So I am thinking of dumping comcast and going with Direct TV or Dish network what are your thoughts which is best?
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So I am thinking of dumping comcast and going with Direct TV or Dish network what are your thoughts which is best?
Direct TV seem to have the better deals with equipment and with programming
Haven't really seen anything that would make me leave cable.
TV is something that bugs me. I have a nice big TV with digital cable, DVD and a VCR with a loud a$$ stereo attached and I don't get to watch the damn thing. I watch on a computer in my bed room while the rest of the people in the house always watch some inane sitcom, sporting event or the like minded brainless show and b!tch when I turn on the discovery channel.
BTW - satellite is 'spensive to set up and not much better from what I hear. Unless they have a channel you must have that cable doesn't, don't waste the $$$.
Besides, comcast digital can provide internet access with a 1.5mb dl / 384kb ul.
Soon to be 3mb down here at the end of the year (so I have heard)Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovetheusers
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovetheusers
Ding ding ding...we have a winner. They day I give up my well serviced and always running high speed internet is the day you see me swinging by the neck in the garage with a pair of jumpercables.
Right on...Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleetus
Had Satellite for about six months:
cloud passes overhead, loss of signal.
Rain storm, loss of signal.
Sun spots. loss of signal.
Dark outside, loss of signal.
And always right in the middle of a good movie.
Digital cable=good
Satellite=bad
nuf said.
D00d, ya need to report in.Quote:
Originally Posted by TripleRLtd
That is all.
I have had Dish Network since fall of 1999. I can not imagine ever going back to cable (not even digital cable). I have the "America's Top 150" package that consists of around 170 channels including numerous feeds of the lower end subscription movie channels such as Encore and The Movie Channel. It's hard to imagine all the problems Triple had with his setup. I very, very rarely lose signal. If I do, it is during a massive down pour or snow storm. Storms of that intensity do not last long (ten minutes?), and then I am back to the show. Losing signal is always a pain, but if it only happens twice a year, so what? Cable subscribers loose signal too when the lines are damaged during storms. It probably will not happen very often, but if it does, it will be down for much longer than ten minutes. A former argument for cable was the inclusion of local channels. In most areas, both Dish Network and Direct TV offer local channels for another $5 per month (approximately).
Summary: Dish Network has more channels for less money with a better picture, and is more reliable. The down side to Dish Network is setting it up. The free basic install may or may not be enough for your home. Fortunately, it's really easy to set up if you have even a little bit of do it yourself skills.
My Answer: ABC (Anything But Comcast)
Where I live, Tacoma Washington, the city council started its own cable company after the local cable company/monopoly was gouging customers so badly they were forced into action. So now we have the "Click" network (City) and Comcast. If you are with Click you get your basic cable TV and High Speed for a total price of $35/month.
However if you live in a "Comcast Area" you pay at least twice that for just high speed. In addition the Comcast High Speed can go offline for days and this has happened several times already.
Cable TV is another monster altogether. I originally ordered a 'digital silver' package that I was paying $42/month for. A year later my bill is $86. Last week I tried to call Comcast to cancel some of my services and I got a machine asking me to 'enter my mailbox number'
In other words they weren't going to let me speak to a real person. I finally called City Hall and got ahold of the regulatory agency that deals with Cable TV.
Going on to their website is another joke. I went online to see their 'basic cable' services' located here:
http://comcast.com/Support/viewCLU.asp?CLUID=80613
and the listing looked impressive until you read the fine print saying that not all these services are offered with basic cable. I sent them an email asking what services ARE offered and how much they cost....and they have yet to respond - 5 days ago... :devil:
As far as I'm concerened Comcast =SATANTV :devil: :devil: :redeyes: :flame: :flame:
I've had dish network for about 2 years. So far I haven't had a problem (aside from sun spots or a botched upgrade a couple weeks ago). The PVR works great, no need to add a tivo. I've got the high-def reciever now in the living room... niiiice picture but I could use a few more channels.
Depends on where you live. In the country you got 2 choices. Antenna (2 channels) satellite (unlimited) have had direct tv for 4 years. Only during a snow storm do we loose any signal. In fact I am going to put in Direcway internet. Again the choice is phone line 24k-28k. So again no real choice.
Damn whoever set your dish up must not have gotten a very good signal, because if they are properly installed, you will have VERY FEW problems with signal loss.Quote:
Originally Posted by TripleRLtd
Now for my digital cable, the tv part sucks *** but the internet rules.
Oh and they arent that expensive to setup, lots of places give the dish and 1-2 boxes free if you sign a contract for one year
I don't think it's the installers, it really is the weather down here. I live about 10 miles or so away from TripleR, my neighbour had satellite, I have TW Cable. Almost every day during "rainy season" (may - september) the picture would at least go really fuzzy and more often than not cut out.
Unfortunately, the sun spots cut out cable too, although this only happens exactly when the English soccer is showing on a Saturday, in the month of October, apprently.
I've just realised.. TW used the Solar Flare excuse against me... no fair :eek2:
Cheers
I considered the move to satellite, but decided against it because of the added over head. The initial cost of the Dish and HDTV decoder was very high, over $1k if I remember correctly. I'm paying $10/month over my basic cable service for HDTV/Digital cable and I get the following HD channels : ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, ESPN, Comcast Sports NET, INHD, INHD2 and some PBS station. Additionally, all my movie channels have one that is HD and 5.1DD. A much better bargain if you ask me.
Exactly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Titchski
In fact, if it wasn't for the weather down here and the loss of signal, I would probably go with Satellite simply because I was able to get sooo many sports channels not available on cable w/o a separtated subscription.
BTW
I can't remember how long it's been since cable went down.
Well I guess my decision has been made for me as the tivo/pvr's with the DSS cannot record over the air/basic cable channels only content provided by the dish
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gollo
You can get a 3m now with the business oriented line for about $100 a month and you get 5 IP's.
I did a little research on cable verses satalite about a year ago and found that not every thing is not as black and white as it seems. First off there is a big difference between Dish Network and Directv and then there is another difference between them and cable.
First consideration should be if you are going to use them for internet access satalite typically starts out about 100k were as cable starts out at about 256k, this can vary but needs to be considered, I think.
Next is the consideration that Directv has only one satalite for the US verses the two that Dish Network has, which allows for more consistence access to channles and the internet. A large storm moving in from the west blocks the signal from the one satalite but satalite in the eastern sky keeps you running with no problems, as the storm moves into the eastern sky the satalite in the western sky become avalible and your service continues uninterupted.
Another concideration is the startup cost from what I saw the cost for satalite hardware was about $500 this included everything, tv and two way satalite for internet. Cable maybe just a small setup fee.
And finally cost of subsciption now I do not know exactly all the costs of the various service providers and there costs for each of the varying service they provide. But from what I saw locally it seemed that at least at the entry level they all had very close to the same price, but remember that there is a difference in what you are getting for that price. For example, for myself, the cable was asking $50/month for basic cable (20 channels approx.) and 256k internet, and satalite was also asking about $50 for basic tv package (40 channles approx "no" local) and 100k internet. Now here is were it gets real tricky and some may not even know of these options both cable and satalite have an option to upgrade your internet access speeds up to I believe as high as 1.5m (I recently think heard of some at 2m) but for a price. Now at the high end they both had very similar pricing but the price/k obviously starts out at a different level, $50 for 100k for one and $50 for 256k for the other. And as your speed is incramentally increesed the prices will slowly begin to become the same price/k.