EDIT: DSL vs Cable

[Arkitech]

I'm thinking of upgrading my digital cable to either Dish Networks or either DirecTV. It seems that the dish feeds have much better video quality over cable. Can anyone verify this? And if so which do you guys think have the better service DN or DTV? My company gets a slight discount on DN services but I've heard that DTV is the much bigger company so I'd hate to invest money in DN equipment and then find out they're going out of business.

EDIT: a couple of more questions

Do I have to pay an extra monthly fee for every box that I have in the house with dish feeds? I have about 4 TVs that I would want wired (basement, family room, bedroom, office)

Is it better to buy my own receiver or just rent one from the company?

Does the dish feeds carry all of the same channels as digital cable?


RE-EDIT: I'm also trying to decide if I should keep my cable service or go with DSL. I'm moving about 15 miles further south of my current location so I'm trying to figure out whats the best options out there these days. My company also offers a slight discount on DSL service but I need to find out how close I am to the switch to determine what speeds I would qualify for. SBC is the provider and they offer 3 packages:

One-year at $29.95 per month 384Mbps downstream x 128Kbps upstream and a single dynamic IP address.

384-768x128 and a single dynamic IP address for the same monthly fee of $29.95.

One-year at $39.95 per month at 768-1500x256 and a single dynamic IP address.

One-year at $69.95 per month at 1500-6000x384 and a single dynamic IP address.


I need to check the speeds I'm getting at home on my current cable service.





Thanks for any feedback

 

[Anubis]

you need a box for every TV that you want to get cable on for DN and DTV and Digital cable for that matter. thats gonna cost a bunch extra i think its like 10$ more a month for an extra box. we have DTV at my summer place and i cont think the quality is any better/worse then digital cable.

DTV and DN also have probs with storms. during a blizzard or a hard thunderstorm, you will loose ALL tv reception. which is really annoying

yes they carry all teh same channels basically

1 thin tho. sometimes you cannot get your local channels on DN or DTV

 

[Mutilator]

Digital cable quality varies greatly from company to company. Last year when I bought my HDTV I decided to switch from DirecTV (had 99 signal strength) to Time Warner Digital Cable. The reason for this was that if I wanted to get HD stuff on my TV I'd have to buy a new dish and new receiver which was going to cost a small fortune... about $1000 at the time. Plus I was only going to have 2 HD channels (no local HD channels only non-HD). I decided to go with TWC since I already had Road Runner and they were cheaper and had 7 HD channels.
Digital Cable for me is actually on par if not slightly better than DirecTV was. I had both hooked up to my TV and switched sources back and forth to compare. Obviously HD is MUCH better than DC or DTV.
A lot of the channels are the same... in my case digital cable has more channels than I had on DTV.

IMO you should talk to some neighbors who have Dish or DTV and see if they like it. Look at the picture quality and compare it to your digital cable. I can tell you right now you will be paying more for either dish service. Unless your digital cable is terrible and satellite would be much better I'd say stick with DC.

 

[arod]

Originally posted by: Mutilator
Digital cable quality varies greatly from company to company. Last year when I bought my HDTV I decided to switch from DirecTV (had 99 signal strength) to Time Warner Digital Cable. The reason for this was that if I wanted to get HD stuff on my TV I'd have to buy a new dish and new receiver which was going to cost a small fortune... about $1000 at the time. Plus I was only going to have 2 HD channels (no local HD channels only non-HD). I decided to go with TWC since I already had Road Runner and they were cheaper and had 7 HD channels.
Digital Cable for me is actually on par if not slightly better than DirecTV was. I had both hooked up to my TV and switched sources back and forth to compare. Obviously HD is MUCH better than DC or DTV.
A lot of the channels are the same... in my case digital cable has more channels than I had on DTV.

IMO you should talk to some neighbors who have Dish or DTV and see if they like it. Look at the picture quality and compare it to your digital cable. I can tell you right now you will be paying more for either dish service. Unless your digital cable is terrible and satellite would be much better I'd say stick with DC.

Dish service for me is about half the price of digital cable.... I have both and never have had a dropout or anything like that, if you do experince dropouts in storms you need to realign your dish because its off.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: TheEvil1
you need a box for every TV that you want to get cable on for DN and DTV and Digital cable for that matter. thats gonna cost a bunch extra i think its like 10$ more a month for an extra box. we have DTV at my summer place and i cont think the quality is any better/worse then digital cable.

DTV and DN also have probs with storms. during a blizzard or a hard thunderstorm, you will loose ALL tv reception. which is really annoying

yes they carry all teh same channels basically

1 thin tho. sometimes you cannot get your local channels on DN or DTV

It's $5 for each additional box with DirecTV.

Digital cable is NOT all digital. Only the channels over 100. Usually only the movie channels, pay-per-view channels, and a few others like Discovery Science channel. The rest of the channels under 100 are still analog and much worse in picture quality.

Ark is in Chicago. DirecTV is offering local channels in Chicago. Even if he didn't, the solution is easy: keep the $5 very basic cable package that carries local channels only.

Neither Dish nor DirecTV is going out of business any time soon. If you're getting a signifigant discount with DN, go with them.

I live three hours south of Ark in Champaign IL. My DirecTV reception has been affected only a couple of times this year, and less than 15 minutes each time. My cable has gone out 8 times... once for almost an entire day.

The only way cable is going to compete with Sat is if they go 100% digital, and start carrying more HD channels. They have the ability to do so and in the end, they could offer better picture quality than Sat because they have more bandwidth to play with. But as it stands, and as it will stand for a year or more, Sat offers the better service.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: arod


Dish service for me is about half the price of digital cable.... I have both and never have had a dropout or anything like that, if you do experince dropouts in storms you need to realign your dish because its off.

That's just not true. If you live in an area with heavy thunderstorms or snow, you WILL -- on a few occations -- lose signal, no matter how well you have your dish aligned.

I have a triple LNB oval dish that picks up all three DirecTV sats. I have a better than 90% signal on all transpoders, yet I've lost signal briefly during severe thunderstorms and have had to clear snow off the dish once.

 

[conjur]

It's $4.99 for each additional receiver for DISH.

Just check out DISHNetwork.com. I was going to get digital cable (since they offer HBO/Showtime in HD as well as some of the local broadcasters' HD feeds) but they just raised their prices another $5 or so. It's about $46 for just BASIC digital cable (like 25 channels or something).

Digital Cable = teh l4m3

DISH = teh r0x0rz

 

[arod]

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: arod


Dish service for me is about half the price of digital cable.... I have both and never have had a dropout or anything like that, if you do experince dropouts in storms you need to realign your dish because its off.

That's just not true. If you live in an area with heavy thunderstorms or snow, you WILL -- on a few occations -- lose signal, no matter how well you have your dish aligned.

Its not my fault if you cant align your dish properly, Ive had both direcTV and dish for over 2 years and have NEVER experinced a dropout ever.... Even during the heaviest storms.... But I live in TX so no snow here ever. I could see dish losing signal in a blizzard but we have had some nasty storms come through and never a dropout.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: arod

Originally posted by: Amused

Originally posted by: arod


Dish service for me is about half the price of digital cable.... I have both and never have had a dropout or anything like that, if you do experince dropouts in storms you need to realign your dish because its off.

That's just not true. If you live in an area with heavy thunderstorms or snow, you WILL -- on a few occations -- lose signal, no matter how well you have your dish aligned.

Its not my fault if you cant align your dish properly, Ive had both direcTV and dish for over 2 years and have NEVER experinced a dropout ever.... Even during the heaviest storms.... But I live in TX so no snow here ever. I could see dish losing signal in a blizzard but we have had some nasty storms come through and never a dropout.

Why be a dick?

Go to any DBS forum and you'll find that dropouts during very heavy, severe thunderstorms are NORMAL. My dish is aligned perfectly. You can't get 100% on all transponders on all 3 sats with an oval triple LNB dish. 90+% is perfect.

It's a normal problem that Dish and DirecTV will tell you is normal, and both have explainations of this on their websites.

 

[MrBond]

The outages people complain about during storms with satallite are not a problem if you've alligned your dish correctly. I've lost my signal twice in two years, both during VERY heavy storms that were more fun to watch than anything on the TV anyway. My dish is bolted to a 8' steel pole that's cemented into the ground (its actually the same pole for our old c-band dish)

Snow was never really a problem. Our dish got covered with snow and we'd still pick up channels no problem.

 

[Amused]

Originally posted by: MrBond
The outages people complain about during storms with satallite are not a problem if you've alligned your dish correctly. I've lost my signal twice in two years, both during VERY heavy storms that were more fun to watch than anything on the TV anyway. My dish is bolted to a 8' steel pole that's cemented into the ground (its actually the same pole for our old c-band dish)

Snow was never really a problem. Our dish got covered with snow and we'd still pick up channels no problem.

Again, my dish is aligned perfectly. As I said, it has happened twice this year, less than 15 minutes each time. Both times we had severe thunderstorms that were so bad, tornado warnings were going on and the tornado sirens were sounding. NO dish, no matter how well aligned, could keep a signal through THAT.

Sat technology requires direct line of sight to the satellite. A heavy thundercloud going 70-80,000 feet up with lots of rain IS going to block that line of sight more than any wall or tree.

And the time it was blocked with snow, it was a very heavy, wet snow. It had been covered with light, fluffy snow before with no problems, but it cannot bounce the signal to the LNBs through wet heavy snow. It's a physical impossibility.

 

[Arkitech]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I guess my last question would be with HD content. I'm going to take the HDTV plunge within the next 3 months so it would be cool to find a provider who offers HD channels.

 

[Arkitech]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I guess my last question would be with HD content. I'm going to take the HDTV plunge within the next 3 months so it would be cool to find a provider who offers HD channels.

 

[RossMAN]

Does DISH offer any sort of PVR?

I know that most cable companies do and DirecTV does, but what about DISH PVR's?

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
Does DISH offer any sort of PVR?

I know that most cable companies do and DirecTV does, but what about DISH PVR's?

Yeah...they have a new one...the 901, I think. And I think their next HD receiver will have one, too? Haven't read up on sat. receiver news at avfsorum in a while

 

[FoBoT]

cable

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I guess my last question would be with HD content. I'm going to take the HDTV plunge within the next 3 months so it would be cool to find a provider who offers HD channels.

DISH

HBO, Showtime, PPV, CBS, Discovery and ESPN coming soon (if it's not already) and I believe the HDNet channels will be on DISH very soon, too.

DSL vs. Cable

If you're less than 10,000 feet from the CO, switch, whatever, I'd say DSL. Otherwise, cable.

 

[Arkitech]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I guess my last question would be with HD content. I'm going to take the HDTV plunge within the next 3 months so it would be cool to find a provider who offers HD channels.

DISH

HBO, Showtime, PPV, CBS, Discovery and ESPN coming soon (if it's not already) and I believe the HDNet channels will be on DISH very soon, too.

DSL vs. Cable

If you're less than 10,000 feet from the CO, switch, whatever, I'd say DSL. Otherwise, cable.

From your sig it appears you're an AV enthusiast, have you had a chance to compare plasma displays with the new LCD ones? I just saw one of the newer ones a couple of days ago and it was really nice, I think it was a 40 inch.