Another Dish customer thinking of making the switch

[Widescreen]

I have been with Dish for almost 14 years. I currently have a Dish 622 DVR which I've been very pleased with. I've been engaged with Dish for so long that I don't have a lot of knowledge about DTV outside of what I've searched/read over the last couple of days. So I have some questions I need clarification on.

I would like to have 3 TV's hooked up - 1 is HD, the other 2 are SD. I don't have any specific plans to upgrade the SDTV's any time soon although one of them dying could change that, obviously.

I would be going with the Whole Home DVR solution.

1) I was going through the DTV website for new customers and looking at the receiver choices. The non-HD DVR shows "Advanced Receiver" next to it. What does that mean? It would be nice if I could get the SD DVR and have it be a part of the Whole Home DVR, but I've seen some conflicting info on whether it would work that way. The "Advanced Receiver" notation has me wondering. I understand that the main receiver would need to be the HD DVR, which I would want anyway to connect to my HDTV. I also understand I'd have to have at least one other HD receiver for some reason in order to activate the Whole Home DVR system. But I was thinking maybe I could get the HD DVR, an SD DVR and HD receiver and make it work.

2) My current 622DVR is connected to the Internet via a Wireless-G bridge. My understanding is that the ethernet port on the DTV DVR would be used to communicate with the other receivers. Is there some kind of adapter that can be installed to allow that DVR to communicate with the other receivers AND get on the Internet for VOD, etc? If so, how much extra $$$ is that?

3) I read something about the method used by the receivers to communicate. It sounds like the communication occurs via coax and a conversion happens on each end with DECA modules. Is that correct? I also read that certain receivers have no need for DECA modules. If so, on the receivers that don't require DECA modules, are the ethernet ports used for anything? The receiver networking issue has been a point of confusion for me.

4) Do the receivers use UHF remotes like the Dish receivers or is communication between the receivers 2-way so that the user can use an IR remote on a receiver and it would send the signal back to the main DVR via the network?

Is there anything else I should know in switching from Dish to DTV that might be a negative? I'm trying to get out ahead of these issues for my wife because she will definitely complain if she can't do something she's been able to do before.

Thanks for your knowledge and assistance!

 

[mdram]

i cant answer all your questions, but i just went from a 622 to a hr24/h24 setup with mrv
buth are hd units.
the h24 is hooked to a 20year old tube tv with coax input only. i had to use an rf modulator here. it works fine

the hr25 is setup with a uhf remote, and the h24 with an ir
they communicate via the network

since i cannot get highspeed i didnt do the internet connection

 

[Widescreen]

Thanks, mdram.

One other thing I was curious about...

On the TV's that just have an HD receiver, you aren't able to pause/skip/rewind live TV. You can only do DVR live-TV functions on the DVR's themselves. Correct?

 

[RandallA]

On the TV's that just have an HD receiver, you aren't able to pause/skip/rewind live TV. You can only do DVR live-TV functions on the DVR's themselves. Correct?

That's correct. Some people start recording in the DVR and then watch it from the HD receiver where you can pause/skip/rewind a recorded show.

 

[mdram]

i thought about 2 dvr's
but didnt feel like paying for a second, figured it wouldnt get used enough anyway
not thinking about the mrv, oh well its better then what i had

 

[Poke]

Yeah you will be happy you made the switch..

 

[Widescreen]

That's correct. Some people start recording in the DVR and then watch it from the HD receiver where you can pause/skip/rewind a recorded show.

Got it.

Is it possible to hit the Record button on the HD receiver's remote and have it start recording at the point you're watching or would you have to physically go to the room with the DVR and start it recording there? If the HD receiver can't currently do this, it seems like it would be a fairly easy software upgrade to allow it since the HD receiver is already communicating to the DVR via the network anyway.

 

[RandallA]

Is it possible to hit the Record button on the HD receiver's remote and have it start recording at the point you're watching

I'll answer half of the question. Yes, you can begin recording from the HD receiver.

I still haven't figured out why when I press record, it records from when you started watching the show and not when I pressed record. Switched back in July.

 

[bbixler]

I'll answer half of the question. Yes, you can begin recording from the HD receiver.

I still haven't figured out why when I press record, it records from when you started watching the show and not when I pressed record. Switched back in July.

The DVR is basically recording the current program you are watching all the time so as long as you don't change the channel, you will record the entire show even if you press record in the middle of the program.

It's a live buffer, hence the ability to rewind the program whenever you want to see or hear something again.

 

[Widescreen]

OK, I think I understand. Sounds like I can just get the one DVR then. My concern was that my wife and kids use the pause function when watching live TV and I like to skip back/rewind when watching a game. It sounds like on any of the non-DVR HD receivers, I can simulate the pause by simply hitting Record. The skip/rewind on live TV may be a problem, but maybe I can live without it on the 2 non-DVR TV's.

 

[RandallA]

The DVR is basically recording the current program you are watching all the time so as long as you don't change the channel, you will record the entire show even if you press record in the middle of the program.

It's a live buffer, hence the ability to rewind the program whenever you want to see or hear something again.

That's how DVR works and I understand that. With Dish Network's DVRs, if you press RECORD it starts recording when you PRESS record not from when you started watching the program. I guess that's what I was trying to say.

 

[bbixler]

That's how DVR works and I understand that. With Dish Network's DVRs, if you press RECORD it starts recording when you PRESS record not from when you started watching the program. I guess that's what I was trying to say.

I guess that's just Dish's receivers then. I had Comcast prior to Direct TV and the Comcast DVRs work the same as Direct.

 

[Widescreen]

Well, I just found out a detail I didn't know before. A single DVR can only serve one remote receiver at a time. I had assumed that if you had a single DVR, you can watch 2 separate recorded programs from 2 other receivers. There are times when we'd want to watch 3 recorded programs at the same time. I know you can get a 2nd DVR and serve an additional remote receiver but I'd still likely still run into the problem. I think my wife would get pretty irritated if I was already watching a recorded program on one remote TV and she wanted to watch a different program on the DVR from a different remote TV.

I guess I won't be making the switch after all. Thanks for the info, guys.

 

[mdram]

you could always get 2 dvrs
record the way you are now

the mrv is just a bonus

 

[Widescreen]

That's how DVR works and I understand that. With Dish Network's DVRs, if you press RECORD it starts recording when you PRESS record not from when you started watching the program. I guess that's what I was trying to say.

That's true. On Dish, if you want to record from the beginning of the program you're watching, you'd have to rewind to that point and then hit record. In some ways, I kind of like that flexibility since many times, I don't care to record the portion ive already watched. Either way works for me, though.

 

[ibskiing]

I am another Dish customer thinking very seriously about switching. My question, do you get the best deal just calling DirectTV up or doing it online. I see several other sites advertising DirectTV deals. Plus I have seen some bundles offered by ATT and Verizon. You can sometimes save money on the bundles, but when I bundled Dish and ATT several years ago I had to deal with the ATT Dish support guys vs. dealing directly with Dish. Also, you couldn't get some of the specials (i.e., the penny a month Cinemax thru ATT) I had to de-bundle, which was a major pain and took 5 months of calling, to get the Cinemax for a penny a month.

What have you guys seen or recommend?