Chip718

Hi. I just moved into a new apartment and want to get DirecTV HD, but I am running into a problem.

There is a round dish with a single LBN on the roof and there is 1 cable coming down from the dish to my apartment. I was hoping to find out would I be able to use this single cable to receive DirecTV HD?

The reason I ask is because my landlord recently resided the house and sandwiched all the cables between the house and new siding and wont let me add any new cables at all. He doesn't mind if I change the dish or LBN, but drill through his new siding is out of the question.

I know the dish work because I tried a receiver and got channel 101. If anyone could help me out I would really appreciate it.

travlr

You just need to change the dish and lnb. You shouldn't have to touch any of the cabling. Atleast I didn't when I switch from regular Directv to HD directv.

Brian Shannon

To get Direct TV HD you need an elliptical dish with three LNB's. To get free over the air HD from your local stations you need an antenna and an HD receiver.

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/imagin....dsp#equipment

You will need to change cables because the three LNB dish has a 5x4 multiswitch and will run two leads down to the hd direct tv receiver.

Deftones

That's not true. Only if you have an HD-DVR do you need the 2 feeds so you can record 2 different signals. Only one cable is needed from the dish to the standard HD receiver. If there's antenna up there, then that line will be needed too.

Chip718

Thanks for the info Deftones. When you wrote "If there's antenna up there, then that line will be needed too" where talking about a seperate HD antenna?

Brian Shannon

You are correct, I apologize.

In my case I have an ota antenna as well as two dishes because I cannot get a good signal on all three sats with a single dish. This is why I have two cable runs coming from the multi-switch.

Spiky

Actually, you can get the antenna on the same line, too. You use diplexers at both ends. These are not basic splitters, but they look the same. Make sure you have the right product. You would also have to use 2 extra cables to splice in the diplexers at each end. Easy enough.

Chip718

Spiky, thanks for the info. I was just looking at something like that at Radio Shack.com. I would go for the HD antenna, but my TV is only HD-Ready and doesn't have the built-in HD Decoder. So I would have to get a external decoder anyway to get the OTA HD signal, right?

Also, with the antenna and diplexers is it possible to run a line to the TV and run a line to a Tivo to record to seperate show?

Thanks again

Deftones

No. Almost every HD receiver from DirecTV has a built in OTA tuner. So, you'd need one line from the new dish to the receiver (2 lines if it's an HDTivo so you can record 2 shows at once) and one line running into the antenna in for the OTA HD stuff.

If you have a good line of sight to the broadcast towers, you may not need a fancy OTA antenna. If you are not in line of sight, or there are obstructions (mountains or buildings over 4 stories tall) you may need a better antenna. Go to www.antennaweb.org and punch in your address. It will tell you where you are in relation to the HD towers that transmit the OTA locals in HD. You can see the type of antenna that would be best for your situation.

Spiky

Don't be fooled by the "HD antenna" marketing crap. There's no such thing. Most HD channels are in the UHF range, you simply need an appropriate antenna. If it says "Terk" on it, you paid too much. I want to smack my bro-in-law. He got the Terk version of the Silver Sensor ($25 online). The clearance/openbox tag says $39. Can't imagine what the price under it says.

Spiky

1st, on the cable....if the cable company is broadcasting locals in QAM, you should be able to receive them directly by hooking up your HD receiver to the line. No charge beyond what you already pay, and no cable box needed from what I understand. I haven't done this myself, so I can't give experiences. I hear that most cable companies use QAM for the locals, but you'd have to check with yours. And make sure your HD receiver can decode QAM, also, but I think that is pretty universal.

Next, people like the Silver Sensor ($25) by Zenith and others. Also the Channel Master 4149 ($15). Both of these are UHF only, so probably not good for any VHF channels. (keep in mind HD channels are almost always all UHF) I've only used something like the 4149, but it worked very well. The Winegard Square Shooter ($99) could also work, people rave about this one, as well. It isn't too big even though it is designed for outside.

On the marketing....many mfgrs have made new boxes for their same old UHF antennas and now call them HD antennas. The UHF is the important thing. Many people have had an unused antenna on their house for 2 decades, upgrade to OTA HD and are surprised to realize the old antenna is just fine. Just don't let a salesman tell you the $20 UHF antenna can't work and the $70 "HD" antenna will.

Chip718

Thanks again, Spiky. You will never know how much I appreciate your info.

I am not sure if the cable co. broadcasts there locals in QAM. I do know if I plug my cable line directly into a cable-ready TV I hardly get anything, and if I do they are on the wrong channels

Also, can you tell me how big the Channel Master 4149 is? My wife is complaining already about the rabbit ears I have temporarily connected to the receiver.

Thanks again. -Chris

Spiky

http://www.starkelectronic.com/allant.htm

It's about 1/3 down that page. It is UGLY. I mean, the picture looks kinda ugly. The reality is frighteningly ugly, at least the version I had was. I suppose you better check that out first with the wife. The Rat Shack version we had once was about 12-15" tall, maybe 10 inches wide. You would notice it sitting on the TV, but it wouldn't stick out like rabbit ears. It was copper colored, I'm not sure about CM's version.

BTW, rabbit ears are VHF antenna. That could explain why you didn't get any more HD channels than you did.

A cable-ready TV won't get the HD channels that are broadcast differently (QAM) anyway. It would have to have an HD tuner. I think they do this free transmission thing because of incomplete HD-reception deals with local channels. The whole HD rollout still isn't set in stone, and this may be only temporary, who knows. I think you need cable service to get any kind of signal at all, so if you don't the HD channels probably aren't there, either. But my understanding is you would just plug the cable from the wall into your HD receiver and scan for channels.

Chip718

Thanks again, Spiky.

I guess I will try Radio Shack again and look for a indoor UHF antenna and try it out.

I will also try hooking my cable box up to the receiver again to see if it works maybe I did something wrong. I know TNT, FX & HBO advertise "HD where available". Maybe I did something wrong.

Spiky

It wouldn't be TNT, HBO, etc. It would only be locals. Just as an option to antenna. And no cable box needed. From what I've read. Example

Deftones

With DirecTV, you can't get FX or TNT in HD. OTA locals should only be your local channels transmitting over the air. For HD channels on DirecTV, you get ESPN, ESPN2 (as of tomorrow), DiscoveryHD, UniversalHD, HDNet, HDNetMovies, and HBO/SHO if you subscribe to them.

Spiky

Actually, ESPN2HD is up today.

Deftones

Bizarre. Originally it was going to be the 8th, then they pushed it to the 9th. That was according to people at AVS.