Can 811 get OTA HDTV without DISH HD subscription?

[hraner]

DISH 811 receiver, if I cancel my HD subscription($10 for 5 channels), can I still able to get the local OTA HDTV? If I'm still a AT60 subscriber, I will still get the integrated OTA EPG, right? I'm thinking about stopping the HD sub and buy a 811 myself to get OTA only, but need to make sure that it works.

If I purchase a 811 receiver from ebay and it's not activated(or I stop the DISH subscription with my current 811 receiver), will 811 continue to get OTA HDTV? In that case, I won't able to get any firmware update, right?

Thanks!

 

[n0qcu]

If you OWN the 811 at the current time all you need to get OTA is a signal from a dish satellite no subscription needed at this time. This could easily be changed by a software download. and yes they can force downloads.

 

[BFG]

I probably would do the same, but no one wants to sell me an 811 cheap enough. I'm currently leasing an 811 but at the time of sign-up I could've bought one for $99 and a 1 year commitment, so since that's the deal I could've gotten I'm trying to stay cheap and get one for that price

 

[gpflepsen]

I'm under the impression that the 811 could be pointed at any dbs satellite, even one other than Dish Networks, and still have the OTA's enable. It'd be tough for Dish to force a download in that scenario.

 

[BFG]

no. It has to be a dish satellite.

 

[hraner]

Can DISH add MPEG4 support to 811 receiver through a firmware update? Or they have to use totally different hardware. I kind of want to buy a 811 if it'll last for a few years, but since everybody is switching to MPEG4, so I'm concerned about the MPEG4 support of 811.

 

[BFG]

No, but right now there's not much to worry about with MPEG4, it will take a while to do the switch and the current channels they have now will be staying MPEG2 for a while and your OTA will always work and dish has said an upgrade will be available anyways

 

[gpflepsen]

no. It has to be a dish satellite.

Are you sure? I seem to recall the 6000 didn't necessarily need to be pointed at a Dish satellite, it just needed a signal to lock onto.

 

[BFG]

If you turn the 811 on and it's not looking at a sat it will keep going through the aquiring sat screen and nothing will work until there's a signal lock, and I'm pretty sure it needs to be reading a dish sat to recgonize a lock

 

[gpflepsen]

The 811 can lock on the wrong satellite. This is how the 6000 was, and I assume the 811 would then function as the 6000 did, displaying OTA while not looking at an E* satellite.

If I still had my 811, I could verify this. But I'm not going to do that with my 921 It's too cold to be outside swinging my dish about the sky.