[TP777]

So, if no high-def locals are available, will DISH come out and install an outdoor antenna like Voom used to for free? Even if not free, do they have a plan or option that they come out and complete the install for locals over the air? I understand the local broadcasting guide is shown on the DISH guide, right? And you don't have to toggle back and forth with the TV/video button, right?

 

[Rob Glasser]

Not sure about their policy with installing an antenna, but if you do have Digital (ATSC) OTA integration into their receiver and guide. There is no toggle you have to do to switch between OTA and Sat channels on the 622. However, you will not get guide data unless 1) Dish has at least SD locals for your market, AND 2) you subscribe to those Dish locals.

 

[LENNY 2112]

I setup my antenna last night, very easy. Just plug it in, point, scan for locals OTA and wolla they are added to your list. They are just highlighted in yellow instead of blue. The installer said it was easy enough for me to do, and it was.

 

[FLAsathappy]

So, if no high-def locals are available, will DISH come out and install an outdoor antenna like Voom used to for free? Even if not free, do they have a plan or option that they come out and complete the install for locals over the air? I understand the local broadcasting guide is shown on the DISH guide, right? And you don't have to toggle back and forth with the TV/video button, right?

The 622 integration with OTA is IMHO quite excellent, quite seamless, they really deserve some credit for that.

However, OTA is unlike satellite (or cable) in that the quality is not under the control of E*. Many things can affect what you can successfully receive and its quality. Distance from stations, buildings, the location of the antenna, etc.. I use a little indoor amplified TERK antenna I got for about $20 and it does excellent, but an outdoor amplified one for $100 would work a lot better. That's not E*'s problem, its yours. There are other technical issues too, for example I lost my local CBS OTA for a couple weeks when their PSIP generator went south. And for some reason the local PBS OTA (multicast, 3 channels) either has no PSIP or it's incompatible, so I'm missing the programming info for them, but not a huge deal.

For my wife's soap, I have to resort to recording both the OTA (HD) feed as well as the satellite feed (SD) , in case for some reason there's a problem with the HD feed. The quality diff is remarkable.

Enjoy.

 

[gooders]

I need to ask a dumb question and this seems as good a place as any.

I am new to the US so I don't completely understand how over the air signals work, etc.
I am about to move to a new house and I'm planning on getting the Dish Network HD GOld Package. I need the gold because I need the Fox Soccer Channel and this is the only channel I care about basically. My wife might care about the others.

I want all the network channels in HD and Dish want to charge me $5 for the privilage. Do I have to pay this? Can I just get these signals over the air with a simpel antenna without paying the $5? Or do I have no choice?

I have a brand new tv that has lots of stuff on it, not that i really know what it all does. hitachi plasma 42hdt79

It says it does this:
(Quick-Start Seamless HDTV (ATSC) and NTSC Tuner
Hitachi HDTV tuner technology brings viewers a unique blend of convenience and performance. Conventional HDTV tuners need extended start-up time to scan for channels and require switching between antenna inputs when selecting analog or digital programming. Hitachi HDTV tuner technology delivers the picture quickly with seamless access to all available channels.)

I can see that DTV offer a one off fee to attach an attenna to your dish so you get all the channels. Is this something different?

Can someone spell this out real simple for me please......

 

[FLAsathappy]

I need to ask a dumb question and this seems as good a place as any.

I want all the network channels in HD and Dish want to charge me $5 for the privilage. Do I have to pay this? Can I just get these signals over the air with a simpel antenna without paying the $5? Or do I have no choice?

Can someone spell this out real simple for me please......

You don't need to pay the $5/mo for locals, unless you want to get the programming information to show up on the program guide. For the $5/mo, you will get the network stations over satellite (usually if not always as just SD), but you can also get them OTA (often as HD). If you don't pay the $5/mo, you can still get them OTA, but without the program guide info.

 

[gooders]

Seems like a no brainer to me. I can HD network over the air as well? or will i need some extra equipment..?

 

[CABill]

Which are you saying is a no brainer - paying the $5 or not?

All you need is some antenna - indoor MIGHT be all you need. But without EPG info, you won't be doing any name based recording of those OTA channels.

 

[gooders]

I was thinking not to pay. Get an antenna and I'm done.
What you're telling me is that I also need to consider that I won't be able to record those channels because they won't show up in the channel guide. So I think I will have to pay the $5 after all. Will they be HD through dish network?

 

[kb7oeb]

The channels will show up in the guide but will not have any info unless you purchase locals. You can still record from these channels, you would create a manual timer, select the channel and enter a start and stop time. It will record in HD if the station is broadcasting HD.

 

[He Save Dave]

I want all the network channels in HD and Dish want to charge me $5 for the privilage.

Are you saying you have HD locals available to you? I'm in Indy also and as far as I know dish doesn't have HD locals available here. Am I missing something? I've been waiting a long time for dish to hook us up here in Indy.

 

[stol]

The 622 has an ATSC tuner in it. This tuner will pick up broadcast signals from your local TV stations that are sending out HD/digital signals. OTA = Over-The-Air

You can receive these channels, watch them and record programs from these OTA digital stations on your 622 without paying any extra fees. The channels will just show up without any program information when you press the Guide button.

If you want to see the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) information for your OTA channels, you MUST subscribe to the DISH local channel package for $5 per month. You don't have to have HD local channels from DISH. I tried it without the EPG for a couple of weeks and I really missed it.

Sounds like most areas (including Detroit) don't get EPG info for the PBS stations.

In Detroit at least, all HD stations are in the UHF band, I bought a good non-amplified antenna and its picks them up well. You don't need any kind of special "digital" antenna.

BTW: If you are using your 622 in dual mode, you can NOT watch a live OTA program on TV2. (You can record it and watch it slightly delayed)

 

[stolirocks]

Is this is A BUNCH OF BS?

I have just migrated to Dish and have never seen D* pull these kind of things.

I just had the 211 installed and I get the local guide information perfectly. I asked Dish why I can't get it on the 622 also, after all I pay them for suppposedly for all the recording features each month for the 622.

They told me I shouldn't be able to see this data on the 211 and that I need to subscribe to locals.

does that mean they are going to turn it off the 211 if I don't???

 

[harsh]

Is this is A BUNCH OF BS?

I have just migrated to Dish and have never seen D* pull these kind of things.

You left just in time. The D* HD DVR is currently OTA disabled.

does that mean they are going to turn it off the 211 if I don't???

Probably. The terms are very clear and are not based on what any other provider does.

 

[Ron Barry]

To get local guide information for you OTA channels you must subscribe to your locals. From my understanding this is true for the 211 also. If you are not subbing to your locals then consider guide data on your 211 a gift.

As for turning it off on your 211. Hard to say... I would not be surprised if the guide data disappeared and if it did, well then you got something that we pay for for free for a while. Question is .... How long will that while be.

 

[stolirocks]

Never knew how important it was until it was suddenly missing

 

[CABill]

does that mean they are going to turn it off the 211 if I don't???

For an unresearched WAG, I'll throw out the possibility of a few SoCal zipcodes being able to get a neighbor DMA channel as SV and something got messed up in their "Give those people free locals" on the 211. You didn't actually get free sat locals, but you got something that triggered the EPG display for digital OTA locals. If it was something weird like that, you might expect it to disappear on 1Jan. It could also continue indefinitely - other people with 211s don't get it w/o a local subscription.

 

[DishTSR3Mentor]

Ok, the 211 for some reason doesn't have quite the same tuner as the 622.

The 211 does not pick up the digital coding that the broadcasters include in their feed that has program info... although, I have no technical reason why.....

The 622's tuner actually will read this information and translate that to the epg... again, why the 211 doesn't do this is beyond me....

While this may be a nice added bonus for paying big bucks for the 622, this is not and will not and never was meant to be a feature that Dish was to support via tech support (or any other support)... it just happens to be a byproduct of pulling off-air locals onto the 622's tuner.... The 211 just doesn't seem to work that way, and unfortunately it would take someone with a great amount of insight (or time on their hands) to tell you why....

The only supported way Dish will provide EPG is if you indeed subscribe to the locals via your dish programming.

 

[harsh]

Ok, the 211 for some reason doesn't have quite the same tuner as the 622.

PSIP has nothing to do with the tuner. It is a matter of software to parse the data stream. Neither the ViP211 nor the ViP622 use PSIP programming information as effectively as they could.

 

[CABill]

The only supported way Dish will provide EPG is if you indeed subscribe to the locals via your dish programming.

Does that mean that the locals supplied w/o subscription for the remainder of the year by distant subscribers doesn't qualify for OTA EPG info?