Dish Network's curious Blockbuster project appears to be sputtering a bit, now that the company has confirmed that it will shutter more stores than originally anticipated. Speaking to Reuters at CES today, Dish Network CEO Joe Clayton confirmed that his company plans to close all Blockbuster shops that aren't turning a profit, and that some of the remaining stores will be converted into Dish customer service outlets. Back in July, the company announced plans to keep about 1,500 stores open, along with about 90 percent of Blockbuster employees, but those aspirations have since been derailed. "We are committed to keeping the profitable stores open that are generating positive cash flow, but there are ones that aren't going to make it," Clayton explained. "We will close unprofitable stores. We will close additional stores." The exec did not specify how many stores would be closed, nor did he offer any sort of timeline, but spokesman Marc Lumpkin said that the decisions would be made on a "case by case" basis.

Dish Network just made a slew of big announcements at its CES press conference today, introducing the Hopper HD DVR system, the corollary Joey set-top box, and a new, TV Everywhere-based Test Drive service. Let's start with the hardware: the Hopper unit is comprised of three satellite TV tuners, a 2TB hard drive that promises up to 2,000 hours of entertainment, including up to 250 hours of HD viewing and 1,000 hours of SD recording. The device can record up to six TV shows at once, and allows users to watch as many as four recorded shows in four different rooms. When combined with the Joey, users can take advantage of a 750MHz Broadcom processor that, according to Dish, is the fastest satellite receiver on the market.

Also announced today is something known as Test Drive -- a new "try before they buy" service that allows customers to get a free taste of TV Everywhere for 24 hours. As of February 1st, users will be able to sign up for Test Drive and stream select TV shows to their PCs, tablets or smartphones at no charge (for a limited time, of course). Also in February, the company will launch a new satellite broadband package, as part of a new service launched with ViaSat. These new packages will offer download speeds of up to 12Mbps, and upload rates of up to 3Mbps. Installation prices will start at $99, with bundles starting at around $80 per month. For more details, hit up the troika of PRs, after the break.

Dish Network had reportedly been considered a potential candidate to receive divested T-Mobile assets from AT&T if it couldn't secure initial approval of its acquisition from the government. Dish, however, has publicly opposed the acquisition -- and now it's clear that there were some ulterior motives in wanting to see the merger fall through, because Bloomberg reported this morning that the satellite provider wants to merge its spectrum assets with T-Mobile if things don't go so rosy in the acquisition. According to CEO Joseph Clayton: