New Dish Install/ What can I expect? (1 Viewer)

[Bob Saylor]

Monday I am having a two receiver dish setup installed. (Dish Network) One of my sets is a 57" widescreen, the other a 32" 4.3. I have been cecking out the dish threads on various forums and have noticed a number of members that are disatisfied with the reception on the widescreen sets.

I asked what I could expect from the Dish sales rep and he told me I should get a nice, clear, crisp picture. Honestly, I'm getting a little leery about it but I've already committed to the programing so I'll be stuck with it for at least a year.

Another thing that scares me is that my son just recently had a dish installed and has had problems from day one (about two weeks ago) with reception on his widescreen set. The install man left before the system was activated. Best Buy suspects a bad LNB and ordered a replacement but it will be several days before it arrives and a tech can install it and check out the system. My sons set works fine in all ways except sat reception. Reception on other TVs was fine. The LNB was ordered after all other options were checked out.

The guy installing my system is supposed to be really sharp with dish setups and I have every intention of keeping him around until everything is working well.

So, to get to the point of this thread, what kind of reception are you getting with widescreen TVs connected to Dish Network or Direct TV? Are you sorry you switched to dish?

We all have our reasons. Mine was lack of upgrades and our local system is light years behind largers cities that are only 15 miles away.

Thanks, Bob

 

[raymond caputo]

i have had cable with very unhappy results...to be frank, a real crappy picture...i have had dish network and recently switched to directv because it was easier to hookup to hd with directv....the picture that i have gotten with both directv and dishnetwork was beautiful...i have a 58 inch widescreen pioneer....you won't be sorry, as long as its installed right...

 

[Bob Saylor]

Thanks Raymond, As I said, Im' keeping my fingers crossed. Maybe the bad reports were the minority just being heard.

 

[Matthew-K]

I am also happy with my Dish network setup. One thing to make sure of Bob is to use the S-video connection with your Dish reciever. Thats the best connection offered. Also, in the dish network setup, there is a feature where you can set the picture output to either 4:3 or 16:9, depending on if you have a widescreen t.v. or not. With these two tweaks you should enjoy a very nice picture as I do.

 

[Huzefa]

Did u get the HD receiver? If not you should, (or atleast wait until the 811 or 921 models come out and get one of those). HD is amazing!

 

[Bob Saylor]

Yes, Huzefa, I plan to do the HD thing but I'm waiting for the receiver prices to come down. The 811 sounds good. Sadly, the receiver I'll be getting for my widescreen is the 508 with PVR. When and if I go to the 811 I will probably miss the PVR. (I don't think the 811 has it)

The 921 is pricey. I didn't check to see if it had PVR or not.

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Don't forget you'll have to upgrade to the DISH superdish w/3 LNB arms in the near future. More than likely that will be required once the new HDTV boxes are ready to go.

Standard analog channels on both DirecTV and DISH (and digital cable) are compressed up the wazoo. That's why you won't get the best picture quality until you move to HD. Then you have to hope that HD doesn't suffer the same over-compressed fate as analog. DISH, once their new bird is launched (the reason for the new superdish) should still have more transponder space than DirecTV.

Dan

 

[JeremyFr]

Dan a few things I might add to your post here

first off Dish & Direct TV do not offer "analog" channels, all channels on Dish and DTV are compressed digital signals. With Digital Cable the first 100 channels is uncompressed analog signal any compression artifacts you will see is do to the Source material being compressed over C-Band Satellite.

2nd yes digital channels on all 3 are compressed out the wazoo 12:1 in most case's or rather 12 digi stations in the space that would normally be 1 analog.

Just had to clear this up. And I'm not going to even get into which is better argument it's useless.