Will I need to pull more cable to upgrade from SD to HD?

[TominKY]

Hi Folks,

I have a Dish 500 setup with a SD 522 dual tuner receiver with DVR. We are considering an upgrade to HD in the near future, and we want to stay with the dual tuner. I had a "lazy" installer the last time who did a poor job of installing the dish on my roof - I had a leak and rotted wood around the screw holes. When I had a new roof installed, I relocated the dish to the top of my chimney for a better LOS, and went through great pains to neatly route the two cables down the chase and under the deck to the basement where the receiver is located.

I wanted to become more educated before I bring out a Dish installer for the HD, hopefully to avoid some of the pitfalls I had before. I realize that my existing dual LNB dish will probably have to be replaced, and it is possible that a second dish will need to be added to pull in all the satellites. Our next door neighbor has Dish HD, and they have 2 dishes mounted on their chimney. I am OK with a second dish up there, although my preference would be to get the job done with one if possible. What I really want to avoid is running any more cable down from the dish. We have a finished basement, so it would be difficult at best to fish any more cables.

Is it possible to set this up with two cables? Will there be any need to upgrade the type of cable, or is standard co-ax sufficient? Thanks for any feedback you can provide!

 

[papalittle]

You will need a 1000.4 dish for HD or the installer may add a dish but you do not need to pull any more cables as long as the cables are RG6 and are in good condition.

 

[boba]

I don't see an address for you so I don't know how papalittle can say you need a 1000.4 dish. The 1000.2 Western Arc or the 1000.4 Eastern Arc with Dish Pro Plus technology will only need 1 cable to feed a dual tuner receiver, so you are OK.

 

[TheKrell]

Boba's right. Dish will almost certainly remove the D500 and replace it with a D1000.x antenna (with an integrated DPP43 switch). The DPP switches can feed as many dual-tuner receivers as they have outputs using a single cable for each. If you already have 2 cables, then you can feed 2 dual-tuner receivers with no further cable runs.

 

[papalittle]

BOBA,

I figured that he lives in KY since his user name is "TominKY"

 

[Lord_Vader]

BOBA,

I figured that he lives in KY since his user name is "TominKY"

Dude, I just spit coffee out on my keyboard.

 

[TominKY]

You guys guessed right - I am right outside of Louisville, KY. I should have noted that in my original post - sorry about that.

So it sounds like I am in good shape as far as a satellite dish installation is concerned. I want to keep the same setup inside the house that I currently have - a single dual tuner receiver in the basement that has DVR for both. As of now, my TV next to the receiver is SD, and I do not have any HD TV sets close enough to feed with an HDMI cable. I am feeding the TV's in the rest of the house with RG6 coax. Can I still expect to get decent HD and SD pictures with coax? We currently only have 2 HD TV's in the house, with plans to upgrade some of the others as time/money permits, including the set that is built into the entertainment center next to the satellite receiver.

Do I need to ask DISH for a specific model of dual tuner HD receiver?

Also, just thought of another question - is there any way to "archive" some of the recordings on my current 522 and move them over to the new HD receiver?

Thanks again for all the help!

 

[TheKrell]

Unfortunately, the EHD archive option only works between 612/622/722/722k/922 receivers. The only thing that would work to archive programs on a 522 over USB is the discontinued PocketDish. And if you had one and archived your programs there, then you couldn't move them back. (That is my understanding.) About the only thing you can do easily is to play back the programs and record them in real time with some sort of NTSC tuner card or DVD recorder. But once onto a PC or DVD, then you can't upload them again to your HD receiver.

There is also the Yahoo group "pvrexplorer" which sports a PC program by that name to copy programs directly. But that too puts them on your PC and doesn't put them back onto a newer Dish DVR.

 

[jeffy00]

Well I'll Swan!

 

[TominKY]

Update

After a couple of false starts due to snow on the roof, I finally got a DISH tech out here to swap out my dish and receiver to get the HD service. Unfortunately, I completely misunderstood how the HD signal is dispersed from the receivers. I was under the impression that the HD signal was available through BOTH the coax output as well as the HDMI output. I was told after he got out here that ONLY the HDMI output has the high def signal, and everything else is SD.

My big problem is that the only set that is close to the current location of my receiver is standard def. All of my HD capable sets are located upstairs or too far away to run an HDMI cable. I did not have immediate plans to upgrade the set next to the receiver because everything is built into the entertainment center in the basement. This is a huge disappointment for me, because there is no reason to go through the trouble and expense of upgrading everything if I do not have a set nearby to utilize it. They told me that I would have to have a separate HD receiver for each set that is to be HD. Can somebody please verify this for me?

 

[dvrexpander]

They told me that I would have to have a separate HD receiver for each set that is to be HD. Can somebody please verify this for me?

Yeah this is true.. each location you want HD will have to have its own box. The 2nd tuner or output's are all SD. Now, you can run HDMI over ethernet if you wanted to just get the proper adapter like this:
Amazon.com: Sabrent HDMI Extension cable over Cat5/6 RJ45 Extender adapter (Up to 200-Feet): Electronics

This would be the best and easiest way to do it if you wanted to keep things the way they are.

 

[TominKY]

Thanks for the quick reply. So with the extender that you mentioned, I would still have to pull CAT 5 cables to get to the other sets, right? I have actually seen adapters that allow the existing house AC wiring to be used for Ethernet transmissions. Would something like this be an option?

I guess I am just bummed that they do not have a way to output the HD signal via co-ax. Hell, you can certainly send the OTA HD signal via coax, so why not the signal coming out of the DISH tuner? I am sure I am not the only one with this situation. I was trying to avoid cluttering up my house with a bunch of additional receivers and the remotes that go with them.

 

[KAB]

After a couple of false starts due to snow on the roof, I finally got a DISH tech out here to swap out my dish and receiver to get the HD service. Unfortunately, I completely misunderstood how the HD signal is dispersed from the receivers. I was under the impression that the HD signal was available through BOTH the coax output as well as the HDMI output. I was told after he got out here that ONLY the HDMI output has the high def signal, and everything else is SD.

My big problem is that the only set that is close to the current location of my receiver is standard def. All of my HD capable sets are located upstairs or too far away to run an HDMI cable. I did not have immediate plans to upgrade the set next to the receiver because everything is built into the entertainment center in the basement. This is a huge disappointment for me, because there is no reason to go through the trouble and expense of upgrading everything if I do not have a set nearby to utilize it. They told me that I would have to have a separate HD receiver for each set that is to be HD. Can somebody please verify this for me?

First off, HD output has two sources, Component and HDMI. There is no picture quality difference between the two. However, both HDTVs would be viewing the same picture.
If I were you, I re-run coax from the dish to your upstairs and move your receiver there.

No, there is no power-line option for connecting video.

 

[TominKY]

Well, that really sucks. I guess I just cannot get it through my head why the receiver cannot be designed to send out an HD signal through the coax output in addition to the HDMI and Component outputs. Coax is certainly capable of carrying the HD signal, as evidenced by hooking up any UHF antenna and bringing in HD OTA channels via coax. Call me cynical, but unless there is some technological hurdle that I am not aware of, this sounds like a way to sell additional receivers. Picture quality on most HD capable sets looks crummy with the SD signal - worse actually than a SD set would look with the same signal. Am I expected to purchase a separate HD receiver for every HD set in my house? I have at least 5 sets running, and I can't believe there are not more people out there running multiple TV's with the same complaint.

 

[TominKY]

Here's the ticket...

This looks like a good solution, but I doubt if I'm going to want to hear the price without sitting down...

Share HD video sources over existing coax

ZvBox® 150 uses existing coaxial cabling so there’s no need to cut holes in walls or pull new cables, making it the perfect retrofit HD video distribution system. And future expansion is easy: when a new HDTV is connected to the coax, it will automatically have access to the Zv channel. Want to share more sources? Create an additional channel by adding another ZvBox 150!

ZvBox

 

[KAB]

You simply did not do your home work in advance.

 

[IBID]

Hi Folks,

I have a Dish 500 setup with a SD 522 dual tuner receiver with DVR. We are considering an upgrade to HD in the near future, and we want to stay with the dual tuner. I had a "lazy" installer the last time who did a poor job of installing the dish on my roof - I had a leak and rotted wood around the screw holes. When I had a new roof installed, I relocated the dish ...

That is not very encouraging to have a new Dish TV installed....

 

[KAB]

This looks like a good solution, but I doubt if I'm going to want to hear the price without sitting down...

Share HD video sources over existing coax

ZvBox® 150 uses existing coaxial cabling so there’s no need to cut holes in walls or pull new cables, making it the perfect retrofit HD video distribution system. And future expansion is easy: when a new HDTV is connected to the coax, it will automatically have access to the Zv channel. Want to share more sources? Create an additional channel by adding another ZvBox 150!

ZvBox

Oh Brother! You can buy about 9 211K receivers for the price of that turkey.

 

[Barry Erick]

Where are you going to get a coax HD input into the TV receiver? Don't fight it. Do it as designed and don mix up seeing something in 16:9 as absolute HD. It isn't. SD can be 16:9. HD does not have to be 16:9, but 99% of the time it is. ALso, you would have lip sync problems without HDMI and if using component, you could have worse if the cables were not matched exactly. There are long HDMI cables. But MOVE the dish receiver. You won't regret it. RG6 does not meet the rquirement for HD Digital Video and you would be going with much more expensive video cable if it were offered. If it were RF, you loose quality in the EXPENSIVE modulatore in the receiver. Thud to the forehead and move the dish receiver. Move it. Move it, Move it.

 

[dvrexpander]

Oh Brother! You can buy about 9 211K receivers for the price of that turkey.

Yeah I agree.. the best solution to leave things as is, would be to get what I suggested...pull the ethernet cable which is very cheap now and don't worry about it. Hardware does what hardware is designed to do and nothing more. Last time I checked a laptop couldn't get up and get me a beer yet... damn them!!