Wanting to switch from DirecTV -> Dish

[kaptain]

My house is currently serviced by DirecTV, but we are about to drop them because of their unwillingness to help us obtain DVR service with a cheap price. We called them up asking for a quote, they gave us one, we said Dish Network gave us a better rate, and then the customer service rep almost cancelled our account right there.

I've gotten much better prices through SBC than direct with Dish Network, but I have a couple questions that I've gotten conflicting (or just confused babbling) answers from the sales reps.



1) Is it possible to have 3 TVs with DVR on Dish? This would only require two DVR boxes because one DVR can handle two TVs. One rep said yes, the other said no.

2) If I can only have the one dual TV DVR, is it a problem for the installers if the TVs are a good 75 feet apart? Do they have long enough RCA wires for that? This one both reps started rambling nervously about because they didn't know.

3) Does the second remote on the DVR really transmit a strong enough radio wave to go through two walls?

4) According to dishnetwork.com, I need a second dish to be able to receive a couple of my local channels. Does Dish Network have an oval dish like DirecTV so I don't need two dishes on my house? I'm having a hard enough time talking my dad into letting installers take down the DirecTV dish and putting up a Dish Network one.

5) The dual room DVR can only pull two live streams off the dish, right? I just thought of that. That would mean that one room couldn't record a live show, watch a live show, and leave the second room uneffected. That's a deal breaker for us, and was the whole reason for us to want DVRs on at least two TVs. We all have different tastes in TV, and our shows seem to come on at the exact same time, so needing to record two channels and watching two more channels while leaving the third room free (yes, that's 5 live streams off the satellite) isn't uncommon.

Thanks for your help

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[ShadowEKU]

Ill address this as best i can.

1. Yes... or 4 if you really want

2. RCA Cables... no through the Coax yes.. the TV2 out is stereo through Coax (and regarding number 5 coax will be better)

3. Yup... longer antennas have been made and are easy to make but 75 feet shouldnt be a big problem

4. It depends. If your locals are on 105 or 121 a Super Dish would work (one large dish) if they are on 61.5 or the other wig bird a second dish would be required as they are basicly at a right angle to each other.

5. Im not going to answer directly. however...

through the use of diplexors (and a modulator if im thinking strait) and a 4 room DVR system it is possible to pull 4 tuners 3 tuners to anywhere in the house with the 522 TV 1 being the only one that really cant change. The unfortunate downside to this is that you would have to play remote shuffle.

I can lay this out for you sometime but i dont feel like giving myself a wrist cramp at the moment.

[ShadowEKU]

Out of curiosity it sounds like you needed 2 dvrs from Direct. thats 200 minus a 100 rebate. 100 for 2 dvrs is a steal

[kaptain]

DirecTV mentioned no rebate to us at all for the DVRs, just about $200 apeice for the DVR boxes. They also refused to allow us to add another multiswitch to our dish to keep the third TV live, and wanted to raise our package price to around $90/month.

Existing customers don't get any love, apparently.

[kaptain]

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I have no clue what satellites the locals are on for St. Louis.

Well, crap. I just looked it up. UPN is on 61.5. I really don't want to put up a second dish just for one channel. I'll pull it over the air I guess.

We really only need two rooms with DVRs, so two DVR boxes and a normal box would suffice.

[boba]

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Are you aware that on DISH they charge $4.98 for each DVR you have plus the $5 per month lease fee for the DHA through SBC. The DVR 510 is a single tuner DVR and you can watch or record not record and watch a different channel. There is no rebates for existing Directv customers so you are at $99.00 for each DirecTiVo and one $4.99 TiVo fee per account with Directv. But DirecTiVos do have dual tuners so you can record and watch another channel on all TiVos.