Unless you must have the Sunday Ticket, and are willing to pay the $200 or so for it, I tend toward Dish. I suspect the channel lineup is not going to vary for long between the two, but D* will have more locals.
There is a place to plug in your OTA antenna in the back. You then tell the ViP722 to scan for locals. They will then appear in your guide. I recommend not paying for locals from Dish. Your OTA signal may be better, and you'll get more channels/subchannels. I think usually your OTA PQ will be better than via Dish. The downside is you won't get the EPG data, you'll need to set start/stop times and channel #, just like back in the VCR days. I use my ViP722 to record HD OTA in this manner. I see the OTA channels in my EPG, I just don't see program descriptions. It just says something like "digital service" or some such.
The receivers will not downconvert unless you tell them to.
You'll likely need an additional dish pointed at 61.5 for the HD. Definitely go with 61.5 over 129.
You might talk them into $75 and the 2 yr deal. I did.
There is a place to plug in your OTA antenna in the back. You then tell the ViP722 to scan for locals. They will then appear in your guide. I recommend not paying for locals from Dish. Your OTA signal may be better, and you'll get more channels/subchannels. I think usually your OTA PQ will be better than via Dish. The downside is you won't get the EPG data, you'll need to set start/stop times and channel #, just like back in the VCR days. I use my ViP722 to record HD OTA in this manner. I see the OTA channels in my EPG, I just don't see program descriptions. It just says something like "digital service" or some such.
The receivers will not downconvert unless you tell them to.
You'll likely need an additional dish pointed at 61.5 for the HD. Definitely go with 61.5 over 129.
You might talk them into $75 and the 2 yr deal. I did.