I've tried a few searches but can't really find anything along these lines, except for the DirecTV thread.

I know for the best signal you should go with OTA. But most people aren't going to switch to OTA for locals and back to cable/satellite for everything else. SO, which will generally give a better HD picture, cable or satellite?

Discuss.

i have directv and will be upgraded to HD this weekend. and i was told that i will be able to access the OTA feeds thru the HD reciever, as well as the satellite feeds. just a matter of selecting the right channel.

It really depends on the cable provider. DirecTV, by many accounts, is pretty lousy as far as picture quality goes. Many cable providers aren't much better. If you were to use a cable provider, who would it be?

I’ve never had satellite, but at the places I’ve been that have it, I’ve always preferred my cable picture to theirs, and usually they have much better setups than I have, as they usually have more money.

Like Cygnet74 said, people with OTA HD and satellite aren't "switching". Both the Dish and DirecTV DVRs allow for recording HD via antenna hook-up.

I have DirecTV and don't pay a dime for any of their HD programming. My HD TiVo uses it's two OTA tuners more than anything I get from my satellite dish.

As long as my local cable company and the Fox affiliate argue over payment issues, Fox HD won't be available via cable. No Fox HD = no HD NFC football = NO SALE.

neither for 5 years now

Cable has always had a better picture, hands down.

For you. Changes from one spot to another. Probably every 50' in NYC.

Woudln't the quality on a given digital cable system be consistant throughout? It's either getting the signal or isn't, right?

Yup.

I don't know what Spikey is talking about.

His statement would be true if he is referring to analogue.

Good HD content on my cable box looks incredible. Lower analog channels often times look like crap, or at the very least, somewhat snowy [also, I have a 60" screen, so imperfections are magnified].
Once you get a 'good' signal or connection or whatever from the cable outlet outside, your picture should be consistent, based on however it was originally recorded.
I went cable because I didn't want to cut trees down to get Dish, and cable HD was a lot cheaper than sat HD [ie, free].

Both suck for different reasons. I went with cable because it is a lot cheaper. I pay 10 bucks a month and get my HD channels and a dual tuner HD-DVR. I had VOOM, and I loved it, when it went under, I saw no compelling reason to get the HD package from either DISH or Directv. If either of them ever get it up to the level of VOOM, I will probably go back to satellite.

The quality level or the quantity? Because Dish now has at least 15 of those VOOM channels.

Not from my provider.

I have had Direct TV for over 6 years. Better picture quality, more channels for less money.

My statement is true no matter what. If I was commenting on analog cable, then I would say sat is simply better. Every cable company has a different signal. So it depends on where you are. My parents have Comcast in Mpls, some channels good, others meh, others horrible. If you have Comcast in Boston (pick a town), it will be different. You will also get different channels for different dollar amounts, perhaps.

Sat is more consistent, but not necessarily better. For HD, DirecTV may be the worst right now. For SD, sat tends towards lower resolution and a soft look. Digital cable tends toward grainier, but more detail. So sat looks smoother with less detail, cable looks sharper with more artifacts. But it still depends on your local company, could be completely the other way around in some areas.

I used to have digital cable here in LA and it was nearly unwatchable. I switched to DirecTV and found the picture quality to be a lot better. I know the resolution is a bit less, but my digital cable was worse than VHS quality even for local networks. DirecTVs DVR is way better anyway with the 2 tuners and no picture loss like the stand alone tivo did with the digital cable. Basic quality did not cut it.

The SA8300 has two tuners. There is no picture loss.

I cant speak for picture quality comparisons, but as far as 'cost of entry' cable hands down...and basically, if you cant afford the HD dual tuner DVR, then your getting NO picture quality

Part of the problem is that not all channels are digital with digital cable.

Please elaborate.

With cable, most channels are still analog. In general, the channels you see in your cable company's non-digital lineup will all be analog, even for digital cable subscribers (except for HD versions of channels, of course).

Yeah, They still are lacking in quantity, plus, unless it changed real recently, and it may have since I think I saw mpeg4 discussion starting, you have to have two dishes, which you have to pay for the second. VOOM was nice because it was very simple and high quality. If DISH or Direct get it together I will go back to satellite when I move later this year.

Typically all the channels below 100 are analog, which includes your local channels. But I'm sure this varies by cable company, too.

Because the locals are analog and often some of the worst analog channels they supply, I'd never consider cable (with the current situation) without having HDTVs. In contrast, the HD locals from cable companies are often excellent, and better than what the sat companies can provide, so far.

Since the poll was on HD content, I actually voted cable. Although I am a DirecTV customer.

Based on what I've seen cable is generally better than satellite for HD. Both Directv and Dish get a lot of complaints about picture quality, and for good reason in my opinion. Dish has been ahead of Directv for a while in that area, but recently downrezzed their resolution on the Voom channels to 1280 x 1080 (they were 1920 x 1080 at one point). I haven't seen these complaints at all with cable. If the NFL season package ever becomes available to cable I'll happily drop satellite. Hopefully things will change for the better when Directv gets more bandwidth when their new satellites become operational though.