Trying to understand Dish hardware

1021 Views 3 Replies 4 Participants Last post by phrelin, Jul 21, 2008

Git

Discussion Starter · Jul 21, 2008

I have been a DirecTV customer for about 8 years now and am thinking about switching to Dish.

In my current D* setup, we have four of the older, dual tuner, Tivo type receivers. Each receiver feeds one TV and each receiver requires two coax inputs from the satellite. We can watch one channel live and be recording a second channel at the same time. We are very use to this setup, one receiver per TV.

We are looking to upgrade two of our receivers to HD-DVR's while the other two would be SD-DVR's. If I stayed with D*, we would be getting four new receivers.

I briefly spoke with a Dish CSR this afternoon and it appears that Dish would only use two receivers to feed all four TV's. A VIP722 would power one HD TV and one SD TV and a second VIP722 that I would have to pay $199 for would do the same thing for the remaining two TV's. I did some more reading and discovered that these receivers can be set in dual or single mode. It seems that we would want the receiver set to single mode, to function like the D* receivers that we are used to. But the CSR said we couldn't get more that the two receivers - but maybe I misunderstood???

Also, if a second TV is connected to the VIP722 that is located in another room, what type of cabling is used?

Lastly, how many coax lines does the VIP722 require for the input from the satellite - 1 or 2?

Thanks for your help

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boba

· #2 · Jul 21, 2008

Git said:
I have been a DirecTV customer for about 8 years now and am thinking about switching to Dish.

In my current D* setup, we have four of the older, dual tuner, Tivo type receivers. Each receiver feeds one TV and each receiver requires two coax inputs from the satellite. We can watch one channel live and be recording a second channel at the same time. We are very use to this setup, one receiver per TV.

We are looking to upgrade two of our receivers to HD-DVR's while the other two would be SD-DVR's. If I stayed with D*, we would be getting four new receivers.

I briefly spoke with a Dish CSR this afternoon and it appears that Dish would only use two receivers to feed all four TV's. A VIP722 would power one HD TV and one SD TV and a second VIP722 that I would have to pay $199 for would do the same thing for the remaining two TV's. I did some more reading and discovered that these receivers can be set in dual or single mode. It seems that we would want the receiver set to single mode, to function like the D* receivers that we are used to. But the CSR said we couldn't get more that the two receivers - but maybe I misunderstood???

Also, if a second TV is connected to the VIP722 that is located in another room, what type of cabling is used?

Lastly, how many coax lines does the VIP722 require for the input from the satellite - 1 or 2?

Thanks for your help

DISH will lease you 4 tuners(2 dual tuner receivers) you can buy additional receivers if you want 4 dual tuner receivers.
The second TV is connected by using coaxial cable just the way a cable company would. Instead of a satellite frequency signal on the cable it is a processed signal like ch60.
DISH dual tuner receivers can use either single or dual cables to the receiver. With Dish Pro Plus technology a single cable with a separator can be used. With Dish Pro or Legacy LNBs dual cables must be used.

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Jim5506

· #3 · Jul 21, 2008

Two receivers will power 4 TV's as indicated, but with some restrictions.

The 722 can be ran in dual mode to power two TV's with two different sets of programming or single mode to sent the same programming to both TV's. The 722 has three HD tuners and one HD output and one SD output.

Tuners are SAT1, SAT2 and OTA. Outputs are TV1 (HD) and TV2(SD). These tuners and outputs are combined depending on whether you are in single or dual mode.

In single mode essentially TV1 and TV2 output the same thing and you can choose any one of the three tuners as long as it is not busy recording.

Dual mode has TV1 output linked to SAT1 and OTA tuners, and SAT2 is linked to TV2, but recordings For output TV1 can be and usually are directed to SAT2 tuner so TV1 can be used for live viewing. This sometimes conflicts with viewing on TV2.

It is not a perfect system, but works rather well within its limitations.

If you need to watch OTA on TV2, you must start the OTA tuner recording through TV1 output, then watch the recording immediately on TV2. During this time TV1 can still watch SAT1 because recording on the OTA tuner does not preclude watching SAT1. WHEW!

Either output can watch any recorded or recording program at any time.

Dish is reportedly coming out with a new version of the 722 that will be capable of having OTA input through TV2 output but the output will still be SD even though the 4 tuners will all be HD.

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phrelin

· #4 · Jul 21, 2008

Git said:
A VIP722 would power one HD TV and one SD TV and a second VIP722 that I would have to pay $199 for would do the same thing for the remaining two TV's.

I think you probably have an understanding, but just in case. One of the most difficult things for me or anyone to explain about a 722 is the following:

The 722 has two output "sources" - TV1 and TV2 - each capable of delivering one program at a time. TV1 is HD capable. TV2 is SD. But these TV1 and TV2 numbers have nothing to do with the number of TV's that can be hooked up to each source. All the output jacks on each source are live. Technically, you can hook up an unlimited number of TV's to both output "sources" using all the jacks plus the RF coax connection which sends analog (NTSC) signals.

But only the TV1 HDMI jack and the TV1 Component jack (combined with one of the audio connections) can deliver an HD signal. Therefore, a true HD signal can be delivered to only two HD TV sets, both from the same TV1 source. But you can still hook up an unlimited number of TV sets using the other jacks - the signal on those jacks is SD.

And to make it more complicated, there are three receivers - two satellite receivers and an off the air digital (ATSC) receiver. The programming coming in on all three receivers can be recorded simultaneously. If you are watching programming from one receiver live it cannot be recording another program, but the other two receivers can be recording. If you are watching a recorded program from one receiver, it can be recording another program.

The 722 comes with two remotes, one infrared to control the box from somewhere near the box and one RF (UHF) to control the box from a more distant location such as another room.

All this can be set up in a multitude of configurations. And an additional 722 can be set up - the second pair of remotes can be set up to not interfere with the first 722. The RF outputs can be configured to different channels. (Actually, more than two can be set up, but the dish/switch configuration gets a bit more complex.)

Finally, for an extra one-time fee your 722 system can be authorized to use USB external hard drives to and from which you can transfer programs recorded on your 722's (your 722's will be assigned the same household account code to permit this).

I cannot think of a way to train thousands of CSR's passing through Dish customer service centers to understand and effectively explain all this to a myriad of customers with significantly different levels of technical understanding and home TV configurations. But I think the 722 is a fantastic creation.

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