I know nothing about HD...please help

My wife and I just purchased a Vizio HDTV. We didn't really buy the TV because we wanted the HD channels, but mainly because we have no room in our apartment and a thin TV was a great option. Anyway, the salesmen stated that in order for us to be able to watch the TV in HD we would have to buy some box that they sold that was like $40 or $50. Really the only thing I want to watch in HD is sports on TV. My question is...if ESPN broadcasts a game in HDTV do I have to have a HD subscription through Dish Network to be able to watch it in HD or do I just need to buy one of those boxes? I'm completely lost and have tried reading up but cannot figure it out. If you could help I'd greatly appreciate it.

Yes, in order to receive ESPNHD, you will need a HD STB (cable/sat box) and a HD subscription. Not sure what "box" he is trying to sell you unless it is a Dish HD receiver. If so, you can just get that directly with Dish when you upgrade to the HD package. Prices will vary between cable, Dish and DTV. You may be able to get your locals (sports) free with a OTA antenna. Perhaps even with an indoor antenna. But that will depend on how close you are from the source. What is your zip?

60914...I don't really want to pay like $20 more a month just to watch the Cubs games in HD ya know?

60914...I don't really want to pay like $20 more a month just to watch the Cubs games in HD ya know?


Well, I am a Sox fan so no, I can't se watching the Cubs in HD for any price:D. But I will say watching other local and no local sports (especially Bears football) is well worth the extra money. HD sports are sooooooo much better than SD. You will see.

Ahh, that is good old Bourbonnais (I think). Well, It looks like you are around 50 Miles away from downtown Chicago. So your chances of watching te Cubs blow it in HD are pretty slim with an indoor antenna and WGN. You would be able to grab it with a good outdoor/roof mount antenna, but my guess is that you are a bit leary about that since you are in an apartment. If so, Cable or Dish basic HD package with HD locals would be your other option.

So pretty much I should just forget about it and watch the games normal? haha I mean it would be nice to watch the Cubs in HD since they are doing so well...but i'll survive. When they make it to the World Series or something I'll just go to someone's house who has HD.

Another question...We just got it like a week ago and had it hooked up to the Dish receiver using the cable they provided to our old crappy TV...but I thought we'd get a better picture by using an S-video cord...is that our best option? I mean the sound and the picture look much better in my opinion than the other cable they gave us, but I just want to make sure it's the best we can do for what we have.

Yea..Bourbonnais..it's about an 30 miles south of Monee and then an hr. train ride to downtown. It's getting developed like CRAZY out here. They're putting up 2 super walmarts and a Buffalo Wild wings and everything...it's insane. I'm a student at Olivet Nazarene and was hoping to get HD to have the guys over to watch football and stuff, but we'll just have to go to B-dubs when it opens :)

Cubs in the WS?? There will probably be 7 Wal-Mart’s in your area by then.:D

That is a great school.. I have a couple accounts in Bourbonnais and the Kankakee area, it is definitely growing quite a bit. Many farmers becoming millionaires. But if you are a big sports fan (other than baseball), it would be worth it. I assume you have already seen the diff between HD and SD football and baseball. But I know how tight things can get for a college student, especially a private college.

For the SD 480i Dish box, S-video is you best option. I don't think they offer component out (red, green and blue), so S-video all the way.

We graduate in May, so hopefully we get positions somewhere and be able to get another HDTV and move this one into our bedroom. It's terrible switching from watching TV in our living room then going to bed and watching on an old 19'' $80 wal-mart special. Even though it's not in HD or anything the picture is MUCH clearer.

I was able to watch one of the Bears playoff games in HD at a friends house. The moment I saw the picture I was blown away. It seriously was insane. I'm not a huge football fan, so I'll probably just have to wait until I'm closer to a bigger city or HD becomes more available. It'd be hard to convince the wife to pay $20 a month to get HD since she HATES football haha....but baseball is more of our thing.


All I know is the White Sox better kick it in gear if they hope to give you fans anything to hope for. The Cubs are 3.5 behind the Brew Crew and 3.0 behind the NL wild card :) You gotta admit...if the Cubs won the world series it'd be a HUGEEEEEE party in Chicago for months lol

Are you going to any of the Bear training camp? They do their summer camp at ONU. I have the priveledge of working as the security for it, so hopefully I'll get to meet some of the players and talk with them. Maybe they can give me one of their huge plasmas lol

FYI, your vizio has a built in QAM tuner. If you went to cable tv, you can pick up the local channels in HD by scanning for them.

I had read online that it had a built in tuner...but didn't really know much about it or didn't know if the associate was advising me to upgrade it or something...So cable has free HD channels, but dish you have to pay for them? Seems weird. Guess I need to learn more about all this stuff. Also with my surround sound I'm trying to figure out how to get it to go from the TV. I can't find anything except the headphone Jack that will help me to get sound to come out of there. I want it to be anything that's coming out of the TV, but I'm not sure if I can hook my surround sound up to the dish network receiver.

Also...this isn't Dish related...but on the side of my TV I notice that there's a phone jack...why is that?

If you get digital cable and your TV has a QAM tuner in association with your built in ATSC tuner (for OTA), you may be able to get your locals in HD as part of the basic package. You do not use a cable box in this case, just plug the coax directly into your TV's QAM tuner (RF Antenna connection on the back)..

As far as you SS goes, If your SS receiver has a digital connection (either Optical or Coax) and so does you Dish box, just connect that up and you are good to go. If not, then just connect it via the analog RCA (red and white) cables. It is not as good as digital, but will do the trick.

The Phone line on the Dish box is mainly for ordering Pay Per View movies. Dish says it needs to be connected to avoid a extra $5 a month charge, but don't think they do..

Noooo I know about the dish network phone line..but i mean on the actual TV itself there is a phone line jack...i wasn't sure if it would work the same since the TV is connected to the dish network box or what. It's right next to one of the RCA jacks....so i didn't know what was up with that.


So there is an output though for the RCA adapters on the Dish network box for sound?

Oh, don't know what a phone jack on the TV is for. If it is a e-net plug (RJ-45), maybe it is used for firmware updates or something. The owners manual should tell you what it is for.

What is the model of your Dish box and SS receiver?? Look on the back of it. It should at the very least have an analog audio out (red and white RCA plugs). The S-video cable will go to the TV and the red and white cables to you SS receiver. If your Dish box and SS reciever has digital audio inputs and outputs, use that. That will support Dolby Digital SS. You TV may have an audio out as well. But that is usually for the ATSC/QAM tuner. But you can always check and see for yourself.

yea i've been pretty swamped with work and stuff to look into the TV stuff. I bought s-video cord and the audio adapter to go from the dish to the TV. I kind of forgot about sending it to the surround sound instead lol. I was more concerned of seeing how the screen looked once I got it hooked up.

So far though I've been pretty pleased with dish Network...th worst part was I had to contact them like 4 times to get them to shut off my Starz package which they began charging me for since the trial period was up. The DVR is the 622 I believe. And I had heard people say that DVR changes the way you watch TV...and it's completely freaking true.

I only wish that I could hook up like my external hard drive to the DVR and save the movies on there. I see there's a USB port on there, but I don't think it'll work like that. The installation guy didn't really know what it was for.

My guess is that you have the SD 625 DVR, because the vip622 is the HD DVR. Either way, they both have analog and digital audio outputs, so you are fine there. Just see what audio inputs your SS receiver has and take in from there.

The USB ports are active. But they are only used for Pocket Dish that I am aware of. You can not connect a 'Non Dish" external storage device to them.

I'm not a dish customer, nor am I in your part of the country, but what you may want to try, and Bigloww touched on this, is to get an antenna. A roof-top antenna would be best (given how far you are from the towers), but even a decent set-top antenna may give you some of your local channels. I got my HDTV in March and I borrowed an old, powered, set-top antenna from my in-laws to test it out on my TV. I'm pretty far from the towers in Philly, and I live on the wrong side (that is, I live "upwind" which means that the signal has a harder time reaching where I live). I got in every station except 1 - Fox.

The quality of the OTA broadcasts will absolutely blow you away. Because the broadcast is in digital format, there's no distortion of any kind. It's just like your dish in that regard - you don't get static, but when you start to lose the signal the picture will pixelate. It may be worth a shot. You can get a decent set-top antenna for probably under $100 (I think the one my in-laws lent me went for $50 at the local Radio Shack). Or if you know someone who has one you could borrow, you can at least test it out before shelling out the extra money.

As a clarification on some of the terms. You need an ATSC tuner in the TV to get HD over the air. It sounds like your tv has that. If you want to do a direct feed with cable into your TV, the TV would need to be equiped with a QAM tuner (not sure if the TV you got would have that or not). If it does, you could get cable, and just plug it in and get the HD stations that aren't scrambled. Some cable systems scramble all of the national cable channels (e.g. ESPN), and leave the locals unscrambled. That's how FiOS (the provider I have) does it. If you wanted to get ESPN HD through cable, and if they do scramble the signal, then you would need a set top box from the cable company. Feeding directly into the QAM tuner wouldn't do it for scrambled channels.

I do have to say, HD was just made for sports.

Oh - one last thing - there's no difference between a standard antenna and an HD antenna. The antenna I borrowed was on my in-law's SD TV. The only difference is the packaging.

Are you talking about like those old school rabbit ear type looking things that people used or is there something a little more intense then that? We had those in our apartment hooked up to our old tv before we actually began living in our apt. and didn't get very many stations, I may try to hook it up and see if it was just the TV being apeice of crap or what.

Are you talking about like those old school rabbit ear type looking things that people used or is there something a little more intense then that? We had those in our apartment hooked up to our old tv before we actually began living in our apt. and didn't get very many stations, I may try to hook it up and see if it was just the TV being apeice of crap or what.

Yep - just some old rabbit ears. The ones I used were powered (amplified), which made them better at reception. I tried getting in some SD stations with them, and the picture was horrible (I got a couple stations, but not real well). Still, they were good enough to get most of my HD stations.

Yep - just some old rabbit ears. The ones I used were powered (amplified), which made them better at reception. I tried getting in some SD stations with them, and the picture was horrible (I got a couple stations, but not real well). Still, they were good enough to get most of my HD stations.

At nearly 52 miles away from the source, I doubt he will have much luck with any indoor antenna. But, you never know. The terrain is very flat and constent. If you are on an upper floor and have a clear shot to the NNE (no tall trees or buildings), give it a shot. Just point it and do a scan for digital channels. All you really need is a UHF antenna like the Silver Sensor. All channels are UHF except for CBS (WBBM). But you can barely pull that crappy VHF station at 15 miles much less 50 + with an indoor. Again, I doubt you will have much sucess, but you can always return it and get your money back.

We paid like $10 or something for the rabbit ears we had. I still have them around our apartment somewhere or in storage. We barely got WGN or anything when we had them, but I'm not sure if it was because of the TV we had it hooked up to (but I don't think that would matter). I'll try it after work and see what happens.

I need to hook them back up anyway because the past several nights we've had some pretty insane storms and when it starts poaring down rain we lose dish service and have no idea as to what the weather is doing. So..it'll be worth a shot to see what happens.

I do remember getting a few stations in pretty clear, but most of them were hispanic channels or some Lake Shore station that I've never heard of.

At nearly 52 miles away from the source, I doubt he will have much luck with any indoor antenna. But, you never know. The terrain is very flat and constent. If you are on an upper floor and have a clear shot to the NNE (no tall trees or buildings), give it a shot. Just point it and do a scan for digital channels. All you really need is a UHF antenna like the Silver Sensor. All channels are UHF except for CBS (WBBM). But you can barely pull that crappy VHF station at 15 miles much less 50 + with an indoor. Again, I doubt you will have much sucess, but you can always return it and get your money back.

No arguments here - 52 miles is really far. But if he already has a pair, it may be worth a shot. I was pretty surprised at how many stations I got in. I think I'm something like 35 miles from the nearest tower. Plus the terrain around here (I'm west of Philly) is pretty hilly, with 150% humidity in the air (or so it seems these days), which I believe can affect the signal, and I'm upwind of the towers (I have trouble getting AM radio stations out of Philly due to that - I have better luck with a station coming out of Chicago - forget which one).

For the OP, if those old rabbit ears allow you to get in SOMETHING, then you may want to spring for something higher end. Like I said, a roof antenna would be best, but you can get a pretty decent set-top antenna, which should help.

I wouldn't hold out much of a chance of success, but I'd hate for you not to experience what real HD is like if you can. One quick example - I've never been able to watch hockey on tv. The action is too quick, and the puck too small, forcing them to really zoom in on the action. And that forces them to pan way too much, making it even harder to follow. Right after I hooked my rabbit ears, I flipped around, and found a hocky game on. My first response "I can see the puck!" Not only that, because it's widescreen, there wasn't nearly as much panning. It was so clear that I could see the ice getting shaved when one player stopped.

I'll warn you though - it'll give you a real taste for HD. It's so bad, that I'll watch ANYTHING on ESPN. Heck if they had curling in HD I'd probably watch it. I was watching sports I don't even like, because the HD is that amazing.

I really hope that I can experience the HD at my house. I watched the bears play a game or two last yera in HD and was amazed. If the rabbit ear thing doesn't work at all then I will maybe go to wal-mart and buy something that's a little more expensive and if it doesn't work I have some connections there and they'll take anything back :) haha

The individual at walmart said he was trying to sell me some sort of like HD receiver or something. It was like $50 and it may be something like what you guys are talking about that picks up the stations or something. I'll have to look into it more.

I really hope that I can experience the HD at my house. I watched the bears play a game or two last yera in HD and was amazed. If the rabbit ear thing doesn't work at all then I will maybe go to wal-mart and buy something that's a little more expensive and if it doesn't work I have some connections there and they'll take anything back :) haha

The individual at walmart said he was trying to sell me some sort of like HD receiver or something. It was like $50 and it may be something like what you guys are talking about that picks up the stations or something. I'll have to look into it more.

Good luck. I hope it works out for you.

Did I miss what Vizio model TV that you got? It sounds like you got an "HD Ready TV" or, an "HDTV Monitor".

This would explain the comments about the $50 receiver, mentioned twice in the thread. If so, check here (Less expensive units will be coming available, hopefully, soon) :

http://www.wowvision.tv/digitalconversionbox.htm

If your HDTV does indeed have a tuner, go take a look outside at your neighbors houses, and houses near you. Do any of them have antennas? If they do, get one. If there is enough analog getting there to warrant the use of antennas, you'll love what you'll find!

This should explain it all:

http://www.wowvision.tv/Antennas.htm

Highdef Jeff