Satellite TV vs Cable TV

[tacoreed]

Okay, I've had enough with my cable provider and their crappy service (I'm looking in your direction Cox Communications). My cable went out last night right before I was going to watch a local baseball game on HD. It seems like my cable goes out at least once every other week, and it is really making me quite upset.

I'm strongly considering switching to DirecTv which has a ton more HD channels and SD channels. I've heard that that there are problems during "heavy" storms, but that seems juvenile to the service that I'm getting now, which goes out every other week. Plus I hear that HD signals over cable are compressed (you can notice terrible tv quality occasionally on some channels) and they are not compressed over satellite.

The prices seem to be coparable with all of the options I want (HD, DVR, etc)

Should I stay or should I go??

I'm sure is a thread somewhere regarding this issue, but I haven't found one in about 15 minutes of searching.

[Beta Man]

I had Cable at a condo that had rules against having the dish, and I look back at those as the "dark ages" Dish is 100 times better. (Have had direct t.v. and Dish Network, both are good, Direct T.V. is probably better in my opinion)

Regardless of what one you choose, Satellite has many benefits over cable. (I did have BASIC cable for a year, and it gave me 80 channels for $15 because it was some promo etc, and it was nice, but it was no-channel guide, no-box, direct from the wall cable.... but it was a deal!)

[Shiggidy75]

I have Directv and the product is great. I have had a few run ins with customer service because I had a dish issue but I believe no one cares about customer service anymore. I have the Total choice package, HD DVR and an extra receiver and I pay around $75 a month. about $20 more then if I went with Time Warner Cable because of the internet tv combo package. But to me the $20 is worth it because the PQ is so much better then my friends with TWC. plus I get the NFL and Bigten network which TWC doesn't offer. As for storms, with me it has to be a monsoon before it goes out. And when it does its only for a minute or two. Hope this helps.

[DetroitSportsFan]

I had satellite (Direct TV), but every time it rained, snowed, or even got really cloudy I couldn't watch TV.

So I went back to cable, which has nearly all of the HD channels satellite offers. I will say that satellite has a better picture though.

[tacoreed]

I'm liking what I hear so far. Thanks for the responses!

[messym]

I used to have cable but switched to dish about 2 years ago. I am much happier w/ Dish and it happens to be less expensive in my area.

As for the signal loss, it only happens during heavy wind/rainstorms. You will know b/c the dish will be searching for a signal via a step process. I have yet to lose my signal due to falling snow or rainy days though.

[fatediesel]

I've considered switching to Direct tv and held off because I don't want to pay to have 3-4 separate receivers. When my roommate moves out I will probably look seriously into switching. The only reason I've stayed with cable is that my town has it's own cable provider and it is really good about getting new channels like Big Ten HD and NFL HD. Still, I only have a total of about 22 HD channels and would like more.

[tacoreed]

Thanks for your replies eveyone! If anyone else has anything to add, I'd be interested in your input.

[chasswen]

Friends don't let Friends use CABLE.

[Luis_A51]

Originally Posted by tacoreed

Okay, I've had enough with my cable provider and their crappy service (I'm looking in your direction Cox Communications). My cable went out last night right before I was going to watch a local baseball game on HD. It seems like my cable goes out at least once every other week, and it is really making me quite upset.

I'm strongly considering switching to DirecTv which has a ton more HD channels and SD channels. I've heard that that there are problems during "heavy" storms, but that seems juvenile to the service that I'm getting now, which goes out every other week. Plus I hear that HD signals over cable are compressed (you can notice terrible tv quality occasionally on some channels) and they are not compressed over satellite.

The prices seem to be coparable with all of the options I want (HD, DVR, etc)

Should I stay or should I go??

I'm sure is a thread somewhere regarding this issue, but I haven't found one in about 15 minutes of searching.

Considering the problems you're having with cable. going with Sat is a no brainer. Im in Canada, but my switch from cable to Sat has been fantastic. WAY better quality, way more channels. I dont think you'll be dissapointed.

[kingofgrills]

Definitely go with sat instead of cable if you are able to. The difference in picture quality is instantly noticeable. I have Dish HD, having switched over from Comcast HD and I'm really happy with it.

[GORT]

Read the fine print in the Satellite TV contract.

[obiwopkenobi62]

Originally Posted by kingofgrills

Definitely go with sat instead of cable if you are able to. The difference in picture quality is instantly noticeable. I have Dish HD, having switched over from Comcast HD and I'm really happy with it.

I have Dish Network too. It΄s awesome.

[Awechet]

I was in your situation 3 years ago I was a long time Time Warner Cable subscriber then switched to dish for 2 years now i have direct tv. The Pros and cons of each was in my area Time warner has excellent customer service and price is decent but programming and the receiver is horrible. Dish had sub par customer service pricing just kept going up and when I wanted to upgrade to 2 new vip receivers they wanted to charge me 400 bucks each. But, one thing about dish was the sat was very reliable no rain fade for my area.

Now I have direct tv and I couldnt be happier. The price is very reasonable, receivers are not as good as the dish ones but a 100x better then Time Warner. And now for the fact their are so many stations w/ HD (around 100+) I'm able to watch every program I like in HD, now thats probably the deal breaker. Another thing is I heard Dish started added more stations this week to hd but canceled their 15 Voom HD stations (but still around 50 less then direct tv). I say Direct tv all the way!!! But remember getting into satellite is like getting into a cell phone contract min. 2 years and you have to pay for service to the house if you dont have a protection plan.

[Galley]

DirecTV definitely has the best HD image quality, and biggest selection. Their HD DVR is pretty darned good.

[chasarms]

I have DirecTV and I am very happy with it. When I called into upgrade to HD, I was told that I was one of the longest continuous DirecTV customers that they had. I have had it since the summer of 1995. I've been through four dishes and three sets of receivers. The first of which I paid $1,500 for!!!!

It is true that you have drop outs during bad storms. It got worse when I moved from the south to the midwest ten years ago. The storms here are worse and the dish is more upright to account for the more northern location.
It also seems worse with the HD dish than it did with the SD dish. Maybe the installers were less accurate with the positioning?

All that said, I truely enjoy the dish and the service. The HD picture quality is exceptional as is the sound quality. I watch a lot of the concerts on MHD and they sound great.

[tacoreed]

Sweet, I've ordered DirecTv and it is supposed to be installed on Monday. Thanks everyone!

Bye Bye Cox (Communications that is).

[awre]

I have Dish Network and have had them for many years and have always preferred satellite over cable for PQ -- that having been said, I am thinking of dumping Dish Network and going to Direct TV in the hopes that they offer better customer service (Dish Network is terrible and you are lucky if you get someone who speaks English) and less "nickel and diming" of customers.

Dish Network has more charges for more things and always has a reason to squeeze more money out of you. They consistently don't live up to terms of their own contracts for credits to account, etc. but don't miss a chance to ding you for more money or want to enforce every provision of their contract if you run into exigent circumstances. Dish Network has really gone down hill in past couple of years and I would definitely look more closely at Direct TV in the hopes that they do not engage in the same predatory and shotty practices as Dish Network.

But for total lack of customer service and numerous billing errors which necessitates calling Dish Network customer service, there over all plant (i.e., service reliability, equipment including DVR's, PQ, AQ, etc.) is pretty good.

Customer service these days means a lot and Dish Network scores "0" in my book in this regards.

[camper]

I'm getting ready to switch to cable from Dish. Ever since the recent upgrade, there have been nothing but problems. Besides dropping some channels that I really enjoyed, the picture quality seems to have gone down considerably.

I'm on my 6th box, and will probably be on my 7th if I stay long. They keep telling me that it's a problem with running through HDMI, so I need to run component cables onto my HDTV's. I just keep calling until someone replaces the box, because that's garbage. I'm not paying for HDTV service to get LESS quality than what I've already gotten.

We lose signal often, especially during heavy rain and we get a lot of snow so we lose it then too. Not to mention the mysterious 'signal lost' we get from time to time, even on bright sunny days.

Dish & Direct TV charge you something like $30 per month you cancel out of the contract, so if you need to be rid of them expect to pay them at least $100 just to cancel. And i fyou decide you want to upgrade your package, you've just signed on for another 18 months to 2 years. Same if you get another HDTV and want to have HDTV service on that too. ANy change to programming you make, you get signed onto a NEW contract. They can change YOUR service, by giving you more/less channels and at a higher price, but you can't do anything without starting over on a new contract.

I'm not sure about the audio/visual quality being better on satellite vs broadband, my parents have comcast and it looks a LOT better on all but the voom networks. Of course, Dish killed Voom so that takes that out of the equation.

Also, with cable I get all the channels for half of what dish would cost me for the same. So for me, it's a no brainer. Especially since I on demand is a want for the kids programming.

Plus, I really want my locals in HD and Scranton isn't even on the radar for dish in the next year and every carrier except dish has them here, and the local boradcast stations won't let me (or anyone) get new york.

OH yeah....and it's cheaper, and I can have my whole house wired for cable again instead of just 4 TV's and running a splitter which only shares whatever the TV it's split off.

I used to be a big proponent of Dish, but customer service sucks and I'm no longer happy with the quality--it's really gone down the past few days.

~Camper

[elwaylite]

Satellite all the way. Ive had both dish and direct and love them. Im with dish now because the $50/mo HD only pack rocks.