Directv in a cable ready house

[korx]

Hi,

I'm interested in directv but I don't want any wires running into the house from outside for each receiver. I live in a cable ready house (cable jacks are in every room). Does that mean the satellite dish will have a line running to the box on the outside of my house and I can move my receiver to any room I want to in the future? I will have a professional installer to put up the dish so does he have to set up the receiver too on the inside or can I do that myself? I'm confused on the either getting the dvr or regular receiver. Is the DVR that same as the regular receiver but with recording capabilities? They both come free so which one should I get? Lastly, what are the latest gear that I should push for? I don't want to be suckered into getting old technology. Thanks for the help!

kor

[shadough]

They generally give you the 'new' technology stuff. Obviously a dvr is nicer than a regular receiver, pause, play, rewind. Once you go DVR, you'll never go back. As fas as the wiring goes, as long as all the cable runs are solid, meaning no 'splitters' in the line somewhere, aka: homeruns. then they should be able utilizie the cable, course if you move the receiver to a different room, you'll hafta disconnect that line outside and connect it to the line to the new location. It sounds like all you wires go outside to the electric meter area, which would be where the cable tv wire/verizon telco wires will also be. The installer will install the dish, and hookup all recievers internally (in your house, he will need to come inside). Its his responsibility to tone out, ie: figure out which wire goes where in relation to where/which room you need recvr a, b, c, etc. He's only responisble for hooking up the lines that connect to the rooms where you want recvrs, so if you wish to move one later than you'll hafta figure out which wire comes from the outside to that new room and connect it to the feeds coming down from the dish. Of course you could always use a multi-switch and connect all your cables to it, in which case you would have an easier time moving from room to room. If your getting the 5 lnb dish, you'll get a multiswitch w/ it. I think its an 8 port? or is there a 4?? no no, its an 8. so if you only have 8 cables in your house, your set. Course if your not getting the 5 lnb dish, you can still pick up an 8 port multiswitch from Best buy. I think I saw one there for around $130. And like I said, if you have pre-wiring, as long as all of the wires are solid runs to 'somewhere', then the tech won't hafta poke holes in your house, except maybe to bring the 4 feeds from the dish in.

[Dish Farmer]

Kor,
If you are going to get the DVR( Digital Video Recorder and receiver built in), you need two lines run to that receiver. I had a similar set up with a cable ready house. I wanted the DVR in the living room, two-story house with vaulted ceiling above living room. The cable feed came from the attic area. I needed to have another line brought in for the DVR. The professional installer couldn't run it because the attic is a crawl space and the wall where the cable was run had a divider in the wall. The house was prewired when it was built. Short story long...the only way to get the other line into the LR was to run it along the baseboards from outside. I didn't want that in the LR, so I had them put it in the master bedroom. Turns out they couldn't use the cable line in the LR because it had a staple in the line and was affecting the ground in the line, the cable tv would pass, but not the Directv. So I decided if I'm going to have one line running into the LR, why not two. I think my case was an exception. Good luck with yours, but definetly get the DVR, you'll never watch TV the same way again.