Locals, distant nets and the WAF

[video62]

Glossary: WAF - Acronym, Wife Accptance Factor: An oft overlooked facet of any home electronics purchase; a husband must make careful consideration of the ramifications of any changes to the status quo. Ignore this at your peril. No, I'm not puzzy whipped, just realistic.

Now the story/details:

My Dishplayer is going to be going bye-bye (i.e. Ebay) as soon as the DVR 522 is available for purchase. I am also going to sell my 5000 reciever (Ebay). At the same time locals are going to become available for the city that is closest to me.

A few months ago I got a Dish 500 antenna for the first time (when Dish moved the Dishplayer guide source to the 110 bird) and with that I decided to upgrade from AT100 to AT150 and I've been pretty happy with that change.

I am still paying the $9.99/mo. PVR fee for the DP and I will be glad to ditch that. The PVR fee for the 522 with the AT150 is no problem as I will have a net gain... considering I will also be dropping the 2nd receiver, so I'll be +$10 to the better each month in fees.

I am a very old Dish customer and have had west-coast networks for a long, long time. I even have a model 2000 receiver (you know, the one that came over on the Mayflower) that just got shut off about 6 months ago.

Now my dilema: My wife yearns for a 'simpler' setup, one in which she doesn't have to do trick gyrations with the VCR and TV to be able to view locals. All is OK when she wants to watch satellite, but when she wants to watch locals (via the OTA antenna) she gets all wigged out with the sequence of buttons and remotes. She does, however, enjoy being able to 'time shift' to catch network shows she missed part of earlier. She also enjoys some of the news programs from the L.A. area.

My question is for any of you out there that have distant networks that you have been using for 'time shifting' ... are they worth keeping, or is the lure of locals via the sat bird so strong that you are willing to give up the distant networks? If I go with the satellite locals I will be getting 7 channels (WB, UPN, PBS, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS) but via OTA I currently only get 5 (no WB or UPN), so that would be a gain of 2 channels, plus they can then be recorded via the DVR- can't do that now with the OTA locals.

Any profound thoughts on these issues? The current setup with regard to networks is 'tolerable' to the wife, but she would really like to simplify things.

Arggggh! Choices! Arggggh!!

 

[Guest]

Go with the sat locals and drop the LA Nets. The nets in L.A. are so heavily compressed they aren't watchable. If you have a dual tuner dvr you should be good for watching the network shows you like and being able to record them also. This is one of the biggest perks to a dvr; being able to record and watch your favorite shows when you want to.

The dual tuners should eliminate the need for the west coast locals. If you have an antenna for ota locals, you could always watch these while the sat receiver dvr records two other channels at the same time. Using the vcr you could record the ota channels while watching something else. That's 4 possible channels you can watch at the same time ; recording 3 channels while watching one live using the vcr and dvr, or watching a recorded show as well.

As far as wife acceptance and dumbing down the technology for her, you could do this. Plug the sat receiver into the vcr using either rca jacks or s-video if the vcr is capable, on the line 1 channel and use the ota coax from the ota atenna into the coax input of the vcr. Then you can easily toggle through the vcr channels and it's all in one box. Sat and ota channel alike. I set my parents up like this since they are slow on uptake with technology.


My vcrs at home are set up like this also except the main vcr and the 721. On the big screen with the 721 I have the vcr with the stand alone Tivo with ota atenna coax hooked into it, plugged into the front of my 721 . This allows the aux channel 0 of the sat receiver to be used as the channel to see the vcr and the Tivo. This also allows all my ota channels to be upconverted to pcm sound and the video picture to be played through the s-video connections of the 721.


My wife sadly, still has trouble understanding on this tv all she has to do is hit the 0 on the sat guide to access the Tivo with the ota channels. She often just watches the small tv in the bedroom where the vcr is the main box with the sat receiver fed into it.


Some women are not tech savy , no matter what you do. :?

 

[jerryez]

I have basic cable ($11.00 per month) hooked to the TV for my wife. She is happy with the 26 channels available. She has finally learned how to watchd the TiVo with directions written on a piece of paper, but to switch to the sat reciever and switch between SD & HD is beyond her comprehension. I have all her favorite shows with season passes on the TiVo.