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Hr10-250 vs SAT-T60 on new plasma

1206 Views 9 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  JimSpence, 
H
If anyone could help me out, I would appreciate it a ton!

I am getting a new plasma (Panasonic TH-42pz700u) and currently have a Sat-T60 series 1 tivo. I will be leaving behind a old and dying 27" CRT.

I found a decent deal on a Hr10-250 with Tivo and am wondering if I should buy it since it has HDMI out and the SAT-T60 only has coax/s-video/rca jacks. I will be running SD on the plasma for a few months and wonder if the picture quality will be better from the Hr10-250 than the Sat-T60. Anyone have any ideas? Will it be noticable or should I just stick with the current series 1.

Eventually we will go to HD when the new channels come out and the only way to get them is to go to the DTV cruddy DVR. (As I understand it)

Also, I have an OLD series 1 dish, will that work with a Hr10-250??? The dish looks like this


Any help would be so appreciated. :)
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JimSpence
That dish ia a single sat dish and the HR10 will only be able to get the channels from the 101 sat. You'll need to upgrade to the triple LNB dish. The SD PQ from the HR10 may be a little better than the T60.
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H
I have had a dual LNB in it for about 7 years, does that change anything?

Thanks again!
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litzdog911
No. The single LNB dish can only "see" DirecTV's main 101-deg W satellite. Many of the HiDef channels are beamed from 110 and 119-deg W. You need a 3LNB or 5LNB dish to see those satellites and receive the HiDef channels. Otherwise your HR10-250 will receive the same channels your Sony currently receives.
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H
Ok, that's kind of what I thought. Thanks for that guys!

Does/will DTV supply the 3 or 5 LNB dish? If so, how much will it cost me? Any ideas?

I am fine with it running just the SD channels if the quality of the SD picture is significant over the SAT-T60. Otherwise it would make more sense to bleed the old SAT-T60 for a year.
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litzdog911
If you get a new MPEG4-compatible Receiver (H20) or DVR (HR20), DirecTV will upgrade your dish to the new 5-LNB version for free. Otherwise check out the dishes on eBay, or resellers like http://www.solidsignal.com.
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D
Are you able to use an antenna with the HR10-250? If so, you will probably be able to use the HR10-250 to Tivo all the HD local network shows. I have had the HR10-250 for almost 2 years now, and do not subscribe to the HD pack, so I only watch HD from OTA. I have found that most of the season passes I have (about 75%) are from my OTA stations. The SD material looks OK, but I don't know if it would be that much better than from your Series 1 unit. I think a big part of how good SD looks depends on two things - quality of your TV, and proper settings like "picture/contrast" and "sharpness" controls.

I know I will eventually need to switch to the HR20, but I am holding out for now, since the HR10-250 works so well with OTA stations for me. If you don't want/need the other satellite dish, this might be a good temporary fix for you.
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C
If you can receive your HD locals using an OTA antenna and you don't care about the HD channels on DTV then just put up an antenna and continue using your existing dish. Eventually, the current mpeg2 HD channels will go away and you won't be able to receive them anyway using the HR10-250. You will still be able to receive the standard def channels, just as you did with the SAT-T60, but you will also be able to record your OTA locals in HD. If you ever decide to switch to the HR20 then DTV will install the 5-LNB dish at no cost to you.

The one thing I'm curious about is whether or not DTV will still charge HDTivo owners the HD access fee once the mpeg2 HD channels go away. You will still have access to OTA HD but nothing in HD from DTV.
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H
Ok, one last question. If I did get the HR10-250 and used my current dish, would I get better than 480p? I have SD service and don't plan on upgrading to HD anytime soon.

Thanks so much for any help.
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JimSpence
SD is 480i. With your current dish and the HR10 you will only get SD, except for a couple of network HD feeds (which you'll need waivers to receive).
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