Which Receiver and Which Dish

[trouper]

I'm thinking about dumping my $46 a month basic cable and get Direct TV. I already have a stand-alone Tivo and I don't have a HDTV as of yet. There appears to be several manufacturers of the receivers and also several models by each manufacture. Which one is better? Also, is there any reason to upgrade to the oval dish initially?

 

[Crazy 1]

Hello Trouper, I like the RCA brand. I do not have the Tivo but every one says they are the best. The oval ( Phase III dish) is a must have if you ever plan on going HDTV. Kinda future proofing your self, also if you want Nasa and the other PI ch. and maybe your locals depending on where your located.

 

[boba]

Trouper by this summer there won't be separate brands all will be branded Directv that is one of the changes coming out of News Corp. purchase of Directv. Right now if you purchase a system RCA, Hughes, Samsung are the main manufacturers all are good you may want to look at the displays of each brand to see which you prefer. The phase 3 dish is free in areas where Directv will introduce locals that will require it. If you are not in an area where locals require the 119 satellite you will have to pay for it, expect a $50-70 price. Currently the phase 3 dish will get you access to a few Public Interest channels beyond what you subscribe to. What you purchase will be and should be your decision based on what you like and what you are willing to pay.

 

[martin1]

I have a SAtivo that I use with E*. I am fixing to change over to D*
when my commitment to E* is over next month. If you will note
your SAtivo has a serial control bus out that you can use to control the
satillite receiver. Not all D* receivers has this serial bus in. I have been
told that all of the RCA model do but don't personally know. Course
you can alway the the IR blaster but I just thing the serial control
would be more reliable.

 

[trouper]

Keep in mind that my stand alone Tivo will be the interface for D*. I notice that the manufacturers seem to have 2 models of receivers. One with and one without Dolby Digital. Does D* really broadcast in Dolby digital? Are the upgraded receivers worth the extra cash? It seems the better dish is worth it on the intial install since it's only $20 extra.

 

[rad]

Keep in mind that my stand alone Tivo will be the interface for D*. I notice that the manufacturers seem to have 2 models of receivers. One with and one without Dolby Digital. Does D* really broadcast in Dolby digital? Are the upgraded receivers worth the extra cash? It seems the better dish is worth it on the intial install since it's only $20 extra.

Yes, D* does have a number of DD5.1 channels, I don't remember them exactly but I think it's the main HBO Showtime and Starz and a few PPV's.

One thing to consider with using your standalone Tivo with a D* STB, surfing will be VERY slow (I think). I tried doing this with a standalone ReplayTV box and it took forever to change a channel. The RPTV box had to send each digit of the channel you want to go to via the IR blaster, then the RPTV box had to buffer the data before showing it, so each channel change took like 3 to 4 seconds. Even just doing the jump up or down on channel took this long since it still send the exact channel number.

If you went with the D* Tivo box you eliminate that issue plus you'd be able to record the DD5.1 audio stream, something that I don't think you can do with your SA Tivo. You'd also get the dual tuners which is also a really nice feature. Just my two cents.

 

[skaeight]

Yes, D* does have a number of DD5.1 channels, I don't remember them exactly but I think it's the main HBO Showtime and Starz and a few PPV's.

One thing to consider with using your standalone Tivo with a D* STB, surfing will be VERY slow (I think). I tried doing this with a standalone ReplayTV box and it took forever to change a channel. The RPTV box had to send each digit of the channel you want to go to via the IR blaster, then the RPTV box had to buffer the data before showing it, so each channel change took like 3 to 4 seconds. Even just doing the jump up or down on channel took this long since it still send the exact channel number.

If you went with the D* Tivo box you eliminate that issue plus you'd be able to record the DD5.1 audio stream, something that I don't think you can do with your SA Tivo. You'd also get the dual tuners which is also a really nice feature. Just my two cents.

Actually I'm pretty sure it won't be nearly as slow as your experience was with d* and Replay. First off, I used to have a replay, and it was painfully slow to buffer. I had plain analog cable hooked up to it, and I would never ever channel surf with it because it took forever to put a picture on the screen. ReplayTV's interface was just slow in general though. Now that i have a tivo I realize how much of a pain in the a** my replay was.

Whereas tivo is FAST. I can channel surf with tivo without any trouble. My SA tivo seems to buffer very quickly. Also the interface is very fast and responsive.

Another huge point is you were using IR instead of serial. This is going to make surfing a lot slower.

As long as you get a receiver that has a serial port, surfing with Tivo shouldn't be too bad. But as most Tivo users know, after you have tivo for a while you don't do a whole lot of surfing, because there's always something to watch in Now Playing.

 

[boba]

Another problem with the Stand Alone TiVo is you cannot record the Digital Data stream form Directv. The signal has to be converted to analog by the receiver then the SA has to receive that signal then convert it back to Digital Data for recording so you will definitely lose any Dolby Digital information. Picture quality will also suffer slightly from the conversion. A Directv TiVo can receive the program guide information directly from the satellite a SA has to still use a modem connection.

 

[trouper]

Hmm. Makes me want to rethink the Direct TV altogether as I always watch Tivo and pretty much never live tv except for maybe CNN. I don't want to dump my Tivo as I have lifetime subscription and 120 hour recording capacity with extra drives. Although I doubt the signal could be any worse than analog cable which is worse than OTA.

Another problem with the Stand Alone TiVo is you cannot record the Digital Data stream form Directv. The signal has to be converted to analog by the receiver then the SA has to receive that signal then convert it back to Digital Data for recording so you will definitely lose any Dolby Digital information. Picture quality will also suffer slightly from the conversion. A Directv TiVo can receive the program guide information directly from the satellite a SA has to still use a modem connection.