Satellite TV

[POS Racing]

Who are you guy using for Satellite TV? I’ve had a Dish 500 for about 3 years and I am getting close to the end of this years agreement, figure I might look around.

Thanks!

[tailchaser]

I'm rather fond of DirecTV with Tivo...

[joe.MIATA]

I've been with DirecTV for about 5 years now...but its always been a month to month agreement- no long-term commitment. I get basic channels plus 'extra' basic channels and locals for $42/month- no movie channels (hate those things). Very happy with them as their rates have never increased.

[Treibenschnell]

I've been a DirecTV customer since the beginning and have never had any issues. They're prone to giving all sorts of pay channels for free for 30 & 60 day periods if you just ask (or perhaps I've been lucky!) I can't say I've ever had a complaint about any of their programming choices (really dissappointed with Networks themselves - i.e. Speed).

The set up has always been simple and customer service has always been quick and friendly.

[POS Racing]

Very happy with them as their rates have never increased.

Dish network went up slightly this year and they don't seem real receptive to getting me a newer receiver.

I also like to pay by the year does Direct TV offer a discounted rate for yearly payment, like Dish Network offers??

[Treibenschnell]

Very happy with them as their rates have never increased.

Dish network went up slightly this year and they don't seem real receptive to getting me a newer receiver.

I also like to pay by the year does Direct TV offer a discounted rate for yearly payment, like Dish Network offers??

I suppose you could ask... they probably do offer it!?

[sammm]

What about all those cheesy cable commercials that state the 'dish' is affected by the slightest bad weather and/or wind? Any truth to that?

[joe.MIATA]

My experience is that cable tv always went off during sunny days for unspecified lengths of time. My satellite goes out during the heaviest of rain storms, usually for only 10 min. or less. Even then, I can swith to my antenna and pick up the local channels. Never had issues with wind- even on the roof of a 2- story house.

[rjosey8385]

What about all those cheesy cable commercials that state the 'dish' is affected by the slightest bad weather and/or wind? Any truth to that?

More or less every time we have heavy rain I lose TV. When cable makes it out this far, I'll be losing the dish.

[POS Racing]

What about all those cheesy cable commercials that state the 'dish' is affected by the slightest bad weather and/or wind? Any truth to that?

Hard rains will fuzz out on mine (but I have 4-5 year old technology) but once the rains taper off it back on, this couldn't be said for our cable which would be out for days after any storm.....

Do you still have on top of your your black & white TV Sammm? :P

[tailchaser]

It has to rain REAAAALLY hard to knock it out at my house... No problem at all with wind.

[sammm]

Do you still have on top of your your black & white TV Sammm? :P

TV is a passing fad. We have an AM radio at my house!

[Treibenschnell]

Same here... it really has to rain hard in order to knock out the signal.

Until they offer c band antennas for home use you'll have to deal with the rare weather fade. But again, it's pretty rare... and we're talking southern Oklahoma weather up here...

[black roadster]

What about them 8 foot dishes? I always wanted my back yard to look like SETI. :P

[Ataim]

I had Direct TV before I moved out to the country. I have a very LARGE screen about 8 feet wide. HDTV or digital is the only way to watch tv in my opinion. VOOM ( www.voom.com ) is what I'm looking at right now. For Va Va Voom ($89.90)you get a BUTT load of HDTV with hbo cinemax, ect. I'd go with Voom ($49.90)if they had Discovery HD on that package.

Do you HDTV? If not I think that Direct TV is good if not great.

Paul

[Treibenschnell]

What about them 8 foot dishes? I always wanted my back yard to look like SETI. :P

If you remember, some early early Ka band dishes were of the 6' and up size plates!

[POS Racing]

Do you HDTV?

Paul

Not yet!

[ccage]

FWIW, when I did the media room in the new house I did DirecTV with the HD package and the HDTivo (HR250-10). I've been pretty pleased.

I don't know if it's the installation or the new "wide" 3-LNB dish (that's required for HD), but I seem to have a lot less rain fade here at the house than I did in my old apartment.

As far as HD channels, I have to admit that I'm not really a big movie guy, so I'm probably a bad example. Mostly it's just Discovery HD for American Chopper. I do know that there are more channels and many more if you do the Home Box Orgasm or Seximax thing.

If you're a football fan (it's not for me), you might want to consider DirecTV because they offer the NFL Sunday Ticket package which is exclusive. (This is the biggest bitch I've heard from friends with Dish.)

My biggest concern with VOOM is that they're not doing well financially and I'd be afraid they'd take a dive and leave me holding worthless equipment. (Sounds like my XM argument, doesn't it.) I think HD is something that's going to be embraced by everyone eventually, and in the meantime I don't really miss it too much on the other channels.

And if you're doing projection -- particularly large screen -- it's been my experience that you should be more concerned about how well your projector scales standard definition than how many HD channels you can get. Right now you're still going to be getting 30 SD channels for every 1 HD channel, so if your projector looks bad in SD, you're pretty much hosed. I did a LOT of shopping before finding a projector that did good HD *and* SD -- and I find (like I said above) that I don't miss HD as much.

Hope this helps.

Chuck

[gabkwong]

I have DirectTV for a year and love it. The SOB from Comcast did not care to hear any complain that I had with the bad reception on their digital cable! The only time it goes out is when it rain and thunder hard.

My deal is free equipment plus install with a one-year contract with garantee price protection for rate increase.

The best part is that you can your plan any time you like via internet.

Gab

[OzCop]

Yeah, I just received the notice that Dish Direct is going up a smidge. I don't watch TV that much, but my wife does, and she complains about the weather knocking it out from time to time, as well as loading to check the schedule for what's on at a particular time. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of choice out here, but as I recall, we had the same types of problems with Cable in Denton. Someone mentioned 40 bucks a month! Heck, I get basic service plus local channels, and it's now more than 60 bucks a month! Guess that's what happens when there's no competition...