATE tonight you will probably see a lot more coverage tommorow when you wake up)

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

BTW I should also note that the new HD channels WILL be turned on today.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok folks I am at the DishCOMM / Slingbox seminar and its a disapointment.

The Slingbox has nothing to do with DishCOMM instead all this is, is a sale pitch for dealers to sell the standard Slingbox to customers.

Also my Nikon D50 camera died. Luckily there is a camera store down the street. I hope to get it fixed

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

So the Sling Announcement was a bust.

Dish Network Dealers will be able to sell SlingBox units however there is no date for this to happen.

I am trying to get my Nikon D50 working now.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

OK got the camera working... It was the battery it was dead (no idea why I charged it full yesterday morning and it usually lasts for hundreds of photos maybe its the altitude or something.

Anyways I just attended the DishCOMM / Slingbox training session.

For DishCOMM they showed us how to share a phone line with all the DishCOMM boxes, what is interesting is that they will only be supporting DishCOMM on the VIP receivers and not the 942 because it uses a older version of the DishCOMM / Homeplug Technology.

Dish will also be making a special Modem which customers can plug into their phone lines for their VIP receivers to access and share. This was actually some neat technology.

DishCOMM even supports CallerID to be displayed on all the VIP receivers even if they are not directly connected to a phone line.

Some interesting stuff from the demo was...
DishComm and Transmit and receive anywhere from 4mb to 20MB over the powerlines.
The Maximum number of DishCOMM connections it can handle is 16
DishCOMM will also work on the new 612 receiver. (hmmm)

They hope to start having DishCOMM available by fall. No mention of using DISHCOMM to transmit audio and video as we have seen in demonstations over the prior year.

The Slingbox presentation was just an general introductions and sales pitch for the Slingbox. A number of dealers commented they are going to install these in places where people have vacation homes just to piss off the audit team.

We are off to the Call Center and Echostar Headquarters in a little while

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok we are on the tour bus to the tour to the call center. So far we have seen the orional echostar office and Charlies old house where he started Echostar.

We are about 20 mins from the call center.

More updates to come.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Just left the Lttleton Call center and was impressed with it and how nice it was. This center handles advanced tech support.

I was amazed how laid back it was I was expecting to see CSRs ripping their hair out wanting to jump out the windows.

I was also amazed to see how much training these guys go through.

I also had a good time hanging out and talking to the Technical Operations staff.

For me talking with these folks about how we can better work together and me having a better understanding of what they do and them having a better understanding of what I do has been the highlight of the trip so far.

Charlie Ergen has some very good people working for him. It was great to finally meet them and talk to them.

Got some photos from this facility and will post them later.

We are now headed to the Dish Network Headquarters.

More later

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok just left the Headquarters of Echostar. We were not supposed to go inside but we did. We were not supposed to take pictures inside but we did that as well.

Of course we had permission to by the dish network employees who were with us.

Although no one told this to security until later. I think one of the guards was about to freek out.

Photos will be uploaded later.

Claude and I were invited back to tour the executive office but because of the traffic here in Denver we probably won't have time.

More later.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

OK back in the hotel now, so Picture Time.

1st picture is the birthplace of Echostar. Yes that Vacuum store is where Charlie and Jim started Echostar. My how they have grown.

Second picture is me at the Call Center, the call center use to be a shopping mall.

third photo is a photo into the call center.

Fourth is a photo of the history of all Dish Networks Legacy Equipment.

The rest of the site I was asked not to take photos since sensitive consumer data could be seen on screens as we walked by (Nothing too sensitive though like there were no credit cad numbers on the screen)

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Whoops here are the photos.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

OK now for photos of the Echostar Headquarters.

If you drove past it you would never even know it was there, I was expecting a big sign saying Welcome to the World Headquarters of Echostar.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Well folks I am back from a great night here at Team Summit. Many people are coming up to me and are saying hi, which makes me feel good!

I went to the opening ceremony and had a great time and also snagged myself a front row seat!

Before I go on any further I want to say a big THANK YOU to the folks at MTV Networks, especially Comedy Central and VH1 Classics. They presented tonights show and went out of there way to make folks feel good all night long. I had a nice talk with the folks from MTV Networks and they actually read SatelliteGuys and have been collecting your requests for MHD!

The night started off with a performance by a band called "Opie Goes Bad" and they were not bad at all.

From there we went into the opening ceremony which was very entertaining and was about making choices which is this years theme.

Next they introduced Rich Little, who I have not seen in years and he look great and put on one hell of a show. I was even surprised that he had some very risque material as well which had everyone in stitches. Oh course his impressions were dead on as always. A great performance by a true legend.

After Rich Little came out they did some ad lib while the roadies setup for the Beach Boys. I was proudly decked out in one of my favorite hawaiian shirts ready to go.

Then it was showtime, as the Beach Boys hit the stage. Mike Loves voice was in excellent form tonight and they gave one hell of a show, I sang along with every song as did most in the audience. Durring the concert Mike Love came over to me and gave me a thumbs up as I was one of the only people dressed to go to a Beach Boys Concert and I was having a great time.

I did manage to snap a photo of Rich Little and the Beach Boys with my camera phone, as they were not letting regular cameras in. I saw a bunch of others doing the same thing so I figured why not.

After the concert we left the arena where VH1 Classic was handing out Beach Boys T Shirts. I got one as I was walking down the hall I gave it away to someone who didnt get one as the shirt I got was a medium, and there is no way in hell I would ever fit in it.

Next up was the Tech Expo! I rushed up stairs and immediately ran in and snapped photos of all the new Dishes, I then scoured the receiver displays looking for the 612, but it was no where to be found. I then asked and found out that the 612 does exist however it is not on display yet, it is a single tuner HD DVR. It will probably not be out this year.

I also saw the 222 and was told that they are planning on having it out in September. The 222 is like a 622 however its not a DVR.

I then saw a very early ALPHA version of external USB archiving for the 622. They had an external 500 gig hard drive hooked up to the 622 with all kinds of programming on it. They said depending how testing goes we COULD see it by late fall.

I snapped a bunch of pictures with my camera phone but am having trouble sending them so I will try working on this some more before going to bed.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok here are the Pics!

Remember these are from a Cameraphone better pics will be taken tommorow.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Greetings from the Team Summit General Assembly where I was able to snag the same front row seat and am sitting 5 feet from the podium where Jim and Charlie are going to speak.

Dish Broadband is DEFINITELY WildBlue as there is a Wildblue dish on the stage.

Security here is tight and they made every take any bags they had back to the hotel.

The show starts in 15 minutes and will run for two hours. I will check in after then.

Lets hope the new HD channels are on by then.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Ok Lots of Pictures.

Stay tuned as later tonight or tommorow morning (depending when the baseball game ends and if I am still awake) I have some interesting stuff to share...

SatelliteGuys.US gets a exclusive first look at the AT&T Homezone....

In addition I sat down and talked with Echostar President Mark Jackson today you would be really interested in hearing what he has to say about VOOM and HD Lite.

Thats all later tonight or tommorow morning.

I do hope you have enjoyed the coverage. While Team Summit continues tommorow there will be no more news, but I will be able to walk through and ask folks more of your questions.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Today was a day to walk around and talk to the different vendors and Dish Employees, I also had some very good meetings today including one with Charlie Ergen and another with Mark Jackson.

I hate to say it but today I was very happy when I was walking on the floor and Charlie saw me and came up to me and asked how the website was going. In addition walking around the floor having people say hi to me also made me feel good because I know we are not running this site for nothing and many people turn to SatelliteGuys for their Satellite News fill. So to those folks I met, thank you!

With that being said I did go around and find out some more information on a few things based on some of the questions you asked me. So here we go...

1) External Storage

I have some very good news on the External Storage front, I asked if you have 2 or more 622's in your house would you be able to move the external hard drives between systems and still be able to watch shows and to this was the answer was yes.

The archiving is based per account not per receiver, so the drive would be able to view shows from all the 622's or 942's you have, however if you tried bringing your external drive over a friends house it would not work.

2) AT&T Homezone - it has a 250 GB hard drive in it.

I also met with some folks from VOOM today from the Marketing Department and told them about the uproar over HD Lite, they said because they were from marketing they were not sure about the technical aspects of things but would definately check on it.

I may have supposed to been just reporting on this trip but I did a lot of talking with people about the HDLite mess and I do hope that I put a bug in the ears of enough of the big wigs to help them make a change for all.

Finally I walked around the room and collected all kinds of freebies which I will take home with me and then I plan on making a special Team Summit Prize Pack Giveaway.

One of the more interesting things I did today was I played Poker at the Travel Channel Booth and announcing the poker game was none other then the World Poker Tours own Mike Sexton. It felt like I was at home watching TV hearing his voice yet I was actually playing and he was talking about me. I made it to the finals with me and one other guy and he ended up beating me with a pair of 2's for the last hand.

Tonight is the closing ceremonies here at Team Summit and I am sad to see it close, I made a bunch of new exciting contacts and it looks like some new doors are opening for us. Looking over my notes here the past few days I think this has been our best coverage of an event yet. I do hope you enjoyed it.

Tommorow my plane departs Denver at 8am so now I must pack and get ready for tonights concert. I will now open this thread so all of you may post your comments about team summit.

Thanks again and once again I do hope you enjoyed!

Thank you for being a SatelliteGuys Member!