dvd-4-life

I just had a Direct TV repairman come out too the house on an unrelated matter and he was mentioning that during a rain storm go into the settings and change all the HD channels over to SD channels and you should not lose the picture during a storm.

I never heard of that. Has anyone ever tried this and did it work ok?

One reason my dad never switched to Direct TV was because of the signal loss during storms.

bunkaroo

Sounds plausible. When I had DTV I had all my channels set to HD only when there's a choice. I didn't really watch any SD channels so I can't say I noticed.

I stayed away from dish-based service for a while because of concerns over losing signal but for some reason when it did happen (which wasn't often), it didn't bother me too much. Considering how bad video service was on my landbased cable, I was happy to get higher quality video at the expense of having occasional signal loss.

OldBoy

Yes, that is correct. Had directv awhile back and when hd goes out, sd seems to remain good...

andicus

Don't the HD signals come from a different satellite?

Although I don't see why that would mean you'd get reception from one, but not the other. Unless the SD satellite has a higher output power?

Or maybe, the HD satellite is lower in the sky, meaning you have more atmosphere/rain to go through.

TGM

yes, this is true.

Jay G.

They are in different positions, although fairly close together

https://forums.att.com/t5/DVR-Receiv...e/td-p/4681417

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirecTV_satellite_fleet

dvd-4-life

I switched too an HD dish back in November 2014 and before that I had an SD dish and it would go out all the time during a storm. Maybe the technology has improved since that time period.

dvd-4-life

I often wondered why the Weather Channel was in SD so I guess the reason behind that is more people can receive it during threatening weather conditions and if it were in HD a lot of people would be screwed about receiving updated weather info(even though you still have weather radio and internet).

Josh-da-man

It depends on how strong the storm is.

On my DirecTV system the HD will go out before the SD, but if it's a hard rain, they'll both go out. The SD signals seem to be a bit more robust.

A while back I lost power during a storm for a couple of seconds and when I rebooted I lost all HD channels. Appears that the HD feeds were out when it reloaded the satellite data, so only the SD channels reloaded. I reset the re eiver after the storm and they all came back.

Jeremy517

Part of it depends on how well your dish is aligned. If you get in the mid to upper 90s in signal strength on all satellites, you shouldn't lose HD picture in anything but the very worst storms.

Jeremy517

SD uses less bandwidth than HD, so it is easier to get full frames of video.

Also, for the main satellite, your dish only needs the right direction and angle. For the second and third satellites, the tilt has to be right also. If the tilt is off a bit, you won't get as strong of a signal from the other two satellites.

bunkaroo

That's how it was for me - clear view to the southwest with no trees or buildings in the way.

whotony

I lose signal for a couple minutes during heavy storms but not enough to go over to the sd feed.

PhantomStranger

Rain fade was the reason I ultimately left DirecTV. Loved the service other than that problem.