HDTV question: Dish Network HD vs. DirectTV HD vs. Cable HD
 

I'm not sure this is the correct forum (could be the Tech Forum). Anyway, of the three HD TV services, which one is better in terms of quality and reliability? Thanks in advance!

From what I understand cable TV HD has the most compression and hence will have the the most artifacts. Such as clay faces and banding. Broadcast most likely has the best, but can suffer from reception issues.

Depends on where you live and what your cable provider is.

None of the above. :)

IMO, OTA HD has the best quality and the best relability.

I agree, but if you want ESPN, HBO and other cable HDs, OTA doesn't help.

I live in NYC, so which HD TV service should i get for best quality?

Cable is [or can be] the cheapest to get into. Apart from getting a TV, my upgrade to HD through cable was free--TWC gave an HD box for the same price as the regular box, HD networks and Discovery HD are part of the basic packages, and if you get HBO or SHO, you get their HD included as well.

The HD channels generally look great [obviously depending on original content]. I do notice some compression and some not-great pictures on the non-HD/lower channels, but I can't say it's solely due to cable compression or just that it's more visible on a bigger tv that we got the same time we went to cable.

Reliability--the HD DVR box is not very stable, but the basic HD box was perfectly fine.

thanks for the info dtcarson, appreciated...

I've had my dual tuner HD box with DVR for about a year now and despite giving it a very heavy workout, I've never had a moments trouble with it.

I have the Motorola 6412 with iGuide software from Comcast.

It seems that Dish Network is cheapest... The HD hardware is free, but it's "questionable" for the DVR when HD option is selected (there's a one time charge for it, sucks!). It does come with six months of free HD package (the VROOM channels).

^ VOOM

But there is no standalone HD-DVR option which is why I abandoned my OTA for the cable company.

Ah, but there is a standalone HD-DVR option. I wouldn't want to pay $699 for something that's as buggy as this is, but it is available. It has some pretty major drawbacks over most HD DVRs too. I think there's one or two other brands, but this one gets talked about the most.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/images/items/342167.jpg
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ist&sku=342167

Most of the HD that I watch is local sports and network television. For this reason, none of the dishes made any financial sense to me. I have Cable HD, and the quality is quite decent and realiable. But I haven't made any direct picture quality comparison between that and Dish or DirectTV.

I have Time Warner Cable with the HD package in NYC and I'm happy with it. the HD channels start at 701, go up to 715 and then at 721 and above there are a bunch of other premium HD channels.

The picture quality looks very nice on my 26 inch sharp aquos, but I'm not one of those people that scrutinizes every pixel and shade of color. I do have a 5.1 DD stereo and HD sounds pretty good. I can see compression on some shows, but a lot of shows it's crystal clear. Even the reruns of law and order on TNT HD look better than the regular TNT channel. there were a few times I saw some crazy compression artifacts, but most times I don't see them. It will also depend on your TV. Overall I'm happy with it.

I'm using component cables, but if you have the TWC HD-DVR then you can use a DVI cable. Problems are extremely rare.

I never had sattelite, but people I know complain about Direct TV. you have to sign a contract and they say customer service is pretty bad. And it's also affected by the weather.

You sound like a cable company commercial. :p

My box is a Scientific Atlanta 8000HD, which is known to be buggy. In fact, the third service guy who came to my house on my first box said "I hate these, they just don't work."
Eventually we got them to give us a new one, and it has been fine--it's possible we had a lemon.

The DVI output doesn't work.

Satellite company contracts are definitely an issue, and weather can be, depending on where you live. Here in the south, we lost our signal with Dish 3 times in 8 months, and twice was when we lost power to the house so it didn't matter.

I haven't had many problems with mine, but before I had HD, I had a regular 8000 box which was extremely buggy.

The DVI output does work on mine.

See if you can get the 8300, it's actually a better picture. No problems w/ that so far.

I had the 8000HD and after 18 months of HEAVY use it messed up. I now have the 8300 and no problems so far.

I went with cable HD for the price. I paid $5 more a month for a 2 tuner HD DVR, with no contract and free upgrades. I want to build a HTPC and add a OTA tuner in it for the channels Cox does not have on their lineup.

The HD DirecTiVo records OTA, so you can get the best of both worlds; local channels over the air, and ESPN HD etc over the satellite.

and DirecTV is in the process of investing heavily in HD so look for some good stuff from them in the future

Can you use that DirecTivo to record OTA without having DirecTV? No. It is not a standalone unit, you have to have their service.

95% of what I watch is free OTA networks. If I could get a standalone HD-DVR unit, I would drop that 5%(ESPN) in a heartbeat to save me spending $60+ on cable/satellite per month.

All DTV is planning is HDLocals, which most people can get OTA

I left Dish for Cable due to the high cost of entry into teh HD arena...they wanted 1000.00 for a dual tuner HDbox, a monthly fee for the HD package plus I would have to add another dish for Voom...Cablevision gave me the dual tuner hd box free, I wouldnt have to use the antenna for locals, and no charge for a HD package that includes my Regional sports nets in HD...the only reason for Dish or DTV is if your cable company sucks.

Plus cable internet

I live in Manhattan and had Time Warner HD for 2 years and HATED it. They were slow to add any HD channels while RCN had many more. Plus, their customer service was awful- so bad we filed multiple complaints with the city. And it was $75 a month for basic HDTV, and that doesn't include the extra $10 a month for the "premium" HD channel package with ESPN and HDNet.

I ended up buying a Zenith Silver Sensor antenna ($30 at Sears) and hooked it up to a HD tuner. I get CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, UPN9, WB11, and PBS. TWC still does not have channels 9 or 11 in HD! If you have a clear view of the Empire State Building, then you will likely have a good signal. I have a 20+ story building in my way and I can still get all the channels fine (although Fox has caused me problems a couple of times).

I had a similar experience as Tommy Ceez -- the costs for high definition DirectTV were through the roof. Plus, all of my local stuff would be OTA, with terrible reception.

I may feel dirty going back to cable, but they are significantly cheaper, give me local Celtics games in HD with the basic HD service, and I get the local networks in HD without an antenna. I haven't even considered a dish since sitting down to do the math...

You don't have much of a choice in NYC. Either cable or nothing...unless you live in a private house.

technically coop boards can't stop you from putting up a dish, but it's not worth the fight

I have TW Cable, and happy with it. Especially the On-Demand.

I have had direct since 1998. I have not had a contract since day one.

I have Direct TV HD and OTA HD. Discovery and HD Net are the best. OTA is ok but it depends on which channel, for instance CBS yesterday for football was simply awful, I finally turned of my HDTV and went back to the feed from Direct TV.

If you're under 40 miles from the towers, and have no hills/mountains between you and the towers, you could very well be suffering from too much signal rather than too little signal. The OTA tuner in the HDTivo is very susceptable to problems relating to too much signal. You can try a $10 variable attenuator from RadioShack and see if that helps.

The other likely culprit is multipathing, which again can be helped by an attenuator.

If you're farther from the towers than 20-40 miles and you're using the crappy antenna that DirecTV installs, that is your likely problem.

Have you tried OTA? This isn't analog OTA; you either have a picture or you don't. It isn't like the old days where the picture is full of static and waves.

:lol: Exactly. There is either a beautiful HD picture on your screen or nothing. There is no "terrible reception." I am fortunate enough to have the antenna Voom installed. I had no problems getting a signal for every OTA station when I used it. They hooked it up great.

So how can I find out for sure if I'd get a digital signal OTA? I'm like a 45 minute drive from the stations, probably 30 miles or so as the crow flies. I've heard this distance is normally fine, but I'm kind of down in a valley. I don't want to get an HDTV until I know I can get locals in HD.

Thanks, I've looked there before though, and something's weird - if I just put in my ZIP code, all the digital stations show up and are about 37 miles away. But when I put in my address and ZIP, actually 26 miles away, it shows no digital stations. I'm assuming this is just because of the valley I'm in?

So I guess what I'm asking is...how definitive is that site?

I'm not sure why there would be such a huge difference between your zip and your zip + address. Maybe look at a map and estimate the distance to see which is right?

It errs on the cautious side. I'm at approximately sea level, but at the base of a 1400+ foot hill that is between me and the towers. It doesn't show any digital stations for me, either, but I'm able to pick up ABC and CBS very well, and Fox, NBC, WB very well on some days, not well on others.

It took a lot of experimenting to get it working though. I ended up with a Channel Master 4228 antenna + Channel Master 7777 preamplifier mounted on a 10 foot antenna mast, and I had to move it around a few times until I found the most reliable place.