Potential new Dish user -- price and install questions

[crazybrit]

Looking at:
America's Top 250 - $62.99/month
HD & Platinum - $10/month
DVR service - $6
Total: $78.99/month -- with $15/month rebate for first 12 months on 2 yr commitment .

Disclaimer, I've never had cable/satellite before of any variety so I'm clueless. Girlfriend is moving in and she wants it ;-)

Anyways ..... Right now I have a 46" LCD TV in living room. GF has a old SD tv.

I noticed the above cost for 1 HD TV is the same as for 1 HD/1 SD TV. The only difference is which DVR you get.
According to Dish 1HD->VIP 612 and 1HD/1SD->VIP 722

In addition to supporting 2 TVs the 722 has 55hr recording capacity for HD vs 30 for the 612 which seems useful.

Questions

1) Is there a better deal right now than direct from Dish?
Dishstore seems to be advertising: $125 signup credit, $49.99 first month bill credit, $30 credit for Platinum HD -- which seems slightly better if true.

2) Curious if there are any negatives to getting the 722 DVR over the 612. Most of the use will be HD.

3) gf hasn't moved in yet so I don't have the SD TV. Dish said both TVs would need to be in the house at time of install.
Is this correct? If so, I'll have to borrow an SD for a couple days

4) I assume the 722 would reside in the living room with the HD TV.

What is the connection to the SD TV (in spare bedroom)? Is it just one coax?

I ask as I have a 1920 Craftsman bungalow and I've finally fixed the crappy job that the cable installers did (previous owner; everything routed outside house, drilled thru multiple exterior walls). When I redid all my wiring and added CAT6 I moved the existing cable connection to the baseboard (to match original power outlets) and used Leviathan modular setup with brass faceplates.

If I'm going to have some kind of outlet in the spare room for the SD TV I'd want it done similarly. I can get the Leviathan faceplate, drill the baseboard and route the cable no worries but I have this worry that the Dish installers are going to insist on doing it and do something stupid like insist on routing everything around the exterior of the house again and punching holes into the lathe&plaster wall.

 

[KAB]

Got with 722, the 612s have been problematic. You will probably get a 722K, so it you want to receive OTA, you will need to order an OTA Module which will allow you to record 2 OTA channels at once (plus 2 sats). TV2 is via coax. You do not have to have the second TV in the house

YES, go through Dishstore.

 

[crazybrit]

Got with 722, the 612s have been problematic. You will probably get a 722K, so it you want to receive OTA, you will need to order an OTA Module which will allow you to record 2 OTA channels at once (plus 2 sats). TV2 is via coax. You do not have to have the second TV in the house

YES, go through Dishstore.

Ok. I'll call Dishstore. Are they going to be helpful in answering install questions or is it all outsourced of their control?

Regarding the SD TV. So is it a separate COAX output from the 722 to the 2nd SD TV or is the SD TV fed from the same signal (via splitter?)

When I did my wiring I used a Leviton 47606-BNP w/ DSL filter module. It has a 6 way video splitter thats currently not used. I have no idea if a) it's worth using b) the installer is going to play ball and route everything to it or not.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

When you call DISHSTORE ask for Claude and tell him your a SatelliteGuys member and see what he can do for you.

 

[TheKrell]

My experience with installers is that they're happy to use your neat cabling job (assuming it's RG6) rather than doing the same (or messier) job themselves. Also, be apprised of diplexers, which come in pairs. These can be used to backfeed the RF TV2 output using the same single cable going into the 722, if that's desirable.

I have a 722 and two 612's, and the 612 disks are rather dinky for our use. Finally, the 722 has only two ways of outputting the SD TV2 signal: RF and composite. If you can possibly run composite to your GF's TV, that would have the best result.

 

[crazybrit]

My experience with installers is that they're happy to use your neat cabling job (assuming it's RG6) rather than doing the same (or messier) job themselves. Also, be apprised of diplexers, which come in pairs. These can be used to backfeed the RF TV2 output using the same single cable going into the 722, if that's desirable.

Thanks for the diplexer info.

... is there such a thing as a coax demark box? Right now the wire from the cable company (no service) just comes down off the pole and straight thru the wall in the house. What I was hoping to do was to mount a waterproof box on the outside wall of the house (covering existing hole) which contained the RF connector. The cable/satellite/whatever service would then connect their service to this. Same concept as telco demark boxes .... I just can't find anything like it googling.

 

[TheKrell]

All of those so-called pros should be using a ground block. I've never seen it done this way, but I don't see why you couldn't enclose that in a box.

 

[crazybrit]

All of those so-called pros should be using a ground block. I've never seen it done this way, but I don't see why you couldn't enclose that in a box.

"ground block" would be the magic word -- indeed.

something like this looks to be what I need:

Omni II Box Drop Enclosure | Telecrafter | B6GY

So if I am parsing what you said above correctly, I can expect the Dish installer to provide the ground block. I just need to provide an enclosure/box.

 

[TheKrell]

Your parsing is the picture of perfection. How's my alliteration?