Satellite Television -- Direct T.V, Dish Network, Or Mox Nix ?

Love my Direct TV, best HD service on the market....We were early adoptors, have had it since almost day 1, it's been great! Also, early adoptor w/FIOS internet (test market), and got an iPhone on day 2.....:whoopie:

The conventional wisdom is to buy the one that has the programming package.equipment package suited to your taste.

When that date ever comes that all broadcasts are digital, you should be able to purchase a cheap set-top box that will receive the digital OTA channels and display them on your old analog TVs.

-David

The way it's looking now, I'm betting the 2009 deadline of broadcasters turning off their standard definition, over the air signals will be delayed.

What's supposed to happen is two fold. 1) Sales of HD sets were supposed to have been selling like hotcakes, displacing the majority of standard sets now everywhere. Reality is while the sales have been healthy, they are at the higher end of price points and most have not replaced their set with these. Maybe the primary set in many homes have been replaced...but not so much ancillary sets. The FCC along with the US Department of commerce is supposed to issue coupons good for $40 off the price of up to two converter boxes. As I recall reading, boxes aren't available yet and the government isn't entirely certain how to distribute these coupons.

2) To bridge the gap, retailers are supposed to be selling HD tuner boxes which will feed a standard definition set for those who exclusively get their TV over the air. I saw a figure last year that something like only 14% of the population get their TV over the air...with the majority watching cable or satellite. These cable and satellite boxes already act as converters for folks so for the majority of the country the impact will be minimal.

For those of us who are too cheap or just don't want to pay $ to watch commercial TV, the convertor box issue will be the most important. I'll also need to junk my Tivo boxes and upgrade to an HD compatible one.

For what it's worth, I do own an large screen HD set we picked up at Costco last fall. We are using an outdoor antenna and able to pickup the HD channels of the broadcasters plus several additional subchannels that the cable and satellite operators don't now carry. In LA I get something like 80 channels over the air in HD, counting the subchannels. The picture from the over the air HD sources are amazing!

I've had both systems. First Directv and now DISH. DISH has better HD programming than Directv and this is what I was interested in. Half a dozen one or the other as far as price goes. Directv has better sports programming. Depends on what your looking for. I'm in agreement with UWSurfer, there's noway they are making their target date of the SD turnoff. If it's involved with the government in anyway, it won't be on schedule. JMHO.

As my grandpappy used to say, "there ain't a dime's worth of difference betwixt 'em". Something you might consider, I don't recall the specifics but, at one time we were looking at hooking up DISH at the house and taking the second unit out on the road with us. I don't remember what the problem was but I thought it was plausible and involved a special card for the other unit. It might be worth checking out but, dag nab it, it's too hot here today to even think about it.

For what its worth, DirecTv says they will have the capacity for 150 HD channels by the end of the year. Personally, I have been a satisfied DirecTv customer since August '93 (the first summer it started).

Kurt

Find out where their satellites are and see if you have a clear shot. We finally had to give up Dish TV when we moved to this house because we had too many trees and no good access to the sky. I must say that we were quite happy with Dish.

BTW, we switched to FiOS. We don't have the HDTV service yet, but we're very happy with the internet and TV service we have.

Sue

falmouth3 said:

BTW, we switched to FiOS. We don't have the HDTV service yet, but we're very happy with the internet and TV service we have.

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FWIW I'm another super satisfied FIOS user.

GEORGE

UWSurfer said:

The way it's looking now, I'm betting the 2009 deadline of broadcasters turning off their standard definition, over the air signals will be delayed.

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They won't be turining off standard definition broadcasts, what will be going away is analog broadcasts. Standard definition will still be around and you won't need an HD box, but rather a box to convert the digital signal to analog for your TV to display it. This is why many cable and satelite users won't have any problems as they already have converter boxes, they won't need to get HD boxes.

Direct TV! Definitely!

We were with Direct TV, then DH heard that we could get Dish cheaper and better, so we switched. But we really were sold a bill of goods. Dish did NOT give us all the NFL games that they assured us we would get, so we were only with Dish for one football season. (We're both HUGE NFL fans!) Switched right back to Direct TV, and won't switch back

You are correct and I got sloppy. Analog broadcast signals are slated to go away in 2009. While digital doesn't necessarily mean HD, generally a broadcaster will implement HD when putting up a digital signal.

I originally tried for direct tv but went to Dish because:

The direct tv installer said if I wanted the most HD channels that I should go to dish as they had 3 times the channels as direct???
Direct TV, dispite the claim of free installation, wanted 400 dollars for my total set up (2 HD dvr recivers and 2 additional SD sets). Dish wanted 49 dollars.
Dish installed two dishes onto my concrete block walls where Direct wanted 1 dish on the roof facia.

For me, dish was the way to go.

We live south of where your planning on putting your trailer. I would love to have satellite installed but haven't found a company that offers local channels. They promise but not about to happen anytime soon.

We have cable . . . its a real love/hate relationship . .

Maybe We'll Stick With The Rooftop Antenna.

Emily said:

We live south of where your planning on putting your trailer. I would love to have satellite installed but haven't found a company that offers local channels. They promise but not about to happen anytime soon.

We have cable . . . its a real love/hate relationship . .

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No cable TV service is offered at our little trailer park, unfortunately, even though cable is available at the big mobile home park right nearby.

Sometimes we got Atlantic City NJ & Baltimore MD channels over the air via the signal booster built into the trailer, just using the wind-up factory antenna on the trailer roof. Channel 47 (ABC) always gave the most reliable clear picture, but usally the other Delmarva Peninsula channels would come in OK as well -- Salisbury MD & somewhere in Delaware I think, Dover maybe (not sure). Several Maryland Public Television channels were pretty strong, & several church channels always came in loud & clear. So it goes.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

I live in a developemnet with 15,000 lots. Over 1,000 of them are built on and I've heard it is in the top ten areas for real estate investors in the country. But the cable company is too short sighted to see the potential. They refuse to put cable in, because there are not enough residents. But when there are enough, everyone will have been forced to get satelite and no one will want cable. they are damed either way they go, except to bite the bullet and absorb present day losses for future profits, something they are not willing to do.
Getting back on subject, I have had both Dish And DirecTV. DirecTV seems to have a stronger signal and I keep it longer through storms and heavy cloud cover than I ever had with Dish. BTW, cable has more interuptions,down here, than satelite. I especially like the interactive tv schedule. I don't have to wait for it to come around to see what's coming on like you do with cable. When they finally offer cable in my developement, I'll stick with satelite.

Went With Direct T.V.

We didn't even have to decide -- when we showed up at our dinky 35-foot trailer for a week in Delaware with our grandson while his parents were away on a kidless vacation, we found a DirecTV box on top of the TV set all hooked up & working, connected to an already aimed satellite dish in back of the trailer all set up on a tripod & good to go. Who'd a-thunk?

The Chief Of Staff's sister took the equipment down & hooked it up while we were still at home in Virginia. The extra box had been connected to a 2nd TV in her dinky 34-foot trailer that she didn't watch all that much. I don't know where the extra dish came from.

DirecTV worked great, & provided a source of kid-vid that we grandparents found useful in keeping a little guy entertained.

The only trouble was, the cable running between the dish & the box had to go through the trailer door, so we had to disconnect it at night when we locked the door. Also, the tripod-mounted dish was apt to blow over if the weather turned stormy & windy. Fortunately, that didn't happen during our week on grandparent duty.

When we were back at the trailer again this past week -- just us, no grandson -- we got the cable that goes between the satellite dish & the box to thread through a factory-cut hole under the sink where the kithchen sink drainpipe goes through the floor so it can connect with other drainpipes under the trailer -- didn't need to drill any new holes.

Then we rigged up a way to bolt the dish antenna mounting bracket onto the back bumper of the trailer. The actual mounting worked great, but in the process of bolting the hardware onto the bumper we accidentally mis-aimed the dish -- got zero readings from all the satellite transponders even though we thought we had the dish set at just about the same tilt & rotation it had when it was on the tripod & bringing in clear TV sound & picures.

By & by The Chief Of Staff's sister's husband came over & patiently coached us into getting the dish more or less correctly aimed -- accurately enough to pull in Court TV & SoapNet & movies & news & sports & PBS & shopping channels & kid-vid & I don't know what-all. So as of now we're all set up & working with trailer satellite TV.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​