which satellite company

[Jackal24]

I am currently with the local cable company and they don't have a lot to offer in the HD department. I am thinking of switching to dish or direc and am wondering which one works better with sage (i will be using a hd dvr or 2 once they ship).What are the pros/cons of each, specifically related to sage and/or HD content?

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by Jackal24

I am currently with the local cable company and they don't have a lot to offer in the HD department. I am thinking of switching to dish or direc and am wondering which one works better with sage (i will be using a hd dvr or 2 once they ship).What are the pros/cons of each, specifically related to sage and/or HD content?

If you're going to dump cable completely and use the HD-DVR, I'd say go with DirectTV. They support channel changes via RS232 (instead of IR-blasting) and support "Native Passthru" which allows different types of video to be output without scaling or deinteracing. If you use the HD-PVR with Dish Network you'll have to set your Dish receiver to output one type of signal (i.e. 1080i, or 720p) and ALL content will be output (and thus recorded) at that resolution, even SD. Direct also has more national HD channels at the moment, though they don't have the VoomHD channels if that matters to you.

If you're willing to keep cable for your normal channels, the "HD-Only" pack ($29.99) from Dish is very interesting. Keep cable for the normal channels and use one or two regular tuners for it, and use one or two HD-PVRs for the HD content. Because you're only recording HD from Dish, the scaling isn't as big a deal as if you were recording SD from it. It also gives you ALL Dish HD channels, regardless of tier.

I decided to go with two R5000s using Dish Network, no local cable. I wanted something that had been working well for a while, as well as being the original digital bitstream. That, and I am impatient and can't stand cable companies.

Cheers,
Slipshod

[davephan]

I just switched from Comcast cable TV to DirecTV because of the price. The first year of Comcast cable TV was cheap with many free movie channels. After the first year, they really jacked up the price. Comcast cable TV also did not allow custom channel line ups with their remote control.

I now have the DirecTV package, three receivers, the 'Choice' package and the Stars superpack. Stars includes the Encore movie channels, which Dish does not. You have to go with a high basic package to get Encore movie channels with Dish Network. DirecTV is supposed to have more sports packages. I do not watch sports, so that did not effect my decision. The DirecTV price is the same as Comcast was without the movie channels on cable TV. I do have 'rain fade' outages when there is heavy rain, that did not occur with cable TV. I used to have 'rain fade' with very slight mist about 15 years ago with DirecTV, but their system has drastically improved since that time. The 'rain fade' event outages last about 10 - 20 minutes, only with heavy rain.

I do not have HD televisions yet, so I did not look for the HD only package. I would recommend getting a HDHomerun unit for your local channels, especially if you select Dish Network because they charge you $5 a month extra for locals. During 'rain fade' outages, you will still have your locals with digital over the air TV. Plus the HDHomerun reduces 'conflicts' significantly by adding two tuners for the OTA channels. The digital over the air signals also eliminated my analog OTA picture quality fuzziness, slight snow, and ghosting problems. I took out the locals from the DirecTV SageTV configuration so the locals are only recorded from the HDHomerun unit.

I found that when comparing prices, DirecTV was much cheaper than Dish Network for the same programming. Dish Network and Comcast cable TV were about the same price for the same programming.

DirecTV also has a $18 per month rebate for one year. Warning, DirecTV does not tell you up front that you have to apply for the $18 per month rebate. You can apply for it on-line. If you forget to apply, you will not receive a rebate. After you apply for the rebate, it says it may take 6 - 8 weeks to get the rebate, which they also do not tell you up front. My $18 per month rebate was 'approved' in about 1 - 2 weeks.

If you decided to go with Dish Network, make sure you setup auto-pay. I forgot to send in a payment one month, and it was late. Dish Network then put up a messages on the screen saying I did not pay, even though the account kept was current. I called Dish Network many times to get rid of the pay Dish Network messages on the screen, but they could not or refused to get the messages removed. The messages were ruining many recordings. Since Dish Network could not or refused to remove the pay now messages on the screen after several months, I dumped Dish Network for cable TV several years ago. I also wrote Dish Network about the pay Dish Network now screen messages, even though my account kept current, except for that one month. Dish Network refused to respond to my letter.

I am using the USB-UIRT with the D12-300 DirecTV receiver. The USB-UIRT does reliably control the receiver. However, it took some tweaking to get it to work reliably.


Dave

[deadend5001]

I dunno...having to have a huge honkin dish on my roof as well as the chance that when there's a storm I could/would get bad reception...makes me stay with Cable =/

[matt91]

Originally Posted by deadend5001

I dunno...having to have a huge honkin dish on my roof as well as the chance that when there's a storm I could/would get bad reception...makes me stay with Cable =/

To each his own, but I don't think the dishes nowadays are "honkin". Plus, you can usually get a location on your roof that doesn't look too bad from the street -- depending of course on your location in the US and southern exposure.

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by matt91

To each his own, but I don't think the dishes nowadays are "honkin". Plus, you can usually get a location on your roof that doesn't look too bad from the street -- depending of course on your location in the US and southern exposure.

And the storm factor either varies radically by geography or is very overrated. I'm in the SF Bay Area in California, and I don't get strong enough storms to really even affect my signal. I've been on Satellite for 8 years now and have never ran into a "rain-fade" or wind-related issue. At this point, if I had a storm bad enough to affect my TV reception I think I'd be way more worried about property damage than missing a show.

[pjpjpjpj]

Originally Posted by Slipshod

And the storm factor either varies radically by geography or is very overrated ... I've been on Satellite for 8 years now and have never ran into a "rain-fade" or wind-related issue. At this point, if I had a storm bad enough to affect my TV reception I think I'd be way more worried about property damage than missing a show.

Seconded. I had DirecTV for about 5 years, and I can count the number of times that weather affected my reception on one hand... and that was through some really bad storms, including hail, and heavy "Gulf South, sirens blaring, batten down the hatches" thunderstorms. The worst case was usually a momentary pixellization or two. In fact, the only time I completely lost reception for any significant amount of time at all was last Winter when we had a rare ice storm and the entire dish was covered with about an inch of solid ice (no exaggeration). The sun came out and it melted within about 4 hours and it was fine. Of course, people with cable (and not buried utility lines) were losing service because the ice was snapping tree limbs and taking down the cables...

So, although I have gone entirely 100% OTA now, I still recommend DirecTV over any other "pay" service, and would go back with them if I were to return to "pay" TV.

[davephan]

I've had DirecTV for a few weeks now, and had one rain fade outage during very heavy rain for about 10 - 20 minutes. Light rain did not wipe out the signal like it used to with DirecTV about 15 years ago.

I had Comcast cable TV for the past two years. During that time period there have been several outages that were not due to storms. The outages lasted for several hours. I also noticed that the Comcast cable TV picture freezes momentarily once and awhile. I never notice any picture freezing with DirecTV, except just before and after the heavy rain fade period that occurred a couple of weeks ago.

The sound quality of DirecTV is better than Comcast cable TV.

I called Comcast to cancel my cable TV after switching to DirecTV. However, my sister in law called Comcast cable TV before switching to satellite TV to tell them that she was going to switch. Suddenly, Comcast cable TV could reduce the price and give them some pay movie channels - they stayed with cable TV.

So, if you want to reduce your cable bill, try calling them and tell them you intend to switch to satellite TV unless they reduce the price or give you more programming for free. If you do not call them, they will keep your rates at the higher rate.


Dave

[paulbeers]

I am in the same boat as the OP. I currently only have Basic Extended Cable and paying 50 dollars a month. I was thinking about going to HD Cable but in talking to friends over the weekend, they only get about 7 HD channels (other than the locals). Do I really want to pay $20+ more a month for 7 more channels?

So when I decided to start looking (especially after the announcment of the Hauppuage device), I compared to Dish Network to DirecTV. Both initial prices are about the same, but with DirecTV having a few more channels, but after the 10 months of the initial price, DirecTV jumps up 18 dollars a month. In the end I decided on Dish Network. I plan to use the 33 dollar a month basic plan, throw on 10 dollars for the 22 HD channels that come with it (and an HD receiver) and add 10 dollars a month for two basic SD receivers. My total cost will be 53 a month. No much more than my Cable bill with a bunch more HD channels and the only loss is FX (since I am too cheap to step up to the package that includes it). My plans:

HDHomerun designated to OTA signals
Hauppauge PVR500 for connecting both SD Recievers (no locals)
Hauppauge HD-PVR connected to the HD Receiver (and set only to tune HD channles in the Sage lineups and no locals).

This will maximize each unit and not run into the problem mentioned about about the non-native switching in the Dish Network devices. I might also add in my Fusion5 Lite card as another OTA device (should I feel the need). This also gives me protection should I lose connection with the Satellite, at least I will still have my locals thru the HDHomerun.

I hope this gives someone else some thoughts as to their plans. Oh and remember the dual room receivers with Dish Network will not work with Sage (well at least not both tuners in it). You need seperate STB's.

[stanger89]

FWIW, I believe Dish has regained the lead as the HD leader now that they've turned on another 22 national HD channels today. And depending on what channels you care about, you can get the HD only pack for $29.99/month

[Slipshod]

Originally Posted by stanger89

FWIW, I believe Dish has regained the lead as the HD leader now that they've turned on another 22 national HD channels today. And depending on what channels you care about, you can get the HD only pack for $29.99/month

Basic Cable + Dish Network HD-only is looking like a tasty combo.

For those of you signing up for Dish, don't forget about the Cinemax 1-penny/year deal! Sign-up for paperless billing and auto-pay, and get Cinemax for 1 penny this year. I was also told it would automatically renew next year for another penny as well. Rocking deal, and as of today there's three HD Cinemax channels (East, West, and 5-Star). Just call customer service and ask about the "Cinemax 1 penny deal".

[sandor]

Originally Posted by matt91

To each his own, but I don't think the dishes nowadays are "honkin". Plus, you can usually get a location on your roof that doesn't look too bad from the street -- depending of course on your location in the US and southern exposure.

Yeah, when i look at my neighbor's dish on the roof next to my OTA antenna, there isnt even a comparison. their dish is tiny.


as far as reception and performance, the saying here in Philly (home of the Comcast Center, mere blocks from my house) is "at least it is better than Comcast"

the Comcast Center is the tall one, giving everyone the finger:

[davephan]

DirecTV claims to have more HD channels than Dish Network or cable TV. I don't have a HD television yet, but it won't be too much longer before I get my first HD Television set. I mainly watch the news, HGTV, and the Stars superpack channels. I watch the local channels with a HDHomerun, except for the locals that have black borders on all four sides, which make the image pretty small. If I could buy channels a la carte, I would only get about ten channels, plus the pay movie package.

So I think it really depends on the channels your household watches.

I think it is a good plan to have OTA channels as a back to either satellite or cable TV. There have been several long outages with my underground cable TV over the past two years. The cable TV outage time may be higher than the total rain fade outage time with satellite TV.

Dave

[gilded07]

SD only

I've been a Directv customer for 10 years and primarily because of the NFL Sunday Ticket to see My K.C. Chiefs (don't laugh - they had a great draft!) and KU Jayhawks (yes, the Champs) out of market. When I signed up, Directv was the only carrier for these packages. I have the old, round dish with a dual LNB and two SD receivers. I've installed and tuned the dish myself in two homes now - not a big deal. For the past two weeks I've been running parallel with Cox Extended Basic Cable to compare Sage with both, and compare picture quality. I've ordered a PVR-500 to take up the last PCI slot in my Sage SFF server to give me 3 analog tuners. I had to buy a cable booster to get the signal to my sage server in a satisfactory quality. I'm considering switching because I don't want to pay Directv another $5 or $6 / month (I forget exactly how much) for a third box and have to convert some USB ports on my server to serial with adapters and port emulation utilities (my SFF mobo only has one serial port) and I don't want to take a step backwards and go with an IR tuning solution.

So far, for picture quality, there's no comparison - the Directv digital picture quality is better than the analog picture from Cox. Enough so that I've considered staying with DTV because of it. And, I'd get to keep the pro football and college basketball packages digitoo (to my understanding, these packages are only available to Cox digital cable customers). However, my desire to use extenders and extend Sage through out my CAT5-wired house will probably outweigh the picture quality advantage of Directv. What I wouldn't get with the ~$47/month Directv package that I do get w/ the ~$43/month analog cable package is Sci-fi (love the new Battlestar Galactica) and Fox Sports AZ (miss out on the D-backs).

And for those who complain about cable TV rates increasing, when I signed up 10 years ago w/ DTV, I paid $19.99 / month with no contract - and this wasn't a teaser rate good for a limited time (the USSB package containing the movie networks was free for 90 days). This was the going rate for the package I opted for. Today, I pay $47 (which now includes locals) and have the exact same channel lineup (add: locals), give or take a cable network or two, that I had in 1998.

Living in the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix, AZ) where there's 300+ days a year of sunshine, I don't have very many reception problems. One to three times per year, for less than 15 minutes, I get an outage where I get a message on the screen that says "searching for signal". The outage might include some pixelation and choppy audio where the receiver is trying to cut through the clouds and rain but it is very infrequent and brief - for me, not a reason to leave satellite TV. I could see this being more of a problem in areas with very heavy rain and cloud cover during storms. Although as fast as satellite is growing, it must not be too much of a factor. YMMV, but I will say it does take a very heavy, sustained downpour and dark, heavy clouds to interfere with the satellite reception. Normal rain showers don't affect it.

When I finally break down and call DTV to cancel, I expect them to throw a lot of hooks my way - having started with them way back when you got a separate USSB invoice for HBO, Cinemax, etc. programming.

[Polypro]

The reason I'm considering Dish (2 HD & 2 SD STBs) is that I read you can set them up for differing IR codes...allowing a USB-UIRT to control them all (as opposed to just 3). I remember reading someone was blasting to 8 or 10 boxes or something. Correct? How is DirecTV changed with 4 STBs?

P

[BFisher]

I control 3 DirecTV boxes using serial (Patterson). No issues - reliable and fast.

[pjpjpjpj]

A little off-topic, but amusing nonetheless…

When someone calls DirecTV to cancel service, they obligatorily ask the reason why (because if you are switching to a competitor, they then start offering you deals to keep you). I actually wanted to make the call just because of this, but my wife ended up making the call, and she relayed how the conversation went. Just priceless. It was something like:

Operator: “DirecTV, how can I help you?”
Wife: “I would like to cancel my service”
Operator: “For our records, may I ask the reason why?”
Wife: “Because we’re going to all over-the-air”
Operator: “What?”
Wife: “We’re going over-the-air… you know, just an antenna, for free.”
Operator: “Um.. I don’t understand. You mean, no cable or satellite service?”
Wife: “Yes.”
Operator: “So you won’t be able to get any premium channels or ESPN or CNN or anything?”
Wife: “Yes.”
Operator: “Really. Are you sure?”
Wife: “Yes. We watch too much TV as it is.”
Operator: “Okay… um… I see…” (operator pausing and stammering, obviously confused because this is apparently not an option available for them to fill out on their cancellation report)… “Alright. Thanks.”

The following day, a DirecTV supervisor called, to confirm that we had indeed cancelled because we “were no longer going to have cable or satellite service”. In other words, someone saw this cancellation report and didn’t believe the operator. My wife confirmed to the guy that we indeed were going to just be using an antenna. He was just as confused and dumbfounded. My wife even offered to tell him “my husband set up our computer to work like a DVR and we get over 30 channels, most in HD”. She said he actually sounded impressed.

And we received at least 2 or 3 phone calls in the following two weeks from DirecTV, asking us to come back and making us various offers. Gotta love their persistence.

[lpott6]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

A little off-topic, but amusing nonetheless…

When someone calls DirecTV to cancel service, they obligatorily ask the reason why (because if you are switching to a competitor, they then start offering you deals to keep you). I actually wanted to make the call just because of this, but my wife ended up making the call, and she relayed how the conversation went. Just priceless. It was something like:

Operator: “DirecTV, how can I help you?”
Wife: “I would like to cancel my service”
Operator: “For our records, may I ask the reason why?”
Wife: “Because we’re going to all over-the-air”
Operator: “What?”
Wife: “We’re going over-the-air… you know, just an antenna, for free.”
Operator: “Um.. I don’t understand. You mean, no cable or satellite service?”
Wife: “Yes.”
Operator: “So you won’t be able to get any premium channels or ESPN or CNN or anything?”
Wife: “Yes.”
Operator: “Really. Are you sure?”
Wife: “Yes. We watch too much TV as it is.”
Operator: “Okay… um… I see…” (operator pausing and stammering, obviously confused because this is apparently not an option available for them to fill out on their cancellation report)… “Alright. Thanks.”

The following day, a DirecTV supervisor called, to confirm that we had indeed cancelled because we “were no longer going to have cable or satellite service”. In other words, someone saw this cancellation report and didn’t believe the operator. My wife confirmed to the guy that we indeed were going to just be using an antenna. He was just as confused and dumbfounded. My wife even offered to tell him “my husband set up our computer to work like a DVR and we get over 30 channels, most in HD”. She said he actually sounded impressed.

And we received at least 2 or 3 phone calls in the following two weeks from DirecTV, asking us to come back and making us various offers. Gotta love their persistence.

The really sad part is that you have to leave their service to get an offer for a better deal.

[sandor]

Originally Posted by pjpjpjpj

A little off-topic, but amusing nonetheless…

...

The following day, a DirecTV supervisor called, to confirm that we had indeed cancelled because we “were no longer going to have cable or satellite service”. In other words, someone saw this cancellation report and didn’t believe the operator. My wife confirmed to the guy that we indeed were going to just be using an antenna. He was just as confused and dumbfounded. My wife even offered to tell him “my husband set up our computer to work like a DVR and we get over 30 channels, most in HD”. She said he actually sounded impressed.

And we received at least 2 or 3 phone calls in the following two weeks from DirecTV, asking us to come back and making us various offers. Gotta love their persistence.

your wife sounds like a clone of mine, other than i was able to convince her of the beauty of a home-spun DVR *prior* to ever paying for television. I assured her that for less than a year's worth of cable or satellite i could provide us with more tv programming than we could watch. over three years in, we've saved thousands and have a solid system that our friends have learned to operate within minutes.

now she brags about her "Freevo" and HD every time a conversation spirals towards tv,cable or satellite.

[lotusvball]

Just an FYI, for those on cable, especially Comcast, you are not getting true HD. They are compressing the HD signal to fit more channels on the line. You may get pixelation. I find if very frustrating listening to their commercials stating that they have more HD. When in reality they have no actually HD.