Hopper 3 and the OTA dongle

[renegade734]

Curious from others that have added OTA If they see much of a PQ difference? I'm adding my OTA back with a higher antenna as the previous location was pretty dicey and one of the main reasons to do so was in hopes of improved PQ. A side benefit is that I'll have redundancy too in case of Dish fade which seems to be happening more (so I need to get that checked).
But now I'm starting to question whether it's worth the expense and hassle if the PQ is only marginally better. I know it's really dependent on how much Dish is compressing MY locals, but I guess unjust assumed that it would be noticeable. I'm running it on an LG OLE65C7P and for the most part the locals all look pretty darn good...but there's always room for improvement!

Also wanted to clarify that the guide data should continue even if I decide to drop locals? I'm assuming the guide data for the Dish channels that I pay for would then also be replicated on the OTA section as well? Also read that guide data for sub channels probably won't even be produced since Dish doesn't currently offer them to me in my localsnpackage. Is there a way to set a time based recording for chNnels with no guide data?

The picture quality is much better than locals delivered via satellite. Guide data can be hit or miss. I don't know for certain that guide data would continue after dropping locals, but others have reported that it does

 

[MikeD-C05]

I would believe based on what I know is that we can see DISH embracing OTA much more in the future.

I sure hope that means they will use the TiVo metadata to give us FULL ota guide information for ALL ota channels and sub channels. That would show that DISH does respect the ota customers and their wishes.

 

[comfortably_numb]

The picture quality is much better than locals delivered via satellite. Guide data can be hit or miss. I don't know for certain that guide data would continue after dropping locals, but others have reported that it does

That's been my experience too. The OTA adapter is receiving the raw transmission from your local station's tower. Dish has to compress then decompress that signal. Even if it receives the originating feed direct from the station via fiber (or however else they get it), it still has to be compressed.

 

[bobc469]

The picture quality is much better than locals delivered via satellite. Guide data can be hit or miss. I don't know for certain that guide data would continue after dropping locals, but others have reported that it does

My experience has been that the OTA picture is better than via satellite. It is only noticeable when switching from satellite to OTA and back you can see an improvement. If you walked in from another room and looked at the screen it would be hard to discern which version of the signal you were watching. If I were to grade the quaility from 1 - 10, satellite would be around a 5 or 6 and OTA would be 8 or 9. Both are completely watchable.