First - Would like to thank the many many folks who have taken the time to post on this site about Installation problems. Unfortunately I did not run across this website until Sunday afternoon, so didn't have the opportunity to run through the entire pre-installation checklist. My wife was home to "manage" the installation. She is far from a Techy, but give her a list of requirements and she is like a Pit Bull!!! I walked her through each and every step of the installation and gave her as much detail as possible without making her mind explode...even warned her that she might have to call in help from D*.
Okay....here is my recollection of her day with the idiot installer.
He arrives around 10
First issue - Tells her we don't need two new lines run to the TV since we have an existing unit. BS...I am keeping my existing box as well as the the new HR20. She insists and he relents. When I get home I see that the cable he ran is actual two cables in one...he was already going to have to run at least one line, so it really didn't matter since it was like running a single line anyway.
Second issue - He comes in and tells her that because the WB68 switch is not on his workorder he is doing us a "favor" and leaving our old dish connected along with the new one....the new one is already huge in comparison. She says no way, the switch is supposed to be part of the installation, he tells her he can do that, but it will be $75. She calls me, puts him on the phone, and he gives me the same song and dance. I tell him it is supposed to be included, but he keeps insisting that it will cost us $75. I have her call D* and they agree it should be included for no charge and aren't sure why he just won't do it. He won't do it until they put it on the workorder(I kinda understand that). They then have him on hold for 20 minutes while trying to add the switch to the workorder.
Third issue - I have my basement finished with the Owens Corning Basement finishing system so all my walls are removable panels so I can easily drop cables down the wall and connect them to a jack for a nice clean look. Told my wife I didn't want the installer messing with that stuff and to just have him drop the lines down through the drop ceiling and leave me 4 Ft to work with. I even removed the ceiling tile that I wanted him to drop it down through. He sees the nice jacks on the wall ready to go and tells her that he will have to charge her extra to run it in the wall. She was ready for that one and tells him to just drop it through the open ceiling tile. My basement is all drop ceiling so running the cable should be pretty simple...I showed my wife the exact route to have him run the cable. He gets to a point where you have to pass it over the main support beam and under a heating duct. There are 3 other cables already following that path. To do it he just needed to remove a panel on the other side of the wall to make it easy....too lazy for that, so he takes a different route...will have to fix that myself, but no big deal....wanted to throw these two out to show that they are definitely lazy and will try to add costs to those that aren't ready to do battle and demand it be done right.
Forth Issue - Gets the HR20 hooked up, but it won't work. Goes back outside to discover he hasn't hooked up the cable to the new disk....IDIOT MOVE #1...my wifes exact words.
Fifth Issue - Comes back in and still can't get the HR20 working....duh...never inserted the access card - IDIOT MOVE #2.
Sixth Issue - HR20 up and running, but he keeps skipping over the software update. By this time, my wife is realizing what an idiot he is and is keeping a real close eye on him. I made a copy of the page from the TV manual showing the back panel of the TV(Mitsubishi WT46809) and circled which jacks he had to use with the component video cable. The TV does not have an HDMI connector and he proceeds to tell her that our picture would not be as good. The picture on this TV without HD was already awesome. My wife says whatever...just do it the way it shows on this picture. He does, but can't get it working at all. My wife says he screwed around with it for 20 minutes and at one point tells her that the TV isn't HD capable(she texted me that one), but he finally claims that he has it working, but she tells me she doesn't think he did it right cause the TV only shows 480...she knows thats not right. I look at it and discover that he has disconnected the XBOX and plugged the HR20 into those set of jacks which won't handle the 1080 which is why I gave him a picture to start with. Anyway, I hook it up correctly, change the Input to that jack from RGB to component video and magic....there it goes...1080 no problem...although it looked like crap...had to go into the TV setup and do a convergence alignment and maybe thats what he was running into, so okay...will cut him a little slack there, BUT he left it with only being able to get 480 and told my wife we were good to go and everything was working correctly...now mind you, even in 480 the pic still looks awesome, but HD is even better. In addition, the TV is widescreen, he doesn't even both to switch that setting on the box.
Seventh issue - I disconnected my Optical Audio cable from the old box and left that end on the floor and told my wife about it. He had no clue what she was talking about and told her the only way he could get sound out was through the TV...her words....IDIOT MOVE #3. She told him go ahead...my husband will make it work when he gets home.
Eight issue - IDIOT MOVE #4 or maybe just plain lazy!!! He is packing up all his stuff and my wife says...Hey....you never downloaded the update, you just kept skipping over that. Oh yeah....forgot about that. I think he was just pissed it took him so long and didn't want to spend time waiting for the download and the potential for things to not work after that. He was going to start it and leave, she made him start it and wait till it finished.
So...he finally leaves at almost 2:30 and left the setup without actually getting HD working. Good thing installation is included or I would have really been pissed.
After spending 15 minutes getting the HD working, I opened a bottle of wine and gave my wife a big hug and a glass of wine. She needed it after spending 4.5 hours with this idiot!!! She did good...only had to call me once and D* once during the process, but she was worn out by the time I got home. We sat down after dinner and watched the BCS game in HD...it looked awesome!!!
Sorry this was so long, but thought it might be valuable reading for things to watch out for from these idiots who claim to be "HD experts"...his words on the phone with me, not mine. Hope this helps someone else down the road prepare for their installation. Told my wife it could have even been worse...suppose the box didn't work...not sure he even would have know it
