We tried satellite some years back and whenever it precipitated a little, or even when it got windy, the picture deteriorated.
And when the rain or snow was heavy, reception was so bad we had to turn off the TV. Then, when the storm stopped, I had to trudge out to the “rock” (under which the receiver lay) and brush off the snow in order to regain reception.
Have things improved at all? Of course the sales guy at Sears said reception goes down only when the storm is very very bad.
I’d appreciate hearing from people in New England - and especially southwestern CT - for your assessments.
How about Service? Cable’s is very good here. No complaints at all. And there’s no charge for it. Same with Satellite?
Would you do the Dish thing again? Or would you prefer to go back to Cable?
Also, how’s TiVo with Satellite? Work ok, etc.?
Any additional information you can povide will be appreciated.
Cable here really sucks picture quality wise, but I’m sure digital cable would solve that. If your dish is aimed right (100%+ signal on a clear day), only the worst storms should knock out the picture.
Tivo works great with satellite TV. I have dish network and setting up the tivo is just as easy as setting up a cable box. I have to use the IR blaster though.
If you don’t already own one, I highly recommend the DirecTV/Tivo combination box. It has two tuners so could record two channels at once, while watching a third prerecorded channel.
All in all, I’m very happy with dish network satellite service, and it blends flawlessly with Tivo.
I have always had cable till the last few years. I like cable. Cable works, the picture was good, you could reasonably expect a given program to be on at its usual time. You could hook up as many VCRs and TVs to the signal and record/watch any number of different channels simultaneously. This is especially nice because everything worth watching seems to come on Tuesday at 7. You could program your VCR to record weeks in advance, different channels, different times while you were on vacation. You paid for a signal and you could use it how you saw fit.
None of that is true with Dish.* You pay for hundreds of channels and you get to use EXACTLY ONE at any given time. You can’t use the program feature on your VCRs unless the dish reciever is set to the channel you want. You cannot watch two shows in the same house at the same time. You can’t record one show and watch another. You want to watch Game 7 of the World Series, and the wife want to watch a freakin’ dog show. Guess what you’re watching? BOW WOW Mother f***er! And what is it with the schedualing? Nothing seems to be on when it should! (see previous PBS rants about this) You usually find out that “The Show to End All Shows!!!” started about 45 minutes ago. Dish sucks Reptile Anus!
I don’t want to hear a single word about “Well, you can get two recievers! You can get TiVo! You can YADA YADA YADA!” Fuck that! I could buy a Ferrari to drive to the supermarket for milk and eggs, too, but it ain’t the best value for the money. With Cable, you pay one low price (it was cheaper than Dish) and use it any way you wanted. You actually get what you pay for, mainly access to all the programing. With Dish, I feel like I pay for one channel at a time. If I added all the shit to Dish to make it as user-friendly as cable, it would be HUNDREDS of dollars a month.
The ONLY good thing about dish is Speed channel. But its probably available on cable by now anyway! I’m shit-canning dish THE SECOND cable is available in my area.
I love my dish. My reception is great, better than any cable I’ve ever had. I’ve only lost it during the absolute worst storms, and it snows about 1/2" a year here, so thats not a problem. We have HUGE high winds and I have never had a problem, once I secured it that is.
My bitches with it are that I can’t get local networks. They gave me NBC and FOX, but that was only because I made the DirecTv operator cry with my verbal abuse. I had to go elsewhere for the Superbowl on CBS, I still call once a month and waste an hour of their time trying to get CBS. I’m susposed to get locals in 2 months, but they’ve promised that before. Problem is its the big 4 , not WB, UPN or PBS.
My cable expieriences, I currently pay less then my folks do back home, the reception is awful. The cable company must be out to the house once a month to try and “fix” the problem. Yes, you can put it on 76 TVs at once, but they are pulling channels off of regular cable and putting it on “digital"AKA"you now need to pay more and rent a box for each TV” cable.
My verdict is the cable companies can bite me and DirecTv will give you free stuff if you say your going to cable.
I’ve been a happy Dish Network customer for over seven years. I’ve never had a problem with customer service other than a 2-3 minute wait for a service tech.
It has to rain fairly hard to knock it out and then it’s rarely for more than 15 minutes.
They do make a dual receiver w/PVR capabilities so that you can watch/record one channel while watching/recording another.
They have just recently added my local channels, but I can live without them. I have the East/West Coast network package.
I live in northern Connecticut. Ten years ago, I got sick of the constant rate hikes and crappy service from the cable company and got a DirecTV setup, and I’ve never looked back.
The signal is always excellent except very briefly during the worst storms (maybe two or three times a year.) A couple times after an ice storm, I’ve had to spray the dish with antifreeze (the ice coating changes the parabola of the dish and focuses the signal away from the receiver.) That’s my only complaint.
On the plus side, I’m getting 150+ channels for less than half of what I’d pay for fewer channels with the cable. My internet service is DSL, so a cable internet connection is not an issue. And best of all, while the cable company puts through a rate increase every year, I haven’t had an increase in three years, even though DirecTV adds channels every so often.
But…uh…you said you get cable free. Why do you want to switch?
I just got notice that Sunday I will be getting a rate decrease for my cable company. Of course with the $2, if that, I will be paying less I will be losing, Fox News, FX, TBS, and Game Show. I never watched GS, but I’m pretty mad at losing the other three. I will now have a grand total of 4 channels, WB, CBS, Fox, ABC, and NBC, of which I will be paying around $17 a month for. Or I could switch and pay $50 for 60 channels. I’m thinking that it’s not worth it any more to have cable and wouldn’t if I didn’t live in a valley where I could use an antenna.
I may switch to a dish if I can find something cheap, I don’t need much, just 10-15 channels. I can see it now in a few years the cable will make me switch to digital, rent their boxes at $5 a month, and make me pay $30 for those 4 channels.
Uvula Donor, I’m sorry that my post was confusing about cable costs.
I meant that the cable company here doesn’t charge extra for service.
What fried me about me though, was they offered a DVR (aka TiVo), “for just $9.99 a month.” So I bit.
Then the bill comes. Along with the $9.99 there’s an added monthly charge of $13 charge for channels I didn’t ask for and were never mentioned - HBO and MAX - neither of which is worth a fleck of fecal matter, plus $6.95 for the DVR receiver service.
I am so discouraged with this company’s lying and cheating.
I just went back and re-read your post, and …uh… looks like I was stoopid.
Anyway, I’ve never had to pay anything for customer service from DirecTV, either when telephoning them or accessing my account on their website. In fact, I’ve hardly ever needed to call customer service at all. I installed the dish and receiver myself (at the time they were offering 3 free months of programming if you took the self-install option) and it went without a hitch, and in all the years we’ve had the dish I’ve never really had a technical problem with it.
I switched from cable to Dish when our cable company upped the rate to over $50 / month for about 40 channels. Plus, the signal was “iffy”, at best, and kept going out at weird times. Service calls got us nowhere, and despite repeated assurances that we wouldn’t have to pay for the several days per month of service we didn’t get, we NEVER got a rebate on our bill.
With Dish, we get 150+ channels. GREAT reception. I think we’ve had the picture fizzle out on us MAYBE
what the heck happened? All of a sudden my window freaked out on me and then said I’d posted.
<shrug>
Ah, well, as I was saying:
We’ve had our satellite go out MAYBE half a dozen times. Every time it’s been because we’ve had a MAJOR storm. Not just some rain, but a BIG storm. (As compared to cable, which went out because it was Tuesday, or something).
Service calls, when necessary, can be made 24 / 7, and they’re VERY friendly and helpful. I don’t think we’ve ever even needed anyone to come out - they’ve helped us fix the problems right over the phone.
I’m NEVER going back to cable if I can help it.
More stations, less costly, better picture with Dish.
Before I add the required second cable box ($5 per month) so I can receive digital cable on two TVs, the local cable is $8 per month more than what I’m paying Dish Network for two receivers and a comparable channel package. So, rigjht off, cable costs about $150 more per month than dish. At no charge, I’ve got a PVR (eg: Tivo) receiver from Dish and no charge for the programming. AT&T / Comcast offers no such thing here.
When I was cursed with cable due to having no spot to put a dish in an apartment, the cable would have daily outages. Sometimes five seconds, sometimes five hours. No warning and no refunds. When it wasn’t out entirely, it was ghosted, staticky on the four available analog channels and blocky on the digital cables. When I complained, I was told that they were upgrading the system, so I’d just have to put up with it until they got to my neighborhood. Yes it’s true. AT&T just doesn’t care.
The only outage I’ve had with dish was two days ago - we had a freak hailstorm, and there was so much water in the air it killed the signal, but only for about two minutes. We had our faces pressed against the windows watching the wild weather instead of the TV anyway.
Dish is cheaper, better signal, more reliable, more channels, and offers PVR at no extra cost. Cable? Well, there’s generally a jack already installed somewhere in an apartment when you move in, but you still have to schedule an appointment for them to come out and activate it.
I’d say the programming and features of a decent digital cable system are roughly equal to directv. Directv is a bit more straightforward IMO - you buy the equipment and just pay for the service. You can even set it up yourself if you’re handy.
With cable you pay for the box every month, the remote every month, service and channel assignments change (not a big deal, but it is briefly annoying), and so on. It’s like dealing with any other utility.
Both systems have their share of headaches - for instance with directv, the very time you REALLY WANT to watch TV - when it’s hellaciously storming outside - is when it’s most likely to cut out. With cable, service can be interrupted for any number of reasons.
If given the option, I’d pick digital cable over directv because cable’s broadband is more robust.
IMO, the fact that every menu on the digital cable box is plastered with ads is a huge turn-off. The DirecTV guide shows what’s playing now and what’ll be playing for the next hour or two, with a live video preview in the corner of the screen… the digital cable guide only shows what’s playing now, with no preview, and half the screen is taken up by ads. There’s even a banner ad on the status bar that shows up when you change the channel.
