Digital Home Advantage - Can someone help me figure out the best hardware setup.

[BPeter]

Hello, I am lurker and first time poster, so bear with me.

I have been a Dish Network customer for about 5 years.
My current setup is as follows.

Bedroom - Dish 301
Living Room - Dish 501 DVR
Family Room - Dish 622 w/OTA in Single Mode

I can never figure out how best to work out the hardware I could be using to minimize my cost. We rarely watch tv in our bedroom, but would like the ability when we do want too.

I have thought about getting a 222 for the living room and running the tv out 2 to the bedroom, and then dropping both the 301 and the 501. But do I need to have a phone line in the 222 to count as 1 receiver? I am already paying for the HD pack, so I would like to take advantage of the programming in my living room as well.

If I drop the 301 and the 501, and have a phone line, will I save money on the DHA plan? If I bought the 222, rather than leased it and still dropped both the 301 and 501, would I save more? Can someone please help me figure out the best plan from a hardware perspective. I have the option of leasing an additional 622 for the living room as well.
I am paying over $100 for service, and would like to get that down a little if possible. Would the DVR advantage pay off for me, if I also have the HD Pack, or do you only get the one DVR receiver?

Thanks,
Bryan

 

[KAB]

Another 622 would drop you down to two receiver fees and give you additional recording opportunities. The DVR advantage will save you $3.98 per month since the programing DVR fee is included. Your monthly bill makes me think you have the America's 250. If you just go with the 200 that is part of DVR advantage, you'd save about $10 per month or more.

 

[SmityWhity]

If you never need more than 2 tuners playing at one time, then maybe get rid of everything except 1 622, and put it in Dual Mode, and get an extra 6.3 or 6.2 IR/UHF PRO remote.

You can feed TV1 and TV2 Outputs over your home cabling system so that any room can watch whatever is being outputted on each output/channel of the 622, and/or each room can watch recordings from the 622.

- Family Room - 5.3 IR Remote for TV1
- Living Room - 6.3 IR/UHF PRO Remote for TV2
- Bedroom - 6.3 IR/UHF PRO Remote for TV1

Or swap the remotes as needed. If you have a guess bedroom, then loan them the living room remote, or purchase another 6.3 for the spare bedroom(s).

Over at my shack:

(1) Living Room: 622 Component to TV; plus RF Output to Antenna (TV1=Ch 61; TV2=Ch 63), with 5.3 IR Remote.
(2) Master B/R: 1 6.3 TV1 Remote and 1 6.3 TV2 Remote to control TV1 on Ch 61 and TV2 on Ch 63.
(3) Bedroom 2: 1 6.3 TV2 Remote to control TV2, but can watch TV1 also.
(4) Bedroom 3: 1 6.3 TV2 Remote to control TV2, but can watch TV1 also.

 

[harshness]

I vote for replacing the 301 with a line from the ViP622. You can temporarily switch to dual mode when necessary.