Well it seems like making one small gear change in my house has triggered an unexpected (and unwanted) massive Cascading Technology Upgrade Chain Reaction* (see below). Sigh.
The last time I paid any attention to the various hardware pieces in my home TV setup was 2 or 3 years ago when we first got Dish. At the time, my initial reaction to the various hardware models and nomenclature was that somebody at Dish seemed to be trying real hard to obfuscate and confuse end users, with 722s, 711s, 622s, and other cryptically named boxes that gave no hint as to their actual function and capabilities. Thankfully, nice folks here explained what boxes I should get in order to simply watch TV (and which I should avoid in case they tried to foist a lemon on me), in our pretty simple 3-TV home. I suspect I'm pretty typical as TV consumers go - all I want is to be able to watch the damn TV, record shows and watch them later.
Now, a couple years later, it seems that all the hardware has been cutely named for creatures that bounce, jump or throw things, I suspect with the goal of keeping end users confused, powerless and vulnerable to price gouging. I don't know if I need a handful of wombats, a couple of bunnies, or squadron of catapults, and knowing well how large corporations work, I am hesitant to just call Dish and say "fix me up and send the bills."
I've been happy with our existing setup and have zero interest in messing with it. But it seems that the act of replacing an external DVD player (see below) has triggered a chain of events that I see leading to upgrading most of what's currently installed (and has been working just fine), wrapping my house in HDMI cable, drilling holes through the exterior walls, and who-knows-where-it-will-end. And now, I'm apparently required to learn about marsupials.
Isn't there some kind of basic hardware guide here that lists the various boxes that Dish provides and gives a simple explanation of what each unit does and what it's capabilities are? I've looked, but found nothing like that. Really? I'm thinking it would be a lot more efficient than answering questions like "what the heck is a [obscure marsupial reference] used for and why do I need/want one?"
In my case, I'm trying to figure out what "upgrades" I need to my existing system to make it work (just like the present system has been working...) with a replacement TV, but it sounds like I may need to replace multiple things, and before I decide if I want to go there, I need to get some idea of what the heck the various boxes do.
Thanks for pointing me to some furry critter guide or other resource.
Cascading Technology Upgrade Chain Reaction - The old DVR player in our master bedroom died. I went out and bought a new Bluray player. The Blueray play has a single HDMI output. Old analog TV in master bedroom only had coax and component inputs. TV was old so what the heck, lets replace it with a modern flatscreen, which of course has HDMI inputs. After connecting the Blueray via HDMI, I connected the TV to the coax cable we had been using to pull the signal from the Dish VIP722 downstairs in the living room. Picture quality is good when viewing anything from Bluray player, but awful for anything from the 722, coming in via coax. It appears that the output from the 722 (as TV#2) will not feed HD up to the new TV (and the coax won't supply HD anyway), so a house-wide system upgrade is now required...oy.
The last time I paid any attention to the various hardware pieces in my home TV setup was 2 or 3 years ago when we first got Dish. At the time, my initial reaction to the various hardware models and nomenclature was that somebody at Dish seemed to be trying real hard to obfuscate and confuse end users, with 722s, 711s, 622s, and other cryptically named boxes that gave no hint as to their actual function and capabilities. Thankfully, nice folks here explained what boxes I should get in order to simply watch TV (and which I should avoid in case they tried to foist a lemon on me), in our pretty simple 3-TV home. I suspect I'm pretty typical as TV consumers go - all I want is to be able to watch the damn TV, record shows and watch them later.
Now, a couple years later, it seems that all the hardware has been cutely named for creatures that bounce, jump or throw things, I suspect with the goal of keeping end users confused, powerless and vulnerable to price gouging. I don't know if I need a handful of wombats, a couple of bunnies, or squadron of catapults, and knowing well how large corporations work, I am hesitant to just call Dish and say "fix me up and send the bills."
I've been happy with our existing setup and have zero interest in messing with it. But it seems that the act of replacing an external DVD player (see below) has triggered a chain of events that I see leading to upgrading most of what's currently installed (and has been working just fine), wrapping my house in HDMI cable, drilling holes through the exterior walls, and who-knows-where-it-will-end. And now, I'm apparently required to learn about marsupials.
Isn't there some kind of basic hardware guide here that lists the various boxes that Dish provides and gives a simple explanation of what each unit does and what it's capabilities are? I've looked, but found nothing like that. Really? I'm thinking it would be a lot more efficient than answering questions like "what the heck is a [obscure marsupial reference] used for and why do I need/want one?"
In my case, I'm trying to figure out what "upgrades" I need to my existing system to make it work (just like the present system has been working...) with a replacement TV, but it sounds like I may need to replace multiple things, and before I decide if I want to go there, I need to get some idea of what the heck the various boxes do.
Thanks for pointing me to some furry critter guide or other resource.
Cascading Technology Upgrade Chain Reaction - The old DVR player in our master bedroom died. I went out and bought a new Bluray player. The Blueray play has a single HDMI output. Old analog TV in master bedroom only had coax and component inputs. TV was old so what the heck, lets replace it with a modern flatscreen, which of course has HDMI inputs. After connecting the Blueray via HDMI, I connected the TV to the coax cable we had been using to pull the signal from the Dish VIP722 downstairs in the living room. Picture quality is good when viewing anything from Bluray player, but awful for anything from the 722, coming in via coax. It appears that the output from the 722 (as TV#2) will not feed HD up to the new TV (and the coax won't supply HD anyway), so a house-wide system upgrade is now required...oy.
