Hey all. I’m a long time lurker and am now going to make the move to Dish from cable. I can’t stand all the fees that Comcast gives me and the quality of all non-hd compressed video is horrible on my big tv. I have a couple questions in regard to my future Dish setup. I have already done a lot of reading on these forums and called Dish to ask additional questions.
What I really want is a simple dvr system to run to my main tv, which is a 47” hd monitor. My second tv is infrequently used and would be great to have dish, but not a requirement. I’m not interested in Dish hd service right now, as the selection is limited and I mostly watch dvds for movies anyway. What I’d ideally like to do is purchase a refurb 508 receiver (or possibly a 721) off ebay or a vendor here and have it activated/installed “free” under one of the referral deals (my friend is a long time Dish guy). However, I am told by Dish that the installation of this setup varies from $100-200 (instead of free) because its not a lease deal of a new system. I have no problem doing the hardware install myself, as my house is small and I’m far from technically challenged. However, most all the reasonably priced refurb setups I’ve seen do not include the actual dish/LNB hardware (receiver only). At this point I’m thinking that the $5 per month dvr/lease fee is probably worth it to not have to deal with any of the hassle, especially since in a year or so I might want to upgrade to a better receiver and/or HD dvr unit.
Does anyone have any recommendations to achieve the desired end result without much pain? Shall I bite the bullet and get the plain old 522/510 dvr receiver and live with it? Once I have a 522/510 receiver installed can I buy a refurb 508, swap the receiver, call up dish to activate it, and then deactivate and send the 522/510 receiver back to Dish and quit paying the dvr/lease fee? Thanks for any help and recommendations and sorry for so many questions at once! Regards,
Wayne
What I really want is a simple dvr system to run to my main tv, which is a 47” hd monitor. My second tv is infrequently used and would be great to have dish, but not a requirement. I’m not interested in Dish hd service right now, as the selection is limited and I mostly watch dvds for movies anyway. What I’d ideally like to do is purchase a refurb 508 receiver (or possibly a 721) off ebay or a vendor here and have it activated/installed “free” under one of the referral deals (my friend is a long time Dish guy). However, I am told by Dish that the installation of this setup varies from $100-200 (instead of free) because its not a lease deal of a new system. I have no problem doing the hardware install myself, as my house is small and I’m far from technically challenged. However, most all the reasonably priced refurb setups I’ve seen do not include the actual dish/LNB hardware (receiver only). At this point I’m thinking that the $5 per month dvr/lease fee is probably worth it to not have to deal with any of the hassle, especially since in a year or so I might want to upgrade to a better receiver and/or HD dvr unit.
Does anyone have any recommendations to achieve the desired end result without much pain? Shall I bite the bullet and get the plain old 522/510 dvr receiver and live with it? Once I have a 522/510 receiver installed can I buy a refurb 508, swap the receiver, call up dish to activate it, and then deactivate and send the 522/510 receiver back to Dish and quit paying the dvr/lease fee? Thanks for any help and recommendations and sorry for so many questions at once! Regards,
Wayne
