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Homercidal

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Guy coming over today to install a HD dish on our house, and get us set up with HD! Have heard good things about Dish's HD quality compared to others. I've had good luck with Dish so far. Even my tech support issues have been dealt with very nicely.

Wings in HD!!
 
I've had DishHD for at least a year now and it's really good. I hope you're getting the VIP622 receiver which is a two tuner DVR with a TV2 SD output meaning you can access the DVR content from a second TV. If you have decent local broadcast stations nearby, I'd seriously suggest also getting an HD OTA antenna and plugging that into your receiver. It will give you a 3rd recording slot on the DVR.
 
I wish I could get DishHD (or DirectvHD), but neither offer local stations in HD yet and I don't want to put a 20' antenna on top of the house.
 
I wish I could get DishHD (or DirectvHD), but neither offer local stations in HD yet and I don't want to put a 20' antenna on top of the house.

Depending on how local your local stations are, you might be able to get by with a small, amplified, indoor antenna. I have DishHD and my locals aren't in HD yet either so I'm using a $30 antenna from Best Buy and it does pretty well depending on the weather. Not perfect, but cheaper/easier than something roof mounted and for me it'll work until Dish does locals in HD.

Also, the ViP722 is the latest & greatest from Dish. I think it's nearly identical to the 622 (with an OTA antenna, you can record three shows at once), but it has a larger hard drive.

Edit: I do pay for the SD locals, but I never watch them because they look like crap on my TV. I don't know if it's simply because they're SD or because the Dish box does a crappy job of converting them to 1080i, but I can't stand it anymore now that I'm used to HD. I'm going to get rid of the local package until they do have HD in my area.
 
20' antenna is unlikely. I have one in my attic pointed towards Manhattan and I get all the locals clearly in the winter, spotty in the summer. I'm pretty sure simply moving that same antenna on top of the roof would make all the difference, but it hasn't been a priorty since I do get HD locals over the sat. My biggest motivation is gaining the 3-tuner recording slots. Believe it or not, between my wife and I, we do encounter a conflict with recordings now and then.
 
20' antenna is unlikely. I have one in my attic pointed towards Manhattan and I get all the locals clearly in the winter, spotty in the summer. I'm pretty sure simply moving that same antenna on top of the roof would make all the difference, but it hasn't been a priorty since I do get HD locals over the sat. My biggest motivation is gaining the 3-tuner recording slots. Believe it or not, between my wife and I, we do encounter a conflict with recordings now and then.

I've been wanting to drop cable and just use OTA, but when reading the local AVS forum thread, I get discouraged everytime. The closest HD stations are 30 miles away and most are 50+ miles. I've looked at antennas people use near me to get the 4 major networks and these are the type of antennas they are using:

http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s129/gjvrieze/TV/101_1020.jpg Images linked because they're too big to embed.
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s129/gjvrieze/TV/Picture001.jpg
aps14l.jpg
 
I've had DishHD for at least a year now and it's really good. I hope you're getting the VIP622 receiver which is a two tuner DVR with a TV2 SD output meaning you can access the DVR content from a second TV. If you have decent local broadcast stations nearby, I'd seriously suggest also getting an HD OTA antenna and plugging that into your receiver. It will give you a 3rd recording slot on the DVR.

We got the 722, which is very nice, and has more record time. I got a peek at the ESPN-HD before coming back to work, and I'm still a bit stiff, if you know what I mean!

Cannot wait to see the hockey in HD! We also signed up for 3 months of movies channels for free, and there is some nice stuff going on, although TBH, DVDs look as good, so I'll probably just scan for stuff to record at night.

Also, the guy hooked me up with component cables, and I still have to get the HDMI cables, but the image seems pretty good so far anyway.

One problem, is that the second tv is SD, but he hooked it up using the coax cable, and I'll want to hook it up to the DVD recorder. I asked if there was a device to hook it up to a TV that didn't have the RF input, and he said he never saw one like that before. He has always been able to hook up using the coax. Not a huge deal, but I think that if I had a surround amp on that set (and I will eventually), then I'd like to be able to hook it up somehow.

Might have to bring that DVD player back into the family room to record TV shows off the DVR.
 
I wish I could get DishHD (or DirectvHD), but neither offer local stations in HD yet and I don't want to put a 20' antenna on top of the house.

Oh, yeah. I don't know if we get locals in HD, but we've got them in SD, which is ok. I'll have to look into what I can get with the roof antenna in HD now that they've gone digital. We've had dish for so long, that I've really forgotten that I even have the thing up there!
 
We got the 722, which is very nice, and has more record time. I got a peek at the ESPN-HD before coming back to work, and I'm still a bit stiff, if you know what I mean!

Cannot wait to see the hockey in HD! We also signed up for 3 months of movies channels for free, and there is some nice stuff going on, although TBH, DVDs look as good, so I'll probably just scan for stuff to record at night.

Also, the guy hooked me up with component cables, and I still have to get the HDMI cables, but the image seems pretty good so far anyway.

One problem, is that the second tv is SD, but he hooked it up using the coax cable, and I'll want to hook it up to the DVD recorder. I asked if there was a device to hook it up to a TV that didn't have the RF input, and he said he never saw one like that before. He has always been able to hook up using the coax. Not a huge deal, but I think that if I had a surround amp on that set (and I will eventually), then I'd like to be able to hook it up somehow.

Might have to bring that DVD player back into the family room to record TV shows off the DVR.

The TV2 is downresed over coax and yeah, that does suck but no one else gives you even that capability. I know FIOS will stream DVR content in a client/server kind of relationship but it still requires additional boxes to sit at each TV. At least in this case you don't pay extra.

On the other hand, this deficiency is the only thing holding me back from getting a nice HD for my master bedroom. I'm so used to pausing a DVR playback from my family room and continuing in bed that I would hate to lose that by adding a standalone HD receiver in the bedroom.

I'm still trying to figure out an alternative. I thought about using an IR/RF bouncer and using an HDMI distributor but the cable run is like 150'.
 
They offer something like Slingbox, which I think will do what you want. I haven't really looked into it, but I thin kit's a device to allow one receiver program to be shown in another room. Perhaps it has HD capability?

I'm still upset about the second TV not having anything but Coax connection. How am I supposed to plug into a surround sound? Oh well, it's likely going to be for the kids anyway, although my wife did watch a movie last night, and th eimage was pretty bad (compared to my hockey game in HD!!)
 
Not to get TOO far off topic but I have DirectTV and am fortunate to have had it since 92-93ish, whevever they came out. So most of the regulations and laws now that prevent you from getting distant networks or remote feeds I still get because I have either been grandfathered in or just haven;t made drastic changes to my plan to have them start dropping stuff.

But I am really frustrated with the 'markets' claiming viewers in their area that are 100+ miles away. Case in point...

If you were to call Dish Network or DirectTV today where I live, you could NOT get any major network in High Defintion. You can get HD programming, of course, but not any major network channel(NBC, FOX, ABC, CBS, etc).

I live 4 hours Northeast of Fargo, ND; 4+ hours Northwest of Duluth, MN; and 5+ hours North of Minneapolis. No possible way to get an HD OTA signal from anywhere. Neither of the satellite companies send local HD for the Fargo DMA (market that I am in) and I dont blame them. It isn't the sat companies fault. At one time you could subscribe to 'distant networks'. Now you cant with the laws on the books regarding market areas.

Fortunately, I still have my distant markets so I get networks in HD, but if I were to move across town or change addressed, they would drop those channels cause I wouldn't be eligible.
 
I'm happy with my cable HD services. All the major networks, plus the ones from Canada (since we're near the border) on HD. AND all the other HD cable networks. No rainfade and no having to deal with Dish network and their crap. After dealing with them before, it made me appreciate how the smack talk about cable companies is completely overblown to maintain a cliché. And I don't have to nail a big piece of hardware to the side of the house.
 
Not starting a flame war on cable vs. dish..promise !!

Just an observation from a 15 year satellite user. I can honestly say I have never once had the so-called "rain-fade". The only issue I have had was that a wet snow stuck to the dish and of course blocked the signal. Now every fall when I'm cleaning out gutters, I spray the dish with a little dry silicone. Never had the snow issue since.

And the "...piece of hardware to the side of the house..." thing really isnt a big deal. They come an install it on your roof, chimey, post, etc. Wherever you want it. Doesn't necessarily have to go on the side of your house.
 
I've had Dish for a long time, and only recently have experienced "Rain Fade". Our older install (I put up myself) never had a problem, but when the installers came out for an upgrade a few years ago, I got it a few times. Usually when the wind was blowing VERY hard and once I think when the snow was very deep.

It's mostly a non-issue IMO if the installers are good. Poor cabling can also affect a Cable Signal.

I also dont' mind the dish. I can't see it while I'm watching the TV anyway. As it is, it's right on the front of the house on the roof, so it's very visible. But it's the best location for signal and strength. Could have had them installed on the chimney if I it mattered more to me.

Now I need to see about hooking my roof antenna up to the TV for Digital signal. Haven't played with that much.
 
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