New to HD / HD upgrade with Dish

[dishrox]

Hi All,

This is a great forum - lots of useful information. I have had Dish Top 200 + local + some international channels since one year.

Now I went out and got myself a nice 42" HDTV. The "guy" is coming over early next week to upgrade my installation to HD. The Dish ppl charged me $50 upfront to send me VIP722 and a free install. I currently have a 622 and I love it.

Here is my question:
My TV1 is SDTV. My Dish receiver is near TV1. My new HDTV is upstairs in my bed room. Currently I use in house cabling to connect TV2 to the Dish receiver down stairs.

What are my options to get HD signals upstairs? Any chance at all?

Thanks everyone ... awesome site

[Stewart Vernon]

Welcome..

Unfortunately, no easy way to get HD upstairs in that scenario. The only HD outputs are the HDMI and Component ports. None of the other outputs will produce HD for you to the other TV.

So the receiver and the HDTV need to be in the same room basically... so your best bet is put the HDTV where the receiver already is OR move the receiver to the other room, and feed the SD TV the signal in the opposite way of what you're doing now.

[dishrox]

Hey Spiderman, :)

Thats what I was afraid of. Here is another qn ... the dish is very close to the TV1 and hence the receiver is there. Can I use the in home cabling to transfer the signals from the dish to the receiver upstairs? Then I can move the receiver upstairs and connect the HD to the receiver.

I see the cable from the dish to the receiver is coax but I dont know if it really is coax or not. Visually, they look the same.

Of course, now the problem is how can I connect the TV2 out from the receiver to the TV downstairs now that I am using the in house cabling to connect the dish to the receiver ...!!??

[Stewart Vernon]

A lot of this depends upon how your house is wired. For example, I'll tell you how my house is wired.

I have 4 rooms in my house with cable/sat outlets. Each room has a run of coax that runs to just outside my garage and terminates there. My satellite dish (dishes actually) are on the roof and their connections run down the side and into a DPP44 switch (if you don't know what that is, don't worry).

The switch has 4 outputs (for 4 different rooms)... so each one connects to one of the rooms in my house. This means each outlet in my house has a unique dedicated connection back to the dish on the roof.

So, in my situation... if I didn't have a room connected, I would just go outside and connect one of the switch outputs to one of my rooms and boom there I go connected to the satellite for reception for that room.

In order to then connect that receiver's RF output to another room (like in your situation) I either have to have another run of coax from that room to the other in my house OR I can use a combination of diplexers at both ends (to combine the distributed RF output back onto the system and then split back out in the other room) to use the existing wiring.

Obviously one is more complicated, but doesn't require running new cabling if that is a problem.

The solution to your installation depends on what is already run inside your walls and how you want to use those OR your willingness/ability/desire to run additional cable (if required) to accomplish what you are doing.

If my example doesn't help you figure it out, you can post more info about how your house is currently wired and we can go from there. It could be as simple as switching a few connectors around in your current configuration and then moving the receiver to the new location... hopefully!

[dishrox]

Thank you for the detailed reply. Your cabling is very clean and well thought of. I am in a rental, which is why my TV is upstairs, and not as well laid out.

The dish cable comes from the patio in through a hole in the wall in to the living room. The switch is out by the dish. There is a power inserter and a splitter before the cable is connected to the dish tuners. I am currently using component for the TV1 and hook up the TV2 output to the in house cable. The in house cable is all interconnected. This single cable goes in to the garage, goes through a splitter, one goes up stairs and other goes to the cable input (earlier). The up stairs cable goes in to another splitter and connects VCRs and TVs in two different rooms. So basically its just one cable running through a couple of splitters.

:(

[Stewart Vernon]

I'll have to think a little (or hope someone else chimes in)...

Since you have a direct line from the dish to your receiver, then the rest of the house is on one inter-connected cable... it's hard to think of a scenario that wouldn't require running new cables.

Getting the receiver to another room isn't that hard. Since you have to have the power inserter in the system, you might be able to leave the power inserter where it is, but connect your in-house cable to that instead of the receiver... then go to the other room and connect the receiver up there.

You couldn't have any receivers in other rooms in this config because all the outlets are electrically the same outlet... but it would get your HD receiver working in the other room I think.

Since the cabling is interconnected, you couldn't backfeed on it I don't believe. I could be wrong about that though.

My home was new construction about 6 years ago so that's the main reason why it is better configured. I actually wish I had a 2nd unique run to each room of coax for an outdoor antenna for OTA.

[dishrox]

Thanks for the answers HDMe. Guess I have to move the TV down or lay cabling.

[phrelin]

It's unclear if you are keeping your 622, but I'm going to pretend you are (!).

With a free install and a second receiver (722) another cable would have to come from your dish/switch setup anyway and it could be run directly to your bedroom all mounted on surfaces except for a small hole through the wall. Depends on just how picky your landlord is and how flexible the installer will be.

[dishrox]

I am not going to keep the 622. Anyway, I am going to move in couple of weeks. I will get the HD receiver installed then in the new home. Its just the excitement of the new TV, thats all, I guess. I tried to get a regular antenna and tune to OTA channels. I was not able to get most channels (ABC, CBS, CW) since my window faces east and my room is on the east side while the transmitters are in San Francisco on the west side. I could still catch a number of HD (digital) channels but it wasnt worth the trouble and cost of the antenna. I am going to return the antenna esp. because with just a wire hanging out I was able to get the same channels without the antenna. :)

That brings up another questions ... I read somewhere on this forums that you can have the OTA channels as well through the dish by using a new module in the receiver? Where can I get more info on this? I am going to search the forums but if anyone already has a link, that will be great.

Thanks everyone ... very helpful forum.

[Stewart Vernon]

Your 622 (and your on-the-way 722) have the OTA tuner built-in, so you just need to connect the antenna to the ant-in port and scan for local channels. Some newer receivers that are "coming soon" are supposed to have the OTA modules as an add-in separately, but you shouldn't have to worry about that since you should be getting the current receiver that has it already built-in.

[ChuckA]

The 722 has the OTA tuner built into the receiver. No add-on required. The new 722k has an optional OTA add-on card that gives you 2 OTA tuners instead of 1 tuner like in the 722. They were talking about a December date for the 722k being available, but I have not heard any announcement that it is available yet.

[dishrox]

Sorry about the confusion .. I have a 625 currently and a 622 is coming in. AFAIK, 722 is just more capacity than 622.

So if I connect the antenna, can I still see EPG & schedule recordings on the DVR if I discontinue the local channels?

Happy New Year to all!

[phrelin]

Sorry about the confusion .. I have a 625 currently and a 622 is coming in. AFAIK, 722 is just more capacity than 622.More or less. There are some internal hardware differences.

So if I connect the antenna, can I still see EPG & schedule recordings on the DVR if I discontinue the local channels?Briefly,the EPG will remain but not for long. Then you have to schedule without the guide showing

Happy New Year to all!And the same to your and yours.

[Stewart Vernon]

AFAIK, 722 is just more capacity than 622.

There are some other under-the-hood differences, with the 722 having a newer chipset on-board, but by and large for most viewers the difference there is minimal.

So if I connect the antenna, can I still see EPG & schedule recordings on the DVR if I discontinue the local channels?

The EPG data for OTA requires a subscription to locals. If Dish carries your locals in HD, then this is just as well since you could potentially record something on more than one local at the same time that way, since you otherwise would only have the 1 OTA tuner from which to record locals.

[dishrox]

So even if I connect antenna, I still need to subscribe to locals from dish. The only advantage is that then I get to record 3 programs at once than two. Am I right?

Can anyone else share how much Dish charged them for upgrade from SD to HD programing?

[Stewart Vernon]

So even if I connect antenna, I still need to subscribe to locals from dish. The only advantage is that then I get to record 3 programs at once than two. Am I right?

Can anyone else share how much Dish charged them for upgrade from SD to HD programing?

You can receive/watch OTA locals through the receiver without subscribing to locals BUT you will not have any guide info... which means you'd have to set manual timers for everything and look elsewhere (online for example) to see what is coming on those locals that you might want to watch.

So... the gain in subscribing to locals is really two-fold. You get additional capability to record more than one local channel if Dish carries them and you get guide info to search and set timers for on the OTA channels.

Since the box does have 2 SAT tuners and 1 OTA tuner, you get the capability of recording up to 3 simultaneous programs to boot if there's a night when a lot of stuff conflicts and at least 1 program is on a local channel.

It's been a while since I upgraded, so my cost to upgrade wouldn't help you plus I can't remember that far back :) I think it was a couple hundred bucks to upgrade back when I did it, but like I said that was a while back and I needed the receiver plus some dish re-pointing as well.

[dishrox]

Thanks for the patient answers everyone. I went and got a cheap Philips antenna at Walmart, that wasn't very useful. Anew RCA flat type in a different location was ok .. still cant get Fox though. Thinking of making one antenna myself .. will be a good project. Any suggestions on antennas, esp for Fremont, CA area?

[Stewart Vernon]

Since I'm not local to your area, I can't give specific suggestions... but I will recommend one thing that I always recommend. Try purchasing at stores (Radio Shack is a great one) with a liberal return policy. That way you can try a few different configurations and return the ones that don't work as well.

[dishrox]

I tried RCA flat, philips antenna ... philips was bad, RCA flat was ok .. but my current location is not so good ... will probably try something of my own soon/