RandyC

Advice welcome! I did some searching and read a lot... but I am having trouble boiling it down.


Right now I have cable (Cox). I use it for two phone lines, my internet connection, and for digital cable TV including HDTV.

I am considering dropping the digital TV/HDTV portion for a satellite solution.

Some downsides with the cable solution:

1. Only one receiver, so other TVs can get analog cable, but not digital, HDTV, or premium channels.

2. No tivo solution. A stand alone tivo is used to record analog cable only.

3. HDTV is often crappy with break ups and artifacts.

4. No Discovery HD without paying more. A concern about future pay per HDTV channels.

Positives of cable are:

1. Simple. Already have cable.

2. $10/month discount for having all services thru one provider.

I get HBO and really enjoy HBO HDTV. I would like to get Discovery Channel in HDTV. I enjoy sports on network tv and speedvision. I don't care about pay packages.

I would like to be able to have two different rooms get all channels.

I would like to consider getting a combination tivo unit, but wonder what to do with my 120hour stand alone tivo.

Any thoughts?

JoeR63

RandyC, I also have Cox Digital Cable. I just wanted to clarify your point about getting all the channels on more than one TV. You CAN do this with Digital Cable, it just costs more for the additional outlets and converter boxes. (I have Digital Cable in two different rooms.) Cox does give a discount on additional outlets if you subscribe to two or more premiums (which I do...I give Cox way too much money each month!! I love the cable internet service though!)

Sorry that I'm not offering advice on digital cable vs. satellite, I just wanted to add the fact that you can have multiple TV's on Digital Cable.

Joe

jscout

Also, your first downside with cable is the same with satellite. You need a separate box for each TV, unless you want ALL the TVs to watch the same material. On that one, cable is better, because at least the other TV can get something, albeit analog.

Sdallnct

Good topic RandyC,

I'm looking as well. In my home now I have Cox cable and have been fine with it. But moving to Dallas where the cable rates are a little higher then what I have now. Plus, in the new house will get an HD-TV, so would like to get some content.

In looking around, reading, this seems to be a pretty emotional issue. People swear what they have is 100X better then anything else.

I will say this, my parents did have Dish (don't know which one) in Dallas and got rid of it. Whenever the weather was bad, they would loose the signal or it would be a bad signal. Since my folks are not technical at all, I'm try to discount it as perhaps they didn't know how to use the system.

Hopefully folks who who have switched from one or another could chim in...

Mr. Salty

This sounds like a bad installation. If the dish is aimed by a professional and you have good signal strength, bad weather has virtually no effect on reception. In the two years I've had Dish Network I experienced rain fade once and it lasted less than two minutes.

I love Dish Network and would never go back to cable. Whether you choose Dish or DirecTV is a matter of personal choice and where you live. If you live in or near a major city, both companies will have local channels available, but in smaller markets you'll need to check (Dish has had our locals for more than a year, DirecTV is adding our market next month).

DirecTV offers the DirecTiVo, which is sweet. Dish has its own proprietary hard-disk recorders, which is both good and bad. They can be a little bit buggy (although I've had pretty good luck with mine), and they don't yet offer name-based recording (which is rumored to be coming). Older models have no monthly TiVo-like fee, but the new ones are $5 per month. None of them have to be connected to a telephone line unless you want them to be, and at least one new model has two tuners built in and can output two different signals to two different TVs at the same time.

It's a big wad of cash, but Dish's PVR-921 is a two-tuner high-definition, 300 GB hard-disk recorder, capable of recording both satellite and over-the-air HD signals. It sells for about $1,000 though.

Bacon

People still have cable?



can't help you Randy on the HD thing but if you want 2 rooms, you can get a 2nd reciever for 4.99/ month (at least that's what DirecTV charges)

svadas

Is there a web site that compares DishNetwork and DirectTV and maybe has a rundown of all the current offers available? I'm thinking about dumping my cable for a dish as well.

sararekuforever

I have Time Warner Digital Cable. On Time Warner Digital Cable, all TV's get analog for free, but an extra digital box only costs $6. I ordered two more [for computer/tv room and my bedroom] and the entire house gets digital cable now. I do not know about the HD upgrade, but I also know that Time Warner rents you out a TiVo. They call it "HARD DRIVE RECORDER", but it's just a TiVo paid for by them and set up to be used on your cable line. It's only $10 per TivO unit and you get service and everything.

I really do think cable is better, all the people around have Dish and complain all the time, just like in that "Go Bluebird" commercial. And Time Warner, in my opinion, offers more channels..and their IControl feature is getting really good..in my opinion at least..they've been adding most their movies in widescreen and alternate languages, adding free movies and free television from a bunch of channels [including anime network..dubbed..but hey..better than anything on Adult Swim]

Sdallnct

Last night Comcast missed their 3rd appointment to hook up video at my house. All 3 without calling or any explaination. Getting peoples name doesn't help, talking to supervisors doesn't help. I now have yet another appointment scheduled for July 8.

In the mean time I'd like to explore my options with Dish. I did some research last night. But still not sure about some things.

Needs:

3 rooms have cable lines going to them that I want to use
2 rooms would have to have lines run to them

Questions:

Can all this be done with one dish?
Do I need a seperate "box" at each TV? (which is typically $5.00 per box?).
I would like HD running to 1 TV now (or real soon) and a 2nd TV in less then a year. Is that a different dish or just different boxes?
Do I need a seperate OTA to get local HD TV?
It looks like to get equipment free and/or free intallation you have to comment to year. Is it wise to also pay for the service contract?

Thanks. Anything else I should be considering?

RandyC, did you "make the switch"? How do you like it?

tonyc3742

Go to dbstalk.com for some info and channel listing/price comparison charts between Dish and Direct TV.

In our old house we had Dish and loved it. In our new house, we couldnt get a Dish signal without cutting down trees [um, no] so we're with cable.

Unsolicited commentary:

Dish's PVR is vastly superior to TWC's Scientific Atlanta--EXCEPT for the fact that the TWC box has two tuners [you can record two things at the same time, or watch live and record live at the same time] and it has name-based recording, not time-based. TiVo I believe also has that latter cheaper.
The Dish PVRs we had had no monthly fee. The models they're selling now, do, I believe. TWC DVR service does have a monthly fee. The TWC DVR is slow to respond and needs to be rebooted once every couple of weeks.

Digital cable reception is either excellent [for the HD channels, or, say, HBO showing a new movie] or totally crappy [VH1 Classic is entirely snowy.] I don't know how noticeable it would be with Dish, at the same time we moved and switched from Dish to TWC, we got a new bigscreen tv, so any flaws are magnified.

Whoops, I just noticed the original post is 6 months old. I'll aim my comments toward you, Sdallnct.

You need 5 rooms worth of coverage? You would need a box for each room, which is I think 4.99 'mirror fee' each box past the first. However, I believe most of the standard 'deals' for satellite have a cap of 4 units. I'm not sure if you could buy a fifth box and add it, or if they limit your account in general.
You would definitely need a box at each tv to use the tv's at all. With cable, you could get the 'analog' tiers on the other tv's without a box.

My understanding is that one dish can feed 4 boxes, but I'm not 100% on that.
You would need an HD box to get HD, the satellite would be the same. [That is the same for cable, you'd need an HD tuner for each tv that would get HD.]
The one HD disadvantage with satellite [at least Dish] is that, yes, you would need a separate OTA tuner to get your local HD channels. However, you could get a separate HD tuner, run it to an antenna, and that would work with both cable and satellite. Many cable co's carry the local HD channels in their packages, some may charge extra for an HD box.

I wish we still had Dish, we had 2 PVR's with no monthly fee [I won one in a contest, so it was mine; I was leasing the other], we only had two tv's, and didn't need HD. Now we have three tv's, 2 boxes [one hd, one DVR, both hooked up to the same tv], 2 tv's with only 'basic' cable [because we don't use them that much and didn't want to pay the extra box rental fee]. The HD is cool, but honestly, I use the DVR much much much much more, and in fact, am debating returning that box to save that ~8 bucks a month. I'm waiting for them to roll out the HD DVR which keeps getting postponed.

Sdallnct

Well, at least I know I can hook up 5 TV's.

http://www.rapidsatellite.com/programming.aspx

However, looking at their cost calculator for 5 rooms, 1 TiVo and 1 HD receiver it will be $76.00!

I recently purchased one of those Toshiba DVD players with TiVo built in. I suppose I could use that and save a few $$. But everything I have read is that Tivo w/Direct TV is the way to go.

I wonder if the $13.95 for TiVo is included in the $76 cost?

Sdallnct

OK, I just ordered SBC Dish (which looks to be a version of Dish Network).

I called both SBC Dish and Direct TV. Ended up with SBC Dish for three reasons:

-They will provide "boxes" that have two turners in them. So they will hook 2 tv's into a single box and yet I still will be able to watch different shows on each TV. This will save about $10.00 per month.
-When I told them I was very interested but had reservations about signing a full year comittment, they agree to waive the 1 year committment. I still get free installation and "free" equipment (except for any boxes over the standard 1), but I can cancel at any time and they will just come and pick everything up.
-They set an appointment for this SUNDAY early AM - even tho it was July 4th!

So for about $60.00 per month I got:

2-boxes for 4 tv's (the 5th I wanted is for our kitchen which I'm still in the middle of remodeling, so will just wait on that - but they will "wire" it for me and I can add a box for $5.00 at any time it I want)
1-PVR
Local cahannels
HBO
Free install
The above price includes the dish and 2 boxes
no committment

We talked back and forth and I'm not sure if that includes HD or not. I have not ordered my HD TV yet and at this point might wait till the fall shows and new HD TV's come out. So really don't need it this minute.

I was trying to get the Comcast deal of "return your dish". So it would have been $48.00 per month. But that would have gotten me digital (and thus about 1/2 the channels) on only 1 TV. Plus no PVR. And that was for 16 months after which it would have gone up to about $65.00 and still only digital on 1 TV and no PVR.

He did say that I would have to get an OTA for HD on local channels. But like I say, don't even have the HD TV yet, so will wait. Someone had mentioned before that you can feed the OTA thur the main dish box and thus seemlessly go between the OTA and dish. I'll work on that myself in the attic, once the weather cools.

Thanks for all the info. Anyone have a good "unofficial" site/forum for dish network?

Sdallnct

Dish Network guy left a couple of hours ago. I got TV again!!!

All I can say is WOW. I had digital cable in Plano TX for about 5 years and digital cable in Chandler (PHX) AZ for 5 years and I have never had a picture this sharp. And I'm using a basic 32" JVC TV (not even flat screen and not HD).

Very, very impressed with picture quality so far. So impressed, I may move up my timetable to get an HD TV.

On our main TV I got a dual tuner, DVR, with our master bedroom as the 2nd set. So no box needed in there. Tho not sure how I will handle that once I do go HD.

Still learned all that it will do (never had a DVR before). While I figured out I can record a show on one tv and watch live tv on the other, it doesn't look like on can record a show while watching another on the same tv. Not a huge deal, and maybe I haven't figured it out yet.

Looks like there is also a optical audio output I can use to my surround receiver. Cool.

I just cannot get over the PQ! Guess that is what all you dish guys have been saying. Being in Dallas, I'll only have to wait a -few days to see how it does with rain, wind and t-storms.

RedMetalZombie

Yes you can. You most likely have a 522. So when you want to record a menu should pop up that ask if you want to set the box to record and will also ask if you want to record to TV1 or TV2(TV1 being the one with the box, TV2 the one without). If you're at TV1, just set it to record to TV2 and you can still change channels

Not true. Like others have said, Dish has a dual tuner box which can control 2 rooms. They also have a dual tuner DVR, which can record a total of 200 hrs.

I believe the most Dish will provide for you is 4 receivers. Anything above that you must purchase yourself(radio shack, costco, etc.) and then pay for the install. I do know you can do 12 rooms

Sdallnct

Yes I do have the 522. And yes, I figured that out. However, then (unless I don't understand something), a person cannot watch TV2 unless they want to watch the show being recorded.

This is not a big deal. For the past 10 years I have had a digital cable box that was the same way.

So far very impress with Dishnetwork. And now that I figured out that their equipment is either part of Echostar or Echostar makes their stuff, I got my cheap, old, universal remote to at least use the menu, change channels, etc on the 522. Can't control the DVR with it, but still looking to see if I can come up with a code.

Thanks for the info...

Josh H

I recently switched from Comcast to DirectTv and couldn't be happier. I get all the channels I watched (and a few more overall) for $29.99 for 6 months, and then regularly for $39.99. My Digital cable was over $60 a month.

Only downside to DirectTV is if you live somewhere you get a lot of storms, as you will lose signal in hard rain and snow. But the cost factor was enough for me.

Broadband was no factor either, as I've went without internet access at home since last Aug and don't plan on getting any anytime soon.

Sdallnct

Been thru 1 storm so far (but it was minor for N. TX), never lost the signal or had a problem. May be storms this weekend so will see.

Had it 4-5 days now and still loving it.

Comcast showed up this morning to install tv. Told them I gave up last week. When they asked why I didn't call to cancel, I told them I left 3 messages for a supervisor to call me back and they never did. He gave me a dirty look and left.