Phone Lines & Watch 1 show record another

[wasichu]

Lots of great information here guys. Have some general questions if anybody has some quick answers. -- I'm a Comcast Digital Cable subscriber currently w/cable modem service thru them too. I'm a previous Dish customer & really liked them overall.

I can't justify any longer the high cost of cable in my area, so was going to go back to a dish & I want a DVR. Am trying to decide between Dish & DTV.

1) With either Dish or DTV DVRs, do I have to hook them up to a phone line? I don't have phone service in my apartment as I just use my cell & don't want the added monthly fee associated with it. Previously w/my standard Dish receiver I didn't 'have' to have it hooked up as I never order PPV.

2) I called Dish & asked a couple reps if I could, with one of their DVR models, record one show & watch a different channel at the same time. They said "No". That was surprising & I've seen some conflicting info on different message boards.

I would have thought this was a basic feature of any DVR. Can anybody tell me with some authority that on either DirecTivo boxes or Dish DVRs you can have it recording a favorite show while you're surfing around other channels.

3) For new DVRs via Dish or DTV, I believe they are combined units right? Meaning, I have 1 TV & 1 Dish. I just want to pipe the signal into a single set-top box & be done w/things in a nice non-cluttered way. I don't want to have 1 box for receiving & decoding the satellite signal & then another to do the DVR recording.

Any input y'all have would be great to a newbie on this site like me. Thanks.

Brian

[SimpleSimon]

Welcome aboard!

I see you've discovered that the average E* CSR can't find their @$$ with both hands.

For some E* receivers, you have to have it hooked to a phone line or pay an extra fee. Of course, if at the time of the install you simply have not gotten your landline installed yet ;), the installer can probably talk the CSR into doing an override. How long that will last is anyone's guess.

Your other questions boil down to basically how many tuners are in the box. One tuner means one satellite channel can be received at a time. Period. You can watch it and/or you can record it. You can record it while you're watching something you recorded previously.

If you get a 2 tuner box, you can receive TWO satellite channels at the same time. Watch one, record the other (or both), or with the 522, watch both on different (or the same) TVs.

As for 2 boxes, E* doesn't sell anything like that. All their DVRs have integrated HDDs.

[wasichu]

Thanks Simon. So, the 522 would allow me to watch 1 show & record another at the same time (w/out outputing signal to 2 different TVs). That makes more sense.

Now, I have a Dish 500 dish & an older receiver. From what I think I pieced together from the service rep on the phone, I can reactivate my service, & somehow get a 522 DVR from them for just $5-10/mo as a lease. No flat fee up front or anything. Doesn't sound bad to me. I was just concerned w/possible lack of features in the DishDVRs vs the DirecTivo DVRs.

Anything sound fishy here?

Brian

[SimpleSimon]

Depending on the mode (dual vs. single) the 522 is in, it just might be outputting the show being recorded to the second TV. Why would you care? There's lots of ways to hook this box up - I'm sure one of them will work reasonably for your setup.

And, remember - you could be recording 2 shows and watching 2 previously recorded ones (with the second one bing in PiP or on TV2). Or you can be watching what you're recording. Or recording it and ... oh what the heck - the 522 can do a lot once you understand that you have 2 tuners and 2 outputs and a hard disk in the middle. :)

You must not be "reactivating" service or you couldn't get a 522. They must be considering you a new customer. Keep it that way, or you might lose your shot at a 522!!! And there's no need to tell them you've already got some hardware. The 522 should come with free dish & installation - keep your hardware put away until you need it.

[wasichu]

Thanks SimpleSimon. Good to know. Might have been inactive long enough. Oh heck, if nothing else, I just got married, so we could put the account under my wifes name at this new address & then it'd definetely be a new customer.

Thanks for the quick replies!

[SimpleSimon]

You're quite welcome! :)

[wasichu]

OK, so I hit BestBuy this weekend & got an RCA DirectTV Tivo receiver & other assorted materials.

Still questioning the phone line thing though... 'Course I'm cheap, so I want to try to get away with not have a phone line activated in my home (use my cell phone for all calls currently). According to the local installer company who'll come do the install, the Tivo receivers all *require* that I have an active phone line.

BestBuy rep was saying something in the store about these Tivos having a NIC card & being able to hook an ethernet cable up from the box to my cable modem (or a router) & letting the box do it's stuff that way (instead of having to get SBC to activate my phone lines). Does this make sense? What would I need to do to enable my DirecTivo without pay SBC $ for phone service?

Thanks.

[wasichu]

OK, closing this out. Found out the phone line from SBC was cheap anyway, so just went ahead & got it. Got an RCA DVR80 DirecTivo. Great, though the fan might be a bit noisy. Maybe I'll replace that.