get directtv

What ever you do, if you have any high speed/broadband option besides satellite internet - take it. I have to use Direcway out where I am, and you can't game online, you can't download large files without using a download manager and splitting up the download into chunks so that you don't download more than ~170 megabytes in an eight hour period, and upload speeds are only slightly better than dial-up. The cost is $100 a month for the first year, $60 each afterwards, if you don't buy the equipment up front. Every time I see that $60 deduction from my checking account, I think to myself - "why am I paying that much again?" (and it basically boils down to being able to download moderately large files quickly) I never asked myself that when I had Comcast in the Boston area for less than $50 a month. As far as TV, I have DirecTV, I guess it's okay - but I think I would go to cable if I had the choice (Cable internet and tv are 1.5 miles down the road)

Holy crap. I think I just met the mirror universe Red Dog.

to elaborate: When I had cable tv, I got all the channels I wanted - now that I have DirecTV, they cut off our PBS, we can't get local channels or the WB. It seems so arbitrary and capricious (what movie/tv show is that phrase used in again?) so I kind of have a gripe.

Ever see the digital channels on digital cable?

Slower than regular cable but faster than D-TV.

Access to many more channels. Multi-channel premiums. Better picture quality, particularly on the (all digital) channels above 99. PPV and VOD capability.

And the downside, in my experience, is that sometimes the digital cable doesn't work at all - every time there was a storm I'd lose reception, and they never did get my second bedroom's digital cable installed properly- it was nothing but snow for three months, then I cancelled and switched to Dish. With digital cable, unless you have a dual tuner receiver, you cannot watch one thing and record another or use PIP (same with satellite, but it sucked when I switched to digital cable from regular cable). It also costs more in my area than satellite, and I had outages all the time (dish has gone down for maybe a total of one hour over four years - no problems in storms in my experience). Plus with satellite you just surf the guide instead of surfing channels - it's actually more convenient, especially since you can see what's coming up next, not just what's playing this instant. I no longer even need a tv guide.

You can do that with digital cable as well. Plus 2-tuners is only relavent if you go the DVR route and you can get a 2-tuner DVR from the cable company as your cable box.

Vandelay - keep in mind that you can always split your cable line. You can split and run one line to the box and then to the TV and you can run split directly to your tv's RF input (which is what I presume you do now).

True - I was comparing satellite to reg. cable at that point, but you're right, there is a guide that comes with digital cable. My problem with the comcast guide, however, is that it is inferior to the dish guide, imo.

This confuses me. When I had digital cable I did not have a dvr, but I could only get my channels if they were shuttled through the digital receiver. Trying to plug the cable directly into the vcr, for example, either resulted in no channels or only a few channels (can't remember which) - but in any case I did not have access to the entire channel lineup that I did when I used the receiver.

Needing 2 tuners is relevant, therefore, if you record on a vcr, which I did until I got my dish dvr. You still want to record one thing while watching another. And then there is the use of PIP, as I mentioned earlier - I often would put a sports event on the small picture window for my boyfriend while watching my show on the main screen (back when I had regular cable). You need two signals to utilize picture in picture.

How can you split the cable and still have access to all of your channels? If you split before the receiver, only the line going to the receiver gets all of the channels, and if you split after, you are stuck with the same channel on both lines, so I'm confused.

Well you don't get all the channels off one split. The one split will just get you the 2-99 analogs.

Gotcha. So it's essentially a regular cable 2nd line, digital cable main line, if I'm understanding you correctly. My luck I'd want to see two premium stations at the same time, lol!

Well it's never an issue for me. I basically have 6 tuners at my disposal. 2-tuner DVR + 2 analog lines (each running to a Replay-TV) + 1 direct cable input to my HDTV + OTA antenna.

Lucky!

I've only got one dvr receiver in the main room, one in a spare room, so if my boyfriend is over and wants to watch something live in the living room other than what I'm recording, he's out of luck. That was the hardest adjustment for me switching from regular cable to digital (and same problem exists with satellite of course), and I still can't afford a dual tuner dvr to fix the situation. Just wanted to enlighten those financially challenged souls like me who still want to have options with their tv-watching.

Sleepy's referring to the Dish 942: a dual tuner HD DVR with a single over-the-air tuner (digital). You can record 2 satellite channels plus 1 OTA DTV channel (or any combination of viewing/recording--you can even be recording with all three tuners while watching a previously recorded program from the hard drive). Existing and new customers can purchase this DVR for ~$700 outright, but new customers (and even some existing customers) can lease it for a one-time $250, and $5/mo. I love this DVR. It's rock-solid. Never crashes on me. Has an elegant intuitive interface that's in true-widescreen format (the guide can actually display 3 hours of programming on one screen). It has name-based recording. Dish Pass feature (can set it to record all episodes, new episodes, episodes only on specific channels, etc.)

I agree that Dish's earlier DVRs weren't much better than VCRs. That is, until name-based recording was finally introduced. I believe that if you'll compare apples to apples, you'll see that Dish's HD DVRs can do anything HD TiVo's can.

I know it sounds like I'm on Dish's payroll, but I really am impressed with this company. I've been a customer for almost 10 yrs and have had nothing but excellent service. They even respond to emails quickly.

Any company's products will evolve (hopefully as a result of competition). People will have good/bad things to say about each company, but if you have an HDTV, I strongly recommend you have a look at Dish's 942.