DISH Smartbox

[PokerMunkee]

Anyone familiar with the Smartbox? I had an installer come onsite yesterday to our property to look at upgrading our TV service in our 60 room hotel and large casino floor to HD. I really like the Smartbox because I can consolidate two racks of analog equipment into 5U of space.

I was told to be legit, I need two Smartboxes. One Smartbox serving the hotel rooms with Pro:Iridium enabled. A second Smartbox one serving the casino floors, Pro:Iridium disabled.

I'm waiting to hear back from the installer if we can buy $50 boxes that go on our hotel TVs to convert the Pro:Iridium signal so we don't have to buy 60 new TVs off the bat. Does anyone know if DISH sells this? Someone said you can't buy the DirecTV boxes, so wondering if that's the same with DISH.

I've researched DirecTV's com2000 and have a thread on here about it recently. I had a DirecTV installer come out and he recommended buying 40 HD modulators and 40 HD receivers instead of the com2000. Still waiting on a quote from him.

I prefer the DISH system if I can avoid buying 60x $500 TVs but even then we may still do it. I'm told the initial purchase of equipment will be around $20-25K for the two Smartboxes, splitters, amplifiers, etc. It appears we'll save over $1,500 a month with DISH over DirecTV if we switch, so the ROI will be pretty quick and we'll have a much superior system.

Wondering if anyone has had issues with their Smartbox. The tech said there's an issue where a few channels will drop out on a card every once in a while and the card needs to be reset. But he said DISH is working on a firmware upgrade to fix it. He said it was a buggy at first but a lot of firmware updates in the last year have made it great and he has installed it in a lot of hotels and hospitals. I did go check out a new small 50 bed surgery center he installed a Smartbox at and I was impressed.

 

[dishrich]

You probably should post this on Claude's board, since it's geared toward dealers that do this sort of thing...

http://boards.dishretailer.com/

 

[navychop]

Keep in mind, Claude may not be the most unbiased reference. With good reason, sad to say.

 

[ChadT41]

Keep in mind, Claude may not be the most unbiased reference. With good reason, sad to say.

I would agree, except Claude does show that he can seperate himself from his bias when it is a serious question or remark about the technology. Yes he makes it well known he doesn't like Dish, but he also makes sure that if anyone asks him directly about the service or system, he answers honestly.

 

[adidas5482]

I know a thing or two about the smartbox. What the tech told you so far is correct.

 

[Claude Greiner]

FYI I do install com2000 systems and I can provide you with a very competitive quote.

A 48 channel com2000 is around $10,000 and then you apply a discount off of that at $54 per room, so your cost of the equipment comes to around $7,000

The casino floor is a whole different animal. You can probably get away with a 4 HD channel modulator and just show 4 different programs on the casino floor.

Your never going to need more than a few different channels on the casino floor. Usually I see ESPN, Fox Sports, CNN, and maybe another channel showing a popular game.

Change the channels on the 4 receivers, instead of on the individual Tv

There is a lot of ways to do this. I would not recommend 2 smart boxes or Com2000's due to cost.

The other thing to consider with Dish or Directv on a smart box or com2000 it's very hard to get them to agree to turn the proidium off.

Give me a chance to quote this. This is my specialty.

 

[Claude Greiner]

How many Tv's on the casino floor and how many Tv's in the guest rooms?

I think your whole issue was displaying the info channels and having them in the same lineup.

 

[PokerMunkee]

Update... finally completed the project. I'm very happy with my DISH Smartbox setup. My headend now takes up only 10U!

I have two Smartboxes. One for public (casino, rest., bars), using QAM, so no Pro:Idiom TVs required. I am serving out 32 HD channels, plus our 4 in house channels on a ZeeVee. Then I have another one for private (hotel), using Pro:Idiom serving 48 HD channels. The same 4 in house channels also show in the hotel. Bought new LG hospitality TVs for our hotel rooms, work great.

A Smartbox is around $10K with 8 cards to do 48 HD channels.

 

[sleibo]

We installed Smartbox for a 178 unit apartment building. Intention was to supply selection of "basic" channels for free (included in rent), and individual apartments could upgrade directly through Dish. When sold the smartbox solution (2015) we were told it would do this. Fast forward 2 years and we have had multiple discussions with our Dish retailer who now says he was misled by Dish, that our existing Smartbox can not handle the existing channels plus upgrades because it would exceed the throughput/bandwidth of the Smartbox. Instead, we are told that we must purchase an additional Smartbox, at a high price, to allow individual apartment upgrades while keeping the basic channels for other apartments. Anyone have any experience with this? Anyone have any ideas how to accomplish this without major additional capital outlay? Thanks.

 

[primestar31]

We installed Smartbox for a 178 unit apartment building. Intention was to supply selection of "basic" channels for free (included in rent), and individual apartments could upgrade directly through Dish. When sold the smartbox solution (2015) we were told it would do this. Fast forward 2 years and we have had multiple discussions with our Dish retailer who now says he was misled by Dish, that our existing Smartbox can not handle the existing channels plus upgrades because it would exceed the throughput/bandwidth of the Smartbox. Instead, we are told that we must purchase an additional Smartbox, at a high price, to allow individual apartment upgrades while keeping the basic channels for other apartments. Anyone have any experience with this? Anyone have any ideas how to accomplish this without major additional capital outlay? Thanks.

Contact Claude Greiner, who posted just above you. He's a retailer based in Detroit, and should be able to help answer your questions.

I believe you have to have at least 5 posts, before you can private message ("Start a Conversation" by clicking on their userid) people.

I sent him a message and included a link to your post. Hopefully he'll chime in here soon.

 

[JSheridan]

Contact Claude Greiner, who posted just above you. He's a retailer based in Detroit, and should be able to help answer your questions.

I believe you have to have at least 5 posts, before you can private message ("Start a Conversation" by clicking on their userid) people.

I sent him a message and included a link to your post. Hopefully he'll chime in here soon.

If he contacts Claude he'll probably end up with DirecTV.

 

[charlesrshell]

If he contacts Claude he'll probably end up with DirecTV.

I bet Claude has a Hopper 3 in his closet!

 

[primestar31]

If he contacts Claude he'll probably end up with DirecTV.

Yeah, we know about Claude and Dish, BUT, Claude still knows his stuff. So why not?

 

[mruk69]

I researched Tv for my hotel a few years ago and couldn't really get anyone to give a decent quote. I ended up signing up for DTV residential experience. Worked out a lot better. The attach a receiver to the TV, which takes care of the pro:idium. For the casino floor they would set you up with DTV Business.


Sent from my iPhone using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[dishrich]

We installed Smartbox for a 178 unit apartment building. Intention was to supply selection of "basic" channels for free (included in rent), and individual apartments could upgrade directly through Dish. When sold the smartbox solution (2015) we were told it would do this. Fast forward 2 years and we have had multiple discussions with our Dish retailer who now says he was misled by Dish, that our existing Smartbox can not handle the existing channels plus upgrades because it would exceed the throughput/bandwidth of the Smartbox. Instead, we are told that we must purchase an additional Smartbox, at a high price, to allow individual apartment upgrades while keeping the basic channels for other apartments. Anyone have any experience with this? Anyone have any ideas how to accomplish this without major additional capital outlay? Thanks.

When you say "individual apartments could upgrade directly through DISH"...what exactly did you have in mind??? If you are saying upgrade, as in allowing individual units to get their own DISH receivers & get the same, full prog lineup like regular homeowners, then you are SOL as far as the Smartbox goes.

I think you need to understand the entire premise of the Smartbox system, is that it allows a property to offer an HD/SD TV lineup to viewers, WITHOUT them needing any DISH receivers in the units, to pick up the signals. As you already know, the tenants simply plug their TV's into the TV outlets, & they get TV programming, just like cable systems used to be, BEFORE they encrypted all their channels. The Smartbox was NEVER intended to allow a user to then simply then plug in a DISH receiver into the SAME TV outlet & then simply get the full DISH lineup...so if they told you that, then YES, they lied to you.

About the only thing you could do, is you would need to also install a DISH L-band distribution system in your apartment wiring closet, with it's own dedicated dish. (here is just 1 example of many types/brands of such a system)
http://www.paceintl.com/solutions/jatvinabox/

BUT, in order for this to work, you would also have to have the ability to physically switch an individual apartment's TV feed, from the Smartbox feed, to this L-band feed. Not sure with a building THAT large, if that's going to be practical or not; would depend on how the building is wired. (looped wiring, home runs to a central wiring closet, etc; looped wiring will NOT work on an L-band system!) Depending on how the Smartbox is sending out it's signal to the units, you might be able to combine both it & a DISH L-band feed on the same (homerun) cable...again, this can be dicey, though.

Also, understand that this L-band distribution system is NOT going to be compatible with the Hopper receivers; it was only meant for legacy dual-tuner receivers. I don't know about L-band distribution systems being made for Hopper systems yet.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I can already imagine what the issue is.

The retailer who probably sold this never installed a smart box before, and got mis-information from someone at Dish. Now they have no clue how to fix it, without having the dreaded discussion of how much it's going to cost to fix. The retailer sounds like they screwed up, so now they don't want to open a can of worms.

The smart box should have never been installed as a solution to provide basic cable to begin with if the intention was to upgrade tenants later.

A few questions we need to ask to get to the right solution...

#1 how is the wiring ran to the apartments? Are we home run from a central location or is it split all over the place. Was the wiring taken over from Comcast or a cable company for example?

#2 what do you consider basic channels? ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX? Any basic channels like CNN?

#3 what is the customer upgrading to? A higher tier package with more channels, or pick and choose such ad adding HBO.

#4 does the upgraded package require a receiver?

Sounds like you need Directv's MDU solution....

Every apartment gets an HD/DVR and up to 3 additional HD receivers which is provided for free by Directv.

The apartment picks the package they want to provide with the rent. They can choose to pay for as little or as much programming as they like.

If the customer is not happy and wants HBO, they call Directv and pay only for HBO or the difference in cost to upgrade to the higher package.

I don't know if Dish offers a similar MDU solution, but what I described is probably what you need.

Call me at 800-807-0837 ext 245 if you want to go into specific details.

I promise not to sell you Directv, unless you want it.

I just don't see why a smart box was necessary.

The whole problem in any apartment is people expect DVR, on demand, ppv and multi room dvr viewing.

12 years show you could provide a handful of channels. Today customers want the full experience the service has to offer.

The last apartment we did with Dish the owner bought the everything pack because everyone had to get the same programming package and he was tired of people asking for specific channels.

It was like $40-mo per tenant for everything in bulk. He just includes the difference in everyone's rent.

What about internet ?

 

[Ed Sprole]

It wouldn't be too difficult if you have existing cable wiring to put in a Smartbox with a QAM card to serve the complex. We serve campuses with Smartboxes. The only problem we have are people with cheap TVs without internal QAM tuners. The box itself runs well, as long as you keep it cool.

Ed

 

[Bobby]

It wouldn't be too difficult if you have existing cable wiring to put in a Smartbox with a QAM card to serve the complex. We serve campuses with Smartboxes. The only problem we have are people with cheap TVs without internal QAM tuners. The box itself runs well, as long as you keep it cool.

Ed

My TV was not cheap and it doesn't have any tuner, QAM, NTSC, ATSC, at all....

 

[Ed Sprole]

That's called a monitor(or signage display)

 

[Bobby]

Really!!!!

Actually it's called a home theater display....