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!
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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!
I'm rather fond of DirecTV with Tivo...
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.
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.
Dish network went up slightly this year and they don't seem real receptive to getting me a newer receiver.Quote:
Originally Posted by joe.MIATA
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!?Quote:
Originally Posted by 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?
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.
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.Quote:
Originally Posted by sammm
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..... :roll:Quote:
Originally Posted by sammm
Do you still have :albino: on top of your your black & white TV Sammm? :P
It has to rain REAAAALLY hard to knock it out at my house... No problem at all with wind.
TV is a passing fad. We have an AM radio at my house! :bigsmurf:Quote:
Originally Posted by POS Racing
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...
What about them 8 foot dishes? I always wanted my back yard to look like SETI. :P
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
If you remember, some early early Ka band dishes were of the 6' and up size plates!Quote:
Originally Posted by droptop
Not yet! :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ataim
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. 8) 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
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
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...
One cool thing about Dish is that they added a whole bunch of Serius music channels...
Never had a dish, but it is my understanding that you can beat the weather fade with a plexiglass box around the dish. IIRC, it is water on the dish, not in the air, that causes the fade - the dish is supposed to focus the reflected signal at the antenna and the water scatters it.
Aybody have any real experience with this fix? We'll be doing something after the move, and I think I might like to try the satellite thingy :geek:
ccage - Can you save me some research time and share your results? What projector did you get?
I would think that this would only worsen the signal... by increasing the area in which water could rest in front of the dish, I would think that scatter would become even greater. I'll ask the Sat gurus down at the station. We have mainly C-Band sats...but we have the occasional Ka-Band (DirecTV) sat antenna.Quote:
Originally Posted by onething
<nerd hat on>
Rain fade is caused by absorption in the frequency ranges used by DirecTV/Dish.
Installing a larger dish will lessen the impact of rain fade, but cannot eliminate it, as with extremely high rainfall rates, nearly 100% of the signal is absorbed.
</nerd hat off>
Tailchaser is dead on. It's not the little bit of rain sitting on the dish -- it's the tons of it between the dish and the satellite.
I do understand that up north snow buildup on the dish is a problem, though, and keeps you off-line after it quits snowing. I've seen heated dishes before.
Regarding my projector -- I've got a great recommendation for that, but I've got to run. I'll post that this afternoon.
Chuck
Sorry 'bout that. Had LOTS of $%*$ errands today...
I have a Sony VPL-HS20, which is one of the first reasonably priced projectors (around $3k) to do really nice HD. I'm quite pleased with it. You definitely want ot avoid "data only" projectors which do a great job of computer stuff but look really pixelly on movies. Pick out a high-contrast DVD scene (preferably really dark) and take it with you when you shop. Quality will show in projectors that show more true black (vs "grey" or "green"). And make them show you some normal sat channels -- they'll have it on Discovery HD when you walk in, which looks awesome. Look at the crappy stuff instead.
Be sure to budget for a quality screen which can run around $1k too. The screen can make a significant difference in brightness and quality of image.
Chuck