Considering DishNetwork

[Axeman]

Comcast is pretty much shutting down my analog cable Sept. 1. Rather than getting 4-6 digital cable boxes at $5 a month I'm considering DishNetwork. After doing as much internet research I can I'd like to ask those here if things are going to work like I expect.

I have an AverMedia A180 for OTA HD, an old PVR 250 for SD and a PVR 150 for SD. I plan to get 2 of the SD DUO boxes from dish. For box 1 I want to run output 1 to the PVR 150 and use its irblaster to change channels. Output 2 from box 1 will go to the TV for watching live TV. Box 2 output 1 will go to the PVR 250 and I will buy a UST-UIRT to change its channels. Output 2 from Box 2 I want to feed back into my homes existing wiring so I can watch Dish programming in other rooms in the house. The A180 will remain for OTA.

Will this setup work for me? I know that output 2 on the DUO boxes is changed with a UHF remote so Sage can't change channels for those. Are there any issues I'm unaware of?

[sic0048]

I don't see any problems with your plan. The tuner set up should work the way you want.

I'm not sure which plan you are looking at or what your viewing habits are, but personally I went with one of the TurboHD packages. It's hard to pass up 30-50 H channels for $30 to $50/mo.

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Axeman

Comcast is pretty much shutting down my analog cable Sept. 1. Rather than getting 4-6 digital cable boxes at $5 a month I'm considering DishNetwork. After doing as much internet research I can I'd like to ask those here if things are going to work like I expect.

As much of a fan of Dish/satellite and cable hater I am. I don't think switching to Dish will solve any of the the problems you're talking about. Namely you still need a box for each thing you want to record.

And you should consider that there are rumors at least, that when these companies eliminate analog, they'll unencrypt the "basic" digital channels so a QAM tuner would work just like an NTSC one today.

I have an AverMedia A180 for OTA HD, an old PVR 250 for SD and a PVR 150 for SD. I plan to get 2 of the SD DUO boxes from dish. For box 1 I want to run output 1 to the PVR 150 and use its irblaster to change channels. Output 2 from box 1 will go to the TV for watching live TV. Box 2 output 1 will go to the PVR 250 and I will buy a UST-UIRT to change its channels. Output 2 from Box 2 I want to feed back into my homes existing wiring so I can watch Dish programming in other rooms in the house. The A180 will remain for OTA.

Will this setup work for me? I know that output 2 on the DUO boxes is changed with a UHF remote so Sage can't change channels for those. Are there any issues I'm unaware of?

Well there's been talk (Team Summit) of the "TV2 IR Converter" which would convert IR to Dish's TV2 RF, allowing remotes to control the TV2 output.

[Axeman]

thanks sic0048, I am considering HD but since I watch 100% recorded programming these days, except for football in the fall, I wasn't sure I wanted to pay the $10 a month for HD that I wouldn't watch. I am still thinking about it though. Once I move to an HD-PVR I will definitely do HD but for now it's still a bit expensive for the hardware.

stanger89, the reason I stuck with cable the last 2 years was ease of use, now that it will require similar STBs to satellite I figured I'd make the swich. Based on my local Comcast channel lineup I'll get quite a few more channels with Dish (some of them my wife will even watch ).

As far as QAM goes I was able to watch them up until about Oct. of last year then Comcast went and encrypted all of them so I don't expect they will unencrypt them now.

[hemicuda]

If they roll out any Pace DTA's like here they'll have to open up anything that those boxes are slated to receive. Most likely extended/expanded basics. I get about 130 QAM on my scans (40 are duplicate music).

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by Axeman

thanks sic0048, I am considering HD but since I watch 100% recorded programming these days, except for football in the fall, I wasn't sure I wanted to pay the $10 a month for HD that I wouldn't watch. I am still thinking about it though. Once I move to an HD-PVR I will definitely do HD but for now it's still a bit expensive for the hardware.

Something to consider perhaps, I think it's way cheaper to get the HD boxes when you sign up than it is to upgrade later. Also, the HD channels have much higher quality (less compression artifacts) even if recorded "only" in SD.

stanger89, the reason I stuck with cable the last 2 years was ease of use, now that it will require similar STBs to satellite I figured I'd make the swich. Based on my local Comcast channel lineup I'll get quite a few more channels with Dish (some of them my wife will even watch ).

I completely understand

As far as QAM goes I was able to watch them up until about Oct. of last year then Comcast went and encrypted all of them so I don't expect they will unencrypt them now.

Well that's the tricky bit. When they shut off analog, that means everyone needs a box, often multiple, and that's expensive. That's why they're giving out the cheapo QAM convert boxes, which don't support encryption. The impression I get is that the costs of switching everyone over to encrypted digital are too high for the cable companies.

[paulbeers]

One note, the USBUIRT can be used to control both boxes. Right now my 1 USBUIRT controls all 3 of my dish boxes. It might take some of the complication out of your setup (running two different IR blasters). Just a thought.....

[Axeman]

how do you differentiate the signals? It seems that if I had 2 of the same STBs then sending a channel change to one would cause the other unit to change channels too.

[PLUCKYHD]

Dish uses discrete IR codes so you can set each box to different IR codes.

[paulbeers]

Originally Posted by PLUCKYHD

Dish uses discrete IR codes so you can set each box to different IR codes.

Bingo bango! In fact when my installer saw what I was going to be doing, he changed the IR codes for me!

[sic0048]

The USB-UIRT also supports three zones of IR blasting. You have the main "open air" blaster on the front, and you can plug in a pair of IR emitters into the plug in the back. So you can use the same IR single for up to 3 different boxes. This is of course assuming that SageTV supports the zone setup of the USB-UIRT - I honestly haven't checked but would be surprised if they didn't.

That being said, it is easier to simply change the IR codes on the box

[Peter_h]

Originally Posted by stanger89

...

And you should consider that there are rumors at least, that when these companies eliminate analog, they'll unencrypt the "basic" digital channels so a QAM tuner would work just like an NTSC one today.

I don't think that is going to happen.

I live in Hawaii so my experience should be a pretty good indicator. Hawaii went all digital back in January. The only stations that I could pick up before and after the digital transition via QAM are my Local HD broadcasts. Occasionally, 1 or 2 cable channels will slip through but they shut those done pretty quickly.

[sic0048]

Originally Posted by 95TBird

One thing you may want to check on is how the tuning works on those duo STBs. When I looked into them 1 tuner in the box would ONLY tune with RF & so could not be controlled by the USB-UIRT.
So you end up with only 1 tuner per box that Sage can control

-Bruce

If you read his initial post carefully, you'll see that he already knows this downside of the dual tuners and is planning on using it to his advantage. Basically he plans on recording tuner 1 of each box and using tuner 2 with the RF remote for viewing throughout the house (not through Sage).

[turak]

Originally Posted by sic0048

The USB-UIRT also supports three zones of IR blasting. You have the main "open air" blaster on the front, and you can plug in a pair of IR emitters into the plug in the back. So you can use the same IR single for up to 3 different boxes. This is of course assuming that SageTV supports the zone setup of the USB-UIRT - I honestly haven't checked but would be surprised if they didn't.

That being said, it is easier to simply change the IR codes on the box

SageTV supports USB-UIRT zones. Just prepend Z1, Z2 or Z3 to the IR codes. I'm using one UIRT to control both of my U-Verse STB's.

When I was using Dish, I did use discrete codes for the receiver that wasn't R5000 moded.

One thing that was a royal pain in the ass before SageTV had the ability to prepend an IR command was the Unauthorized channel screen. Any time Dish added a new channel to the line up, SageTV would start trying to record everything on that channel. Most of the time I didn't get the channel and it would get stuck on the "Unauthorized Channel" screen. The only way to get off of that screen was to use "Channel up" or "Channel down". Since SageTV changes channels by entering the channel number, it would get stuck and I'd miss all recordings until I manually hit "channel up".

The work around to this was to have SageTV send a "channel up" before it sent any other IR command.