4K STBs for Dish Network
May 11, 2015
By Chris Forrester
EchoStar’s CEO Michael Dugan says that the company is in the “tail-end” of the product development cycles of its latest set-top box, and it will start shipping to its main customer Dish Network later this year.
“One of the products and which we are most excited is the already announced 4K Joey, the first 4K Ultra-HD set-top box from a pay-TV provider that is compliant with all HDMI 2.0, HDCP 2.2 and compliant their all 4K televisions. DISH Network already announced this product earlier this year at CES,” he told analysts.
Dugan added that EchoStar is also developing security-based and home automation additions to the product line that he said “will be well received by consumers”.
“The potential of this product line is unbelievable compared to the devices that are standalone in the industry at this time.”
Specifically speaking about Dish Network’s plans for the introduction of 4K, Dugan said: “Obviously, Dish’s 4K plans are not totally visible to us nor we are able to comment on that publicly. Obviously, 4K PPV and special events is where it appears the industry is going to start, and the development of Joey to allow [4K] to be added to current systems was an attempt to ensure that they have all of the features necessary to be competitive as 4K rolled out.”
“But right now we don’t have any real specific expectations nor do we plan any, for any major increase in Dish revenue based on 4K bandwidth requirements they have. They have to manage where they allocate their bandwidth on their own and right now there is no major initiatives to get them a dramatic improvement in bandwidth and therefore increase on Dish revenue,“ added Dugan.