522 Coaxial and stereo

[Sapient]

I know that the coax output to TV1 on the 522 only carries mono sound.

But why? Can coax not carry that much information? If that is true, how do cable companies provide stereo signals? How does that much info come down from the dish to the receiver on coax?

I have my 522 at a central location. Can I run RCA cables to my TV, or am I just better off running 2 more lines of coax and moving my 522 to where my TV1 is? I like having the DVR out of my entertainment center, just because it gets a bit hot in there.

 

[TuxCoder]

The reason for the mono sound on TV1 RF output is they used a cheaper modulator there. As for TV2, I believe there currently is conflicting information regarding whether that modulator is stereo or not. I'm almost certain it is a MTS stereo encoder, and I recall verifying it on one of my TVs. But the manual (and other sources) say it's mono, so maybe I'm wrong but I'll double-check tonight.

And the "info" comes to the receiver from the dish in a digitally encoded MPEG data stream which can effectively contain just about anything pertaining to video, audio, etc...

If your 522 is in a central location, are you just using the RF remote and not using the IR remote? In that case, are you just keeping the 522 in single mode? If my above statement about the TV2 modulator is true, you can just switch the coax to come out that connection and tune your TV1 (and any other connected TVs) to whatever UHF channel you have the 522 set to use. The default is 60 (off-air, not cable freq) I believe.

But if all else fails, you should be able to run RCA cables (and maybe an S-Video for better picture) provided the run is not too incredibly long.

 

[Pepper]

The DVR 522 TV2 output is indeed MTS stereo. The reason they use the cheaper modulator on TV1 and on the RF output of every other receiver is that if you have a stereo TV or entertainment center, you will get a better quality signal by using the RCA or optical cables anyway. The assumption is also that since TV1 is IR-remote it is located near to the rest of the equipment as well.

 

[TuxCoder]

Ah, that's even better reasoning for TV1 mono. But many of us still wish it was stereo. Hopefully the cost of MTS modulators will go down soon (someone posted here recently that it's possibly due to some patent?).

Dish Network needs to fix their 522 manual. I knew I wasn't imagining the TV2 stereo (through the TV's OSD indicating MTS presence, and through my own ears).

 

[Sapient]

If your 522 is in a central location, are you just using the RF remote and not using the IR remote? In that case, are you just keeping the 522 in single mode? If my above statement about the TV2 modulator is true, you can just switch the coax to come out that connection and tune your TV1 (and any other connected TVs) to whatever UHF channel you have the 522 set to use. The default is 60 (off-air, not cable freq) I believe.

But if all else fails, you should be able to run RCA cables (and maybe an S-Video for better picture) provided the run is not too incredibly long.

Thanks for the info. I use the 522 in dual mode with two UHF remotes. Rather than having Dish punch more holes in my house, I have the cables from the Dish running into my basement, which is where all the lines from the house terminate. My 522 sits on a shelf where it is cool and dry.

I guess I will swap TV1 and TV2 around so that I can get stereo to my home theater set up. Ok, you guys may not call it a home theater, but that is what I call it, and my wife doesn't know any better.

Would that mean I would get Dolby surround, or just 2 channel stereo. Or am I betraying my ignorance even more than before?

 

[TuxCoder]

"Plain old" Dolby surround is carried "over" 2 channel stereo (analog or digital) so you should be able to get that. You won't get Dolby Digital discrete channel though (neither DD2.0 nor DD5.1).