Dish Network VIP622 Receiver Questions... - Page 2

On my 921 you go into DVR mode select the recording program...then you can chose start over, view

Good Luck

Simple test: unplug the HDMI from the "84" and connect the optical cable to a port that you have previously tested with another device (say a DVD player).

When recording an HD channel through your antenna(OTA), you can switch to another dish channel like you said or switch to a Dish HD local channel if you have them in your area, which you should.


Like question #1, you should be able to record one off the HD OTA antenna, and watch the other in HD off the Dish HD locals. I have all the Dish locals in HD except for fox.


Make sure your 622 is in "dual mode". I'm assuming you have another tv hooked up to the 622?

The "Why" behind it is simple -- your vip622 only comes with ONE dedicated antenna (OTA) tuner. This OTA tuner is dedicated to your antenna feed, and can not be used outside of that antenna feed. Therefore, one tuner can only be tuned to one thing from your antenna at a time.

Mind you, your 622 has THREE, count them THREE tuners. Two are dedicated to the DISH and one to OTA. You can watch one HDTV show via DISH, record another from the DISH, and record yet a third from your OTA antenna. There is no other product on the market that I am aware of that has more than 3 HDTV tuners. But even with three tuners you still only can do one thing at a time with your antenna feed.

Solutions? Get HDTV locals via DISH or settle for a recording/watching a SD feed via DISH for your 2nd choice in a given time slot.

I have not experienced the other issues you mentioned.

Mark

Hello all! Nice to meet everyone.

After 7 years of being tossed around by DirecTV and their lack of HDTV I'm thinking it's time to go DISH.

This HD DVR they offer would be one of 3 HD receivers I would get and I have 2 questions.

1. the Format button all the user guides says it press to toggle formats what are the formats supported? Ill assume pillar box and streach are supported but I hate thouse setting when watching 4:3 programming. Does it offer Zoom 1, 2, or crop settings?
2. I know it was already asked, but not clearly answered. Will the HDMI carry the digital audio out to the TV? I'm in a battle with another vendor right now who's HDMI product do not carry digital audio out via HDMI, so that device is NOT HDMI, it doesn't meet the criteria specified in the HDMI standard. I really hope that's not the case with this receiver

Thanks so much for you help

1. Yes, it supports zoom, partial zoom and crop.

2. I haven't try it myself, but I heard that it does.

The full Zoom mode is especially useful. When you are watching a SD show that is letterboxed widscreen, the full zoom makes it fill the screen with no stretch distortion. I use this for Stargate SG-1 on SciFi channel which is SD but letterboxed widescreen.

Rick R

Last night I changed my HDMI cable to the HDMI/DVI cable that came with the receiver and added a digital optical cable and I started receiving digital audio right away.

The Bell CSR previously told me that this receiver only transmits 2-ch audio through the HDMI and my setup seemed to confirm that.

you guys rock!

thanks for the info, that everything i need and more.

i only plan to use 2 channel digtal audio so the HDMI audio will be perfect.

I'm going DISH!!!

Sorry, I should have been more clear in my post. The audio from the Dish receiver through the HDMI port is 2-ch Analog, not digital. In order to get digital sound, you need to utilize the optical connection. (or so I was told by Bell)

hmmm, intresting....

sounds like the other issues im fighting now...

can you get a "any" digital audio from the HDMI at all?

if not, well, then its not a "HDMI out" as it does not meet the standards of HDMI (transfer digital video and audio from a single source)... same issue im having with another vendor

No, my A/V receiver auto detects the source signal and all I could get (before swapping cables) was a PCM stereo signal, which I presume is analog?? If I switched to my DVD player, the A/V receiver automatically switched to 5.1 digital so I would say that the HDMI signal is only analog.

The manual for the satellite receiver even states that for 5.1 digital, you need to hook up an optical cable...

thanks again, for the record, i called dish tech support and it's a known issue... oh well, i can give the dish an optical in on the A/V.

Last question, i swear, how good is the partial zoom settings when viewing 4:3. full zoom is ok, but it cuts too much of their heads off...

PS: ordered dish today, installed tomorow, thanks everyone for you help.

GATER and Weasals,

I live outside Ann Arbor, MI. I do have local channels through the Dish, but they are not in HD. They are digital only. The locals channels I get in HD are off my antenna. So why do you guys get your locals channels in HD through Dish? If that was the case for me, I proably wouldn't have gotten the antenna...

I'm a little bit confused about the output resolutions on the unit. Specifically, I'm not sure whether to set the unit to 720p or 1080i. I have my 622 connected to a Samsung HLS4266W, which has a native resolution of 720p as I understand it. It is also my understanding that most of the HD channels broadcast at 1080i, the exceptions being the ESPNs.

So, with that in mind, I set the output resolution of the box to 1080i, figuring that that will basically let the box pass through most HD channels without scaling and let the TV scale back down to 720p. From what I hear, TV scalers are typically better than STB scalers, so that was my motivation.

Now that I think about it, though, I think I may want to change that up. First of all, I think this means that my ESPN broadcasts are getting scaled twice - once up to 1080i by the unit and then again back down to 720p by the tv. If the unit were set to 720p, I wouldn't have any scaling on those. Also, are the SD channels scaled by the unit? They seem to be, so if I'm scaling them to 1080i, the tv is again scaling them back down. I could at least eliminate the second rescaling if this is the case by switching the output to 720p.

The only channels that might be affected negatively by this would be the 1080i HD broadcasts, because they would be scaled down to 720p by the 622 and not the tv. That is the majority of the HD channels, which is why I set it to 1080i in the first place, but now I'm not sure that I'd notice the difference.

Anyhow, I'll be playing around with this over the weekend. I suppose my eyes are really the best test of all this. I just want to be sure that I correctly understand how everything is being scaled. Can anybody help me out with that?

As you can see below, Detroit is the closest city that has locals in HD through Dish Network. I don't know if you are on detroits grid but try one of the hd locals in the 6000 range like 6459, which is the ABC HD affiliate. The reason I have locals HD is so I can watch/record a HD local channel off the OTA antenna, and watch/record another HD local channel off the dish local.




Detroit, MI Local Channels

Station Local Channel Number Dish Channel Number
DETROIT ABC-WXYZ 7 8030
DETROIT ABC-WXYZ IN HD 7 6459
DETROIT CBS-WWJ 62 8031
DETROIT CBS-WWJ IN HD 62 6460
DETROIT CW-WKBD 50 8035
DETROIT FOX-WJBK 2 8033
DETROIT FOX-WJBK IN HD 2 6462
DETROIT IND-WADL 38 8037
DETROIT MNT-WMYD 20 8034
DETROIT NBC-WDIV 4 8032
DETROIT NBC-WDIV IN HD 4 6461
DETROIT PBS-WTVS 56 8036

I made a phone call to them right after I posted and solved the problem. I got dish in March. The new Dish 1000+ came a couple months after that and that's what I need to get local HD channels through Dish. I'm going to get the upgrade hopefully next week.

But that in turn speaks volumes on Dish customer satisfaction. I should have been informed about the upgrade and gotten it done back then, not now!

I have a new plasma and try my best to avoid the 4:3 screens. I typically use my TV aspect ratio. However, I have found that the DISH setting for "stretch" works quite well ... I like it better than their zooms.

I also don't have a grey side bar option on my TV, but the VIP622 offers it as one of the fomat (aspect ratio) settings.

Mark

Junior6791,

I live closer to Grand Rapids and do not have HD Locals available from Dish, the rumors I hear are not til 2008. Anyways, I am in the same boat as you. I have an OTA for HDTV locals, and DISH supplies the Standard Definition locals and the guide. I've certainly been able to work with the pair to watch more TV than I need too !

Mark

I use this as well for 4:3 material. I think it works well also. The 622 also recalls my settings for 4:3 or 16:9 channels. For example, if i'm watching Discovery HD, the receiver "remembers" to set the aspect as 16:9, or "normal"; then if i were to switch to USA network the receiver "remembers" to set the aspect as "stretched".

Hi all,

Had my antenna taken from my garage attic to my roof today. I had not been pulling in anything from 3 or 41 and at times others were spotty. Figured since the Superbowl is on CBS I'd be doing it in the future anyways...

I live in Grandville and pulled in 19 digital feeds/channels after having it moved to my roof. My vip622 shows digital feeds for:

8 and 17 at 100%,
3 at 95%,
41 at 85%
35,43,52 at 75-85% (but I don't really care)

I still don't get channel 13's digital feeds.

The antenna is a "Royal 17". I was very happy with the service from Carl at Kent-Ottawa antenna. I have probably 100' - 125' of rg-6 cable with no booster or amp. Very happy with the signal its pulling in.

The Dish Network VIP622 gives you 30 dedicated HDTV channels, and add to that the local stuff -- hardly have to watch SD stuff anymore!

Mark

If your Plasma is calibrated you don't need need to worry about burn-in whan watching non-streched 4:3. But in any case the gray-bars mode is safer.

Well, as an update to my post, I messed around with it and decided I like the way the picture looks better with the 622 output set to 1080i.

In another thread, it has been suggested that the VIP622 and some TV's = image retention.

Does anyone have IR issues with the VIP622?

I'm on tech support now and I swear... this girl in India has no idea what I'm talking about. Any help would be appreciated, especially how to get through to a knowledgable tech support person at The Dish Network.

Paul in AZ

I haven't had any problems, but I always turn my tv off when I'm done using it.

When you turn the 622 off, it doesn't really shut off. This isn't so bad (except the hard drive doesn't spin down, but that's another story), but it also doesn't shut off the display. Instead, it puts out a screen saver with the dish logo and a message saying "Press SELECT to continue" or something like that. This logo moves pretty slowly, so if you let it sit there I could see where you could possibly have image retention issues. I think that's what people are talking about with this.

The way to get tho a knowledgable tech is to hang up and try again. Sometimes it may take you a couple of tries before you get to a good tech.

Walter,

I know that in some other threads folks are FANATICAL about image retention on plasmas. I've been careful to adjust my contrast/brightness down and have a few hundred hours of careful use on my tv. You thinking that "reasonable" use (like 25% 4:3 viewing) would be no problem?

Mark

Mark:
I have a Panny plasma and I've been watching 4:3 material OAR (no stretch) fr ~3 yrs and no problem at all. As you mention the key is calibrate your set in such a way that the contrast/brightness are way down (<50%).

Hi
Recently switched from directv ( after 11 years ) to Dish. Still had older crt tv. Installer ? setup where we had to leave a/v on aux & push tv button on remote to play dvd/vcr.
We have just bought a new hdtv ( kds-r60xbr2 ) Sony. Have been moving cables for days and I am as lost as before. Dvd gets sound but no video. I tried all inputs but none would get video. We would appreciate any help. This is my hookup now.
vip 622 dish - hdmi to tv hdmi
vip 622 dish - optical audio to a/v ( rca stav-4090 ) digital in ( tv/sat ) assignable
a/v monitor out - component to tv ( hd/dvd in )
sonic blue - go video ( dvr 4300 ) dvd out w/component to a/v dvd/ld in
sonic blue - go video digital audio out to a/v dvd/ld digital in

Called Ram electronics trying to find way to go from pc ( dvi ) to tv ( rgb ). Tech gave this forum as best to learn something about hdtv & hookup.

Thank you
Have a nice day
poolman12

I have 2 antenna so that I can wacth local HD with the built in HD TV tuner and record HD local with the 622. Would be nice if dish would provide the locals in HD like they told me would happen very soon but for sure before the end of the year back in May.