Getting ready to order service, have ?'s, thanks in advance!

[RRaschke13]

Hello all, I've been researching this a ton as I've been cable only for ever so all of this is completley foreign to me. To be quite honest I would rather stick with cable, but I'm moving out to the boonies and the only cable company availble has terrible service, slow internet and over-charges. I'm going to be getting Qwest internet(40/20), Qwest Basic telephone and DirecTV sattelite all bundled together. The house came with co-ax run to every room that I needed, save one, however it only came with telephone in wall, and the previous owner had the DSL piped over a dedicated coax line. Since I got the house I've run Cat6 to every room that needs it, re-done the phone lines a bit, run a dedicated Cat5 for the DSL to my equipment room and have verified all the co-ax that's in place. That's about the end of what I know for this process so far.

The house does have one dish all ready on it, but it's an 18" round dish with just two co-ax coming off of it. I know that's probably not going to cut it. I'm planning on runnind one HD-DVR, one HD box and two SD boxes. I do want the whole house DVR so I can share programs betweent the two exisiting HD boxes, and more that I will add later in place of the SD boxes after some TV upgrades. I understand that DirecTV only supports networking over co-ax via their DECA adapters, but quite frankly, that's retarded, and I would like to use my brand new network for my On-Demand and whole home DVR.

My questions are:

Should I get the 3LNB, 5LNB or a different dish with a SWM? I plan on getting the 210 channel pack.

Will the installer more than likely be fine with using my network, with the understanding that DirecTV won't offer support on it, or will I have to wait for him to leave to even try and set it up?

I plan on asking for HR24/H24 for my HD boxes, I'll be ordering through Qwest, anyone have any experience/luck with this?

Anything else I've forgotten/neglected?

 

[Jimbo]

Hello all, I've been researching this a ton as I've been cable only for ever so all of this is completley foreign to me. To be quite honest I would rather stick with cable, but I'm moving out to the boonies and the only cable company availble has terrible service, slow internet and over-charges. I'm going to be getting Qwest internet(40/20), Qwest Basic telephone and DirecTV sattelite all bundled together. The house came with co-ax run to every room that I needed, save one, however it only came with telephone in wall, and the previous owner had the DSL piped over a dedicated coax line. Since I got the house I've run Cat6 to every room that needs it, re-done the phone lines a bit, run a dedicated Cat5 for the DSL to my equipment room and have verified all the co-ax that's in place. That's about the end of what I know for this process so far.

The house does have one dish all ready on it, but it's an 18" round dish with just two co-ax coming off of it. I know that's probably not going to cut it. I'm planning on runnind one HD-DVR, one HD box and two SD boxes. I do want the whole house DVR so I can share programs betweent the two exisiting HD boxes, and more that I will add later in place of the SD boxes after some TV upgrades. I understand that DirecTV only supports networking over co-ax via their DECA adapters, but quite frankly, that's retarded, and I would like to use my brand new network for my On-Demand and whole home DVR.

My questions are:

Should I get the 3LNB, 5LNB or a different dish with a SWM? I plan on getting the 210 channel pack.

Will the installer more than likely be fine with using my network, with the understanding that DirecTV won't offer support on it, or will I have to wait for him to leave to even try and set it up?

I plan on asking for HR24/H24 for my HD boxes, I'll be ordering through Qwest, anyone have any experience/luck with this?

Anything else I've forgotten/neglected?

Your ordering thru Quest ?

I would think you would want to order thru D* get all the deals they have to offer and then after the install call quest and bundle them.

You SHOULD get the 3 LNB slimline (maybe the 5 but I doubt it unless you need some programming from the 110 or 119 sats), you might want to inquire about the SWM , it may already be set up that way seeing your going to have 5 tuners already ... this way it will allow you to run your DVR off of 1 coax line.

The installer will place the new dish and run 4 lines down to the ground block and into the swim equipment and out to the other equipment.

 

[joed32]

They won't set up your network for you, they probably wouldn't know how anyway. After he's gone hook your cat-5 cables between the receivers or hook them up to a switch and then to your router. Once you get them working and on line, call Directv to activate MRV.

 

[Poke]

Yeah I would go through Direct or local reseller to get your Direct TV setup and installed. The rest of the setup as far as getting the MVR and your receivers on the net to be able to use other features should be all handle on the Direct TV install. So call Direct or find a local reseller have them do your install I would not go through a Telco it just adds another middle person to deal with.

 

[RRaschke13]

Thanks for all the input guys. Qwest is matching promotions on DirecTV right now if you do it in store, but I'll check out other locals. If DirecTV doe sit anything like Cox and the other cable companies out here there are only one or two groups that actually do all the installation. Theoretically all the installer should need to do is mount and align the dish and give me the boxes to install, lol.

I'm happy to do the MVR myself. I doubt I'll need the 5LNB, I'll just stick with the 3. And I do only have one coax drop per box available, so I'll make sure and request a SWM ahead of time.

I'll also let them know that I need a new ground block as the current only has dual coax.

For the MVR, has anyone had any trouble running multiple off a hub instead or a switch or router? I should have enough room between my four port router and my five port hub(7 open) for everything including the two boxes, but just in case.

 

[jaj1701]

Hello all, I've been researching this a ton as I've been cable only for ever so all of this is completley foreign to me. To be quite honest I would rather stick with cable, but I'm moving out to the boonies and the only cable company availble has terrible service, slow internet and over-charges. I'm going to be getting Qwest internet(40/20), Qwest Basic telephone and DirecTV sattelite all bundled together. The house came with co-ax run to every room that I needed, save one, however it only came with telephone in wall, and the previous owner had the DSL piped over a dedicated coax line. Since I got the house I've run Cat6 to every room that needs it, re-done the phone lines a bit, run a dedicated Cat5 for the DSL to my equipment room and have verified all the co-ax that's in place. That's about the end of what I know for this process so far.

The house does have one dish all ready on it, but it's an 18" round dish with just two co-ax coming off of it. I know that's probably not going to cut it. I'm planning on runnind one HD-DVR, one HD box and two SD boxes. I do want the whole house DVR so I can share programs betweent the two exisiting HD boxes, and more that I will add later in place of the SD boxes after some TV upgrades. I understand that DirecTV only supports networking over co-ax via their DECA adapters, but quite frankly, that's retarded, and I would like to use my brand new network for my On-Demand and whole home DVR.

My questions are:

Should I get the 3LNB, 5LNB or a different dish with a SWM? I plan on getting the 210 channel pack.

Will the installer more than likely be fine with using my network, with the understanding that DirecTV won't offer support on it, or will I have to wait for him to leave to even try and set it up?

I plan on asking for HR24/H24 for my HD boxes, I'll be ordering through Qwest, anyone have any experience/luck with this?

Anything else I've forgotten/neglected?

As someone that purposely ordered an extra programing package to get the 5lnb.......I still say that the 3lnb will most likely be all you need. There are a couple stations and a couple music channels that you will pick up that are part of your package with the 5lnb.....but probably nothing you'll ever watch or listen to.

In terms of Qwest.....my friend signed up that was and was so damn pissed at Qwest. Basically, he signed up because the discount percentage at the time went up based on how many services he had. Well, he also had gotten Qwest cells phones, back when Qwest was actually a cell phone provider leasing cell tower use, instead of just reselling others phone service. Well, when then changed.....they said no matter what he did, his discount % was going down as they were no longer a cell phone provider....even if he changed to the phones they were now reselling. They also would not let him out of his contract even though they changed the terms based on him losing his discount percentage and they no longer providing one of the services they did at the beginning of the contract.

Well, with lawyer involvement, he got out of the contract. But that certainly put a sour taste in his mouth concerning Qwest. But, aside from that....all was fine. It's probably the way to go for you......I just thought it was best to share that story.

I guessing the install gets contracted out like most other orders.....just be sure to stick to your guns if you don't want anything besides HR24s.

 

[joed32]

Thanks for all the input guys. Qwest is matching promotions on DirecTV right now if you do it in store, but I'll check out other locals. If DirecTV doe sit anything like Cox and the other cable companies out here there are only one or two groups that actually do all the installation. Theoretically all the installer should need to do is mount and align the dish and give me the boxes to install, lol.

I'm happy to do the MVR myself. I doubt I'll need the 5LNB, I'll just stick with the 3. And I do only have one coax drop per box available, so I'll make sure and request a SWM ahead of time.

I'll also let them know that I need a new ground block as the current only has dual coax.

For the MVR, has anyone had any trouble running multiple off a hub instead or a switch or router? I should have enough room between my four port router and my five port hub(7 open) for everything including the two boxes, but just in case.

Hubs are usually not a good idea for MRV. You can try it though and if it doesn't work you can get a switch pretty cheap online.

 

[harshness]

Hubs are usually not a good idea for MRV.

Hubs are EEEEVILLLLE in any and all applications, not just for MRV.

 

[SpaethCo]

I'm happy to do the MVR myself. I doubt I'll need the 5LNB, I'll just stick with the 3. And I do only have one coax drop per box available, so I'll make sure and request a SWM ahead of time.

If you order MRV you get SWiM by default, because the DECA install is only compatible with SWiM. As long as you only have 8 or less tuners, you'll only need a single coax run from the dish into the house.

For the MVR, has anyone had any trouble running multiple off a hub instead or a switch or router? I should have enough room between my four port router and my five port hub(7 open) for everything including the two boxes, but just in case.

To get acceptable performance it generally all has to be plugged into a switch. Most routers with multiple LAN ports use a software bridging process to make it look like a switch, but performance will be directly proportional to the CPU capabilities of the router (generally not good). Also using a hub is going to lead to disappointing results as well.

The H/HR24 has built in DECA so there is no external adapters. Just let the installer hook everything up with a DECA install and get it activated in the system -- nothing stops you from plugging in Ethernet cables after the fact and running on that. Just keep in mind that you have to reboot the receivers after plugging in the Ethernet cables, they are disabled if they don't have anything plugged in at time of bootup.