This is technically not about the 950 , but I am redoing a basement for a home theater and it will be built around the 950, so forgive my taking this liberty

I would like to get all my wiring done during the construction phase. I know I'll need a new satellite dish to get HDTV from Directv. I understand that the 24" elliptical dish hits two satellites--the "regular" directv satellite and a different one for HDTV.

So here's my question--if I have the new satellite and related wiring done during construction how will I know if the installer has properly hit the HDTV satellite, since I wasn't planning on getting an HD receiver or TV until construction was over ?

I've gotten conflicting advice. A knowledgeable salesman at the local high end store said no way without the HD equipment. A tech at directv said tune into channel 376, the NASA channel , and if you get it instead of an error message you're golden.

Any video techs out there know anything about this one?

You can check the signal strength of both sats at install time. There's no need to look at the channels themselves. Just look at the meters.

Also, rumor has it that all HD programing will swtich to a third sat that will require the third LNB that will install on the same dish you're talking about. You might want to go ahead and get that set up at install time.


brianca..