New 921 owner has questions

[devecho]

I just picked up a 921 from Costco and have some questions about getting it installed.

First, my current setup: 2 510's, one 2700, one 4700. All recievers are fed via an SW64 which has a Dish 500 (dual legacy LNBFs) and a Dish 300 pointed at 148 (another legacy LNBF) connected to it.

The 921 will be replacing the 2700. I know that a second feed has to be ran to the location where the reciever will be located. I also know that I will probably need a new set of LNBFs and a new switch. Dish is scheduled to come out this saturday to make the necessary changes and run the second feed for the DIsh 921.

My question is, what would be the most likely course of action for them? Replace the LNBFs with DishPro's and the SW64 with a couple of DP34's? I'm located in the Bay Area. Will they also be looking at replacing the Dish 500 with a SuperDish? All of this is supposed to be at no charge to me since the 921 came with a free install coupon/certificate.

[Cyclone]

A Dish Pro Plus 44 would fit the bill here. It would support your 4 receivers both Legacy and Pro, as well as supply the Dual Tuner of the 921 with what it needs.

I don't know how Dish's installer will handle this.

[devecho]

Installer came out today and ran the second line to the 921. Everything seems to be working fine. Was able to tune in and record 2 different HD programs at the same time. DVR functions all seem to be working fine. HD picture looks great.

A weird thing I noticed: I can't tune in 9440 (HBOHD) or 9430 (SHOHD) because there is no signal coming from the 148W satellite (Transponder 17) for them. However, these channels are available off of the 119 sattelite and I can tune them in on 9456 and 9460. Switch check shows that everything is fine, and other odd transponders on 148 are coming in fine. Did Dish lose transponder 17 from the 148W slot?

Btw, the installer ended up installing a second SW64 and split the feeds coming off of the 119, 110 and 148 satellites and then connected those split feeds to each SW64. He used satellite splitters that pass DC on both ports. Apparently he didn't have the feed-through load devices that you are supposed to use on the second SW64. This is what advanced tech support told him to do and it seems to be working fine. All 4 receivers (2 510's, 1 4900 and 1 921) all pass the check switch just fine and have no problems tuning in stuff on any of the receivers.

Oh, and when can I expect the guide to fully populated? Right now it's only showing a couple of shows out. Not even a full 24 hours.

Next thing to do is call back up Dish and get them to turn on CBS-HD...

[Mark Lamutt]

Don't know why you aren't seeing HBO and SHO off of 148 - I see them here in Denver. And, it'll take overnight to get your guide populated all the way out.

[devecho]

Turns out that the dish pointing at 148 was loose/out of alignment. I'm now getting a good signal on transponder 17 and 13 after going up on the roof and adjusting things. Previously they were dead, or really low. They're now at 78-80. Transponder 11 (which is what the Dish installer said they peak on) is now reading 100 or so. So I've now got SHOHD and HBOHD and CBS-HD (KCBS-DT from LA) working fine off of the 148 bird.

So far the main annoyance I have is that the Dish remote doesn't seem to work reliably. The receiver is either very slow to respond to remote button pushes, or doesn't recognize them at all. Doesn't matter how close I am to the receiver. I'm in the same room as the receiver and about 12 or 13 feet away. Bad remote? Or just a quirk of the 921?

[SimpleSimon]

The remote issue is often a sign of the 921 CPU being in a loop. A reboot should fix it.

It might also be your UHF antenna, or, a bad remote.

[BigBill33]

Although this isn't part of your original questions, I am curious that you bought the unit from Costco. Where? I couldn't find it on their website nor did I see it at the warehouse.

Bill

[devecho]

I got it from my local Costco here in the San Francisco Bay Area. They apparently had plenty of them. Why it isn't up on costco.com is a mysterey.

[chewey]

I got it from my local Costco here in the San Francisco Bay Area. They apparently had plenty of them. Why it isn't up on costco.com is a mysterey.


How much is it at Costco? Also, does the 148 HBO HD feed show the east coast HBO feed, like the 110 feed does. Thanks.

[Mark Lamutt]

Something like $489 or $499, and yes the 148 feed is the east coast HD feed as well.

[LindaT]

Did Dish give you any problem with buying it from Costco? I am looking into doing the same. What about the installation? :confused:

[devecho]

The only problem I had was that the free install certificate that was in the box was printed badly and I couldn't give them the full number. The first CSR I talked to insisted I call up Costco and get them to give me the proper certificate number. The second time I called, I got a CSR who just accepted the fact that my certificate was damaged, believed that I bought it at Costco and went ahead and scheduled the install for me. The cost was $489, plus tax.

[devecho]

One other quirk I've noticed is that Dish claims that I should get up to 180 hours of SD programming or up to 25 hours of HD, yet when I go into the PVR/DVR menu it claims that I only have 157 hours of SD and 23 hours of HD space available. However, I have no recordings at all on the disk. This is a bit disconcerting, to say the least. Bad disk? Bad unit?

[Ron Barry]

One other quirk I've noticed is that Dish claims that I should get up to 180 hours of SD programming or up to 25 hours of HD, yet when I go into the PVR/DVR menu it claims that I only have 157 hours of SD and 23 hours of HD space available. However, I have no recordings at all on the disk. This is a bit disconcerting, to say the least. Bad disk? Bad unit?

the 25 hours and the 180 hours is an estimate (up to). It is all based on what channels your record and what you are particular watching. The estimates are very optimistic. Never payed attention to the initial blank number, but I would not worry about this one.

[BobaBird]

Mine was about the same. Actual capacity will vary based on the level of compression used on different channels and even programs. Watch out when it gets to under ~5 hours SD available - it will delete the oldest unprotected program even though there is supposedly enough room for the new one.