Confused about satelllite setup

[festivus]

I've often considered switching from TWC to Dish Network. But here's my dilemma. I have multiple TV's all over the house. I have a powered, 8-way passive splitter where my cable enters the basement. Every TV, and my roadrunner modem, has a direct line off of that splitter. In my great room setup, I have a direct line to the TWC HD DVR and another direct line into my TV. Allows me to use my TV's PIP and my DVR PIP. It works flawlessly, aside from the slight grain in the analog feed. Hardly noticeable on my smaller TV's. So for the cost of digital cable, DVR, and roadrunner, I get all of this.

With satellite, I could manage with 5, maybe 6, of my tv's running off the satellite feed(s). How is this accomplished with satellite TV? If 2 tv's are running off of one dual-tuner satellite receiver, how do I change channels on the tv that's in another room? Do I really have to run into the room where the receiver is physically located? Setting up multiple tv's on 50% of the receivers seems to be an issue. I've not seen any offers where I can get 6 receivers for free. And those things can cost quite a bit.

I've read some articles on wiring a satellite system for multiple TV's. Seems like a big headache and unless I'm missing something, I can't change DSS channels while in a room without a receiver.

Anyone else have this problem? How do you set up your system to get around it if there is any way around it?

[Robbiee19]

Sadoun Satellite
http://www.sadoun.com/
These guys are in Hilliard and can wire a whole house for you. Should make it easier for you than trying to write everything here.

[Timcredible]

with dish, the remotes are rf, not ir, so they go through walls - that's how you can change channels even if there's no receiver in the room. and the cabling is kind of odd - the signal for the 2nd tv goes back through the same cable on a different physical frequency and then hits a splitter. dish will set it up for you if you want. but to be honest, with 8 tvs, i wouldn't recommend it since each receiver costs $5/month rental fee.

[mace]

My Dish DVR has the two tv's hooked up to it. The secondary remote is actually UHF. It works for me very well actually. I have about 35 feet between the receiver and the remote.

As far as expense, the picture quality is amazingly better than the compressed analog channels that TW feeds us.

I still have road runner with my dish setup. Fortunately, it was easy for me to disconnect that feed from the sattelite wiring. My modem happens to be pretty close to where the cable comes into the house. I used most of my existing wiring for dish. They brought everything they needed (diplexors and the like) to hook me up.

So far I am very satisfied with Dish Network.