Got Installed! Overwhelmed! Need Help!

[priester68]

I got installed today. Woo Hoo. I'm lovin it I think.

1) How can you tell if the shows listed on the guide are in HD? The channel abbreviation says the channel is in HD but not all shows are, so how do you tell? Should thee be a little HD logo next to the program listing, if so, it's not there on my guide. Hope I'm not missing out on any true HD. Are my settings set wrong maybe?

2) What's the easiest way to set up a show to record all New episodes?

3) Does Jackson, MS have it's locals in HD? Tried watching Florida/LSU last night and don't think it was in HD.

4) I notice the guide lists most channels twice. What part of the guide do I stop scrolling to before I get into repeat channel listings?



Thanks for any feedback.

 

[bgothard72]

1. If it's broadcast in HD, you will not need to use the format button to stretch it out. It will be in full screen HD in normal mode. No HD logo to tell.

2. When in the guide, highlight the show, press record botton, choose only new shows, and then create timer.

Not sure about 3 & 4.

Hope this helps some.

 

[GNASH]

I got installed today. Woo Hoo. I'm lovin it I think.

1) How can you tell if the shows listed on the guide are in HD? The channel abbreviation says the channel is in HD but not all shows are, so how do you tell? Should thee be a little HD logo next to the program listing, if so, it's not there on my guide. Hope I'm not missing out on any true HD. Are my settings set wrong maybe?

2) What's the easiest way to set up a show to record all New episodes?

3) Does Jackson, MS have it's locals in HD? Tried watching Florida/LSU last night and don't think it was in HD.

4) I notice the guide lists most channels twice. What part of the guide do I stop scrolling to before I get into repeat channel listings?



Thanks for any feedback.

1) As said above, HD is dependent on what the program was originally in, but the HD channel tends to have better Picture Quality than the SD Channel, so you should notice a better picture on the HD channel even if the program is in HD.

4) From my experience, channels below the 400's (my Regional Sports Network is 430) are the nationals and everything above that is repeats of others that are in the lower numbers. I usually stop at my RSN when I am scrolling through channels.

Geoff

 

[magnum2066]

I got installed today. Woo Hoo. I'm lovin it I think.

1) How can you tell if the shows listed on the guide are in HD? The channel abbreviation says the channel is in HD but not all shows are, so how do you tell? Should thee be a little HD logo next to the program listing, if so, it's not there on my guide. Hope I'm not missing out on any true HD. Are my settings set wrong maybe?

2) What's the easiest way to set up a show to record all New episodes?

3) Does Jackson, MS have it's locals in HD? Tried watching Florida/LSU last night and don't think it was in HD.

4) I notice the guide lists most channels twice. What part of the guide do I stop scrolling to before I get into repeat channel listings?



Thanks for any feedback.

Sometimes they connect it wrong, what cables did they use? Color/type?

 

[priester68]

It's connected via HDMI cable. Made sure I did it myself so they didn't shortcut it.

 

[DirectDishNet]

I got installed today. Woo Hoo. I'm lovin it I think.

1) How can you tell if the shows listed on the guide are in HD?

There will be a HD symbol next to the channel number.

2) What's the easiest way to set up a show to record all New episodes?

Go to your episode on the guide, highlight your episode then press the red record button. You will be asked to select a choice of "record once, all, all episodes"

3) Does Jackson, MS have it's locals in HD? Tried watching Florida/LSU last night and don't think it was in HD.

Not sure about that, If not you could have a nice digital off air antenna installed directly into your cable input on your tv then scan (auto search) all digital. You then will have your locals in HD if your local stations are broadcasting in HD.

4) I notice the guide lists most channels twice. What part of the guide do I stop scrolling to before I get into repeat channel listings?

Your guide list the channels twice showing one channel in SD and the other in HD

 

[joecap1946]

I got installed today. Woo Hoo. I'm lovin it I think.



3) Does Jackson, MS have it's locals in HD? Tried watching Florida/LSU last night and don't think it was in HD.


Looks like Jackson MS does have HD locals. They are on 61.5 as per the list. You should have gotten the Florida- LSU game on your CBS. All primetime CBS games are broadcast in HD.

Good Luck.

 

[priester68]

I watched the game but somehow I don't think it was in HD. Just didn't look right or maybe I"m not used to Dish Network yet.

 

[ercjncpr]

I got installed today. Woo Hoo. I'm lovin it I think.

1) How can you tell if the shows listed on the guide are in HD? The channel abbreviation says the channel is in HD but not all shows are, so how do you tell? Should thee be a little HD logo next to the program listing, if so, it's not there on my guide. Hope I'm not missing out on any true HD. Are my settings set wrong maybe?

2) What's the easiest way to set up a show to record all New episodes?

3) Does Jackson, MS have it's locals in HD? Tried watching Florida/LSU last night and don't think it was in HD.

4) I notice the guide lists most channels twice. What part of the guide do I stop scrolling to before I get into repeat channel listings?



Thanks for any feedback.

You will see a lot of references on this forum to real HD vs. phony HD. A lot of channels show a stretched out version of an SD program to fit a 16:9 video screen and they call it HD. Others fiddle with it in other ways to upscale it to 1080i/p resolution. You should be able to just tell however because, unless your TV set is crap, you will see a 100 times better picture when you are watching an HD program.

 

[patmurphey]

1) ...How can you tell if the shows listed on the guide are in HD? The channel abbreviation says the channel is in HD but not all shows are, so how do you tell? Should thee be a little HD logo next to the program listing, if so, it's not there on my guide. Hope I'm not missing out on any true HD. Are my settings set wrong maybe?...

While in the guide (on an HD channel), highlight the show and press info, the shows that are broadcast in HD will have an [HD] in the info text.

 

[SlyFerret]

The HD channels in the high channel numbers (in the thousands range) are mapped down to the same channel number as their SD counterpart, so you'll see many channel numbers twice, right next to each other. One will have the HD logo, one will not. Some will only be listed once, with no HD version because not all channels have HD feeds available yet.

My receiver's program guide (and I assume other models do as well) have a few different modes...

All Channels - Shows all channels on the system, even if you don't have access to them

All Sub - Shows all channels that are active on your subscription

All HD - All HD channels that you have access to (will leave out SD only channels)

And Favorite channel lists.

Something I found very helpful was to create a favorite channel list to weed out all the duplicate channels. It only took a few minutes to setup, but it makes browsing the guide a LOT easier. My list includes only the HD versions of channels that are offered in both HD and SD, as well as a handful of SD only channels. I also weeded out all of the upper range HD duplicates and only use the low range (in the hundreds) versions of them.

There are many HD channels that show reruns of old shows that were never produced in HD, or aren't quite yet producing a lot of content in HD. When an HD channel shows SD content, they have two options... 1) Pillarbox the video so that it maintains the proper aspect ratio on your HDTV by adding the black bars on the sides, or, 2) stretch and distort the picture so that it fills the entire screen.

Different people have different preferences on this, but personally, I prefer to watch the pillarboxed version so that I'm watching the show the way it originally aired. Watching stretch-o-vision distorted picture drives me nuts. The screen doesn't always have to be filled with picture if the picture wasn't originally wide screen.

-SF

 

[jrp]

3) Does Jackson, MS have it's locals in HD? Tried watching Florida/LSU last night and don't think it was in HD.

The Iowa victory over Michigan last night was not in HD on the Dish version of WOI ABC (5) out of the Des Moines market. 5 is the only local I don't pull in on my antenna, so I couldn't check that one out, but it is possible Jackson didn't put out an HD signal.

 

[tigerfan33]

Check your HDTV settings in the menu. Make sure it is set to 1080i or 720p.

 

[crimpshrine]

Check your HDTV settings in the menu. Make sure it is set to 1080i or 720p.

Yeah I remember when I first got my receiver, it was defaulted for 480p resolution. Do they still do this? I bet tons of people don't know where to go to change it to 720p or 1080i and think that is what HD looks like??

 

[priester68]

Can you walk me through how to check to make sure it's set right?

 

[odbrv]

Can you walk me through how to check to make sure it's set right?

menu 6 8 set tv type to 1080 and aspect to 16x9 and if you use an outside antenna for local hd set analog type to offair

 

[priester68]

After a quick chat with tech support, it seems that I apparently had no LOS for 67.1? that carries the local HD channels. Apparently that's why I didn't get the dish i was supposed to get and no local HD. I guess the installer didn't bother to tell me about all that. I would have had the dish moved to another spot in the yard that has an open view of the sky. So I put in a request for a 2nd opinion. The new installer will be back in the morning and tech support said moving the dish was no problem. I hate do extra work and that I missed some football in HD. Other than that, I'm Lovin Dish Network.

 

[priester68]

I mean I hate that the installer has to do extra work. I'm not a difficult customer by any means. Just want my HD is all.

 

[whatchel1]

The sat is 61.5 and I hope you have LOS to it. An advantage to getting the locals from dish is they are MPEG4. Uses less space on the HDD, your stations that broadcast OTA are in MPEG2. I use both to be able to get some nights when I have 4 shows recording at once. Also OTA locals don't display the HD logo in the guide.

Acronyms: (In case you didn't know). LOS - line of site, HDD - hard drive, & OTA - over the air.

 

[priester68]

I'm sure they can get LOS. They might have to move the dish a ways away fom where it is now. Almost hate to ask them to do it.