c band questions

[keebs]

since im real close to getting my big dish up and im also closer to going HD with the LCD and all i was wondering how difficult and how expensive is it to convert or for a receiver? ive heard lots about c band HD but never seen it with my own eyes. but if i get it i want the best ya know? is it worth it? what about subscriptions? costly or not? any input? thanks

[rainman]

the only receiver that will pickup hd on c band that i know of is the dsr 922 4DTV receiver you will still need to use a decoder box i think. most of the digicypher channels that are subscription are not that badly price.the receiver is a little pricey but if you look around shoud be able to get a good price. the bad thing is it won't do dvb.

[wejones]

There is also a good bit of HD in DVB format on C-band, however there aren't currently any FTA STBs in production that can receive these signals (there are a couple not in production that you can find used on ebay), although Fortec is supposed to be coming out with a HD FTA receiver this year. You can view these signals via the PC cards though, either directly on the computer (which requires a very fast computer), or by streaming the signals to something like the Roku. To stream though, you need a program that can take the sat signal and stream it, so you need to make sure that the PC receiver is compatable with the programs that do streaming. The reason I say this is that the program I use for streaming (Tsreader) does not currently support the Twinhan Starbox, although it does support the 1020a and 102g.
I'm not sure what other 3rd party programs will do streaming.

[rainman]

yep been looking forward to the hd fta STB coming from fortec. just hope the price is not to high.

[keebs]

okay so i am finding these motorola dsr922 models around for reasonable prices. is it safe to say this receiver is very good? So if i had one of these receivers what else do i need to get awesome HD programming? im confused slightly. ALSO ANOTHER QUESTION: i havent decided on a dish yet because i havent had a chance to see them all yet but i found one that has been under a big umbrella cover thing for years and appears to be excellent condition but unfortunately it also has had a screened porch built around it! so i would have to take the dish apart. is this recommended or not?

[pmb1010]

define reasonable...
I've been trying to catch a 922 on ebay with no luck... all go for close to 300 bux.
If they are cheaper than that - be careful. If the internal battery goes dead - it's a doorstop that would need to be sent out for costly motherboard repair.
This, or the older model 920 - is what's need for DCII encrypted reception from C and Ku band 4dtv reception. There's still a good amount of stuff out there, but be aware it's a dying breed. The 920 wont get everything, the 922 is a later model and does do a little more - but it's still 10 years old. They have not made a newer 4dtv receiver since then.

To get HD, you'll need a "sidecar" attachment for the 922 receiver.
It's a HDD-200 or HDD-201 unit.

I'm sure the others that have this stuff will pipe in with additional info.

[elgemcdlf]

The 922 is worth every penny. First thought to keep in mind most here are DVB MPEG2 people first or only. Big dish is simply put more money no matter how you look at it. On every aspect. The dish is more costly. The actuator is more costly. The feedhorn lnb combinations are more costly and in such manor the receivers are more costly.

As stated the DSR 920 or 922 will not do HD but passes HD. You will require a HDD200 or HDD201 to decode the HD. When looking for a HDD200 be sure you are getting a complete unit. The cables required for connection to the DSR922 and the most current software. DSR922's can usually be had for about $500.00 new which includes $150.00 in programming. In other words if you agree to $150.00 in programming they will sell you the receiver for $350.00.

[wejones]

Originally Posted by pmb1010

..... the 922 is a later model and does do a little more - but it's still 10 years old. They have not made a newer 4dtv receiver since then.

To get HD, you'll need a "sidecar" attachment for the 922 receiver.
It's a HDD-200 or HDD-201 unit.
.....

Probably shouldn't use the word "sidecar" relative to HD, because that's the name of another 4DTV model (I forget the number), which is a box without the capability to move the dish {or do analog I think}, but otherwise does everything that the 922 does, and in fact I think it probably has more flexibility of use. It is supposed to be slaved to an analog receiver, but could be slaved to a DVB receiver.
The sidecars are cheaper than the 922. I think that both the sidecar and the 922 do most of the common SR rates (if you can find the proper combination of freq/SR to match a feed), however I think the 920 only does 19.51 and 29.27 , and one HD feed I know of is using 14.63.

[satnutwillb]

That's what I use wejones and it's the 905 model.I use my analog receiver to move and control polarity for the sidecar and my mpeg2.

[rainman]

yeah i would'nt mind having a 905 myself to play with some of the digicipher channels.