[Guest]

I think I'm leaning towards getting Dish... mainly because its cheaper for my needs and I can get a pvr for no additional monthly/lifetime charge. But I still have some questions, and if my logic is screwed please straighten me out...

1. Can I use the PVR to record my local cable channels? I'm not able to receive locals through either E* or D*, but I really want the ability to record network shows. (I am getting my local stations through extremely basic cable)

2. Do any Dish receivers come with a Coaxial digital output?

3. Do you have major reception problems during heavy rain, snow, etc? I live in Maine, so snow storms are a regular occurence, and I really don't want to be out of tv for a while.

Thanks

 

[TNGTony]

1) No. The Dish PVRs can only record the channels you get from the satellites. That's it. The advantage is that the PVR records the data stream from the satellite so there is no generational loss. The pix of the recording looks EXACTLY like if you'd have watched it live. But the down side is you cannot record anything other than Dish channels.

2) Yes, but you'd be nuts to use it. The coax out does not have stereo sound and the worst pix quality of any output. You really want to use the S-Video and RCA Audio L+R out if you can. Or at the very least the RCA composite video out and rca audio L+R out (Yellow, red and white jacks). These provide noticeable better picture quality and sound.

3) V E R Y severe weather (thick black rainclouds) will interrupt the signal to the point that you will lose picture until the cell moves out of the way. No they are not major. I have maybe 5 or 6 occurrances of "rain fade" every year. The longest I've ever had lasted an hour. Generally they last 2-10 minutes. The picture quality is as good as you ever get until the signal is interruperd enough that you get no picture. I always take a little joy in explaining that after my 1 hour rain fade issue, I had satellite service. It took my neigborhood 2 days to get cable service back.

I've never had "snow" fade. I have never had a rain fade/snow fade event between November and March.

See ya
Tony

 

[James_F]

Originally posted by TNGTony
2) Yes, but you'd be nuts to use it. The coax out does not have stereo sound and the worst pix quality of any output. You really want to use the S-Video and RCA Audio L+R out if you can. Or at the very least the RCA composite video out and rca audio L+R out (Yellow, red and white jacks). These provide noticeable better picture quality and sound.

Maybe I misunderstood the question but I think he was asking about Audio not video... :shrug: If that was the case, its only optical out. If that wasn't the question, sorry for stepping on you Tony..

 

[Guest]

Originally posted by James_F


Maybe I misunderstood the question but I think he was asking about Audio not video... :shrug: If that was the case, its only optical out. If that wasn't the question, sorry for stepping on you Tony..

Yeah, I was looking at it from the audio end of things, but Tony gets an "A" for effort in my book for answering my question!

Do any of the PVR's out there handle antenna/cable programs in addition to satellite programming?

Thanks guys

 

[James_F]

Originally posted by JonDuke


Yeah, I was looking at it from the audio end of things, but Tony gets an "A" for effort in my book for answering my question!

Do any of the PVR's out there handle antenna/cable programs in addition to satellite programming?

Thanks guys

Tony's the man. You should check out the EKB (Echostar Knowledge Base) that he maintains. http://ekb.dbstalk.com/

 

[markh]

Nope, none of the integrated sat-PVRs will record cable or off the antenna. A standalone TIVO or one of the other standalones will.

The integrated ones record the digital stream from the sat to the hard drive. The standalones have an encoder to turn the cable signal into digital to record on the hard drive

BTW a standalone can be used with a sat receiver to record.

 

[Maniacal1]

Re: rain, snow fade

JonDuke, I'm not that far south of you, and I've only had two problems with snow in the six years I've had satellite television (DirecTV and Dish Network). Both involved snow piling up on the dish--one storm was a 3-foot snowfall. In that case, I had to take a broom to the LNB to brush the snow off. The only other time, I noticed that I had no signal when I got up in the morning, but by the time I had breakfast, the snow had falled off the LNB all by itself.

I've had regular, brief outages during heavy thunderstorms, but I've never had one during a snowstorm unless snow builds up on the dish. You might want to position the dish as close to the ground as practical so you can brush the snow off.

 

[TNGTony]

Originally posted by James_F


Maybe I misunderstood the question but I think he was asking about Audio not video... :shrug: If that was the case, its only optical out. If that wasn't the question, sorry for stepping on you Tony..

WHAT? Did you say something? What's audio?

Sorry...I missed the "Digital" in question two as the qualifyer.

See ya
Tony

 

[Spartan]

1. I live near a ski area in New Jersey, get quite a bit of snow and I never lost signal due to snow on the dish. It tends to fall off. I've only lost signal once during a white-out blizzard and that was for a very short time.
2. All Dish Network Receivers come with an optical digital out only, and they dont provide the $30 optical cable. You have to buy that yourself. Having said that, let me stress that movies with Dolby Digital sound as good on the satellite as they do on DVD's.