Time to upgrade.

[MikekiM]

I've currently got an old DUAL LNB antenna, along with a single receiver (#301 rings a bell, but it's 4y/o at least).

I'm looking to upgrade antenna and receivers. Here's what I'd like to do, can someone point me to the hardware I'll be needing?

2 TV's, currently 1 will be HD, 1 will be regular.
I live in an area where I can't pick up any TV stations with a simple antenna on the roof.

I suspect I'll need to upgrade to a Dishplayer 500 antenna, and get 1 new HD receiver. It doesn't need to be a DVR, just a simple HD receiver. What PN's should I be looking for? And is there anything I'm missing?

Thanks!

 

[boba]

If you don't have OTA are you sure you want to upgrade to HDTV? DISH is offering almost nothing for HDTV programming.

 

[MikekiM]

What's involved if I wanted to try to grab OTA HD signals? Does that change my hardware requirements? Is dish planning to expand their HD lineup?

 

[bbriggs]

I agree with boba, the HD on DISH is not particularly compelling. I'd suggest you reconsider the PVR thing, though. It's hard to live without once you try it. DISH will get you set up with a DISH 500 for free last I checked.

 

[Barry Erick]

Why don't you look at HD programming a www.dishnetwork.com and decide for yourself. There is not a lot of programming on dish, but it can only increase. And if you have OTA, Dish integrates seemlessly with that.

 

[MikekiM]

Yeah, I checked out the programming and it does seem to suck.

Did I hear correct, Dish will upgrade my antenna to the latest antenna free of charge? An antenna that at least will give me the option of later adding a HD receiver?

 

[lblampman]

MikekiM,

I'm a current customer of Dish and just called them this morning on some update items. Here's what I got...they offered the 811 (HD receiver; no recording) at no charge with no commitment. Since I'll keep the current receiver I have (a 501 PVR) I'll pay the $5/mo 2nd receiver fee. They gave me half off the HD package (normally $9.95/mo) for 12 months. There is a $50 installation fee but that will take care of whatever has to happen with regard to the rooftop dishes and cabling (that's a fair price in my book).

Getting HD OTA (off-the-air) requires that you be close enough to a metroplotian area that has broadcasts in HD; I'm not in my area. It takes an additional antenna to accomplish that and you can check here to see if you can get digital signals and what type of antenna you need: www.antenaweb.org. This isn't something DishNetwork takes care of; it's a DIY kinda thing.

Whatever Dish offers for HD is more than the nothing I'm getting now (since I have no access to OTA stuff) and you may be in the same postion. I went ahead and scheduled the installation of the 811 so at least I can see something in HD on the HDTV I have. It doesn't look like anybody really offers much more than Dish; I just checked out Comcast cable in our area and it's pretty much a wash (except for whatever the local channels put out in HD). From an HD standpoint it seems VOOM is the way to go but they don't offer locals except via antenna (and that's a no-go for me). Too many decisions!

 

[MikekiM]

MikekiM,

There is a $50 installation fee but that will take care of whatever has to happen with regard to the rooftop dishes and cabling (that's a fair price in my book).

Does this mean they're including the installation of the new antenna in this fee? Along with replacing the switch with the new updated one?

Getting HD OTA (off-the-air) requires that you be close enough to a metroplotian area that has broadcasts in HD; I'm not in my area. It takes an additional antenna to accomplish that and you can check here to see if you can get digital signals and what type of antenna you need: www.antenaweb.org. This isn't something DishNetwork takes care of; it's a DIY kinda thing.

Whatever Dish offers for HD is more than the nothing I'm getting now (since I have no access to OTA stuff) and you may be in the same postion. I went ahead and scheduled the installation of the 811 so at least I can see something in HD on the HDTV I have. It doesn't look like anybody really offers much more than Dish; I just checked out Comcast cable in our area and it's pretty much a wash (except for whatever the local channels put out in HD). From an HD standpoint it seems VOOM is the way to go but they don't offer locals except via antenna (and that's a no-go for me). Too many decisions!

Kinda agree with you here. I don't get any digital OTA, so Dish really is my only choice at the moment. I guess the question really is get HD now, or just wait until there are more channels lined up.