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Old 11-09-2009, 01:48 PM
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matt_s78mn matt_s78mn is offline
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Join Date: May 2006
Location: Lincoln, NE
Posts: 314
I've had three c-band setups over the years. My first was an 8' mesh dish and ChannelMaster receiver, the secoond was another 8' mesh dish and a General Instrument 2500R later replaced with a General Instrument DSR-920 4dtv receiver. the third and my current system is a 10' mesh with a dual C/Ku feedhorn and a Motorola DSR-922 4dtv and the HDD-200 HDTV sidecar. I also have a Scientific Atlanta MPEG-2 DVB receiver that I occasionally hook up and play around with. You're right there isn't much left up there analog in-the-clear but there's a ton of digital up there (both subscription and fta.) What I always hated was the belief that C-Band was dead, which is entirely untrue... it's just that C-Band ANALOG is dead.

Regarding the HDD-200 sidecar. Don't get your hopes up that you'll be seeing more selection with that other than what's already up there. All newly added DCII HD channels use MegaPipe, which the HDD-200 cannot receive. You need a commercial DCII receiver designed for use in cable headends to receive that content. Given that most of the HD on satellite is either DCII or DVB, opt for a DVB receiver instead as that's gonna be your best choice.

I have to give props to NPS, as they've been pretty good to me, and their selection of packages available is pretty comprehensive. Believe it or not, they actually don't bombard me with junkmail and telemarketing calls about switching to DirecTV like some of the other providers had!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ed in Tx View Post
"Had"? I still use a C-band system and dish daily. Same Winegard Pinnacle 10' dish I put up in 1987. Nowadays though there is almost nothing free or analog. PBS still has a clear analog feed on W5-16, and C-Span has two analog feeds. Everything else I receive now is digital and requires a Motorola 4DTV receiver, and I subscribe through National Programming Service "NPS" one of the only C-band providers left. My days are numbered though, I don't have the digital "side car" unit to get what HD programming there is available and eventually there will be so few C-band subscribers there won't be enough business incentive left to keep it going. Also the cost difference for programming has narrowed since they now insist on bundled programming. In the old days (after General Instrument finally secured the Videocipher from the pirates) programming was mostly ala carte and a hell of a lot cheaper than cable.
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