New to satellite. Please help

[Kannon]

I posted this in another forum but didn't really get much of a response. I'm hoping to get some help here

I've had cable since I can remember and am moving to Dish Network from Cox. I despise Cox by the way and cannot wait to make that phone call to cancel!

Anyway, the installer is coming this weekend to set everything up and I have some questions on how this whole setup works. I only have experience with cable and satellite seems a bit more complex with multiple tuners, etc.

Here's my setup. I have a 3 bedroom house with a den. There's an hdtv in my living room and SD tv's in my den and master bedroom. The other two rooms don't have tv's in them currently. I'm planning on putting a 32" lcd in the master in the next couple of months. The salesperson told me they were going to provide me with 2 HD DVR's as well as an SD receiver. That makes one receiver per TV. I'm going to ask the installer to put the extra hd dvr in my master since I'm planning on upgrading that tv and moving it to one of the spare rooms. The house was built in November of last year and is prewired for cable/sat. Does the installer have to do anything special to "futureproof" the other rooms so that when I do add additional tv's to them, I can just plug right into the coax in the wall? I won't be using hdtv's in those rooms, so I figured I would just use the dual tuner feature on the hd dvr's along with the uhf remotes.

I guess what's confusing to me is that I don't really understand how one tuner can output to 2 tv's via coax. Again...I come from the cable world.

I'f I'm sharing say the receiver in the master bedroom with one of the extra rooms, how do I get that signal into the other room from the master? I want to use the pre-existing cables that are already in the walls. Can the coax coming out of the wall into the receiver also be used to send a signal to another room? Sorry I'm so confused.

 

[pabeader]

there are actually two tuners in the receiver. so each receiver will supply a seperate cable to each tv. the installer will figure the best way to connect it all up.

 

[Kannon]

I'm not sure what DVR they'll be providing me, but I'm assuming it'll be the 622 or 722. I noticed on the back of the units the ouput is composite out to the second TV. Does that mean the installer will have to run that type of cable to the other room? I would like to avoid having to run any extra cable around the house. My house has a central location in a closet where all of the phone, ethernet, cable, and sat lines run to. I was hoping the installer could use this panel to route signals to different rooms. Each wallplate in all of the rooms has 2 coax outputs and an ethernet jack. Is there a way to send a signal from the DVR to another room using this infrastructure?

 

[Fiveft20in]

Two-tuner HD DVRs (either the 622 or 722) operate in Dual Mode to provide separate programming to two separate rooms. The TV closest to the receiver is TV1; the remote TV is TV2. Only TV1 outputs in HD; TV2 is always SD. If you want HD in both the den and the master bedrooom, you need to have a DISH HD receiver at both locations. This, of course, precludes you from sharing DVR recordings between those two rooms. (You can, however, pay the $39.99 external hard drive enabling fee and share programming by moving the hard drive between rooms.)

I'm not familiar with the fees for extra HD receivers or if it is even possible to lease a second 622/722. I'm sure someone in this forum will be happy to add those details.

 

[Fiveft20in]

I'm not sure what DVR they'll be providing me, but I'm assuming it'll be the 622 or 722. I noticed on the back of the units the ouput is composite out to the second TV. Does that mean the installer will have to run that type of cable to the other room? I would like to avoid having to run any extra cable around the house. My house has a central location in a closet where all of the phone, ethernet, cable, and sat lines run to. I was hoping the installer could use this panel to route signals to different rooms. Each wallplate in all of the rooms has 2 coax outputs and an ethernet jack. Is there a way to send a signal from the DVR to another room using this infrastructure?

There is a TV2 coax output, which is labeled, "In-Home Distribution Output."

 

[Kannon]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not super concerned with having HD in both rooms. Dish said they would be providing me with 2 HD DVR's and I only plan on having 2 HDTV's for a while. I was hoping I could set it up like this:

HD DVR #1: TV1 to 65" hdtv TV2 to spare bedroom #1
HD DVR #2: TV1 to 32" lcd in master TV2 to spare bedroom #2
SD receiver: Dedicated to SD tv in loft.

So I'd be fine having only SD on the TV2 part of the DVR's since they are just SD tv's anyway. I'm just not super clear on how they route that signal to the SD tv without long runs of composite (RCA) cables to them.

 

[Kannon]

There is a TV2 coax output, which is labeled, "In-Home Distribution Output."

Oops. Didn't see this post. So if it's a coax output on the back of the DVR then he should be able to use this to distribute to the rest of the rooms. I feel better now

 

[GNASH]

Oops. Didn't see this post. So if it's a coax output on the back of the DVR then he should be able to use this to distribute to the rest of the rooms. I feel better now

The 722 has both Composite Outputs AND Coax. Both are active all the time. However, the installer will use the Coax to run to TV2. You could (if you so desire) hook the composite from the receiver to TV1 allowing you to see both tuners from TV1 by just switching inputs on the TV (I am making the assumption that your TV1 does have Composite inputs).

Geoff

 

[Kannon]

Interesting. What benefit would I get from having both tuners connected to the same TV?

 

[Fiveft20in]

Interesting. What benefit would I get from having both tuners connected to the same TV?

In my opinion, there is no benefit by doing it this way. TV2 outputs SD only, which you won't want to watch on an HDTV.

You can accomplish the same thing by switching your DISH receiver from Dual Mode to Single Mode, which gives you Picture-in-Picture and Side-by-Side viewing capabilities, all in HD (on TV1). There is a button on the front panel of the receiver that allows you to switch modes. While in single mode, all connected TVs view the same programming.

 

[jwgreen68]

Interesting. What benefit would I get from having both tuners connected to the same TV?

PIP

 

[GNASH]

Interesting. What benefit would I get from having both tuners connected to the same TV?

We used this when we had 2 college football games that we wanted to watch at the same time. Then we could use the TV's PIP Features to allow us to see (and hear) whichever game we want to hear at any given moment.

Geoff

 

[pabeader]

you may have trouble getting 5 tuners at the house though. I know sometimes Dish will complain about it. Also, if you do that then you can expect calls from the 'Signal Integrity" police. They like to checkup on you if you have more than four tuners. You might be able to avoid that if you can have the majority of your receivers connected to a phone line.

 

[Kannon]

That's a new one hehe. The Dish Network sales person is the one who offered the 2 hd dvrs + 1 sd receiver. I wonder if she misquoted me. I plan on keeping all of the receivers connected to my home network as well as the phone line for the caller ID feature. Think I'll be ok?

 

[pabeader]

perfect!


btw- we usually call them the nazis, but since you are new I figured i better use the 'proper' term.

 

[ICBM99]

Interesting. What benefit would I get from having both tuners connected to the same TV?

Another thing you can do is if you want to record two different shows (three if using OTA also, if I remember correctly) you can still watch a show you've all ready recorded.

 

[skyviewmark]

If your a real techie-type then this topic may really be important. But for the average joe-customer, how it works is not really as important as that IT works.. When the installer comes out, your main concern will be that when he leaves every TV that you wanted to work, does. That is the most important thing here.. Never ever trust what a CSR/Sales Rep sold you. Hopefully you can trust what your installer does, but that is not always the case either. Before he leaves, make sure you check each TV you wanted hooked up, and see that they do what you expect them too.. But the how and why isn't the most important thing.

 

[ICBM99]

Definitely check all the TV's you want just like Mark said. I just was talking about single mode, because it was asked, and because that's the way I have my 722 set up.