Upgrading to the “best” (Dish) equipment

[cwest111111]

I’ve had Dish for about 4 years and changed to VOOM in 3/05. Now I’m back with Dish . However, after experiencing VOOM there’s obviously a lot to do with my setup to get a comparable quality out of Dish, if at all.

The first issue that I want to resolve is to be able to distribute output from 1 receiver to 2 monitors. (I also have other Dish receivers and LCD TVs). The Dish receivers have Satellite and antenna inputs, but I don’t think they support UHF. The outputs are composite, Svideo, and RF. The composite output to LCDs is barely acceptable. The RF output to a second monitor shows unacceptable interference. I’d greatly appreciate suggestions as to the “best” receivers to use with Dish and how to distribute output to a second monitor in a large room.

 

[boba]

The best receiver to use with DISH would be dependent on what you want? Are you talking about HDTV LCDs or EDTV or just NTSC pictures. The best quality will be to have the receiver at the TV rather than distribute the signals. If you are talking about the reliability of the DISH receivers I would say the 311 seems to have the fewest complaints posted about it of the current production receivers. The new 942 should have the newest components for HDTV seeing it was just released but it also has the greatest chance for software glitches.

 

[mdonnelly]

...The outputs are composite, Svideo, and RF. The composite output to LCDs is barely acceptable. The RF output to a second monitor shows unacceptable interference. I’d greatly appreciate suggestions as to the “best” receivers to use with Dish and how to distribute output to a second monitor in a large room.

Well, I assume you're talking about the TV2 output on the HD receivers. The HD output is either DVI/HDMI/Component. The 811/921 are DVI, and the 942 is HDMI.

I hope you're not wanting one HD receiver to feed two HD sets. The 811 has live outputs on the component and DVI, but the cable lengths are limited. The 921/942 only allows one HD output to be active (as I have heard, anyway).

For SD to the second set, it looks like RF from the 921/942. The 811 doen't have an RF SD output, just s-video and composite. If interference is a problem on RF, you might try better shielded cables.

 

[cwest111111]

As I’m more or less starting from scratch—the only devices I don’t want to change are the LCD monitors—I’ll conceptualize a little as that’ll most likely bring out the best advice as it were. My view of home entertainment is to input everything into a computer—OTA, Satellite, FM, UHF, VHF, Music, etc. An example of a server that’s built to do this is www.niveusmedia.com. From the server, client devices—LCDs, Home Theatre etc.—can obtain input in real-time over a (wireless) LAN. All of the devices and software to do this are deliverable although the choice in some categories is limited. That’s probably stage 2 for me though, which I’ll tackle towards the end of the year.

Today, I want to output to 2 monitors from one receiver where 1 monitor is about 40’-50’ from the receiver. I could reach the second monitor with component but the cabling is expensive and cumbersome. Audio/Svideo would be a little easier, but the quality won’t be as good and it will still be costly although less so. Last choice is RF, which I tried, and discovered that interference even with RG6/U eliminates this option. So it seems like composite is the best value call. Conceptually again, another choice is over a (wireless) LAN when a server is installed.

Any choice of receiver will eventually output to a server, but at the moment I’d be satisfied with a receiver that outputs the best quality that Dish delivers, excluding their HD packages. I’ve also thought of injecting a DVDO iScan between a receiver and the main LCD to improve Dish’s broadcast, but I’m unsure if that is really value. (www.dvdo.com/pro/pro_ishdplus.html).

From the responses to the opening post, it seems like an 811 would fit as it can output composite/Svideo. The receivers I’m using are identified as R00311636**-**, which presumably is the 311 model. What are the advantages of changing to 811 model?

 

[SimpleSimon]

I think you need to spend some time at www.dishnetwork.com reading about the different receivers. THEN, come back here for advice.

 

[RBBrittain]

I think you need to spend some time at www.dishnetwork.com reading about the different receivers. THEN, come back here for advice.

I'd agree with you except the E* site doesn't mention the 311, only the 301 (which is basically the previous generation of 311).

Reading his full message (and some of the sites he linked to), my questions are:

(a) Are you SURE you don't want to feed EVERYTHING thru the server? The server will take care of most of the bells & whistles (especially DVR) better than any Dish box will. Your best bet is to feed a couple of "basic" boxes (311 for SD, 811 for HD) into the server and let it do the rest. You'll need two boxes to watch one live show while recording another, unless you get a dual-tuner box; but all of them have DVRs except the 322, which is SD-only. Take it from us 522 users who've had to live with its bugs: A DVR in the box only adds complexity, and is redundant for you as the server will do DVR.

(b) Are you SURE you DON'T want an HD tuner? It seems odd that a videophile like you, who's considering feeding his signal thru a $1500 box to up-convert it to HD, doesn't want the signal to be HD to begin with. Even if E*'s HD PQ is as bad as people say it is (I don't have HD myself, but then I feel grand pairing my 522 with an old RF-only 13-inch TV!), HD source signals are still far better than SD, which is all you'll have if you don't get an HD box. Even if you still want the $1500 up-converter, you'll still get better results by feeding it HD signals (which it will take) than SD signals. The 811 is the "basic" E* HD box; you'll definitely need it for your system.

(c) Are you SURE S-video, in particular, isn't worth the extra cable cost? I can understand your concerns with component (component cables are definitely more expensive than S-video or composite); but S-video isn't that much more expensive than composite, AND it's a better signal.