Cable vs. Satellite

We tried satellite TV for a couple of months and were dissatisfied with the fuzzy picture quality whenever it rained. Since we live in the NW, it was pretty much all the time. We switched back to Comcast and are quite happy with cable now that we have had the bad experience with satellite TV to compare it with.

Reply to
tenplay
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I have been using cable so far but it gets more and more expensive. So I am weighing options switching to satellite TV. I currently have Comcast, all but premium channels. I have very nice Sony widescreen HDTV with built-in HDTV tuner. So HDTV programs are very important for me including HDTV DVR. I checked DirectTV and Dish network web sites and I am now confused with their choices and pricing. Do they offer local channels in HD? Do they force to buy DVR or I can rent? How much does it cost to rent DVR? Can it record in HD? Are local channels included in packages or I have to pay extra for them? Is equipment free (Dish, receiver, etc.) or I have to pay rental fee as well? How do satellite and cable packages compare? I have now around 200 channels including about a dozen in HD from Comcast. Again I do not have HBO, Showtime, etc. How much would comparable package cost from satellite? Finally, how is satellite quality vs. cable? Does weather effect reception? I would like to hear from someone's experience who switched from cable to satellite. I live in central NJ.

Reply to
Sasha

I switched and sometimes wish I had not. The new service Direct TV has issues about picture quality sometimes in the early evenings. Some thunder storms will completely block viewing. Now I own the outdated boxes. Last time I dumped Dishnetwork I gave the whole set up that was 2 years old to a friend. When he tried to activate it they told him it was so ancient that he needed new converters and dish..... At least with the cable company I could take the boxes back once every couple of years and get the newer one for nothing, other than the monthly fee.. DTV charges for each converted connected.... Not TV. $4.95 a month. My installation was with 4 converters, on activation I immediately disconnected

2 of them.

I got TV, high speed internet and phone wrapped into one bill. About 10 bucks a month less than what I was paying before.

All in all is was a push.........

Reply to
SQLit

On 07/12/05 10:47 pm Sasha tossed the following ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

Don't know about Dish, but with DirecTV it depends where you are. Here in W. Michigan, I put up an antenna for the locals in HD -- but not all their programs are in HD anyway: mostly only the prime-time series.

DirecTV doesn't rent DVR machines, but our original 35-hr non-HD DVR cost only about $100. This is a TiVo, which many people claim beats the other DVRs, and costs $5/month for the "programming information."

We just got a 250-hr SD/30-hr HD TiVo for $350 with a 50%-off coupon at BestBuy.

If we are paying DirecTV anything at all for the non-HD locals, it must be only a dollar or two a month.

We had a 3-room installation (dish and 3 receivers) free after rebate. Now they commonly advertise a 4-room installation free after rebate. It costs $5/month per receiver.

No doubt depends on the company. HBO, Showtime, Starz, etc. are available with DirecTV at an extra monthly cost: $12 for the first, $11 for the second, $10 for the third, etc.

Weather doesn't Effect reception, but it sometimes Affects it. We've lost our signal 3 or 4 times in 18 months during heavy rain. But we sometimes lost our cable signal during heavy rain too.

We had Cablevision in NY, but when we moved to MI we went with DirecTV because we liked the available channels better than those available by cable from Charter.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

I had DirectTV for a little over five years. When we got internet access via cable, I added TV and cancelled the DirectTV account.

Shortly thereafter (about ten days), I got a letter from DirectTV's lawyer accusing me of stealing DirectTV's signal via unauthorized signal decoding devices, demanding that I surrender all such devices in my posession, pay a penalty of $4,000.00, and forswear ever again stealing from their company. Further, the letter concluded, if they had to file suit, the minimum for which they would settle would be $10,000.00.

They f***ed with the wrong dude - I didn't go to law school for drill.

I responded with a letter along the lines of "I suppose a blow job is out of the question?" Then I got positively mideval - pitchforks and torches time. I followed the letter with a petition for a TRO and injunctive relief in state district court. The roaches ultimately went back under the carpet.

I hope they rot in Hell.

The p*rn is better on satellite, though. Especially Dish Network.

Reply to
HeyBub

cable and satellite both suffer from digitization during action sports (NASCAR, NFL, etc) which gives you out of focus fast action, so there's that, (if the engineers of the companies are reading this, please FIX)

if you decide to go with a satellite dish, and if you are sick of the evil Bush administration, Rush Limbaugh, Fox "News" etc., then it might interest you to know that DirecTV is owned by Fox "News"

that is why I went with Dish Network at my beach house and not evil DirecTV

same reason I boycott Exxon/Mobil

still have not decided which is better between a better digital cable system and Dish network because they are at different houses so I cannot compare quality side by side.

there are pros and cons of each

Reply to
arizona

Fox News appears to be owned by Newscorp.

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Direct TV is owned by Hughes Electronics. " It's not known how much signal piracy costs DirecTV. On Wednesday parent company Hughes Electronics reported strong second quarter results, with $2.4 million in revenue, driven by DirecTV's subscriber growth. It ended the quarter with 11.6 million subscribers paying an average of $61 a month for service. "
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If the two are intertwined I did not find it in my searching.

I only looked cause I worked on the LA broadcasting center for DTV. I spent almost a year there before they went on line. Never heard from anyone about Fox News. When the toping out party happened there were lots of suits from Hughes there.

Reply to
SQLit

If he decides that it is not appropriate to give his money to companies that air highly biased "news" programming, than more power to him.

Bob

Reply to
Bob

Contrary to what they may tell you, Dishnetwork does not have local channels in HD. They told me they did and after getting a new receiver and a new dish antenna, I found out they did not have HD local channels. I must have asked the Dish person selling the service ten times if she was sure that Dish had local channels in HD. She assured me the did. I had had Dish for about five years up to that point, but cancelled it after all the lies they told me.

Reply to
David

"if you decide to go with a satellite dish, and if you are sick of the evil Bush administration, Rush Limbaugh, Fox "News" etc., then it might interest you to know that DirecTV is owned by Fox "News" "

I figures some kook would turn the decision of whether to go with sat or cable into a "Bush is evil" thing. And is usual, it' based more on hatred than facts. Fox News does not own DirectTV. News Corp, the parent company of Fox News, owns about a third of DirectTV, which is a US public company. And what does Rush Limbaugh have to do with any of this? Last time I checked, he's on radio. Most of US who didn't like a particular channel just don't watch it, as there are hundreds to choose from. We didn't get all emotional about it.

As for OPs question about receiving locals in HD, with sat you need a seperate OTA antenna to receive the locals from wherevery they are being broadcast in your area. For central NJ, that would be either NYC or Phil. The only exception is, one of the two sat providers was offering CBS LA/NYC HD feed if you were qualified to receive it.

Reply to
trader4

The 3-digit channel numbers for Dish were driving us batty. The channels are not in consecutive order, so you either had to memorize the channel numbers or always look them up in the channel guide. For instance, TBS might be #438 and TNT #076. The standard Comcast cable numbers, which we usually watch, are in consecutive order and only two digits.

Also in our area, the Comcast people are much more accessible and responsive. They always answer their phones and do service calls within a day or two. We had to order Dish through a small independent dealer, whose flakey receptionist gave us wrong information and who was backlogged with service calls to make.

Reply to
tenplay

I have been a dish cust for a long time. See my recent post in alt.dbs.echostar re differences between dish and directtv.

On DBS systems local HD is via off the air antenna. You can get a HD DVR that will record this signal in addition to the sat stream. You can buy or rent the DVR from Dish. They can give you the pricing. Locals via sat will run about $5 more per month and, I think but check first, that HD locals are only available in SD right now. I have always bought my receivers, never rented. I would never go with a non-DVR receiver again. I think that Dish pricing will always beat Comcast for programming. Weather can effect reception sometimes. This will vary depending on how strong your signal is. if you have a clear shot to the sky, no trees, and your dish is installed properly you will rarely have issues. if your shot is through a few trees or your dish is not properly aligned your signal could fade more frequently. Good news about that is it will go back on as soon as the storm lightens up. Cable can take days to fix a down wire somewhere.

I used to have Comcast digital cable. The channel layout and organization is terrible compared to Dish. The Dish user interface for their DVR is far superior IMO.

If you want DVR and HD you have only a couple of options from Dishnetwork. Their current receiver that will meet your requirements is the 942. its a two tuner model (Allows you to record 2 shows at once while watching a 3rd!)

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is kind of pricy with a list of $699. They may have rental options or discounts if you commit to programming, check with Dishnetwork. 800-333-DISH

The 811 does not have DVR capabilities.

You may want to try these guys too

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I have dealt with them before for receiver purchases and they were always helpful.

Reply to
No

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Bob, don't all satellite and cable companies carry ABC, NBC, and CBS? If so, then how can one subscribe without getting a company that airs "highly-biased" news programming?

Reply to
texas twang

From what I can tell, neither is perfect. I know two people that are very happy with satellite, I know two others that are switching back to cable. One fellow has to go out every time it snows to clean his dish. The other loses signal in any bad weather.

I've thought about switching but there does not seem to be enough difference in price or quality so I'm still sticking with cable.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

=================================================

Been in the same house for almost 40 years.... Have used:

1> a BUD (Big Ugly Dish) 2.> Small Dish ...Dish Network 3> Cable

For me...Cable offers "my" best bang for the buck....since they offer high speed internet and TV offerings and picture quality and programming was close enough to the Satelite I went that way...

Phone company is about to offer DSL in my area...and to be honest if DSL is anywhere near as good as Cable Internet I will be hanking cable and having the small dish re-connected...

Weather rarely caused any problems with the little dish (3 foot of snow did not affect the big dish at all)...but I loose my Cable TV and internet connections all the time ...(like this morning for 3 hours...without a local storm...)

Just the opinions of a guy who does not watch a lot of TV

Bob G

Reply to
Bob G.

It's also a confusing time for DirectTV hi-def. They are planning to launch new satellites and offer HD local channels in the next year or two that use a better compression software (mpeg4), but things are going to slip as they always do. They also plan to offer their own dvr that understands mpeg4. The current TivoHD unit is only mpeg2 and will slowly become obsolete as more directtv channels get converted over. As mentioned, there's going to be tons of delays implementing the new scheme. In the meantime, DirectTV has filtered down their HD channels so much that all the home theater guys are grumbling, hd-lite is the term. It's not much more detail than a good dvd transfer.

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is a good site to keep up with all this.

Reply to
jjj_soper

Sounds like smart capitalism to me. I congratulate him.

Reply to
Art

Good to know that. I may switch just to piss you off.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

We've been with DirecTV for 6 years, with no problems. It's only lost service during the most severe of storms.

Best thing is, they have a Tivo-driven PNR that has two tuners, so you can record 2 shows at once, or record a show while watching a different channel.

We just got one, and it rocks.

Reply to
Anonymous

I'll second that and I have DishNetwork. The only time I have a signal problem is during a REAL bad thundertorm and that might be for 5 to 10 seconds. A buddy of mine used to own a Dish franchise and he said when people lose a signal all the time (from small storms and such) it's because a) their dish isn't point in the right dorection or 2) there is a tree or something bnlocking the "view". I had that problem after the first two years and realised that the neighbor's tree had grown tall enought that it was interfering with the signal. I just moved the Diash to a different location. I figure I'm good for another 10 years or so......

Reply to
Dr. Hardcrab

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