Considering 811 upgrade: quick question

horseflesh

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Dec 30, 2003
48
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I have been with Dish for a loooong time. I have a SD Dish box w/ Dish 500, and I use a ReplayTV for timeshifting. I also have a 36" HD-capable TV so I am interested in getting HD programming...

Does the 811 integrate the OTA HD signals into the main program guide? I still want the ability to timeshift HD programming with my Replay, even if I can only do it at SD resolution. From what I hear it would still look better than the Dish locals I currently subscribe to. Some of them have AWFUL PQ.

Conversely I could upgrade to the 921, but it's pretty expensive and my ReplayTV already does a great job of recording SD shows.

Thoughts?

Thanks a bunch!
 
The 811's are out there if you look around. Try Dish Depot. I'm not sure why anyone in their right mind would want one though with all of the dicumented problems. I should be shot for buying a second one. But I guess with all you guys wanting them I should have no problem selling them when I move to the dark side (DirecTV).
 
Volfan.

Make the switch. You won't regret it. I switched 2 weeks ago and love my Tivo. HD Tivo will be just as solid! Lots of nice changes coming to D* in the coming months and year, too!

I'm looking forward to D* in 2004 as much as I did with E* in 2003. However, I'm convinced D* will deliver where E* did not.
 
Rolltide posted:
"Direct tivo hd isn't all that"

Isn't all what? It's bound to be a fairly solid HD DVR when it's released. A lot more solid than what Charlie just threw out to the public.

---

Hmm... the post disappeared...
 
peid said:
It does add the OTA signals in the program guide.

I have it and love it.

What 811 are you looking at??? The 811 I had would only show "Local Digital" in the EPG for all the OTA ATSC stations. If it was a NTSC (analog)major network station, and when you added it you said what network the station belonged to, it would show the program info, but only for primetime programming. It does show complete program info for the LIL channels received via the dish.
 
peid/rad,

I'm in the Phoenix area and my EPG has NEVER showed the programming schedule for any of my locals. Not only that, if I have been watching a local OTA digital station (I only programmed the digital channels and not the analog ones because it would not map correctly anyway) for any long period of time, when I do try to bring up the EPG I get the message 'Acquiring satellite signal, please wait'. That takes about a minute to do before the guide appears and another 30 - 45 seconds before the video displays in the PIP area of the guide.
 
My locals only say "Local Digital" also, I guess I thought he was asking does it include them in the EPG as opposed to flipping from Satellite to Antenna.
 
hemway said:
peid/rad,

I'm in the Phoenix area and my EPG has NEVER showed the programming schedule for any of my locals. Not only that, if I have been watching a local OTA digital station (I only programmed the digital channels and not the analog ones because it would not map correctly anyway) for any long period of time, when I do try to bring up the EPG I get the message 'Acquiring satellite signal, please wait'. That takes about a minute to do before the guide appears and another 30 - 45 seconds before the video displays in the PIP area of the guide.

Hemway, that's why you're never seeing EPG info for your locals. If you manually added the analog locals, and the say what network they belong to the EPG would show the info for prime time programs. I don't understand why you say they wouldn't map correctly anyway. The analog channels would be the channel number-0, such as 009-0.
 
Sorry Rad, but I tried programming my analog locals. When I went into (did this with original software release and the current release) the local channel setup and added both my analog and digital locals (tried both the scan and manual process), the digitals would align/map with the analog channel numbers at first in the local channel set-up list. If I went out to the EPG, I would see all of my local analog channel number in white and the digital mapped number in yellow which also showed the mapped analog number. Once I selected one of the mapped channels to watch, when I when back to the EPG, the alignment/mapping was gone. My analog number would show up as its analog number like before, but the stations digital channel would display as its true digital number with their station call letters. Not only that, but if you go back into the local channel setup, all of the digital channels no longer map to their analog counterpart, and the station call letters I entered during the original digital channel set-up are no longer displayed in the local channel set-up list. This happens to all of my local channels except channel 5 (CBS) and 12 (NBC). These two channels retain their mapping, but if I tune to one of those channels (5 or 12) from another channel (satellite or OTA) the recall button doesn’t work.

To help show what I’m talking about, please see the pictures (sorry about the quality) I’ve attached. The first one (Before) shows my EPG guide with the local analog channel ‘15’ in white, and its digital counterpart as channel ‘15’ in yellow. This was right after I went through the local channel set-up and manually adding both the analog and digital channels to the local set-up list. Please note that the call letters are the same. The second (After) picture shows the guide after I tuned to the digital channel ‘15’. The channel now gets displayed in the EPG under its true digital number but retains the stations call letters.

Here in the Phoenix area we have I think almost twenty stations that are broadcasting in digital along with analog. I don't speak Spanish and don't want the shopping or religious channels, so I remove those from my setup. As for the network identification information during set-up, I only have a choice of ABC, NBC, & CBS (and yes I did identify those channels during analog set-up). Because the software that is used in the 811 is based on the software in the 6000 (look around in some of the help screens and it refers to the 6000 not the 811) receiver it doesn’t recognize that UPN, Fox, PBS, PAX, and WB are also networks, another short-coming of E*s programming laziness. I personally think that when they took the 6000 software code and tried to update it to work with the 811, they screwed up the parts that deals with the PSIP functions that are suppose to be built into the box. This is one of the standards for the industry and I know that some of my local stations include the programming schedule in their digital signal so PSIP capable devices are able to process this information.
 
The 6000 never supported PSIP. Digital channels were never able to be mapped to the major-major networks. The 811 software is the same as the 6000 except for the guide window. Its just a port, complete with most previous bugs!

But the good news is that it is now a supported platform and will have improvements made over time.
 
I'd like to think you are right, but I can't say I have any confidence that Dish actually wants to upgrade the 811 and polish its OTA guide/behavior.
 
If they want to comply with the industry standards they will. If they don't they'll have two things on their hands, a lot of really pi*sed off customers, me being one of them, and a lot of 811's in stock that they can't sell because word got out that they aren't doing anything to make the 811 meet the industry standards.

I was this ll close to buying an OTA STB when Dish announced their 811 deal. If I had to sign up for their HD package or make a 12 month commitment, I wouldn't have gone for the deal. I would have gone the STB route.
 
Cyclone said:
I'd like to think you are right, but I can't say I have any confidence that Dish actually wants to upgrade the 811 and polish its OTA guide/behavior.


The box that the 811 comes in has a sticker on the outside, which mentions the 48 hour program guide. The 48 hour limit is mentioned on the Dish website. If Dish fail to deliver, they will have a lot of problems. I am not a lawyer, but am pretty sure that Dish will have to deliver on the 48 hours or else be liable for fraud.

Keith.
 
keith said:
Cyclone said:
I'd like to think you are right, but I can't say I have any confidence that Dish actually wants to upgrade the 811 and polish its OTA guide/behavior.


The box that the 811 comes in has a sticker on the outside, which mentions the 48 hour program guide. The 48 hour limit is mentioned on the Dish website. If Dish fail to deliver, they will have a lot of problems. I am not a lawyer, but am pretty sure that Dish will have to deliver on the 48 hours or else be liable for fraud.

Keith.

Dish has done this before and nothings come of it, people keep purchasing their products.
 
horseflesh,

Are you using the built-in SD OTA tuner in your Replay? The guide on the Replay is much better IMO and integrates the OTA locals and E* programming.
 
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