paying a fee of US5.00 for each receiver

Stargazer said:

I was thinking the same thing then I thought "hmm, Dish Network brought the dual tuners out for some reasons" so I figured DirecTv would bring the dual tuners with two tv outputs to their customers for those same reasons. It saves them on hardware costs, they can better compete against cable additional outlet fee charges, and people are less likely to be able to have the receivers elsewhere. I read on the message boards a while back where the $5 a month was for the encryption and had to be paid to the smart card manufacturer and that is why it can be waived if you have a dual tuner receiver. I even heard Charlie mention something about that on a Charlie Chat a while back.

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I don't see how a dual-tuner rcvr costs less than a single-tuner unit.

Also, trying to feed tv's in different rooms from a single tuner means using 75-ohm coax; you can't use dvi/hdmi, component, s-video, or even composite video. That adds-up to sacrificing PQ and clumsy room-to-room wiring (or RF distribution transmitters/rcvrs).

IMO, the PQ issue alone is worth $5/month. I'm just not interested in watching the mediocre picture provided by 75-ohm coax.

There is another reason why we may never see a dual-tuner rcvr: it facilitates a standalone pvr/dvr.

Instead of feeding your TV's PiP, you could feed one to the standalone pvr/dvr of your choice and bypass the D* offered unit and its subscription fees.

The coax connection isn't bad at all depending on use. I try to use S-video on my TVs and they look good, but there are cases where PQ isn't really any worse with coax. For example I have an old 46" projection TV. I mean quite old. It has never been used much, but I have it hooked up with S-video. I used the coax output to run back thru the house to the kitchen where we have a 13" TV sitting in the corner of the counter space. We share that receiver between the 2 rooms and on the small 13" TV there isn't other connections other than coax. In a bedroom we also have a 20" TV and the coax on that one is fine. On smaller screens (CRT anyway) the PQ isn't as big a factor so coax will suit most people just fine. Now on my newer, larger TVs I always use the best cable available because I like the sharpest pic possible.

you could always try using wireless video and remote senders if you dont mind watching the same thing on all TVs. I use one for my TV in my gym.