Dish TV questions

[jimincalif]

First mistake, buying a wide screen HD TV. Now the family wants more HD channels. Comparing satellite to cable, the Dish people can't answer our questions, any comments or tips much appreciated.1. My house is already wired for cable where the TVs are. Does the satellite hook into the existing cable wiring? Or is new coax needed to each TV location?2. They say we need 2 dishes in order to get local channels, do they both connect to the same coax, so just one run to each TV?3. They tell us there are two receivers that support 4 TVs, where do these go? At the TVs themselves? In the attic?4. Do we have to have a separate tuner box at each TV or can a TV with an HD tuner built in just connect to the coax and use the TV tuner? What about non-HD TVs, do they need a box?Any other words of wisdom? Thanks!

[millster]

I'm answering your questions based on my experiences with Dish Network's service. I can't answer for Direct TV however some will be similar between the two.1) Technically, yes it does. Here's the deal. One cable will come into the house from the dish and to the receiver. The receivers then run out to the TV's. 2) In many locations, Dish Network requires two dishes for locals. There are some exceptions but apparently yours is not one. I believe in this case, the two dishes run together before entering the house. This means one cable in to the receiver then out to the TV.3) The largest install I've dealt with has been 2 TV's. Dish provided the two-tuner receiver. The dish runs into the receiver then one output from the receiver runs to each TV. The receiver came with two remotes. One IR and one RF (to be used in the remote location). The receiver sits nearest one of the TVs so the IR remote can be used and the RF remote goes to the remote TV.4) Dish has tuners capable of supporting two TVs watching different channels at once. In this case, you'd need two for your 4 TVs. You do need a receiver for the TV, however. The built-in will not work. You can use an HD receiver with a non-HD TV. It will need to be configured to do so.Hope some of these answers are helpful.

[AKLGT]

we got dish installed last Friday. i can say that overall i am extremely pleased. not only are we saving a good $40/mo from cable, but the picture quality (though not HD) is just below. it is imo, higher than analog cable but not quite as good as the 6 channels we could get in HD. here, we only have 1 dish for our locals, but we cannot get HD here...something about the satellites and where we're located... we only have one HDTV so it's not that big a deal. going back to your question on cable. they used the existing cable lines in the house, used better cable RG6 (apparently this is better than regular coaxial RG59) from the dish to the main cable box in the house. i have the dual tuner DVR upstairs on the HDTV in the living room (i want to be able to watch a different show while i'm recording another) so it's only on one TV and not 2. then i have another regular box in the office and another downstairs in the movie room. so, that's 2 regular boxes and 1 dual tuner box. i'm still working on getting the wiring all squared away for the home theater systems, but all in all the dish was super simple and easy.so easy and i love it, that i will soon be a reseller and signing up more people who want to ditch our crabby overpriced cable in town.

[jimincalif]

Thanks much, I'm beginning to understand. The dish deal is 2 dual tuners, we have 3 TVs so one tuner at one, easy enough. But then would have to have a cable to another TV location, then another cable from that location to the 2rd TV and hope the RF remote would actually work.What is interesting is that I've found some local HD broadcasts on the basic cable we already have, on these "virtual" channels. For example ABC analog is on 7, the HD is on 7-1. NBC analog is on 4, HD is on 84-3. Some have only analog, some have analog and digital (not HD) and some have all three. Very confusing.In AK, I'd imagine some of the satellites are very near the horizon.

[AKLGT]

well, the locals, i can get with a walmart HDTV receiver, no satellite or cable necessary. so i may just end up doing that for the upstairs.... it's not necessary though. i love my DVR. still have to figure out the whole dual tuner upstairs as I've set up the downstairs movie room with our media center PC. and if you already have cable running throughout your house, they just connect the main cable line in the house and use the existing wiring. no need to run cable all over the place.

[Psychobroker]

I guess I'm perplexed as to how/why Dish Network uses one box (receiver) for multiple TV's. This wasn't the case when I was a customer of theirs about 3 years ago, but I digress..I currently have Direct TV with their newest/best 5-LMB HD Dish (only 1 dish for everything - locals, HD, etc), 2 of their new dual tuner 80-gig HD DVRs, 1 80-gig dual tuner non-HD DVR and two standard receivers...5 total, of which only 2 are connected so far (both HD DVRs). I keep putting off the other installations since we rarely watch TV in the bedrooms.In any event, Direct TV REPLACED the old coaxial cables, used 1 of the old entry points, and at my request, created another for the living room. The lines split off to their receivers from the dish, so there's a splitter hub (of sorts) used.1 receiver per TV, just like cable. In my opinion, my overall experience with DirectTV has been far better than with Dish Network - from customer service, to programming (NFL Sunday Ticket!), to reception/transmission quality. I guess YMMV though. Good luck!

[AKLGT]

i would have preferred direct tv and HD, however, like i was saying, up here, we just can't get it. only the 8' dish and the HD part is minimal.

[scott_h]

Quote, originally posted by jimincalif »1. My house is already wired for cable where the TVs are. Does the satellite hook into the existing cable wiring? Or is new coax needed to each TV location?Unfortunately, there probably isn't a straight forward answer. It is possible to use the existing cabling depending how you're having things run, what kind of cable already exists, etc.Quote »3. They tell us there are two receivers that support 4 TVs, where do these go? At the TVs themselves? In the attic?The simple answer is that the receivers go at each individual TV. The answer isn't quite as simple if you get one of the receivers that can be used for 2 TVs (the 622). I don't have Dish, but have done plenty of reading. With these receivers, you basically have a coax coming into the house and plugging into the receiver at one TV. Then coax goes out of the receiver and runs to a second TV in another location. So for that second TV, you actually don't have a receiver in that room. Quote »4. Do we have to have a separate tuner box at each TV or can a TV with an HD tuner built in just connect to the coax and use the TV tuner? What about non-HD TVs, do they need a box?I somewhat answered that question above. Again, the short general answer is that you'll need a receiver at each TV. There are still some exceptions in addition to what I covered above though. Some TVs allow the use of a cable card that you can get from your cable company so you don't need a receiver for that TV. I don't believe this works with any satellite companies.The built in tuner won't really do anything for you in terms of satellite. What it does allow however is the reception of the network stations for absolutely free, assuming you can get a signal from your location. By simply hooking up an antenna (possibly as simple as "rabbit ears"), and hooking that up to your TV tuner, you can pull in NBC, ABC, etc, again assuming you can pull in the signals. You can do this without even getting satellite. If you get satellite, you should also be able to hook an antenna to get the OTA (over the air) stations via your satellite receiver, and also get the guide data.You can use this site to determine how far you are from the local towers, and their direction: http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/Welcome.aspx If you are close with a clear line of sight, you can probably get by with a simple set-top antenna such as the Zenith Silver Sensor. If you're further away, you might need an antenna in your attic or on your roof. My OTA antenna is mounted right to my dish on the roof, and I pull the stations in crystal clear from over 40 miles away.