Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Ike 2K# on May 25, 2003, 09:22:02 PM
-
LoL i only have an antena, I wanna ask which method is supperior.
-
I've heard that it may depend on where you're located, but in my experience (in my area) Satellite beats Digital Cable by a mile. I won't go into specifics (do a search if you want some, it's all been posted before), but I thought it was better because of the cost, the quality of the equipment, the speed of the interface, the usability of the interface, speed of channel surfing, picture quality, and the customer service.
SOB
-edit- and you can ignore the commercials from the cable idiots that talk down the reception. It rains 3/4 of the year here in Oregon, and I had great reception with both DirecTV and Dish Network through every kind of rain imaginable, as well as hail and a very rare thunderstorm or two.
-
Well in my area "digital cable" is a myth. In all actuality it is the exact same analog signal with a neat little onscreen menu option. HBO, Showtime, etc broadcast in dolby digital however in this area we cannot get that audio stream. The quality of the signal is the exact same as your typical analog cable broadcast. Satellite on the other hand has more programming options and has a far superior truely digital signal. With satellite you can still get your local channels, $5 a month if i remember correctly, Dish and DirectTV do not require you to purchase their equipment however you usually have to "rent" it from them. This means that you will be entering into a year long contract which has steep early termination fines. You can purchase your own equipment to avoid this contract, however depending on how many TV's you want to hook up it can get quite expensive. For a dual antenna receiver expect to pay at least $150, with each additional box of $99 last time i checked. My advice is go with satellite and shop around DISH and DirectTV are highly competitive and have greats deals practically all the time. My father is a Comcast cable customer and he got a offer the other day from DISH that included a DishPVR system(kinda like TIVO) with 2 additional receivers, Americas Top 100 programming, free installation for $60/month with a $49 credit for the first 3 months of service. Now this is the only deal I have seen where he can cancel at anytime, keep the equipment, and not have to pay early termination fees. One hell of a deal if you ask me, but this deal was sent to him to lure him away from Comcast, so I do not know if it would be available to anyone. Good Luck in your decision
-
satellite usually offers you more channels for the same price.
Cable oth, 100% guarantees your signal.
With sat. tv, bad weather or lots of crap can make your signal stop in frame, jump and be very jerky.
I have directv now, i love it, but theres nothing more annoying than taping your show and having the signal scramble and screech because a plane flew over your house or a bird took a crap on the dish or because there's bad weather between you and the satellite. Cable OTH never loses signal unless you got a rat chewing your cabling.
-
Found a good deal for dish network here
http://www.vmcsatellite.com/channels/home.cfm
-
I have had satellite for over 6 years and found it to be a lot better than cable.
Satellite for internet is another story.......it sucks!
-
I've had DishNetwork for 5 years and would never go cable again. The only upside to cable is internet.
-
If you have a HDTV get satellite.
MiniD
-
Originally posted by Mini D
If you have a HDTV get satellite.
MiniD
I highly doubt he has HDTV seeing as he is currently using rabbit ears for reception.
-
I've had digital cable. Here's the skinny:
Digital cable is a costly technology, and the cable company's business plan involves delivering more content at increased customer cost.
How much content?
Well, okay -- it comes through the same cable as everything else. So there's no sense reduplicating the analog channels. The stuff on the "bottom 63" or however many analog channels you currently can get with your cable box will remain the same.
Then there are the digital channels, with some cool features, like audio compression applied (or not) by the cable box, not by the transmitter. So if you've got a home theater, that's neat.
Every digital cable box communicates with the central office (some units have a phone jack for this purpose). The central office can then turn on or off individual digital channels.
Usually, this means that, for your basic digital fee, you get a few more channels, mostly crap you wouldn't want. Then you can spend extra money a month on "packages" that give you additional channels and maybe a premium service like HBO. If you want to spend $7 for one of four movies of the sort they have 40 copies of down at blockbuster, but without all that worrying about rewinding (or pausing, or watching again), you can look at pay per view (sucker!).
The box itself is usually owned by the cable company; so like a satellite system, you need a receiver to get the digital channels.
remember that cable companies also offer a "broadcast basic" service (That's what I "stepped down" from digital cable to). Where I am, I pay $16/month and get the broadcast channels, plus C-spans and crappy home shopping and public access channels (and WGN). And I suspect my local cable company believes the extra $30 they charge for the other analog channels goes directly to the cable networks, and thus no profit for them. I suspect this because when I shifted down -- a year and a half ago -- they didn't think it profitable to put a filter on the other cable channels.
Speaking to the guy who cuts my hair (and who has satellite), it turns out I'm not the only broadcast basic subscriber with this "feature": throughout this city, apparently, the cable company is giving us $16/month losers the fifty dollar package.
Still, if I had to pay for it, I'd go broadcast basic and satellite.
And I'd get the one with football and baseball dammit. DirectTV is the only one out there with the NFL contract (and presumably the only one with the MLB contract).
-
SOB's right, it really depends on where you are if digital cable is worth anything. Here it blows. I don't know if it's the signal or the receiver they give you, but the picture quality on the digital signal sucked the big one. Dark colors would wash out, and it really detracted from the viewing experience. Over in Tampa supposedly, it's a really good service (Eagler has mentioned he is really pleased with his service there.)
Personally, I have DirecTV and the cable company supplies my local channels and my internet access. I actually pay the same price for local channels and internet than I would for just internet because if you're a TV subscriber they give you a break on the internet service. The break happens to be the same price as the basic service. I pay a little more cuz of taxes and fees of course, but it's better than dealing with rabbit ears. :)
-
Originally posted by Nifty
SOB's right, it really depends on where you are if digital cable is worth anything. Here it blows. I don't know if it's the signal or the receiver they give you, but the picture quality on the digital signal sucked the big one. Dark colors would wash out, and it really detracted from the viewing experience. Over in Tampa supposedly, it's a really good service (Eagler has mentioned he is really pleased with his service there.)
I heard that my friend uses RCA connectors to get better picture. I notice that anolog channels sucks (in quality) with digital cable
-
If you plan on using your satellite service for your ISP,be aware of the lag issue.
Your ping will be no less than 240-speed of light being the determining factor.
-
yeah, you shouldn't be using channel 3 out of the cable box. Use RCA or S-Video or component out
-
digital cable, hdtv, video on demand, hbo on demand, adult on demand, PPV, road runner hispeed - tampa bay division cable is what other cable systems strive to be. should be, Time warner dumped a ton of money into it. sats go out in the rain around here, but they have great pix when it doesn't rain
-
The main thing about getting a dish is that you don't have to deal with the @#$@#$ cable company. The dish companies are not perfect but they beat the heck out of tyrannical local monopolies.
-
I'd go broadcast basic and satellite.
Why both? All the locals are available on the satellite.
-
Originally posted by funkedup
Why both? All the locals are available on the satellite.
not everyone lives near a big enough city for DirecTV to offer local channels. I can't get locals in Pensacola. It's some territorial BS with the broadcasts and cable companies, so the local channel package just isn't offered here (or wasn't when I got the service.) I don't understand it at all. Regardless, it'd be cheaper for me to do basic cable as long as I get my broadband through the cable company.
That said, I don't know how the other sats do their locals.
-
digital cable is allright up here...i always find it much quicker and easier to use than those stupid sattelite things...
in the end its all the same weather you have standard or digital cable or sattelite...
hundreds of channels and ABSALUTLY NOTHING on...
ill just stick with my bunny ears thank you very much...
-
Direct TV beats our digital cable hands down.
clarity, choices, price, etc etc etc
-
Originally posted by Nifty
.....
That said, I don't know how the other sats do their locals.
you get them with a cheezy antenna connected to dish (fuzzy analog) free or pay for them off the satellite (digital)
http://www.vmcsatellite.com/channels/local.cfm
-
the real reason (http://www.vmcsatellite.com/subchannels/adult.cfm) most ppl have dish over cable
xxx
-
Originally posted by Eagler
the real reason (http://www.vmcsatellite.com/subchannels/adult.cfm) most ppl have dish over cable
xxx
actually, I switched to sat for espn classic, and the Sports Pack (LOTS of college games, and pro games in my market.) This in addition to better quality of my signal as well (rain not withstanding.) Of course, a few months after I switched, my digital cable started offering espn classic. No biggie, I still have the regional sports networks and DirecTV has College Sports TV now as well. Fun watching those old college football games. :)
as for porn, Eagler... my digital cable offered as much PPV porn as DirecTV does. Pretty much the same channels I think. I wouldn't know, why pay for porn on TV when I can find it free online? :p
-
Digital Cable has porn too.
Well, I think the verdict's in.
Unless you live in an area with an extended rainy season, Satellite and Digital Cable owners agree: go satellite.
And funked: yeah, looking at the list of "locals" Eagler provided, they're missing the #1 market share station in my area, so those I know with the satellite get broadcast basic (it may even be part of the package out here). The local cable company is kind enough to provide all those other channels so TVs away from the satellite receiver can show junk as well.
And, yeah, there's never anything on. But with hundreds of channels, it takes an hour to figure that out ;)
-
I've been a happy Dish Network Customer for several years. I do have cable for just Internet (Powerlink)..$55 a month
I trimmed out all the movie stations (HBO, etc) and I think I'm in the "Top 150" channels, plus added in Fox and a few other stations...230-239, whatever they are (KTLA, WGN, etc) All for $40 a month
All the time I've had Dish (4+ years), I've only had three times when the weather was so bad I had no signal...twice were severe snowstorms and another was a big windstorm that had the trees waving in the path of my dish.
So for a total of just under $100, I do better than if I had all this under cable, whch was like $125 or so.
-
sat reception is dependant on your location in its "footprint" .
http://www.scottandmichelle.net/scott/dtv.html
http://www.geo-orbit.org/westhemipgs/fdbs12p.html
the farther east you are the lower the signal strength and more likely you'll have issues with bad weather
don't forget the sun outages every spring and fall when the sun gets in direct alignment with your dish and satellite. Kinda kills the signal for a few minutes each afternoon for about a week.
-
doesn't happen here
actually I've never had a drop out, even during blizzards
-
Originally posted by Pfunk
I highly doubt he has HDTV seeing as he is currently using rabbit ears for reception.
Ummm... Portland broadcasts everything in HDTV. Pretty sure alot of arials will still grab it... some "rabit ears" advertise it too.
Besides... HDTV is usually driven more by DvD type stuff than anything.
MiniD
-
Originally posted by Eagler
don't forget the sun outages every spring and fall when the sun gets in direct alignment with your dish and satellite. Kinda kills the signal for a few minutes each afternoon for about a week.
Had this from my digital provider in March. They get a satellite signal too.
-
When I lived in Miami our dish would go out whenever there was a heavy thunderstorm. Which during the summer was multiple times a week. Other times the signal would degrade some and the screen would pixelate.
This was a few years ago, I don't know if things have changed any since.
-
Welp,..DiSH has been rock solid for me. I check the transponders signal strength during heavy showers and I can see one drop, then another comes up,...neat yo-yo thing going on.
I have access to 6 transponders on two different sats, and have had mild pixelation during the most severe storms.
Our local cable provider,..which was Paragon, which was bought by AT&T, and then bought by Comcast has horrible service and outages that lasts for days.
So, in this area, sats rule. I would say 80-90% of the homes in our neighborhood use sats now.
-
Here in Oregon, I had a problem with signal just once with my DirecTV service and never with my Dish Network service. The one time with DirecTV was for about 5 min when an extremely heavy hail storm came down (not big hailstones, just a LOT of them). Other than that, never had a problem, even when it hailed.
Maybe that's part of being on the west coast.
SOB
-
Originally posted by midnight Target
Had this from my digital provider in March. They get a satellite signal too.
true
we get it, slightly and for a much shorter duration as our dishes are much larger and the lnb much stronger than the 18" to 36" dish & lnbs installed on a home unit
-
it's because ya'll are too far east ;)
-
ya, it'd be nice if they'd put up another bird to handle us east of the Mississippi folks. ;) It's funny though. Sometimes I barely lose any signal in a heavy thunderstorm... then a light drizzle will kill off all the transponders on both sats. *shrug*
oh well, I haven't missed anything yet that I couldn't see again later. Though you can bet I'll be ranting when espn cuts out on me during an FSU away game or something in the fall. ;) Oh well, I'll just make sure the radio is ready to go if that happens.
-
We had one of the heaviest rainy seasons ever out here (No. Cal.) and I didn't get any outages, even when it was hailing.
That sucks that some places can't get all the locals on the dish.
Whatever setup you get, make sure you get TiVo or equivalent DVR.
-
never had an outage here either (Colorado)
and funked is sooooo right.. get the tivo (or whatever they call it now).
hell even local channels come in better here (unlike digital cable).
oh yeah.. and pay per view lasts all day so you can re-watch as needed. (I'm sure Dish does the same thing)
and make sure you get new receivers.. my old one was slower than molasses (changing channels, etc) so I hope none of you get it as a rebuilt! heh
-
Oh yeah, the DVR is a must! And the one with the Dish Network setup doesn't require a subscription like Tivo.
-
I've got an HDTV, and I desperately want to switch to Dish from my lousy cable, but because I've grown addicted to my ReplayTV DVR, I need to wait for the 921 or JVC-DVR9000 receivers to come out (HD receivers with DVR technology).
Aaarrghh!
If I get a 6000 (the current Dish HDTV receiver), I can still use my ReplayTV like I use it now, just not for HDTV stuff. The thing is, I get a 'new customer' discount when I get the 6000. That's a $200 or $300 savings, and if I use it on the 6000, then I have to pay $700+ for the new receiver when it comes out instead of getting it for $500 or so.
Chairboy (Hating cable and desperate for new Dish receivers to come out)
-
I for one will NEVER go back to cable....
Poor signal, crappy customer service, overpriced!
I fired ComCrap after having them tell me that the reason my signal looked bad was because I had a big screen TV 61". I hooked up the rabbit ears to the back and the repair man then said my line noise was too great......they dug up the yard and replaced it saying that I had 75% more signal....GUESS WHAT....still was bad.
Went to DIRECTV and WHAMMO!!! Great Picture....
The rumors about bad pictures due to weather and such in my opinion are non existent. I experience thunderstorms, screaming winds, and snow....not once have I had any signal degradation.
just my three cents....