[Kagato]

A friend of mine is considering DBS in a large home. It has about 8 currently served via cable. Cable is Crappy, and at least one of the rooms is going HD. The question he had was can he actually activate a that many STBs?

From a technology standpoint with Dish Pro these big installations are fairly easy to wire and expand these days.

But, is there anyway around the limit? Do they make exceptions, like if you were to hook all the STBs up to the phone line? Or are you forced to go with comercial services? He asked some sales guys at the retailers and they seemed pretty clueless about the whole thing.

 

[Bob Haller]

Perhaps he can make do with 6 receivers and modulate the RCA outputs on some to UHF channels?

Are all 8 going to be in use at the same time watching different things?

 

[Karl Foster]

If he would consider D*, there is no 6 receiver limit on accounts. Depending on where he is, he could use one 18" dish and a 2X8 multiswitch to the eight receivers.

 

[Bob Haller]

Well he will likely want TIVOS so he may need some added equiptement since each TIVO uses 2 satellte leads.

 

[Cheyenne]

Try these switches. Can cascade these also

http://www.spaun.com/multisms.htm
Suggest contacting them for compatability issues, such as legecy vs dishpro, etc.

 

[Guest]

Dish has a limit of 6 receivers per account? But their Dish Pro LNB and 34 switch can be cascaded to run 24 TV's.

 

[eagle_andy]

With a Dish Pro Twin and 2 Dish Pro 34 switches you can run 8 tuners. If you go to a Dish Pro Quad and two Dish Pro 34's you can get 10 tuners. Please note "Tuners" vs Receiver due to fact that PVR721 is one Receiver w/ two tuners. It is true that Dish will only put 6 rcvrs on one account. To do the last two receiver will require a 2nd account for the additional monthly charges.

 

[brentp]

I'll second Bob Haller's recommendation. Unless he/she plans to watch 8 different shows on 8 different TVs, you may want to consider a modulation & whole house distribution approach.

I also have a very large house, with 7 TVs located in various different rooms. We have a 4 channel MTS modulator (Channel Plus) that each DBS receiver connects to. Because it is now only my wife and I, we only have 2 DBS receivers connected (we do use the other 2 channels for DVD and VHS whole house distribution).

These modulated outputs are then combined with an OTA antenna (system was set up pre locals from DBS) and distributed to the other rooms. With UHF DBS remotes, we can change the DBS channel(s) from any room. With our system, we can have up to 2 different DBS shows on any set(s) in the house. This system could go up to 4 different DBS shows with 2 more DBS receivers, . . . or up to 8 DBS shows with 6 more receivers and an additional 4 channel MTS modulator.

BTW; we do plan to upgrade, . . . for this has gotten a bit messed up with the addition of HD in the media room (Dish 6000 does not output SD on composite video when in HD mode, hence the modulator does not output the show when in HD mode). To solve this, we will be adding a 2 tuner PVR in the near future, which will definitely get connected to the modulator for whole house distribution.

The great benefit to this is that when you are watching a show in one room, it is available to every room in the house (in case you need to change rooms, or want to know what is being watched in another room [not that anyone would want to spy on their children]). Also, if you want to add another TV set, you don't even have to consider an additional receiver. And you limit your additional receiver monthly fees.

Just my thoughts, unless you really need to watch a different show on each TV, you may want to consider modulation to reduce costs.

 

[Neil Derryberry]

This sounds like a job for the 508.... it allows for "multi-headed" control of the receiver. 4 508's should serve 8 individual tv sets.

 

[scooper]

I'd second Brentp's setup , cause I'm doing the same thing. 2 Dish IRD's setup in the family room, using a ChannelPlus 3025 to distribute this to all 3 rooms where there are TV's, 1 IRD is a 4700 (with the UHF remote), the other is a 2700 (that I bought the UHF remote upgrade kit for). The 3025 also has an RF input which I use as OTA input. Really handy to watch one IRD's no matter where you're at.