Anyone here have DirecTV? or DishNetwork?

[aphex]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
sweet! can i schedule the install more than a few weeks in advance?

Now that im not sure of. The dude at CC said it would be 2-3 days before someone came out to do it, so i would imagine so. Or maybe you could even just hold off calling them until you want it installed...

 

[Parabol]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
sweet! can i schedule the install more than a few weeks in advance?

You probably can however they usually send someone out first to make sure you have a spot where the dish will have line of sight with the satellite.

 

[aphex]

Ameesh brought up a point to me in PM that with dishnetwork, you can effectively rent the system rather than buying it...

What im confused about is that it seems to be more to rent a system with DishNetwork than it is to buy one from DirecTv.

 

[iamwiz82]

the apt i'm moving into actually already has some on the building. I dont think the satellite thing will be an issue. How long is the rebate for?

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
the apt i'm moving into actually already has some on the building. I dont think the satellite thing will be an issue. How long is the rebate for?

Not sure, lemme find out...

BTW, i saw it at CC again today and it does look NOTICABLY better than the cable round here... Looks just as good as my digital cable (Channels 100-998) up at school

 

[iamwiz82]

Currently i'm pay $46/mo for basic cable, for DireTV is a welcome relief @ $38/mo with local channels.

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Currently i'm pay $46/mo for basic cable, for DireTV is a welcome relief @ $38/mo with local channels.

Geeze... Ours is $80 but it includes our Cable Modem...

What we plan to do is drop the cable service down to the lowest available for the Cable Modem ($14 Basic Cable + $39 Cable Modem = $53) and then get the 2 room satellite system ($43) which would bring our total to ($53+43)=$96/month... Not too bad if ya ask me...

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

shameless plug.

I've got a PVR500 dishnetwork dish and reciever(tivo) that I'm trying to get rid of if anyones intrested

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
shameless plug.

I've got a PVR500 dishnetwork dish and reciever(tivo) that I'm trying to get rid of if anyones intrested

May i ask why? Feel free to PM me a price on that...

 

[iamwiz82]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
shameless plug.

I've got a PVR500 dishnetwork dish and reciever(tivo) that I'm trying to get rid of if anyones intrested

can you do better than $49 and free install?

 

[aphex]

^

 

[Perknose]

A Dish 500 is required to receive local channels on Dish Network.

Well, I dunno, but I have only a lowly 301, and I get the local channels just fine, thank you, AND with excellent picture quality, I must add.

Here's my story. Last year my wife Jessie went into the hospital for a serious, but eminently survivable operation. I'm not a huge TV type guy, but I went out and got a big screen, HDTV capable box and subscribed to a $9.99/month Dish Network promotion, in anticipation of her at home recovery period. The equipment was free, but I had to do the installation myself.

Jessie never came home from the hospital, and I never bothered with the installation -- there were many things I didn't give one good goddamn fusk about.

Still, I was locked into a one year contract, and when it was up just recently, I called to cancel. Instead, they offered me free installation, 3 free months, free local channes, and one free month of HBO. I accepted. No free blowjob, though -- the stingy bastards!

The picture quality is stunningly good. It far surpasses the piss poor Comcast digital signal so many of my friends "enjoy".

The American Way: On a side note, DN subcontracted the installation out to some local concern, who in turn sent out a poor bastard "piece work" independent contratctor from the Czech republic -- a guy with an Isuzu pickup, a ladder, some tools, and a dream.

He called first. He was under the impression that he here to troubleshoot a repair. "Nope, installation", I infromed him, so he made sure to pack ALL his wrenches. Nevertheless, when he was here, he still had to borrow some of mine.

When he came, he complained that they were only paying him $45 for a repair, not the $75 for a full install.

"Welcome to America", I replied.

Too many trees. I have too many trees in the satellite line of sight. So, he first tried to put the dish on an old, unused telephone pole in my back yard that probably dates from the 1930's and practically screams "Works Progress Administration"! Electricity, it's the brand new buzz.

That install was a no-go. No signal, no cry. Alex, (his name was Alex) wanted to give up, but then he wouldn't get paid at all. We eventually strapped it to a tree even further from my house. The poor bastard was here, working hard, almost 6 hours in all.

All this was in 95 plus degree weather, with high humidity. At first, I was sliding him juice of all kinds. At the end, with triumph in sight, it was beer, each of which he would drink standing up in my kitchen in a straight 15 seconds or less. And I drink good beer, none of that Bud Light crapola.

Alex. He was diligent, intelligent, and hard working, so I did what I could to help. At first on the tree, there was a margial signal, which was hampered by some of the tree branches. So there I was, at the very top of his ladder, leaning way over, WHOA, and lunging at branches with my semi rusty saw.

"No, no, Mr. Perkins, I do that", said Alex. Hey, sport, go hydrate yourself first.

The signal did not want to come, but it had no choice. There were two of us.

Alex called me up yesterday, and left his cell number and the following solemn vow: If anything ever went wrong with my signal, he would come out and fix it for free.

 

[aphex]

Well, I dunno, but I have only a lowly 301, and I get the local channels just fine, thank you, AND with excellent picture quality, I must add.

I just called and they told me the 301 comes with the 500 dish.

 

[UDT89]

get direct tv, and check out the emulation sites. not saying do it, its just cool reading material.

 

[alphatarget1]

Originally posted by: GOSHARKS

Originally posted by: dude
But ya, the quality is a big step up from cable. It's like watching a DVD.

thats interesting, as my entire family noticed a decrease in the overall quality of the picture on dish network when compared to our former att cable (not the digital cable though)

its very obvious that the video is highly compressed, in scenes where there is large amounts of motion or color change, you can see blocks, similar to watching a full screen mpeg video on your computer (of course it should be as both are mpeg...)

overall, we were much happier with the image quality of the old cable than with DN, but then the HDTV channels (HBO, CBS) are unaffected by the compression, and look just as good as the channels we pull off the air (NBC, ABC, PBS)

*edit* the blocks are even easily noticable on our 27" panasonic, it doesnt even take the 50" toshiba hdtv to notice it.

looks like you didn't adjust the dish right. Signal strength varies a LOT by just pointing the dish the right way. Bad weather does not affect much at all, i get about 89-90 signal strength while about 80 in very very bad weather.

DTV beats cable by so much it's not even funny, do you get 5.1 digital from your cable? I don't remember them offering that for digital cable (correct me if im wrong). If directv/dish network wants to expand their programming, they can just shoot a satellite up and it'd take much shorter time for a cable company to rewire all their existing lines.

i have directv and very satisfied with the quality, im looking forward to dump it and go for cable cuz i dont watch that much TV anyway

 

[SirDante]

Are there any hot deals now? I'm looking to switch from cable. Also I'll probably be getting high speed internet access thru satellite as there is no dsl or cablemodem option available where I live.

 

[iamwiz82]

Circuit City's rebate does not have a date of expiration yet. The sales guy i talked to said that they were going week by week. For $50 a month and $50 for the receiver/UltimateTV, you can get 120+ channels plus UltimateTV, sounds good to me!

 

[aphex]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Circuit City's rebate does not have a date of expiration yet. The sales guy i talked to said that they were going week by week. For $50 a month and $50 for the receiver/UltimateTV, you can get 120+ channels plus UltimateTV, sounds good to me!

Did the dude say anything about how much a second one would be? Mine had no idea...

 

[iamwiz82]

the two receivers? $40 i htink.

 

[GoSharks]

Originally posted by: kenleung

looks like you didn't adjust the dish right. Signal strength varies a LOT by just pointing the dish the right way. Bad weather does not affect much at all, i get about 89-90 signal strength while about 80 in very very bad weather.

just checked and it says 98-99...

 

[Palvaran]

I've had Dish Network for 2 years. Its great. I highly recommend them.

 

[iamwiz82]

I just got a GREAT deal on DirecTV! $10 AR for an ultimateTV with single room dish and i got the wireless keyboard. I bought an open box UltimateTV for $30 and then the keyboard for $30. Sweet!

 

[PlatinumGold]

i had comcast digital and i switched to DISH. in my opinion Dish gives you a LOT better reception EXCEPT when the weather is REALLY bad. but then when it gets that bad, cable has problems too so.

i'd take either dish or directv over cable ANY DAY.