My current Dish 311 receiver, which replaced my C-Band several years ago, is located in a utility room in the basement, operated by an IR to UHF remote. I have an Amp/Signal Combiner for the Sat and OTA as well. When the house was build 16 years ago I ran RG6 to each room from a splitter in the utility room as needed. I use an OTA for my locals to receive an excellent digital picture on both my old CRT TV’s as well as my LCD TV. With the 311 the picture on the LCD is not near as clear as the OTA signal. Question is, If and should I upgrade to the Dish VIP 211 and will that work with my existing RG6? Does the 211 require a different dish? Can I operate the 211 with an UHF remote? Should I lease ($100) or purchase ($200+) from Dish or can I get elsewhere and still be able to get the free HD for life? Do I have to use the HDMI for anything, hoping the RG6 will carry the signal?
HD Newbie
- Thread starter jhelmick
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 6
- Views 1K
You will need to call Dish to upgrade you to, presumably, a Western Arc Dish in order to receive Sat 129, which you obviously do not recieve with your current SD configuration. Yes, you will need a new 1000.2 Dish. Your existing RG6 run will work. YOU WILL need HDMI from your HD reciever, or Component. In order to get the best deal for your upgrade, including the new Dish, you might as well lease the 211, since you will have to commit to a two your commitment anyway. BUT, you might want to consider a 722 or 722K for two tuner DVR capabilities, even though you might only be serving one TV...much more recording/watching options. If it would be your only receiver, you would not pay any more for having a 211...BUT, you would pay a $6.00 per mo. DVR fee...but it's worth it. BTW, don't know where you've been shopping, but you could buy a 211 from an equipment retailer for around a C note. Check the Dishstore link above in this page. .
Dish was quoting me the pricing, but did not know if they would give me the HD service free upgrade if I purchased elsewhere. So it looks like I WILL NEED an HDMI cable from the receiver to my LCD to clear up the picture. Was hoping to put the 211 in place of my 311 and use RG6 for all runs as I do now. Of course all TV's get the same channel the receiver is on, but were used to that. Would a dual tuner allow 2 different programs using only the common RG6?
Yes. The new 3-sat "Turbo HD" dishes have a 3-output dual-tuner capability called DishPro Plus. This allows one cable to feed two tuners as long as they're in the same receiver, for a total of 3 dual tuner receivers.
Two things you need to consider:
1) The picture on the LCD is less clear because you are dealing with SD signals throughout the house and an HDTV will look worse than a CRT with SD signals.
2) A simple upgrade to a 211 would not work with your setup. You have essentially a headend that you split to all your tv's via the amp/splitter network. In order to get the picture quality you want, you will need a 211 with each HDTV you want and it will need to be located AT THE LCD with an HDMI/Component connection. Then you could backfeed the same picture to the splitter and watch it on other tv's in SD. If you only have the one LCD, then it will be fine and any Dish Tech could hook you up. But you will need to get a professional out there to set up the new system and dish. If you have more, you will need more than one reciever.
Also, if you are looking into being able to record or pause live tv, now would be the time since they are offering good upgrades to the DVR as was mentioned by KAB.
1) The picture on the LCD is less clear because you are dealing with SD signals throughout the house and an HDTV will look worse than a CRT with SD signals.
2) A simple upgrade to a 211 would not work with your setup. You have essentially a headend that you split to all your tv's via the amp/splitter network. In order to get the picture quality you want, you will need a 211 with each HDTV you want and it will need to be located AT THE LCD with an HDMI/Component connection. Then you could backfeed the same picture to the splitter and watch it on other tv's in SD. If you only have the one LCD, then it will be fine and any Dish Tech could hook you up. But you will need to get a professional out there to set up the new system and dish. If you have more, you will need more than one reciever.
Also, if you are looking into being able to record or pause live tv, now would be the time since they are offering good upgrades to the DVR as was mentioned by KAB.
You can backfeed the RF/SD output of any Dish receiver using diplexers over a single cable. Not sure you want to do that rather than getting two HD receivers for two HDTVs.
