# What are the issues with the 622?



## purtman (Sep 19, 2006)

We are considering switching from DirecTV to Dish. What are the issues that people are having with the 622? We plan to have the TVs for the 622 on two different floors and at the other ends of the house. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!


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## DonLandis (Dec 17, 2003)

Read through all the threads here because it is a good collection of problems. Note- however, that many problems are isolated to particular owners who may also have signal problems, no phone connection, or monitors that have known issues with HDMI compatibility (old issue now) 

Then we have the HDMI failure rate. It is an unusually high hardware failure rate requiring a box exchange. The 622 continues to work fine on component, however. Today, this seems to be the only remaining major issue that appears to be wide spread and can show up as much as 2-3 months after install.

I have both DirecTV and Dish. I can tell you that comparing the two, DirecTV has suffered poor image quality on all their HD channels over the past year. Dish has a much cleaner image with greater detail than Direct TV. Of course you will have 3-4 times as many channels to select programming choices to. If you had an HD TIVO on DirecTV, you will notice the 622 is faster responding but the NBR selection will be awkward compared to the Tivo process. I like the way TIVO does NBR and miss that with the 622. Also, soon Dish will be offering their external hard drive expansion feature on the 622. If you had outboard hard drives like from Weakknees 3rd party TIVO supplier, you will soon have this feature on the Dish 622 as well. need more storage? Just add another hard drive,... nice!

Oh, and good luck with the install of your system. Sometimes these installers can be a real pain, sometimes not. That part is the luck of the draw.


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## mwgiii (Jul 19, 2002)

I have had the 622 for almost 3 weeks. I have had ZERO problems so far and I am using the HDMI output.

I moved from the 921 to the 622 so I know about receiver problems.


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## purtman (Sep 19, 2006)

If we get the 622, one of our TVs is upstairs and at the other end of the house. The 622 will be located downstairs at the opposite end of the upstairs one. Will the distance, the walls, and floor cause any issues from using one dvr like this?


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Do you have a cable running between both locations? I assume the 2nd TV will be and SD TV. You can only do HD for TV1 and SD for TV2 if you plan on using the TV in Dual Mode. 

I don't use my 622s in Dual mode very frequently so I am not sure about the in and outs but there are some gotchas to be aware of. The main one is you cannot watch Live OTA on TV2. To do this you must record it first and then you can view it. Another one that comes to mind is that the box has 3 tuners. 1 OTA and 2 SAT tuners. So if two people are watching Live TV on both TVs and a timer needs to record a show. Something has to give.

You will be feeding the second TV with RF so you will need to play with it a bit to get the maximum quality to the 2nd TV. 

I am sure there is some more and like Don said. Do some searches and scan some threads. You will get a good idea of what people are running into.


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

If your second TV is a long distance from the 622 with lots of walls between, as it sounds to be your case, you can have problems with the RF remote communicating with the 622.

You can change to the B band by changing the switch under the batteries, to get more distance. If that does not do it, or you have problems with changing the TV next door, you can use a standard coax splitter turned backward to combine the RF antenna connection on the back of the 622 with the TV2 modulated output coax. Then behind TV2, use another splitter to split the coax back into two. Attach the RF antenna to one side of the splitter and run a coax to the input for TV2 from the other side of the splitter. That will bring the RF Remote signal right into the room with the TV. Works great for me.


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## purtman (Sep 19, 2006)

a few walls in between. There are two walls on the first floor and two on the bottom floor running in between the TVs. The main TV (the HDTV) will be downstairs with the box and the other one (the SD) will be upstairs across the house. Hopefully, this shouldn't cause an issue.


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## purtman (Sep 19, 2006)

That's another concern. If my wife is upstairs watching one show and I'm downstairs watching another, we may also want to record a separate show. It seems like that won't work. Is that true? We can only have two items going on? We will not have any OTA shows. Everything local is on HD on the dish.


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

With no OTA you only have two tuners so you can only have two live shows or two recordings going on at the same time (or 1 of each). If you had OTA then you could add the third recording.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

purtman said:


> That's another concern. If my wife is upstairs watching one show and I'm downstairs watching another, we may also want to record a separate show. It seems like that won't work. Is that true?


Yes, you would only be able to watch/record two programs at once. If you're a hard-core channel surfer, this may be a show stopper for a single receiver solution.


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## purtman (Sep 19, 2006)

It is a show-stopper. A lot of times, she'll be upstairs watching something. I may be recording the kids' shows downstairs or a movie while watching a ballgame on another channel. We quite often will have three shows going. Thanks for your help.
Chuck, thanks again for letting me know about the OTA. That will definitely stop things.
Thanks to everybody who helped me sort out this issue.


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

Installing an OTA antenna is usually not a big job, if you are in an area that can receive OTA digital channels. I put a $35 Radio Shack UHF/VHF antenna in my attic in a couple of hours and it works great with the 622 in my area.


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## purtman (Sep 19, 2006)

does your TV have to have the built-in tuner (mine does not) or does the OTA tie in to the 622?


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

The OTA antenna connects to the 622. Your TV does not need an HD-ready tuner.


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## thejtrain (Sep 5, 2006)

ChuckA said:


> If your second TV is a long distance from the 622 with lots of walls between, as it sounds to be your case, you can have problems with the RF remote communicating with the 622.
> 
> You can change to the B band by changing the switch under the batteries, to get more distance. If that does not do it, or you have problems with changing the TV next door, you can use a standard coax splitter turned backward to combine the RF antenna connection on the back of the 622 with the TV2 modulated output coax. Then behind TV2, use another splitter to split the coax back into two. Attach the RF antenna to one side of the splitter and run a coax to the input for TV2 from the other side of the splitter. That will bring the RF Remote signal right into the room with the TV. Works great for me.


ChuckA you genius! We had problems with our 522 just in our old single-story house, and never thought of that. I've been trying to brainstorm a solution for our new house where the situation will be very similar to purtman's - rcvr downstairs w/TV1 (HD), SD TV2 upstairs and the other side of the house.

So let me get this straight: you take 2 short cables from TV2 out and RF in to a splitter behind the rcvr, then run the "combined" cable up to the room where TV2 is, then just another splitter to TV2's coax in and the antenna? I had no idea those signals could share one piece of coax without interfering with each other. If that works, that's certainly solution numero uno!

Thanks!
Jason


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

You have it correct. I am no genius when it comes to this stuff, but I do read this forum and learn from it. Someone else posted this solution here 4 or 5 months ago. I tried it and it works great for me.

I am in a single story and my TV2 is not really that far from the receiver, but for some reason I could not get good reaction with the TV2 remote even on band b. From where TV2 was positioned, I had to stand up and point the remote backward toward the 622 to get it to work at all. I tried this trick and now my wife does not complain about this item anymore. Now, if I could just fix a few more of her complaints I would be good to go. :hurah:


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## thejtrain (Sep 5, 2006)

ChuckA said:


> You have it correct. I am no genius when it comes to this stuff, but I do read this forum and learn from it. Someone else posted this solution here 4 or 5 months ago. I tried it and it works great for me.
> 
> I am in a single story and my TV2 is not really that far from the receiver, but for some reason I could not get good reaction with the TV2 remote even on band b. From where TV2 was positioned, I had to stand up and point the remote backward toward the 622 to get it to work at all. I tried this trick and now my wife does not complain about this item anymore. Now, if I could just fix a few more of her complaints I would be good to go. :hurah:


Hey ChuckA - just called Dish and ordered my new installation, scheduled for this Saturday AM (just in time to catch most of the football games!), and I've got one last question for you. I've had a couple of different coax splitters at my past house, and found that the rated attenuation (in -dB) of the splitter can sometimes cause trouble. Any chance you can tell me what the specs are on the splitters you're using for this workaround?

Thanks,
Jason


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## cooldude919 (Sep 21, 2006)

thejtrain said:


> Hey ChuckA - just called Dish and ordered my new installation, scheduled for this Saturday AM (just in time to catch most of the football games!), and I've got one last question for you. I've had a couple of different coax splitters at my past house, and found that the rated attenuation (in -dB) of the splitter can sometimes cause trouble. Any chance you can tell me what the specs are on the splitters you're using for this workaround?
> 
> Thanks,
> Jason


Pretty sure almost all 2-way splitters are just -3.5db(i think?). The only differences may be if one is 0-900mhz, or 0-1ghz. I am unsure what frequency's all this operates on, but if you have them, use the 0-1ghz.


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

I'm not really sure. I just used some old ones that were laying around from my old cable system from several years ago.


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## thejtrain (Sep 5, 2006)

cooldude919 said:


> Pretty sure almost all 2-way splitters are just -3.5db(i think?). The only differences may be if one is 0-900mhz, or 0-1ghz. I am unsure what frequency's all this operates on, but if you have them, use the 0-1ghz.


Looking in Home Depot yesterday, I spotted a couple of different things. First were a couple of different splitters, marketed for cable TV (5MHz-1GHz) and satellite (5MHz-2.3GHz). Knowing that the Dish RF remote is UHF it stands to reason that these splitters would be able to handle both of those signals.

But the second thing I saw was a diplexer, which purported to do exactly what ChuckA accomplished with a normal splitter - combine a satellite/cable signal with a signal from a remote, to travel down one coax line. It had one input labeled for the satellite and one labeled for the remote antenna, and one output. So it sounds like folks have caught on that this is a great solution for home distribution and the evil geniuses of the marketing department have found a new target!


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## ChuckA (Feb 7, 2006)

I'm sure the diplexers cost more than the splitters. And a set of splitters work fine.


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## wje (Mar 8, 2006)

All unpowered splitters are at least -3db, because -3db is 1/2 the power of a 0db signal. Since the signal is split into two parts, each has half the power, or -3db.

Of course splitters aren't perfect, so the actual losses are higher, such as -3.5 db. If you have a choice, get one that's as close to -3db as you can.

As for splitter vs diplexer, a real diplexer is actually be a band-splitter... they pass all the frequencies that are antenna freqs out one port, the satellite band out the other port. These have lower insertion losses. Whether or not what you buy is actually that, or just a splitter, who knows?

One question I have: if you're using one of the single-coax solutions E* provides, will a stock splitter (or diplexer, for that matter) still work? I don't know what band the second 'virtual' coax signal is translated to, but it could well be above 1Ghz. (Or in the OTA band, for that matter)


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