Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: aknimitz on January 02, 2003, 11:13:55 AM
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I am in the market for subscribing to satelite DV. I am so tired of Comcast that I could puke.
The only question I have is who do I get it from? I know DirectTV is running specials from time to time for two receivers free, installation free, etc. Dish Network has similar, but not quite as good, promotions. I've heard Dish Network is the better of the two, but really dont know much about either?
Any advice would be appreciated! Happy New Year everyone!
Nim
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I've tried both and for my money it's DirectTV.
I get more channels (although that's changed since I had dish)
lower price and great service.
also, pay per view .. when you guy a movie you get to watch it all day if you like (24 hours), not just the time you ordered it.
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I can't compare the two but I've had direct tv and it was very very nice.
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Livin' out in the boonies, in the shade of a mountain, along the Columbia River, I have few options when it comes to TV, we started out on Primestar, then onto DirectTV which bought 'em out.
We've had DirectTV for about 3 or four years I think, and I've never had any problems.
Wish we had cable though, then maybe I could get a faster internet connection.
These old phone systems out here bounce back and forth from analog to digital, and everytime that happens line noise gets injected.
My modem is a 56k, but I rarely get better than 26.6 connect speed because of the bouncing back and forth.
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DirectTV bought exclusive rights for the NFL package. There's something just awesome about having every NFL game on the TV on back-to-back-to-back channels.
I had direct TV a few years ago then went with Digital Cable. I went back to DirectTV when I bought an HDTV with a built in DirectTV tuner. It seems that digital cable will not be supporting HDTV broadcasting. DirectTV will.
AKDejaVu
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DirectTV is much clearer than digital cable on my HDTV.. even non-HD broadcasts.. much clearer.
and the NHL package to boot :)
I live in the boonies too.. we just got fiber laid so we can finally have broadband.. but I stick to DirectTV for television.
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Originally posted by Wlfgng
DirectTV is much clearer than digital cable on my HDTV.. even non-HD broadcasts.. much clearer.
and the NHL package to boot :)
I live in the boonies too.. we just got fiber laid so we can finally have broadband.. but I stick to DirectTV for television.
How did you have digital cable without fiber?
Once your cable co goes fiber nodes - your reception should improve (33 years in the biz)
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came available at the same time (last summer), before I switched to DirectTV.
Before that we were strictly dial-up and regular cable.
oh, and DirectTV (same lineup I had with cable) is less expensive.
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I got Direct TV last summer and I love it! Plenty of channels and great picture. I've only had reception problems once...when we had a terrible rainstorm I lost signal for about 15 minutes. Other than that I have no complaints. NFL Sunday Ticket rocks. :D
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I've had Direct TV for the last 6-7 years, love it. We have Dish at the fire station; it made me appreciate Direct TV even more.
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I have went back and forth between TW cable and Direct TV. I cant sp[eak for Dish Network, but Curly likes it I think.
However, Direct TV vs Cable, the sattelite is a superior product hands down. I signed up in the fall with a promotion for college game day. I got to see alot of college football which is right up my alley. I got all the premium channels, all the other standard channels, pluss all the sports for $50 a month for 4 months. I purchased 2 receivers and a dish for $100 with free installation and got a $75 rebate in the mail. This was a best buy promotion that I went through.
HTH
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IM in Canada, so I cant legally get Direct TV or Dishnet. Nobody sells it here anymore for fear of the RCMP knocking on thier door.
Ive compared DirecTV and Dishnet's programme lineup, and I cant see much of a difference. Though ive never had Direct TV, I can tell you what I like about dish. Its has all the stuff that used to be on my big Cband dish. HBO, Cinemax, Discovery... same as Direct TV im sure. Dish seems to have many more locals, so timeshifting would be IMO a big advantage, though maby directv is similar.
Another advangage is that the hardware for Dish is the same as for expressvu here in canada. So you could possibly receive VU programming as well. Though your not missing much, but its fun to tinker with such stuff :)
edit fwiw
Im not much of a sports nut, but dish has tonnes of sports, including a new NHL package.
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The entire country of Canada steals Direct TV. ITs like one of the biggests scams in the world. Our courts have ruled that because Direct TV. doesn't offer its services in Canada-its not illegal to "steal it"....what a scam-another reason to bomb Canada......
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ive had both directtv was the best especially whne it came to service, dish always gave me the %^$^%& run around so i drop em like a big ole turd,i now have cable turns out it was the least in expensive alternitative for me, had 2 phone lines one for internet isp and dish $135.00 US now $71.99 cable same channels plus inter net huge savings for me, dsl not in my area
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Stealing DTV in Canada has recently been made illegal, all the shops in Calgary that were doing it (dozens) were raided recently by the RCMP.
The main reason for the raids: get the client lists, gonna be lots of sad people in 2003.
Also, it is the Canadian Radio Telecommunications Commission (re: liberal commie supporters) banned the sale of DTV here in Canada, making us use gayass cable and lame Canadian satellite, which is worse than cable.
I used DTV until the law passed last year, BUT I just used my Coots Montana mailbox as my address, and paid for it like everyone else. I chose to break the grey-area "law" in Canada in order to not "steal" from a US company.
But now, it's reason for home invasion a la RCMP (same with being a gun owner now) if they spot a DSS dish on your house, paid for in the USA or stolen here in Canada with a hacked or emulated card.
I wish to hell I could pay for it, but hopefully I'll be in the USA this year anyhow, I sure do miss it, TV any other way bites in comparison.
PS Sweep: Last time ya'll (<--American for you) tried that, we damn-ned burnt ya'lls White House down, and a lot of DC with it, so just watchit, ya-heeyah.
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I've had both and I liked them both. For me DirecTV was more expensive...I basically had the everything package with no sports. Just all the cable & movie channels. Also, at the time, DirecTV only had three local stations - ABC, NBC, & FOX - and for some reason could not get the CBS station. I liked the menu system better and the favorites setup I had on my Sony reciever.
Dish Network worked well for me too, and one of the two recievers I got from them had a built in 30-hour digital recorder. Plus their local channel lineup was great - ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox, UPN, & WB.
I think you'll do good either way...digital cable just sucks ass.
SOB
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digital cable just sucks ass
especially for what you have to pay for it.
DirectTV and all the local channels, no movie channels (I'd rather buy PPV)
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Dish here. Yeah SOB, I got the new 501 PVR system for Christmas,.60 hours of recording.
Nice thing about Dish's recorder is there is not additional fees. You can get it with any package. Oh,..PPV is all day as well. I understand Direct has gone back with one view PPV.
I think they are both fine and far better than cable.
I am glad our local cable went fiber. I would not have known how good the satellite stuff had gotten until the local cable service went south for the winter.
Had to call Dish on Christmas day to activate my PVR and i was all done in less than 2 minutes.
I had originally planned to go DirectTV, but when Dish added all our local channels for free,..it was a no brainer.
So I guess it all boils down to who is offering the best package for your needs.
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Originally posted by Gman
Stealing DTV in Canada has recently been made illegal, all the shops in Calgary that were doing it (dozens) were raided recently by the RCMP.
I used DTV until the law passed last year, BUT I just used my Coots Montana mailbox as my address, and paid for it like everyone else. I chose to break the grey-area "law" in Canada in order to not "steal" from a US company.
Dumb question, maby.
Grey market satelite... the way dishnetwork works, is when you subscribe a new box, dish sends down a command that writes a number "basicly a combination thats in the ird's software" to the card and in turn activates your receiver, they also send down commands that write channel tiers to the card that tell the receiver what channels your currently pay for. There is no possible way for a dealer to do this himself, the signal comes from dishnet themselves, he doesnt have access to it. If he has the ird in his hands, he could possibly accomplish this, but since all anyone subbed to dish has "or had" to do is call whoever they bought the system from and upgrade or downgrade thier subscription then dishnet had to be sending the commands, and therefor I assume, getting paid for it.
Directv must to work the same way.
Basicly, if you were paying for a subscription, then you werent acutally stealing anything, whether you went through a dealer or Dish themselves, they had to be getting their money either way, or am I missing something? Now if you were paying for a dealer to come into your home and "upgrade" your subscription, then yea you were probably stealing.
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Oh, one other thing my DirecTV reciever didn't have that my Dish Network one did was a search feature...so you could search for a specific program to see when it was on. I don't know if that was just my reciever or if you just can't do that with DirecTV...probably just the reciever.
AT&T Digital Cable in Salem:
Change channel, wait 5 seconds for the channel to pixel in from black. Not what you wanna watch, change channel again and wait some more. Sick of surfing...click on button to bring up programming guide...waaaaiiiit for it. See an entire ½ hour of programming at one time! Wow, I'm glad the rest of the screen is filled with ads tho' (when it first came out it showed 1-½ hours, but they nixed that in favor of the ads). Scroll through menu, if the ten selections shown on the screen you're looking at aren't appealing scroll down to the next page...wait some more for the next page to come up. Forget about the whole thing, throw your remote in the trash and go on the intardnet...also by AT&T cable services, but somehow quite good and reasonably priced.
SOB
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just your receiver, mine does search.. acutally both mine do.
I understand Direct has gone back with one view PPV.
I'm still getting the all-day thing.
bottom line:
Cable sux
Digital Cable sux
like Skuzzy said, pick a satellite package and go with it.
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you guys haven't seen REAL digital cable
we have it here in Tampa - one of the few places the $$$ were spent to correctly construct it
when you do, you'll drop your satellite
rain fade helps here as well but true digital cable with Icontrol - pause, ff, rw - your basic TIVO comands - HBO on Demand, SHowtime on Demand, Video on Demand - interactivity the sats can't bring you. 5.1 audio over 800 possible channels - when more analog channels convert to digital (you get 6 to 8 digital channels for each analog you drop) all the local HD channels
problem with digital cable is many/most cable cos are cramming 10+ digital channels in the 6mhz space they created by removing an analog channel and wonder why their customers complain of digital artifacts/blocking
add to a properly designed and construction as well as maintained digital cable platform, Road Runner - it'll beat Satellite hands down. Our new 8000 series Scientific Atlanta boxes has DVR built in. Gives P in P on any tv set. They are beta testing them now.
what has given sats growth is the ease of stealing everything after you pay for only basic & porn
the NFL package adds to it too, cable should have outbid the sats when it came to that. they have NBA and some college, NASCAR & others but the NFL ticket would have been sweet.
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Eagler,
That must be some kind of cable company.
here is an example of what I got from TW in Eastern NC when I called asking for the History channel to be added to the channel line up.
"We dont offer that sir"
me "I know, that is why I am asking for it"
them"well, I am so sorry, we don't offer that"
And here in SA, Tx, the cable is just like SOB described. It is terrible. I will say though that I am satisfied with roadrunner though:)
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I guess that's great if you live in Tampa, but...
Hell, my digital cable reciever didn't even have an S-video out or any kind of audio out beyond RCAs, much less Dolby Digital.
Also, rain (and I live in Oregon) never had any affect on either my DirecTV or Dish Network recievers. Once when it hailed real hard I briefly lost picture on my DirecTV dish.
Sounds like you have a nice setup down there tho'.
SOB
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pause, ff, rw - your basic TIVO comands - HBO on Demand, SHowtime on Demand, Video on Demand - interactivity the sats can't bring you. 5.1 audio over 800 possible channels - when more analog channels convert to digital (you get 6 to 8 digital channels for each analog you drop) all the local HD channels
actually we can do all that with Tivo (different receiver)
and have 'new' fiber only network for the digi-cable.. it's out all the time. That's what originally prompted me to switch.
the quality is no comparisson
the only time I've had a loss of signal was during a blizzard of ice/snow/sleet.. lasted about 20 minutes.
Snow doesn't affect it, rain doesn't ...
cold doesn't.. but it does affect our fiber (the cold/freezing)
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I have DirecTV with TiVo built in to the tuner. It freakin rules.
They are now calling it "DirecTV DVR" but it's the same product. Highly recommended.
It has two tuners built in so you can record two shows at once.
Dolby digital 5.1 sound, etc etc.
I stuck a 120 GB drive in there and have been sucking massive quantities of movies out of the airwaves.
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you guys in the midwest and left coast will not have rain fade as we have here on the east coast due to the satellites footprint (broadcast pattern/strength)
dishes here point almost horizontal as the birds are sw of us near the horizon
ppl here still swear by DSS even with the rain fade/blocking.
SOB is right - my cable isn't yours, it is just what is possible tommorrow but sat is about the same for all TODAY
wow ammo, that is sad. we have just about every history, discovery. movie, shopping :) channel God created then some..
Discovery Wings is the best- well when they air Wings of the Luftwaffee anyway :)
marketing will push improvements - ad sales wants a targeted market. digital cable allows them to sell commercials for specific products to specific ppl at "discounted" rates.
digital viewing - sat, tivo or our SA box allows/will allow marketing research at a whole new level...
so how many of you guys with sat have a "special" card?? :)
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(raises hand) yeah, they monitor my viewing habits
and if they follow my lead we'll all get to see more Hockey and Boobies :)
(I do my part)
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We had (by our standards) torrential rain a couple of weeks ago (3 inches in a few hours) and I didn't get any rain fade. I'm in CA so that backs up what Eagler said about the footprint.
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have had both systems
digital cable in 90% of places is inferior the good kind is super rare.
dish is cheaper but not as well thought out.
( cant se where you can auto control the volume thru your reciever rather than the tv sound like direct can)
i have dish but will probly go with the best deal with a dvr with time is up.
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Yeah I concur. Digital cable out here is ASS. It's way expensive, the video quality is nothing special, and none of the features like Dolby Digital are supported by our cable company.
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by the time our local cable company gets to the point where they are in Fla., hell will freeze over
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True. It's worth getting a dish just so you can stop dealing with the cable companies. Incredibly poor customer service everywhere I've lived in the US.
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Every sorry as$ Canidian Looser that works in my office (they cross the border to work because they can't get work in their own country) brags about stealing Direct TV. Every single one. They still steal it.....
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Thats why we will always win..
and you will always loose..
or.
The only way to get NFL sunday ticket on a satalite in canada is to pirate Direct TV. You can get it on digital cable but who wants that crap.
You didnt think we watch Canadian Football did you?
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Cable companies abused their monopolies for years and now that people have a choice, they're paying for it. Cable will have to have a vastly superior product before I will ever go back from satellite. Can't see it happening in this area.
bowser
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Tanya Memme!!! DISH CHANNEL 201!!!
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lol Pongo
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Originally posted by milnko
Livin' out in the boonies, in the shade of a mountain, along the Columbia River, I have few options when it comes to TV, we started out on Primestar, then onto DirectTV which bought 'em out.
We've had DirectTV for about 3 or four years I think, and I've never had any problems.
Wish we had cable though, then maybe I could get a faster internet connection.
These old phone systems out here bounce back and forth from analog to digital, and everytime that happens line noise gets injected.
My modem is a 56k, but I rarely get better than 26.6 connect speed because of the bouncing back and forth.
Ditto, except "The White River" instead of Columbia. We pay a price for a piece of paradise. :( Good news is recently there was a phone service guy hooking up some big wires on our junction box... we're "suppose" to be getting DSL out in our neck of the woods soon, but I heard this two years ago as well.
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No brainer..whichever has the best porn channels.
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Another vote for Dish Network
My ex-gf had Direct TV, good grief, the guide screen was enough to make you go nuts.
I'm paying $39 a month and have the major stations, etc. No HBOs or movie channels since I am not home enough to warrant it.
Did the autopay thing and check it online. Pretty sharp.
Now, back to channel 195 :D
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I told my cable company to take a hike over a year ago(except for the cable modem connection, of course), and went to Direct-TV. Absolutely love it!
Words cannot describe how good it felt to ditch that non-customer oriented cable company. They have the monopoly in my region of Minnesota, and they know it. Their customer service was next to non-existent.
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So ...
who has a zapped card??
reminds me of the old M-35 OAK boxes ppl uses to cram cards into to pull wiper off contact or fish out and cut gnd wire to defeat scramble :)
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Ditto, except "The White River" instead of Columbia.
you can add the "Roaring Fork" to that list...
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hmm...
you guys got me thinking about DirectTV. I might just go with that in the new house. The owners before me had DirectTV, and the RJ-6 is still run all through the house. It'd be a helluva lot easier to just ditch digital cable (which isn't all that great as you guys said, especially when I get the widescreen HDTV later this year) and use the ONE cable line in the house for cable modem. It'll cost me a bit more for cable access as I'd no longer subscribe to their TV service... but if the quality on the widescreen is better, then it'd be worth it.
question for you all with DirectTV. How do black colors look on DirectTV? They pixelate like hell on the digital cable and it really detracts from watching some movies...
My parents have the Dish Network. I like it for the most part, but I can't stand the on screen guide. go more than a couple of hours ahead and it has to download the info from the satellite, which takes like 10 minutes for some reason. :( Cable guide goes a week in the future with minimal (maybe 30 seconds) delays.
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Eagler for about 2 years (about 1980-82) our cable company had these boxes with a big number keypad on them. Turned out there was a programming code you could enter that would unscramble all the pay channels. Every kid I knew who had one of these boxes was watching Playboy. :)
The cable company got rid of those boxes pretty fast.
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just so you know.. you need to get the oval dish that hits two satellites if you're gonna go with HDTV.
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I agree, Digital cable is ass.
Originally posted by funkedup
Yeah I concur. Digital cable out here is ASS.
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lol