I have a couple questions....

I've been thinking going with Dish or Direct TV. Which is better and offers more channels for their basic package?

For those of you with satellite, what do you do for Internet? I have heard that Direct TV offers satellite Internet and it's actually faster than cable broadband, but is much more expensive. And I have heard you still need a land line to connect to send and receive e-mail. If I got a satellite package and dumped my cable TV, my cable Internet would go up as I get a package deal with my cable company for having both services, so that's something I have to consider.

I am basically considering satellite because there are no alternatives in my area for digital cable. Comcast wants to charge me 80.00 a month just for TV and I would not get that many more channels. Cox Cable advertises in my area, but is unavailable in my area.

By the way, if any of you live in areas that has Hickory Tech, they have an awesome deal for digital cable. I have a relative who has it and I visited them recently and ate my heart out at the great channel line up they have and they are paying not that much more than they were for basic cable.

DirectWay from DirecTV is not faster than cable internet. It is also expensive as all hell. I'd say if you want sat, go w/ that for TV and look into DSL or cable. You'll get better, faster service for cheaper.

agreed, Directway is about $100 a month and the max download is around 500k. I wouldn't want to do that unless I lived in the true boonies and needed it for work.

Otherwise, between the two sat companies, it is tough to say. Deftones is a Directv guy. I had Dish for many years, and this year switched to Directv....but can't wait for this year to be up so I can switch back. Both have about the same channels for about the same price. I simply prefer the menus, etc. of Dish, as well as the Sirius radio stations.

Another question...Does Dish automatically come with the Tivo or is that extra? Is that service also availble with Direct TV?

I think my Internet cable bill would be ten dollars more if I didn't have cable TV through Comcast. Not 100% sure, but I think that's right.

You loser!

Depends on what you want to get out of your TV viewing. DirecTV has DirecTivo (for a bit while longer). Better than Dish's offerings.

If you want HD, Dish is the way to go right now. They just picked up a bunch of Voom channels. DirecTV has a bunch more HD channels coming next year.

It all boils down to what you want and how much you are willing to pay for it.

Dish has their own PVRs. DirecTV has DirecTivo, which many believe is superior to most other PVRs.

A decent Tivo or like system, just a few more channels (I would probably spend the most time with Trio and BBC America, but there are others I want but I think they are all included in both's most basic packages) so I don't need any movie channels or sports channels, and I could care less if I get any music channels.

I am hoping to pay less than I am for my cable Tv and broadband. If I keep Comcast broad band, I would want the better priced service then if they basically offer the same channel line ups. However, how are Dish and Direct TV with the local channels?

Currently, I am paying 99.00 per month for cable and broadband.

Direct and Dish are pretty much the same for locals. You gotta pay a bit extra for them.

I'd say to go a store where you can mess around w/ each DVR. In my opinion, the DirecTivo is the way to go over the Dish PVR.

Thing you have to remember is, though if you ditch your cable but you keep broadband, they usually make you pay more for just one service.

Will the DVR system come with the package or is that extra?

I know I will have to pay more for my broadband if I dump my cable TV. I am definately taking that into consideration. I don't think I could ever go back to dial-up...EVER, and DSL was not much faster than dial-up was when I did have it and was tremendously disappointed in it when I had it.

Yes, you can get DVR packages. I think DirecTV's got the 60 - 80 GB Tivo for like $100 w/ a one year commitment. I would recommend going through a site like Expert Satellite or something and not through DirecTV or Best Buy. Usually you can get the best bang for the buck at an online site. They usually have package deals where you can pick and chose your set up, whereas at a B&M store, you usually get the basic set up.

That's their people-who-don't-know-any-better price.

Call Comcast and tell them you are debating sat vs cable. They should give you the 'secret' price.

I have Comcast with digital cable, HD, HD-DVR, HBO (12 channels), and SHO (10 channels) for $65.

As a former DISH employee, I can probably help you out. Firstly, I hate DISH as a company, but I do currently have their services as it fit what my family wanted better than DirecTV's offerings. I also frequent DBS boards, and general consenus is that DirecTV's equipment (especially the Tivos) are better.

I have a dual tuner DVR (the 522) as part of a lease program with DISH - if you don't want to jump into buying stuff right now. You can do a one year lease. The DVR service for new DVRs (like mine) are $5/month, plus an extra $5/month added to your bill if you're leasing (for service). If you want to buy and not pay those fees, you'd need a 511 DVR receiver...single tuner, but no DVR fee. I also have an 811 HD tuner, which is a P.O.S. DISH equipment is notoriously buggy, but they do also now have a dual tuner HD PVR you can buy for around $600 or so, I believe.

Channels are roughly the same...go to their web sites and compare - or go to www.dbstalk.com or www.dbsforums.com, but they'll probably tell you the same thing. They may have a comparison chart already fo the 2 services channel offerings.

HD is better with DISH by way of # of channels and premiums.

PPV offerings better with DirecTV.

As mentioned, DISH now has about 60 Sirius music channels offered as part of their mid-level package.

Are you set up on that price for good or is that just for a few months then it goes up?

I had that price for 6 months. Then after 6 months, I called back threatening to go to satellite (even though I physically can't) and got it locked in for another year.

DirecTiVo wins in my opinion.

If Trio is a deal breaker, then I think DriecTV is out of the question. According to this thread, it sounds like they dumped it at the beginning of the year.

If you want to keep cable high-speed Internet, you may want to check to see if your flavor of Comcast offers a cheap bare bones package with basically just your local networks in it. I think that might qualify you to keep the discount for having TV through Comcast and would keep you from having to pay more for the locals via satellite. If locals on the satellite are $5, the savings on the cable is $10, and they want $12.95 for the package, you're two bucks ahead. Just a thought...

It also gives you something to watch those x hours a year when there is a terrible rain and/or snow storm and you can't get jack via satellite.

i have had directv for about 3 years now and one of the biggest reasons was because of sunday ticket. due to the recent debacle over ST and DTV's lack of HD options, i have started to rethink my choices and am looking at switching to dish.

What's this debacle with ST you're speaking of?

can someone talk about the current vs future state of equip for directv or dish?

do you need a second dish to get locals? do you need a third for HD content?
will dishes/receivers need to be upgraded to get hd content in future?
what codec do they use now (mpeg2)? will they be switching to h264?
for any switches in dish/receiver, are they going to expect you to pay all of it? trade you up for free with contract?

I am just happy that I have the choice to get the NFL package. That is the only advantage I see. Count me as one of the few who prefer the Dish DVR to the Tivo. Creepy little tv guy can eat me.

in previous years, sunday ticket included all of the HD games in the one price. well, this year they changed that. there is the normal price of around $200 and then if you want the HD games, they said that they were going to charge you an extra $99 which has since been lowered to $49.now granted they did put in some "special features" for your $99, but they really aren't very special IMO.

here is a great link to the thread at AVS: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...8&page=1&pp=20

Ah, that sucks. I guess that's how they're trying to pay off the massive new contract they signed with the NFL.

Count me in as another who prefers the dish interface to the tivo interface. I also prefer the fact that I can get three wb feeds (mountain, east, west) and two upn feeds (east, west) as part of the standard locals package, and it was fairly easy for me to get a distant local waiver for fox and nbc. AKAIK, direct only has one feed of upn and wb (whatever time zone you're in I believe) and it is difficult if not darn near impossible to get distant locals when you qualify for regular locals. I like having the choice of when I record so I can stagger my recording.

The downside? I pay approx. $70 per month and I DON'T have hbo/sho/max/starz/etc. or HD, but I do have a 508 dish dvr in one room, and an older non-dvr receiver in another room. Obviously that's crap compared to $65 for comcast incl. two premium packages and hd. But then again, I have had maybe a total of a half hour of outages in the five years I've had dish, whereas cable went out on me on practically a weekly basis, and they never did get my second room's digital cable working - it was non-signal snow for four months. Then I switched to dish, and have been problem-free ever since. My first 508 died about 13 months after I got it (they are prone to hard drive failure), but I have the digital home plan leasing thing, so they just sent me a replacement with no hassles.

If you go with Dish I would recommend getting an actual TiVo to go with it instead of Dish's own PVR system. You can probably get a pretty sweet deal with their PVR thrown in...but it's mostly a VCR that records to a HD instead of to tape. Also if you do invest in a TiVO you can use it with any system so if you decide to switch to Direct or back to cable or stay with Dish the SA Tivo will work with all those systems.

I made the switch from cable to Dish about 5 years ago. I went with Dish because at the time they had more of the channels I wanted at a better price. That might be differant today...but I pay about $43 a month for the Top 120 Package with local channels. You can pay as little as $32 a month with locals if you go with a smaller basic package.

I had DirecTV for close to 10 years...then my cable company offered a HDTV PVR for only $5 per month, with a nice selection of channels, and a $20 reduction on the Cable Modem, so I jumped over and have been happier since. I would miss the NFL package, but they jacked the price up so much, faghetaboutit.