2008 September » theHTPC.net

Dish!

Sep 252008

Thanks ComcastCares1 for the offer, but I shouldn’t have to climb a ladder to get basic help. My TV subscription has been canceled and everything, including installation, is to be credited to my account. My cable didn’t even work at all the past two days – not even a crappy signal…no signal at all. They are coming to get their equipment today. The Digital Voice is next to go - $10/month > $45/month in favor of T-Mobile@Home. If someone else would move in the area, my Internet service would be next. DSL doesn’t do it for me, so I’ll just have to wait. 250GB/month is a lot of bandwidth, but I’d rather not be limited, regardless of my usage. I pay for service – not a bandwidth allotment. I’ve never had much of an issue with Comcast until moving to Lawrenceville. I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that they’re the only service provider in my area. If we’re fed crap, they expect us to eat it or starve.

Dish Network came out yesterday and after about 3.5 hours, finished my install. I now have America’s Top 200+locals and the SilverHD package with a DVR in the bedroom and receiver in the TV room. The poor guy had to reinstall one dish twice to clear my trees and he did this 30ft in the air on the edge of my roof. I got VIP-612 DVR and VIP-211 receiver for the equipment. So far, the signal is very good and the picture looks terrific. The only issue I’ve encountered thus far is with the Harmony 670 remote and the VIP-612 DVR – I couldn’t get it to work at all. I’m pretty sure, after some Googling, that it’s just set to URF remote mode and I need to change it to IR and set it to 01 for the address…or something like that.

Comcast sucks.

Home Theater 1 Response »

Sep 222008

I received my Digital Starter package from Comcast on Saturday. I received a single DVR when I ordered two standard digital receivers. They said it was no extra charge, so OK – I take it.

I moved the DVR to my bedroom yesterday and everything worked fine for about an hour. Since then, I’ve lost VOD and my reception is pure crap. The first time I called they said they would send a signal and I should be fine in 15-20 minutes. It wasn’t fine. After 2 hours I call back – now they want me to wait two days to see if it clears up. Now listen to that…”wait two days”. No thanks.

This morning I scheduled Dish Network to come on Saturday. If the trees I have don’t pose a problem, I’ll also be cancelling Comcast that day as well. Their phone service is soon to be replaced by T-Mobile@Home also. If TWC, Charter or anyone else would come through here (except for DSL – it’s an option, but not one I want) I could ditch them altogether.

e-Bay Sucks.

HTPC, Off Topic No Responses »

Sep 182008

My tape drive came. Yes, it was a PowerVault 100T. No, it was not the DAT72 – it was the DAT40. My 36/72GB tapes are worthless and I had to get a 5-pack of Quantum 20/40GB tapes for $32 and change off of Amazon. The drive does work (it took my cleaning tape, at least), was only a bit dusty and is in pretty good shape otherwise. I saw refurb units just like this going for $300 on some sites. I got it for about $35. Now all I need to do is wait for my tapes to arrive. I’ll probably see if we have any old ones at work, just to make sure the thing does work.

I got a request to put up my instructions for getting the guide listings working with the HDHomeRun. They’re on the SiliconDust site, but they’re a little vague. If I get time at work tomorrow, I’ll put up something a little easier to follow. Stay tuned.

Media Center TV Pack 2008.

HTPC, Off Topic 1 Response »

Sep 182008

Well, on a whim, I decided to give this a try on my desktop system that runs Vista Ultimate. Since I don’t use Media Center except for testing on there, I didn’t figure it would hurt much. By now, most everyone that is interested knows what it does and adds, so there’s not much more I can say. I will say that if you have an HDHomeRun, it is a complete pain in the ass to get the TV portion set back up if you normally pull a good number of unencrypted channels via cable. I typically get around 30 and after going through the scan only three were found. I had to manually rename and edit the listing on all the others. In a way, it was a good thing because there were always a couple of stations that didn’t match any listing and I was able to figure out what broadcast they really were, but I don’t really want to have to go through that again. Comcast comes Saturday morning (8-10am) and when they activate my cable for the digital starter package, I’m going to be getting a lot more than what I’m getting now, so I’m trying to solidify a way to copy the EPG settings from one TV Pack-enabled box to another. I’m still researching what plugins it breaks before I install it on anything else though. I think MediaControl is the only one that I’ve found so far, but it may have an updated version…I don’t know yet. If anyone needs instructions on how to manually set up HDHomeRun channel listings with TV Pack, comment on it and I’ll post what I did. I’d do it now, but I don’t feel like it :)

My tape drive was supposed to arrive yesterday, but it didn’t. After looking, I realized it’s coming from Texas, so I can see why it was delayed (hurricane). It is supposed to arrive today though. I really hope it works (as-is purchase off e-Bay). The guy has fantastic feedback, so I’m thinking it will. Tape drives are pretty durable (even though Dell tape drives typically suck).

The pool guy came yesterday too. It went well and the estimates looked pretty good and were within what we expected. There are some things that we didn’t expect, but no deal-breakers. I just hope we can get it in for next summer.