Jerry,
Dependent upon the local city you want, the statement you got from Dish was true. Unfortunatelly each satellite has a limited capacity of channels that can be broadcast. Dish and Direct normally put the national services on the satellites that can be reached by a single dish. Dependent upon compression and space available, some local cities are also put on these same satellites.
My guess is that Dish puts the smallest local markets on the satellites that require the second dish. I know here in STL, the locals do not require a second dish.
One of the justifications of the merger stated by both companies is the fact that with more satellites available, duplication of signals would be eliminated from the main satellite positions thus freeing up more space for local channels. From what I am hearing the Dish/Direct merger will allow broadcast for up to 250+ local TV markets.
Hope that explains things a little better. Looks like you got a good deal.
Jack
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Jack Canavera
STL Mo. AIR #56
'04 Classic 30' S.O.,'03 GMC Savana 2500,'08 Vespa GTS 250
Last year we traveled from Tx to Pa and had Directv every night we camped, even at Racoon State Park outside of Pittsburgh. The ranger even came to check it out, since he never had seen anyone in the park with a dish.
No complains here.
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Once you figure out how to do it,
the instructions actually make sense.
_____________________________________
WBCCI Member at Large
Home address is used for billing purposes, and to determine if you are eligible for local station feed. I brought an Ohio based DirecTV dish to Florida, thinking I could get the Cleveland locals, but it did not work down here. Now I have it based here out of Florida and still have no locals, other than the ones I get off air with a VHF/UHF TV antenna. DirecTV also has multifeed dishes just like Dish 500.
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CP 9 miles off Exit 399, I75.
2003 GMC 2500HD 4X4 D/A Ext. Cab
Propane Powered Honda EU2000i
Lots of Hot Sauce! Air # 283
I currently use direct both at home and in our RV. Will probably switch to dish though because they give free receivers and hookup. I only have one receiver with direct and want to eliminate my cable connection and upgrade to three receivers at home. Then will carry the single standard receiver along with an antena/tripod with the Airstream. I think that Direct TV is probably easier to set up than Dish..
One BIG advange of Dish over Direct is that with Dish you can receive Network broadcasts when out of your home area-at no additional charge.. You cannot do this with Direct TV. You used to be able to for six bucks a month, but no longer! Now all the $6.00 gets you with Direct is local channels within your home area.
I'm with a previous poster in that I don't think the feds will approve a Direct/Dish merger. They have a @#%$-*& for cable and satelite companies anyway, so no way are they going to allow a monopoly.
We made the change from Dish to Direct. Main reason was that Direct has DVR's (digital video recorders) with Tivo service built in.
Although Dish has DVR's in just a glorified vcr. With Direct Tivo, you get the season passes, wishlists, suggestion recordings, etc....
I never watch an on time broadcast now. I can zip past commercials with the 30 sec skip button!
As a plus, and to keep this trailer orientated, you can unplug your reciever and play your recorded shows in your trailer with out even hooking up a dish. But we never do that as we just burn shows we like to dvd and take those with us.
I had Direct while in Texas last winter. Never did get the local channels. They just kept giving me a run around. Wanted me to prove I was mobile. Wanted a copy of my truck and trailer titles faxed to the supplier/seller which happened to be a local phone company that provides the service. Neither Direct or the phone company were the least bit interested.
Although Dish has DVR's in just a glorified vcr. With Direct Tivo, you get the season passes, wishlists, suggestion recordings, etc....
FWIW dept. The Dish 522 receivers out in the field were just upgraded over the last 3 weeks with some Tivo like features, much like the season pass quoted above. The 50x, and 510 receivers will be getting the same upgrade in the next few weeks, according to the latest "Charlie Chat" which aired last night.
Supposedly the new 622 receiver will be out this spring. Apparently they will be downloading 30+ movies onto the disk drives at first, with more coming later. It will be something similar to the Video on Demand feature that some cable services are offering.
Jack
__________________
Jack Canavera
STL Mo. AIR #56
'04 Classic 30' S.O.,'03 GMC Savana 2500,'08 Vespa GTS 250
We made the change from Dish to Direct. Main reason was that Direct has DVR's (digital video recorders) with Tivo service built in.
Although Dish has DVR's in just a glorified vcr. With Direct Tivo, you get the season passes, wishlists, suggestion recordings, etc....
I never watch an on time broadcast now. I can zip past commercials with the 30 sec skip button!
As a plus, and to keep this trailer orientated, you can unplug your reciever and play your recorded shows in your trailer with out even hooking up a dish. But we never do that as we just burn shows we like to dvd and take those with us.
I would be interested in knowing what DVR you had with Dish. We have Dish and don't watch an on time broadcast either, even when we aren't recording the event.
Our Dish DVR banks time on the channel the receiver is currently on - always. We can pause live-tv when the phone rings, even when not "recording" a show. We can rewind live-tv to watch something again. We can also skip a commerical with the touch of a single button.
The only advantage I see that you have over the Dish DVR we have is the ability to burn shows to DVD, and that might just be because I haven't figured that out yet.
__________________ Mark
72 Sovereign: L couch, mid-twin, rear-bath
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"
"It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much."
"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else." - Yogi Berra
Our Dish DVR also allows us to record "all new" or "all" or "once" versions of a show. With these settings it will record as instructed, only this season's episodes of ER (for example). If we set it to record "all" episodes of American Chopper, it will record every episode on that channel until we tell it to stop.
It also has search features in which I can type in Airstream and search for shows with Airstream in the title or in the information on the show on all channels. I can then select the shows that I want to record from the results.
__________________ Mark
72 Sovereign: L couch, mid-twin, rear-bath
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"
"It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much."
"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else." - Yogi Berra
I would be interested in knowing what DVR you had with Dish. .
I never had a PVR when I had the Dish service. My inlaws had it with Dish and showed us theirs. It was nice and we wanted one.
When we contacted Dish to upgrade to the newer PVR they would not let us upgrade two receivers, only one. So we switched to Direct.
My understanding of the Dish vs Direct service is that with Direct you have an actual Tivo service with all their features: season passes, wishlists, auto-recording suggestions based on the thumbs up/down you rate shows as you watch them.
Of course you pause/rewind live TV and all of that stuff as well.
The DVR we have (522) is actually two receivers in one box. It runs our upstairs and downstairs TVs separately. All functionality is available on both TVs. Two receivers are not needed. Any chance there was a misunderstanding?
__________________ Mark
72 Sovereign: L couch, mid-twin, rear-bath
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it"
"It was impossible to get a conversation going; everybody was talking too much."
"If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else." - Yogi Berra
The only advantage I see that you have over the Dish DVR we have is the ability to burn shows to DVD, and that might just be because I haven't figured that out yet.
Not a problem. Dependent upon the model Dish receiver you are using, just connect the AV out from the satellite receiver to the DVD unit. One of my receivers is a 508 which has two outputs available. One went to the TV the other to the DVD unit. I just burned a DVD with all the Airstream programming that has been on the Travel and History channels.
On my 522 receiver I have two outputs on the TV2 side. One is coax which goes to my bedroom TV, the other output is component which runs to my DVD unit.
What's good about the Dish solution is that the video stored on this disk is stored in the original compressed format that comes across from Dish. Unless the Tivo unit operates differently, Tivo units normally have to compress the video prior to it being written to disk. I would be curious if the Direct TV Tivo units have to first uncompress the video received from Direct, then recompress in the Tivo format prior to writing the video to the disk.
If so, it would seem that the quality of the Dish program burned to a DVD would be better since it would only be recompressed once (to burn it on the DVD), where as the Tivo version requiring two compressions (once to write to disk, and second to write to DVD).
Jack
__________________
Jack Canavera
STL Mo. AIR #56
'04 Classic 30' S.O.,'03 GMC Savana 2500,'08 Vespa GTS 250
I would be curious if the Direct TV Tivo units have to first uncompress the video received from Direct, then recompress in the Tivo format prior to writing the video to the disk.
If so, it would seem that the quality of the Dish program burned to a DVD would be better since it would only be recompressed once (to burn it on the DVD), where as the Tivo version requiring two compressions (once to write to disk, and second to write to DVD).
Jack
Jack, you are correct that stand alone tivo units must covert the signals to store on the hard drive, lowering the quality.
However, the Direct Tivo units work the same as your Dish PVR, in that they record the digital stream from the sattilite to the harddrive w/o further conversion.
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