Thunderbirds Are Go!
Posted on | May 3, 2006 at 10:18 pm | 3 Comments
My satellite TV upgrade is at last complete, as I now have a working Dish ViP622 HD DVR receiver. Just sent the first one back – it would not output a signal on the modulated coax output to my other TVs on the distribution network, so I could only watch programs on the big main TV. The UHF remote also would not work – it had power and could connect, but it wouldn’t actually control anything (the other remote, which is IR only, did work). I know it wasn’t a problem with the remote itself, because it works with the replacement 622. At the same time, I also sent back the PVR 921 receiver (aka the boat anchor) the first 622 replaced, so I can get my $200 rebate. And it was all worth it, because now I can watch Thunderbirds (the 60’s TV show, not the dreadful 2004 movie) in glorious High Definition.
The main reason for the upgrade, aside from replacing the flaky 921 HD-DVR, was so that I could get the Denver local channels in HD over satellite, since it looks like the Lookout Mountain supertower for OTA HD will probably never get built. Ironically, the OTA tuner on the 622 is much better than the one on the 921, so I can now also get the Denver local HD channels over-the-air really well, with only some slight rotating of the antenna for the different stations. Reception was always spotty and unreliable before. In order to get those local HD satellite channels, they had to replace my Dish 500 antenna with a Dish 1000 one, which is slightly bigger and picks up an additional satellite. I’m not sure if it can pick up Thunderbird 5 though.
Digression: Strangely, I got an automated polling call from the Lake Cedar Group (according to the Caller ID) the other night, asking for my opinion on the supertower issue. The LCG is the consortium of local TV stations trying to get the supertower built. I had to answer three questions (paraphrased): 1) Was I aware that Denver is the only major city to not have full power over-the-air HDTV? (Gee, I think I was.) 2) Was I aware that a coalition of local Denver broadcasters wishes to provide full-power HDTV by replacing a number of broadcast towers on Lookout Mountain with one smaller tower? (Yeah, again.) 3) There was no #3. It hung up on me after I punched in my answer to #2. Oh well. Not the desired demographic, I guess, since I already knew what was going on.
Anyway, those local satellite HD channels are compressed using mpeg4 instead of mpeg2, which is another reason why the new receiver was needed, as it has an mpeg4 converter in addition to the old mpeg2 one. This allowed me to also get additional HD channels that I couldn’t get before, like Universal HD (the new Battlestar Galactica in HD!) and a bunch of weird VOOM channels (specific HD channels dedicated to fashion, art, music, video-gaming, extreme sports, kung fu movies, etc.), which is where I catch those old Thunderbirds episodes (on their family channel). And they do look better than the DVDs. They also have old episodes of UFO, another old Gerry Anderson classic.
The 622 does seem to be generally more stable than the 921 was. Hasn’t missed a timer yet, except for ones that I programmed wrong. The HD picture is better and as I’ve already mentioned, the OTA tuner is more sensitive. It does have some random problems with occasional audio dropouts and/or blank screens, but they are known issues (both 622s I had exhibited the same problems) and hopefully Dish will get them fixed in future software downloads.
For the first time ever, I’m watching more HD than Standard Definition TV. We have blastoff! F-A-B.
Latre.
P.S. More Flickr: Here’s an un-retouched photo I took last weekend with my new digital camera that I really like a lot. (Click on it for the bigger version.)
Comments
3 Responses to “Thunderbirds Are Go!”
May 4th, 2006 @ 12:07 pm
I’m seeing lots of cheap DishTivos on eBay lately, possibly because of early-adopters such as yourself, but can’t find out whether they’ll work on my system without paying that ridiculous monthly fee. What little info I have seems to indicate that I’ll need to register it in some way with Echostar, and presumably pay the fee thereafter. But it seems like they would have no resale value if that’s the case, since they’ll give you one pretty much for free if you sign up for the service.
I could keep working on getting my standalone Tivo working but the 1-second delay it adds to channel surfing response times gets old quick. I’ll worry about bigger, sharper images later…
May 4th, 2006 @ 8:38 pm
Yes, but does the antibrochulator filter compand the 3.2mHz damping compound-bipolarity signal via the unflanged Bronfstein coagulator? Alternately: boobies!
May 4th, 2006 @ 9:27 pm
InfK: Yeah, unless the Dish DVRs can be easily hacked somehow or something, I don’t see the point.
2fs: Someday your existing TVs will mate and produce a super-offspring. Then you will know the joys of big screen ownership. Bazongas.