Hughes E86 Impressions...

[gleskinen]

I just bought a hughes E86 HDTV sat receiver to go with my newly aquired mitsubishi WS55819 HDTV compatible widescreen.

I live in St. Pete, Fl and the OTA HD signals are incredible. I almost returned my TV because my picture on sports programming was so bad but after seeing the HD signal, I think I might keep it. ( I will miss ESPN sports and NHL center sports in HD but I will get all network sports through the digital channels. Even if they aren't HD, they still look awesome). There is a down side to the E86. The signal through the satelite was not as good as the signal through my dolby digital (non-hdtv) rca reciever. So, I am just using the E86 as a OTA tuner and I will continue to use my old RCA for satelite programming.... Non-sports programming through the RCA on the mitsubishi are comparable to my Tosh 36" direct view TV (except for some minor stretch for the 16:9 conversion - don't want to risk burn-in with the side bars on 4:3 programming)... I paid 450 dollars for the E86 and think it is worth every penny for the 4 HD OTA stations I recieve...

[easy9]

how did u get your ota signal to come in, i bought a terk tv-55 ant, and i can't get the signal to come in, i tried ant 1 and 2 , but can't get it to work

[JustinS]

Gleskinen, I just order the E86 and am installing a new Mits. 65411 in the near future. I'm just curious HOW BAD the satellite signal seemed to come through on the Mits. using the Hughes receiver? It was the only receiver I was planning to have attached to my HD TV, so I am a bit worried I won't be satisfied with the regular satellite feeds?

[HokieD]

easy9, hopefully you figured it out by now. Check your settings in the installation menu. You can change the signal meter to monitor the antenna signal. Scroll through the FCC assigned channels and be sure that you are receiving a strong signal.

In my case I was reading in the 90's but could not tune in 3-1 (FCC: 22-1) no matter what I did. A quick call to the DirecTV/Hughes tech support team had me enter in my zipcode on the LOCAL ANTENNA A setup screen. This magically did the trick after a bunch of downloads, etc. Be sure that you do this step.

[daytonaviolet]

Originally posted by gleskinen
I just bought a hughes E86 HDTV sat receiver to go with my newly aquired mitsubishi WS55819 HDTV compatible widescreen.

I live in St. Pete, Fl and the OTA HD signals are incredible. I almost returned my TV because my picture on sports programming was so bad but after seeing the HD signal,

a few questions with your E86:

1) when your viewing non HD channels, are you using the componet outputs or composite/svideo outputs?

2) when using your componet video outputs (rgb), if your viewing non HD 16:19 format, it's best to choose the native modes such as 480i, 4:3 modes.

3) also, when not using HD channels, you can view 480i siganls using your svideo/compisite output. this looks much BETTER then the component (rgb) outputs even in 480i 4:3 modes. don't know why?

good luck,

[HokieD]

I use S-video for my non-HD stuff. Mainly because I cannot adjust the aspect modes when using the component video cables. The other reason is exactly like you said, the picture seems sharper with more contrast using S-video on non-HD broadcasts.