Satellite TV Service

[PAkev]

Thinking of the long winter ahead after putting the cover on my boat and am trying to educate myself on having satellite TV service installed to help make the days pass faster. One person told me satellite TV may eventually become obsolete as broadband TV programming will begin becoming available at the beginning of 2008. Unfortuantely, the logistics to that are still all speculation.

I like outdoor shows (hunting and fishing) which The Outdoor Chanell seems to fit the bill with.

The two major players in the satellte arena seem to be Dish Network and Direct TV. Both seem to have competitive offers but I'm not sure if one has a reputation of better or worse service over the other.


Helpful advice appreciated

 

[WaterWitch2]

Re: Satellite TV Service

I've had Direct TV for about 9 years and have been happy with it.

 

[SpinnerBait_Nut]

Re: Satellite TV Service

What about all them stories you hear about bad weather takes it out?
Rain/snow etc.
Any truth to that or just a marketing scheme by the cable people?

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Satellite TV Service

I had a good old fashioned C band 10' dish for years and years.... then I went with Dish Network. Been there almost 10 years and pretty happy with the reception and the service. (a Direct TV would not work due to the position of the satellites vs the mountains).

We have a higher than normal amount of weather here and yes, we lose signal during bad thunder storms and on occasion during a blizzard. The loss is only temporary (less than 10 minutes). As compared to cable in the town (not available at my home) I have far less "outages" than the cable company.

I am happy with Dish. I doubt broadband will push it out too soon...... heck where I live many people can't get anything except dial up service..... they would have to get reliable broadband first.

 

[JB]

Re: Satellite TV Service

Been with DirecTV for about 10 years. Pretty satisfied with it.

I do lose signal when heavy weather gets between my dish and the satellite, but not for long.

I also have an antenna which gets me about 8 local broadcast HD channels. DTV has about 8 channels of HD, as well, but they cost extra.

DTV "promised" to have a lot more HD channels a few years back, but so far they have only added a couple of PPV channels

I don't think satellite or cable TV are going to go away, but as more broadcast stations come on with HD (no fee) the subscriptions may decline.

 

[rwise]

Re: Satellite TV Service

What about all them stories you hear about bad weather takes it out?
Rain/snow etc.
Any truth to that or just a marketing scheme by the cable people?

Yes you will get rain fade, it does not need to be raining where you are just between you and the sat. Now there IS something you can do, many have found the old *primestar* dish which was a bit bigger and works well. In my area *Big Z* recomends a 36" dish, with this you get no rain fade at all (I am told) you just need to take the LNB from the dish (dish network or direct tv) and mount it on the larger dish!

EDIT: The way it looks like thing are going to play out, you will not have *local open airbroadcast* after sometime in 2009. All analog transmisions are to end, no more free tv. (or radio)

 

[i386]

Re: Satellite TV Service

I've had both. I have Dish Network right now. The quality of service is the same in my opinion. When we had DirectTV we had their Tivo receiver and loved it. We now have Dish Network's receiver with DVR and I have disliked it from day one. It's a lot more trouble to schedule things to be recorded and to search for programs. As soon as our contract runs out we're going back to DirecTV.

 

[mrfixitman40]

Re: Satellite TV Service

i had both dish first service wasn't as good as i get now with directv. I think it is just where i am plus the equipment has gotten better and better . I lose signal very little on directv.

 

[valkyr]

Re: Satellite TV Service

Ok, I have DirecTV and love it. I recently had gone with Comcast cable and got sick of the outages or poor digital quality day in and day out.

Points:
1.) DirecTV now has a ton of HD channels. Far more than Comcast did. I don't know how many it is. I have the HD + DVR package setup which is a little extra plus 4 months of all the channels + NFL sunday ticket.
2.) My Brother-in-law has Dish network after having had DirecTV and he hates it. He has to pay extra for local channels where DTV now includes those.
He's going back to DTV pretty soon.
3.) Weather: Real heavy storms (lots of dense cloud cover) will cause the signal to go out for a short time.

Location:
You MUST have a pretty good view of the Southern (Southwest) sky at least in TN & NC. Not sure where you're located so that might be different for you. If you have trees or buildings in the way then DirecTV or Dish Network may not be a choice.

 

[PondTunes]

Re: Satellite TV Service

I love my direct TV

I've been a customer of dtv for about 3 years now. I had time warner cable previously. What caused me to switch is when we brought home a 53" plasma HTDV. Once I had my TV hung on the wall over the fireplace looking pretty I called up Time warner and asked them to send someone out with a HD receiver. They responded that it would be 3 1/2 weeks before anyone could get out there. They claimed to be that backed up with calls and things so I asked them if they thought direct tv would be any quicker They didn't bother to even try to speed it up a little so I called Dtv and they gave me a real nice package when I explained to them that I had never had Satellite TV and I was a cable customer.

I have my local channels, showtime, stars & the HDTV package which includes HDMovies and some others. They have been adding more and more HD Channels or converting the existing channels to HD. I have WAY more channels than time warner offers (maybe 12-15 hd channels on cable) where i have tons and tons of HD programming.

The thing about the HD is that not all programs are always broadcast in HD so you might watch one program on Fox that is in HD then 30 mins later another program not in HD is on. All my local channels (2-64) have HD programming, Showtime has several HD channels, the HD movie channels are awesome.

As for the weather it takes a very severe storm to knock out our reception and as stated before it is usually only a few minutes. My cable service used to go out when it rained anyways.

 

[JB]

Re: Satellite TV Service

"The way it looks like thing are going to play out, you will not have *local open airbroadcast* after sometime in 2009. All analog transmisions are to end, no more free tv. (or radio)"

My local HDTV broadcast channels are "free" and I have no expectation that they will not continue to be "free". If the analog broadcasts go away in '09 free TV (and radio) will not go away with them. If you insist on staying with your analog TV you will have to buy an adapter (digital to analog converter) to watch broadcast TV after the changeover.

As long as we have to watch 3 minutes of paid advertisement out of every 10 minutes and one month of "pledge drives" out of every 4 months on PBS we are, I guess, paying already.

 

[rwise]

Re: Satellite TV Service

As long as we have to watch 3 minutes of paid advertisement out of every 10 minutes and one month of "pledge drives" out of every 4 months on PBS we are, I guess, paying already.

LOL yep! But with open air broadcast at least we only pay once where as with sat/cable tv you pay twice!

Edit: We'll all see how the tv thing plays out in the end, my bet is FCC will extend the deadline again! And the paranoid think the government has a pulse ready that will kill all analog recievers/xmiters.

 

[Gary H NC]

Re: Satellite TV Service

I worked for DirecTV for about 6 years.They have much better service than Dish Network.If you have problems with Dish network it may take weeks to get a tech out to your house.DirecTv has really increased their customer service.They also have launched new satellites with tons of HD channels but you need the updated dish to get them.
If the dish is tuned in correctly rain fade happens very little.
If possible have the dish mounted where you can reach it with a broom in case it gets covered with snow..