HR20 with feed from both 5LNB and 3LNB dish

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cal87

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Cutting Edge
Aug 3, 2005
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Tracy, CA
This may sound strange, but I am wondering if this will work.

I have had 2 H20s and the 5LNB dish for several months. I have kept my HR10-250 hooked up to my 3LNB dish with 2 lines, and OTA diplexed to one of the lines. I really want to avoid the third line going to the DVR. I was hoping it would be temporary until I upgraded to the HR20. However, the local FOX station is still missing from my HD LIL lineup, so I will still need OTA.

I should be receiving the HR20 soon, so I wonder if this will work. One line from the 5LNB and one line from the 3LNB with the OTA diplexed. It seems like only MPEG-4 channels might be a problem, if the unit is not smart enough to switch tuners if the signal is not available. Live viewing shouldn't be too much of a problem because I could always manually switch. I'm worried about scheduled recordings - if it would be messed up.

Do you think this will work? I would like to have a plan before the installer shows up. I'm hoping this is just a temporary solution. As soon as FOX HD is up, the 3LNB and OTA come down.
 
I read somewhere that diplexing onto the second line to the HR20 should work until the full MPEG-4 frequency bands are in use. But as soon as there is a satellite channel that sits inside the OTA frequency band the system won't work, and the HR20 will probably try to switch tuners if it thinks the second satellite cable is connected. So it might be a temporary solution, the only way to know for sure is to try it.
 
Slight correction. I was assuming you would use the output from the 5-lnb dish and diplex onto it. But if you use the 3-lnb dish output the same thing would apply. I think if the HR-20 would try to select the channel which is in the OTA band, of course would not get it. I don't think in theory it makes any difference whether you used the 3-lnb output or the 5-lnb output, the HR20 does not know the difference...
 
I installed it this way yesterday. It works, but the receiver is not very "smart". There does not seem to be a good way to switch between tuners. If I try to tune a MPEG-4 channel, if it happens to be on the wrong tuner, I get a searching for satellite message. It takes some trial and error to switch to the correct tuner. I think that I'll just wall fish and add the third line soon.
 
Yes, I suspected that would happen. The receiver knows there is a satellite cable connected so it will use it even though it can't find the correct channel hence the "searching for satellite" message.
 
I'm still struggling a little with what to do here. My problem again is local FOX not being available in HD. I guess I can work with this setup for a couple of weeks until OTA is activated. The only MPEG4 I have available is the locals, no RSN HD here. I won't HAVE to use MPEG4 for anything until the new national channels next year, hopefully the FOX HD will be available via dish by then.

You're probably thinking - why just not stick with the HR10 for a little while longer? We'll I've got a VP50 coming very soon that I'm dying to get hooked up via the native resolution mode. Plus, I've never been much of a fan of the Tivo unit.
 
Hopefully you will see a big improvement in your picture quality with the VP50!
Do you currently have long switching times if you run in native mode with your H20? Some TVs apparently take a long time to "negotiate" with STBs over HDMI. Maybe the VP50 to HR20 interface will not suffer from this problem.....
 
texasbrit said:
Hopefully you will see a big improvement in your picture quality with the VP50!
Do you currently have long switching times if you run in native mode with your H20? Some TVs apparently take a long time to "negotiate" with STBs over HDMI. Maybe the VP50 to HR20 interface will not suffer from this problem.....

I'm not expecting a big improvement, hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised.
It's taking about 2 seconds right now going through a Gefen DVI switcher to my TV. We'll see what happens with the VP50.
 
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