Noob question: HD/SD Combo with Dish possible?

[Swampthing]

Is it possible to have HD and SD from Dish coming into the same house?

Here's some background: Today my new Samsung LCD HDTV will be arriving and will be the first HDTV in our house, so it's going in the living room. The current setup for the living room is through a cable attached to the 522 DVR in the basement. I just plug in the coax and can operate through a separate tuner.

Upstairs in two of the bedrooms, we have 501 receivers. Each is separate and not connected except for at the Dish itself.

Dish has offered to upgrade me to two 722s for $100. Sounds like a good deal to me, but how could I set it up? Since they are DUAL tuner receivers it raises some questions: Do I just put a 722 in the basement and one in the living room? Or do I put a single one in the living room, and a single one in the bedroom upstairs getting rid of the the 501s and 522s altogether?

What is the consequences of both? Eventually all the other TVs will be upgraded to HD, but that might be a year or so. So I will still need to be able to receive SD for quite some time, but want HD for the Samsung. Will they have to install TWO antennas on the side of my house for HD and SD or can I just have them change the current parabolic dish to an HD one?

Currently I am on the America Everything package... what would it do to my bill?

Sorry if this is alot of questions, but I put off adding HDTV for so long and now it seems like there are so many options, it is a bit confusing. Can anyone help?

[snowcat]

I'll try to answer some of the questions.

1. Yes, HD/SD can be done in the same house. In fact, it is very common now.

2. Two 722s can support 4 TVs. So you will likely get rid of all your existing receivers and just use the 722s. But, it will only support up to two HD sets, so if you upgrade all your TVs to HD, you will likely have to have a different configuration (like 4 single tuner HD receivers/DVRs).

3. Each 722 can support one HD set (via component or HDMI) and one SD set (via coax). So you probably need to put one 722 in your living room to support that TV and the downstairs one, and then put the other one in one of the bedrooms to handle both bedroom TVs. Don't worry about connecting an HD receiver to a SD television. It works fine.

4. One satellite dish can handle all your HD and SD signals (at least in most locations). If you need an upgrade, I am pretty sure Dish will do it for free.

5. Since you are on the AE package, there are no additional DVR charges. Your bill will go up $10 for adding HD, but you should also get a reduction by going from 3 recievers to 2.

Hopefully this helps.

[coldsteel]

Snowcat has the right of it, aye. Only thing I'd change is on #4, the new dish is included in the upgrade for no additional charge. No need to be just 'pretty sure'.

Also, you would save an additional receiver fee of $5, but the other a/o fee would change from $5 to $7 for the second 722.

[Swampthing]

Thanks for the helpful responses! I hope it isn't too much of a bother but I have some more...

Does anyone know if a 722 can be used on just two SD televisions? My understanding is that it outputs one HD and one SD signal only.

Right now the 522 in the basement has a coax running up to the living room to provide input for that TV. Would that still be needed for a 722... or does it function wirelessly? If so, would it be better to have the primary receiver on the HD set?

For the upstairs bedrooms, if the 722 can function wirelessly I guess there is no issue. Or would I need to have the 722 wired to the second receiver in order for that TV to receive a signal?

So adding HD channels to America's Everything doesn't cost extra? I was under the impression I would be paying significantly more since essentially I will be getting a full set of SD and a full set of HD channels. Am I incorrect?

Thanks again.

[coldsteel]

The 722 has RCA and S-Video outputs on TV1 in addition to HDMI and component, so it can be used on two SDTVs.

You still have the coax for TV2, and the tech would 'reverse' that so the living room is TV1 and basement is TV2.

The tech would probably use the existing cabling and tie it in so the two bedrooms are linked. That's pretty easy, even easier if you have a central cable point where everything terminates.

Adding HD programming adds $10 a month for the HD, but you'd be dropping a $5 additional receiver fee, and add $2 to the other a/o fee. So, end result, you go up $7 a month for all the changes.

[Swampthing]

Thanks again.

Not sure how the tech could use the existing cable for the 501s upstairs. They are not connected to each other right now, and each one has a direct line to the LNB on the dish. Even if those coax cables are snipped and reconnected to join the two receivers, seems like I still will need a line from from the primary 722 in one bedroom to the LNB on the Dish. I would like to maintain the situation where each TV can watch different things at the same time.

[coldsteel]

Thanks again.

Not sure how the tech could use the existing cable for the 501s upstairs. They are not connected to each other right now, and each one has a direct line to the LNB on the dish. Even if those coax cables are snipped and reconnected to join the two receivers, seems like I still will need a line from from the primary 722 in one bedroom to the LNB on the Dish. I would like to maintain the situation where each TV can watch different things at the same time.

It's easy. The tech has special splitters called diplexers to combine and resplit the signal.

[BobaBird]

It's done with a pair of diplexers. The satellite feed to the 722 in BR1 will connect to a diplexer that connects to the 722's Home Distribution output and to the DPP Separator that feeds the 2 satellite inputs. The line from the roof will have 2-way traffic with the sat feed coming in, and a backfeed of ch 21 (or whatever 21-69 works) going out. There will be another diplexer at the dish. The BR2 line will be moved from the switch to that diplexer.

If you have an outside antenna, it's better to put that on its own line than trying to share the backfeed.

You might want a 722k with the OTA module for the bedrooms so that each has access to view and record from an off-air tuner, allowing you to replace 2 converter boxes with the one Dish receiver.

[Swampthing]

Thanks again for all the help. About the diplexers/splitters... is this standard procedure? Would the installer pretty much know this information or would I have to show him a copy of the posting ( :lol: )

Also, will the splitters cause any signal degradation? I remember that old cable splitters used to do that, but I'm not sure about how splitters for a digital signal work.

[coldsteel]

All standard procedure and designed to not degrade the signal.

[Swampthing]

Spoke with Dish today and set up and appointment for Monday. They are giving me two 722k receivers for $100. Went with the 722k due to the learning remote and the fact that my OTA channels are almost zilch here. Since the current cables from both 501s will be joined, this should be easier. Right now I watch the my TV2 on my 522 on cable instead of air. Will that still be okay with the 722, or will it have to be air? Also, they said "most" of the wiring to/from the dish should pretty much stay the same and I will only need the parabolic portion of the dish replaced. Is that correct?

Interestingly they told me that the 501s are mine to keep, but they'll take away the 522. So I'm going to spend this weekend watching all the hours of recorded shows since 2005 that I never got around to! In the end, I feel like I won't be missing all that much; it will be much better to catch reruns in HD rather than watch the old SD versions. ;)

Thanks for all the help! :D

[coldsteel]

Both 'air' and 'cable' are OK. Just let the tech know, and he'll make sure the Tv2 Out is setup right.

[Swampthing]

Hmmm... so the Dish installer arrived and tells me he needs to install a whole new switch, as well as a new separate dish pointed at 61.5°W, just to receive HD. Dish Customer Rep had told me none of that was necessary, as well as the previous guy who came out here. Now "Via Satellite" claims this is the only way possible. Hmmm...

Can't believe he stood there arguing like some fool, threatening to not do the job because I questioned whether that was accurate. He took almost 30 minutes out of his job just to complain that he doesn't like when people question his ability to do the job.

Well... I look up Dish Network on Wikipedia and see this: "Originally, DISH Network high-definition subscribers required two separate satellite dishes. Today, DISH Network subscribers can receive nationwide HDTV channels using the 129°W orbital location or 61.5°W orbital location. Because of issues with low signal strength, the older model DISH 1000 has been replaced with the DISH 1000.2. The 1000.2 has a 10% larger reflector for better signal strength and an integrated LNB for easier installation. The DISH 1000.2 is 23 in (580 mm) in diameter."

We'll see how he finishes the rest of the job.

[Swampthing]

Well Via Satellite didn't finish the job till close to 10:00pm that night. Unbelievable. They rewired it incorrectly first, then rewired it with bad equipment, then replaced the equipment, then rewired again. The original Via Satellite guy even had his boss come out to help him with the rewiring because he was too busy swearing and screaming to him on the cellphone about getting to the next job, and yelling about how terrible the previous installation company had done with the original wiring. Quite a character.

His boss also tells me that they could have done it with a single dish which points toward the East horizon, but they get a lot more complaints from people with that setup about pixelation on HD channels vs the folks with two separate dishes.

At one point when they thought they had finished, I could not get any local channels on 61.5°W, and they tried to tell me it was Dish Network working on those channels. I said that would be interested that Dish would decide to conduct maintenance on all the networks at once during primetime viewing putting everyone in the nation out of reception. Yeah, didn't make sense after all they said. Checked it out... bad LNB on the new dish.

In the end, the 722s both work fine. I have one in the master bedroom which feeds to the secondary bedroom via antenna. The other 722 receiver is in the living room with an antenna feed to the basement.

I hope everyone else's installations went smoother than this one..