General Dish Questions

[DaDeuce]

Hey Guys, I'm purchasing my first home this week and I am planning on going with satellite TV. I've got some questions that I can't seem to find straight answers to when I am trying to compare Direct & Dish.

-For the recievers, do I have to hook them to phone lines? Can I hook them to ethernet instead? Do Need to hook up all to phonet/net or will just 1 suffice? I should be able to have all of them hooked to ethernet, but phone might be a problem..... Will I still get the Discount for hooking them up through ethernet?
-Apparently you can turn the Dish HD boxes into DVR just by pluggin a HD into them? I assume they would only be single tuner? Is there a fee to do this?
-Can I record both HD Locals & OTA at the same time on Dish? My parents have DIsh and when they got their HD locals turned on through the Satellite, it appeared to overwrite the HD OTA stations, so I guess what I'm really asking is could I potentially record 3 (2 through satellite, 1 OTA) local stations at once?-Do I need multiple cable outlets to get dual Tuners? My house only has one coax cable ran to each potential TV location.-How easy is it to move equipment around? I have 4 locations that I would want Hooked up
- HD in both the living room and Master bed room, and SDin the office and my future theater room. How hard is it going to be to take the HD box from my master and switch it with the one in the theater room when I get the theater complete? Is it simply plug and play?
-How reliable are Dish's recievers? I keep hearing horror stories about recievers going out commitments extended whenever they swap one out.

Thanks guys

 

[space86]

I have had DirecTV and Dish Network,
the equipment is better with Dish Network, but if you need NFL Sunday Ticket
then DirecTV is your only option.

 

[DaDeuce]

I have had DirecTV and Dish Network,
the equipment is better with Dish Network, but if you need NFL Sunday Ticket
then DirecTV is your only option.

Eh, not concerned much about Sunday ticket. Most of the games I want to see are on either Network or ESPN, and I'm not a big enough fan of any time to justfy the expense of ST.

 

[generj]

I can't answer all of your questions, but I can handle some of them. With 4 TVs and wanting HD on two of them, you will need two VIP722 or two vip722k. The Ks have two OTA instead of one. For example on the 722, you can record on all three tuners if you are watching a recorded event. For OTA channels, you have to do a scan to capture them. They will be in yellow in the guide. Both the 722 & 722K have home plug built in. Buy a home plug 1.0 or turbo device, plug it into your router and then follow the guide in order to ascertain if all devices are found. You don;t need a phone line hooked up, but that means that caller ID will not be displayed on the screen.
Regarding plug n' play of the receivers,it depends on how the initial install is done. It will not be 100% plug n' play.

As for equipment, some people run into problems while others don't. I had one problem with a vip622 and it was replaced without a problem (the replacement arrived two days after the call was made ).

Hope this answers some of your questions....

 

[KAB]

Regarding commitment extension for equipment replacement, that' DirecTv of late, not Dish.

 

[DMarshal17]

DaDeuce, I'm no expert, but I think I can answer a few:

Hey Guys, I'm purchasing my first home this week and I am planning on going with satellite TV. I've got some questions that I can't seem to find straight answers to when I am trying to compare Direct & Dish.

-For the recievers, do I have to hook them to phone lines? Can I hook them to ethernet instead? Do Need to hook up all to phonet/net or will just 1 suffice? I should be able to have all of them hooked to ethernet, but phone might be a problem..... Will I still get the Discount for hooking them up through ethernet?

Ethernet is fine and you will get the discount. In fact you can take advantage of DishOnline (VOD).

-Apparently you can turn the Dish HD boxes into DVR just by pluggin a HD into them? I assume they would only be single tuner? Is there a fee to do this?

If you get 2 722s (which you probably will), they will be DVRs already. You can add additional Hard Drive(s) to increase capacity for a 1 time charge of 39.95.

-Can I record both HD Locals & OTA at the same time on Dish? My parents have DIsh and when they got their HD locals turned on through the Satellite, it appeared to overwrite the HD OTA stations, so I guess what I'm really asking is could I potentially record 3 (2 through satellite, 1 OTA) local stations at once?

With the 722s you can record 2 off the sats and 1 OTA at the same time, yes. If you get the 722k, and the additional OTA tuner, you can record 2 off the sat and 2 OTA simultaneously.

-Do I need multiple cable outlets to get dual Tuners? My house only has one coax cable ran to each potential TV location.

The feed from the sats and the OTA would come into the room with your receivers, then a line would run from your receiver to the "other room" So possibly, yes.

-How easy is it to move equipment around? I have 4 locations that I would want Hooked up

Pretty easy, but the sat cable has to run into the room with the receiver, so that line would need to be moved when the receiver moves.

- HD in both the living room and Master bed room, and SDin the office and my future theater room. How hard is it going to be to take the HD box from my master and switch it with the one in the theater room when I get the theater complete? Is it simply plug and play?

The line from the sat will have to be moved as well as the tuner, but mostly, yeah, its plug and play.

-How reliable are Dish's recievers? I keep hearing horror stories about recievers going out commitments extended whenever they swap one out.

I've been with DISH Network for 2 years and I have 2 receivers...I've replaced (not upgraded) them both with no additional commitment. Swapout was pretty painless.