How many STB can you hook up with DirecTV oval dish? (1 Viewer)

[Jake T]

Last week I switched from DirecTV to Comcast digital cable with two HD STB's for my HDTV's.

I mainly did this because Comcast had the local channels in HD (and cheaper cable internet price). Those digital channels however, when not in HD, show up as a 4:3 picture (My HDTV's are 4:3) but with the black bars all around, not just the sides or top and bottom. The analog channels are also completely horrible and the digital quality, compared to sat, is bad.

Anyhow, I feel that I might have made a mistake. I am thinking about going back to Directv (wife wants to) but when I first move here the installer said I can only hook up 4 boxes with the oval dish. So I went with the round and sacrificed HD because I had 6 TV's hooked up. I also want to hook up 2 more.

My brother said that the Sat installer was wrong because he has the triple LNB oval dish and has 6-7 tv's hooked up.

Is he right and the installer was a wrong?

I hear that Directv will launch new Sats next year for local HD and they will Also have Ondemand (a nice feature).

So, any thoughts?

Any help woill be appreciated.

Thanks,

Jake

 

[Adam*M]

Your installer was misinformed.

I have 7 receivers hooked up to the oval dish. (Well, only 5 receivers, but 7 lines are run from it to accomodate the dual inputs on both TiVo units.) I ran two outputs from the dish to a 2x4 switch, and the other two outs to a second 2x4 switch. One of the switches feeds both TiVo units (2 cables each), and the other switch has 3 outputs to the remaining boxes. That even leaves me a spare output if i ever want to add a TV somewhere.

 

[Jake T]

Thanks Adam,

One more question - Which Multiswitch would you recommend for the Phase III dish and I would want it go to at least 8 rooms?

Thanks,

 

[Robert_J]

The Terk BMS58 or the Eagle Aspen (model number ends in a "+"). Both are eight output cascadable switches. If you want to plan ahead, you can get the Zinwell flexport switch. It has six inputs and eight outputs. If you need more than eight outputs, you can parallel more 8 output switches together. It's much cheaper than buying a 12 or 16 output switch.

-Robert