# Channel Master CM-7000PAL DVR



## SPACEMAKER

Since I am in the 1% that doesn't get HD locals I am considering purchasing one of these:

Channel Master CM-7000PAL

Any thoughts?


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## Steve

You do know that device requires an OTA antenna, same as your HR20, correct?

Or is this for your bedroom TV? If so, why not replace the H23 with another HR2x? If you can't get an HR20, you can add an AM-21 ($49) to any other HR and pick up the OTA signals that way.


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## moghedien

SPACEMAKER said:


> Since I am in the 1% that doesn't get HD locals I am considering purchasing one of these:
> 
> Channel Master CM-7000PAL
> 
> Any thoughts?


The ChannelMaster is a rebranding of the DishNetwork DTVPAL DVR, which has its own thread at AVS:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1099071

The 1st post has a lot of information compiled from users since the product was introduced. 
And if you are considering the AM21, it will work with the H23...


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## SPACEMAKER

Steve said:


> You do know that device requires an OTA antenna, same as your HR20, correct?
> 
> Or is this for your bedroom TV? If so, why not replace the H23 with another HR2x? If you can't get an HR20, you can add an AM-21 ($49) to any other HR and pick up the OTA signals that way.


I do have an OTA antenna that works great when connected to my TV but is spotty when connected to the HR20 due to it's terrible OTA tuner.

What I want to do is just have a seperate device for my OTA recordings which gives me 2 more tuners and (hopefully) the ability to watch OTA without the terrible audio drop outs I am currently experiencing during playback.


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## CCarncross

SPACEMAKER said:


> Since I am in the 1% that doesn't get HD locals I am considering purchasing one of these:
> 
> Channel Master CM-7000PAL
> 
> Any thoughts?


Fix your reception issues and use your HR20....having all the recordings in a common place is well worth the effort in the long run and the convenience. If you are not the only one in your household, you will be bombarded with tech support issues from the rest of your family about not being able to figure out your complicated setup...I live in Jackson, I'm 40+ miles or so from the towers, and I get nearly flawless OTA reception on my HR20...fixing your issues cant be hard since you have to be much closer to those towers than I am....


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## SPACEMAKER

Actually the set up would be as simple. I would dedicate a button on my Harmony remote that would automatically turn off my HR20 while turning on the CM-7000 and switching the TV to the correct input. My 7 year old has no issues swithing from D* to Blu-ray and/or his Wii so adding another compontent won't be an issue.

As far as reception, the problem is not my antenna set up. When I connect my OTA directly to my TV I get every channel flawlessly including a bunch of channels that I don't even want. But when I connect through my HR20 the OTA is very unreliable. Especially WILX10. I realize that channel 10 totally sucks but I have issues with 6,23,47 and 53 as well. It is a well known fact that the OTA tuners in the HR20 suck giant donkey balls.


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## CCarncross

I figured you would just slam the HR20 OTA tuners and move along. Again, if the tuner in your tv is so good, then adjusting your antenna setup to help reduce or eliminate multipath to make your HR20 work better, which I'm sure you could do, wouldn't adversely affect the reception on your tv. Seems like something that would be worth doing...


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## SPACEMAKER

I have tried and tried and tried to make my HR20-700 (and HR20-100 before it died) happy but nothing works. It's so frustrating that I am ready to just shell out the $350 to snag this CM-7000.


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## Steve

SPACEMAKER said:


> I have tried and tried and tried to make my HR20-700 (and HR20-100 before it died) happy but nothing works. It's so frustrating that I am ready to just shell out the $350 to snag this CM-7000.


How far are you from the broadcast antennas? I'm about 15-20 miles as the crow flies, and I've got an 8-bay Winegard antenna inside my attic that gives me 100's on all my channels, using an HR20-700. About $50 on Amazon.


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## SayWhat?

Sorta OT, but sorta not.....

I'm doing the OTA bit with a computer with a TV tuner card and Windows 7 with Media Center. That also gives me some IPTV program options (if it weren't for my bandwidth issues). I can record all sorts of OTA programs and play them back on either the PC monitor or the big TV with an HDMI cable. A 1TB HDD dedicated to recorded programs gives me quite a bit of storage.


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## P Smith

The CM or pal DVR 250 GB HDD is upgradeable upto 1 TB.
Another AVS forum thread http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1251820


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## SPACEMAKER

Steve said:


> How far are you from the broadcast antennas? I'm about 15-20 miles as the crow flies, and I've got an 8-bay Winegard antenna inside my attic that gives me 100's on all my channels, using an HR20-700. About $50 on Amazon.


 *Miles*
*	yellow
uhf	WHTV-DT	18.1	MNT	JACKSON, MI 36°	*8.4* 34
*	yellow
uhf	WLNS-DT	6.1	CBS	LANSING, MI 36°	*8.4* 36
*	yellow
uhf	W27CN-D	49.1	TCT	SAGINAW, MI	TBD	341°	*10.8* 27
*	yellow
vhf	WILX-DT	10.1	NBC	ONONDAGA, MI 217°	*11.3* 10
*	yellow
uhf	WKAR-DT	23.1	PBS	EAST LANSING, MI	22°	*8.6* 40
*	yellow
uhf	WLAJ-DT	53.1	ABC	LANSING, MI 203°	*11.7* 51
*	yellow
uhf	WSYM-DT	47.1	FOX	LANSING, MI 237°	*12.6* 38
*	green
uhf	WZPX-DT	43.1	ION	BATTLE CREEK, MI	289°	*31.6* 44
*	violet
uhf	WSMH-DT	66.1	FOX	FLINT, MI 31°	*48.8* 16


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## Steve

SPACEMAKER said:


> *Miles*
> *	yellow
> uhf	WHTV-DT	18.1	MNT	JACKSON, MI 36°	*8.4* 34
> *	yellow
> uhf	WLNS-DT	6.1	CBS	LANSING, MI 36°	*8.4* 36
> *	yellow
> uhf	W27CN-D	49.1	TCT	SAGINAW, MI	TBD	341°	*10.8* 27
> *	yellow
> vhf	WILX-DT	10.1	NBC	ONONDAGA, MI 217°	*11.3* 10
> *	yellow
> uhf	WKAR-DT	23.1	PBS	EAST LANSING, MI	22°	*8.6* 40
> *	yellow
> uhf	WLAJ-DT	53.1	ABC	LANSING, MI 203°	*11.7* 51
> *	yellow
> uhf	WSYM-DT	47.1	FOX	LANSING, MI 237°	*12.6* 38
> *	green
> uhf	WZPX-DT	43.1	ION	BATTLE CREEK, MI	289°	*31.6* 44
> *	violet
> uhf	WSMH-DT	66.1	FOX	FLINT, MI 31°	*48.8* 16


Checking here for the 48854 zip, you have closer FOX, NBC, ABC, PBS and CBS channels than those, but they're in different directions, as you can see, so you'd need a more omnidirectional antenna.

The Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids major networks are all in the same general vicinity (273 to 277 degrees), but pretty far, so you might need something like the Winegard HD9095, which is very directional.

I'm not sure which channels you actually prefer to receive, but Winegard has an antenna "wizard" here that can help you choose the antenna type that can pick up the most channels in your area, based on station distances and directions.


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## CCarncross

Maybe I missed it, but what antenna are you currently using? If I'm reading this correctly, you are between 8 and 13 miles away from all the Lansing locals...I get 100% signal on 6, 10, 47, and 53, of course I'm referring to the digital versions, etc...and I'm like 30+ miles or more away from some of the towers...


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## Steve

CCarncross said:


> Maybe I missed it, but what antenna are you currently using? If I'm reading this correctly, you are between 8 and 13 miles away from all the Lansing locals...I get 100% signal on 6, 10, 47, and 53, of course I'm referring to the digital versions, etc...and I'm like 30+ miles or more away from some of the towers...


If I got the zip right, I think the problem with the Lansing stations is that CBS and PBS are in entirely different directions from NBC, ABC and FOX, so a good omni-directional antenna might be needed.


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## SPACEMAKER

I use an RCA Ant806. There are days when I get all channels at near 100% and days when I only get 3 channels. 

But when I connect directly to the TV I get all channels at 100% including the stations 9in Flint and Battle Creek. What pisses me off is that I pay the same amount as people who don't have to deal with OTA.


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## Steve

SPACEMAKER said:


> I use an RCA Ant806. There are days when I get all channels at near 100% and days when I only get 3 channels.
> 
> But when I connect directly to the TV I get all channels at 100% including the stations 9in Flint and Battle Creek. What pisses me off is that I pay the same amount as people who don't have to deal with OTA.


If you called and pointed out it was kind of unfair, I wouldn't be surprised if DirecTV offered you a programming credit equivalent to what a new antenna would cost. Just a thought.


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## CCarncross

SPACEMAKER said:


> I use an RCA Ant806. There are days when I get all channels at near 100% and days when I only get 3 channels.
> 
> But when I connect directly to the TV I get all channels at 100% including the stations 9in Flint and Battle Creek. What pisses me off is that I pay the same amount as people who don't have to deal with OTA.


Sorry, but that antenna is a friggin' joke....so IMO you haven't even tried to correct the situation....I use an 8 foot Yagi in my attic....you need to remember that the OTA tuners in the HR20's are about 5-6 year old design tech now.....they are very sensitive tuners meaning they pull in weak stations great, but suffer from poor multipath rejection, unlike some of the later gen tuners of recent....

So you can either stay pissed off about it, or do something constructive about it....All of us D* subscribers in the Lansing DMA are waiting for our HD Lil's, but since they arent here yet, no sense dwelling on it, find the best solution for you.  Personally, adding a separate DVR solution for OTA didnt make any sense for me, I chose to make some antenna adjustments, because having the integrated guide data for OTA and SAT was just a super nice and clean solution. I think you could get a better antenna for far far less than the DVR will cost you...


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## SPACEMAKER

CCarncross said:


> Sorry, but that antenna is a friggin' joke....so IMO you haven't even tried to correct the situation....I use an 8 foot Yagi in my attic....you need to remember that the OTA tuners in the HR20's are about 5-6 year old design tech now.....they are very sensitive tuners meaning they pull in weak stations great, but suffer from poor multipath rejection, unlike some of the later gen tuners of recent....
> 
> So you can either stay pissed off about it, or do something constructive about it....All of us D* subscribers in the Lansing DMA are waiting for our HD Lil's, but since they arent here yet, no sense dwelling on it, find the best solution for you. Personally, adding a separate DVR solution for OTA didnt make any sense for me, I chose to make some antenna adjustments, because having the integrated guide data for OTA and SAT was just a super nice and clean solution. I think you could get a better antenna for far far less than the DVR will cost you...


So even though this antenna pulls with no problem whatsoever when connected to my TV it basically sucks for my HR20. Nice.

What do you recommend? For the next 10 months I will be living in a 2 story townhouse while my new house is being planned and built so I can't really do anything crazy as far as permanent antennas.

And thanks for helping on this. I'd rather get a better antenna than shell out $350 for more hardware.


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## Davenlr

If you are close enough to the transmitters to be having multipath problems on the HR20, this antenna will probably work quite well for you. It works perfectly on my HR20, although I have mine roof mounted. You can try it indoors (fits nice), but remember indoors has lots of reflective surfaces that can make multipath worse...

http://www.amazon.com/Channel-Master-4220M-Mid-range-outdoor/dp/B000VLLJVW

On the same page, for about the same price, is a 4 bay version, if you have some signals you need a little more gain on. The good thing about this antenna is it fits in an attic or closet, and is fairly directional, which is what you need to eliminate multipath.


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## SPACEMAKER

So apparently miracles do happen. I moved on Saturday and D* came yesterday to install my new dish and MRV.

When I connected my OTA device the results were predicably poor. However, as last ditch effort I laid my antenna accross the top of my TV and to my surprise every OTA channel comes in at 95% or greater. I was able to attach the antenna and it actually looks pretty damn good. Much better than when it was attached to the wall.

So for the time being, I am all set to go with OTA and am very pleased.

Thanks to all who offered assistance in this thread.


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