Jump to content

Cable or satellite?

svs650k3

By svs650k3
in Grand Rapids Coffee House

Recommended Posts

svs650k3 Whistle-Stop

svs650k3

Posted
Posted

Just wondering who uses what. I have Comcast right now but I'm thinking about switching since I just bought a house (allowed to have a dish now) and my Comcast bill is going to increase by about $60/month soon. Anyone in GR have good luck with Directv? Also, those with satellite what do you do for internet service?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 25
  • Created
  • Last Reply
monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

Posted
Posted

Just wondering who uses what. I have Comcast right now but I'm thinking about switching since I just bought a house (allowed to have a dish now) and my Comcast bill is going to increase by about $60/month soon. Anyone in GR have good luck with Directv? Also, those with satellite what do you do for internet service?

I agree about Dish Network. They have more programming than DirectTV, and are less expensive. And they have both regular and HD DVRs which are great. They stream out all of Sirius's music channels, and if you have a DVR, you can get a pocketDish to watch your shows on the run. (or listen to 1000s of music clips)

And if you are into urban planning you can watch Lime.com which is a channel that promotes healty city development. (among other things) See my thread in the Urban design section.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
zenstyle Hamlet

zenstyle

Posted
Posted

Cable here, and I honestly don't know why. We watch Turner Classic Movies and What Not to Wear, and that't IT! I've asked my husband repeatedly to get rid of cable and the television, and his reply is always,

"No, because then we would be officially poor."

I tell him, "No; poor people have satellite dishes!"

I hate the sight of those goiters hanging off the sides (or sometimes fronts!) of houses. All they provide is more unwatchable crap than cable already provides.

Kill your televisions, people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
snoogit Town

snoogit

Posted
Posted

When I was growing up we couldn't get Sattellite at my house so we had a dish for quite a while. Its not bad at all, and many features that dishes had 10 years ago are finally making it into cable. If you're looking at getting your internet service through someone thats not SBC, then Comcast is one way to go. But whenever I talk to people about Comcast I never hear anything good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
trongrr Whistle-Stop

trongrr

Posted
Posted

Just wondering who uses what. I have Comcast right now but I'm thinking about switching since I just bought a house (allowed to have a dish now) and my Comcast bill is going to increase by about $60/month soon. Anyone in GR have good luck with Directv? Also, those with satellite what do you do for internet service?

I have had great service from Dish network. When I visit my mom, who has Comcast cable, I get a kick out of all those 'rain fade' ads they are runing to scare people into thinking COmcast is the best thing since sliced bread.

I use Dish for my 'content' provider, over the air antenna for local channels, and SBC.. AT&T for my 'high' speed Internet service.

When choosing between DIsh and DirectTV, the only difference I saw was the amount of sports channels on each. I dont couch potato too much, so I chose DIsh, because at the time, the cost was lower.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Par75 Whistle-Stop

Par75

Posted
Posted

Just wondering who uses what. I have Comcast right now but I'm thinking about switching since I just bought a house (allowed to have a dish now) and my Comcast bill is going to increase by about $60/month soon. Anyone in GR have good luck with Directv? Also, those with satellite what do you do for internet service?

I have DirecTV and love it. The channel selection is better than what you'll get on Comcast, plus it is cheaper. Comcast wants you to believe that the reliability of a dish is poor, but honestly, my dish loses service at most 3 times per year. It takes a heavy thunderstorm for the signal to go out, and even then, it is out for only a few minutes. Before purchasing, I looked into both DirecTV and Dish network. I find the channel lineup on DirecTV to be more robust than Dish (especially if you enjoy watching sports), plus they stream all XM Radio channels (which I prefer to Sirius).

For high speed internet service, I have DSL as part of my phone package through TDS Metrocom.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
grrwymg Hamlet

grrwymg

Posted
Posted

I have DirecTV - I will never go back to CATV, unless they give it to me for nearly free.

Service is EXCELLENT - the rain fade commercials by Comcast crack me up. My service has been interupted by weather exactly 2 times since Oct. 2004.

My only qualm w/ Directv is the DirecTV/Tivo bullcrap. Stand-alone TiVo's have many more features and are network enabled. The DirectTV TiVos are handicapped. (No networkability, no access to scheule programs via the Internet) - (You can spend $40 and hack the thing - but you need some computer hardware experience; Joe user tends not to.)

For Internet - I have a T1 via my employer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
francishsu Hamlet

francishsu

Posted
Posted

How in the world did you get that deal? If I could get them to drop my rates that low I'd be a very happy customer.

Once upon a time, Comcast let you order the digital packages on top of just basic cable. But sometime in the past couple of years, they changed it so that you couldn't order any of the digital packages without getting the Standard analog package. Maybe if you ask over the phone, you may be able to get them to do it.

You do lose out on some key channels without standard analog. First, I don't get any of the 24 hour news channels, FSN Detroit, USA, Disney, etc.. Normally I'd be out ESPN too, but the HD receiver lets me get ESPN HD, which is digital. Certain analog channels do come in anyways, like Food Network, basically the ones with higher numbers that are getting close to the digital range.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
GRDadof3 Ecumenopolis

GRDadof3

Posted
Posted

I have comcast bare-bones TV for $13 a month and cable internet. I wish I got better TV, but I don't watch enough to justify the price. ;)

That's the same setup we have Andy. BASIC Comcast cable and internet connection. Having the high speed internet connection is worth it to me. We have high speed DSL at work, and it's still way slower than at home.

Funny story, we ordered digital cable 4 or 5 years ago as a free trial for 90 days. We didn't like it, so cancelled the free trial. At the same time, they were doing major cable upgrades in our neighborhood. Long story short, the cable company forgot about us and we got two years of free digital cable (until we moved) :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites
monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

Posted
Posted

I have Comcast cable, and as much as I hate Comcast, I can't bring myself to get the dish. I like having the weather channel and local access, plus the better reliability.

Actually Dish does play the weather channel it just doesn't have the local stats flashing at the bottom of the screen. However all Dish receivers have Instant Weather. You push a button on the remote an it shows the weather and forecast for 5000 cities in the USA. You can have it go automatically to whatever city you like. There is a bunch of other interactive stuff on it too such as Interactive CNN where you can vote in their polls by just using the remote. I do get all 10 of our local TV channels as well.

In terms of reliability I have had Dish for 6 years and its been out a total of maybe 30 minutes that entire time. I don't know about comcast, but our local cable company goes out a lot more than that. I do use cable for Internet as they offer it up that way, but for me the programming on Dish beats anything that I have seen on cable.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
twoshort Town

twoshort

Posted
Posted

but for me the programming on Dish beats anything that I have seen on cable.

Following that note, it looks like dish w/ local channels is 34.99 for something comparable to the package that comcast offers for about $46.25. It's cheaper, but you have to have that awful dish. And I don't know if this has changed with the newer receivers, but my dad has had dish forever and the lag between channels is brutal. It sounds small, but it REALLY bugs me. With my regular cable I can just flip away. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
torgo Town

torgo

Posted
Posted

Following that note, it looks like dish w/ local channels is 34.99 for something comparable to the package that comcast offers for about $46.25. It's cheaper, but you have to have that awful dish. And I don't know if this has changed with the newer receivers, but my dad has had dish forever and the lag between channels is brutal. It sounds small, but it REALLY bugs me. With my regular cable I can just flip away. :D

Can't stand to miss even a second of Desperate Housewives, eh twoshort? :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites
monsoon Gigalopolis

monsoon

Posted
Posted

Following that note, it looks like dish w/ local channels is 34.99 for something comparable to the package that comcast offers for about $46.25. It's cheaper, but you have to have that awful dish. And I don't know if this has changed with the newer receivers, but my dad has had dish forever and the lag between channels is brutal. It sounds small, but it REALLY bugs me. With my regular cable I can just flip away. :D

The newer Dish receivers have an option where you can look at six channels at once on the same screen, you just highlight the one you want to listen to and the sound changes instantly. (al la Back to the Future) That probably works better than channel surfing.

Mosaic012606.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites
hood Burg

hood

Posted
Posted

This might be a stupid question, but why do so many people hate Comcast? I've always gotten pretty decent service with them.

Because they have moderate service at best and extremely poor service normally. It goes out several times a year (too much for being cable), it also is very expensive, we have regular cable for almost $50 a month. Also the lack of options for other cable companies is frustrating, I really want to stick with cable, but Comcast makes it difficult.

Following that note, it looks like dish w/ local channels is 34.99 for something comparable to the package that comcast offers for about $46.25. It's cheaper, but you have to have that awful dish. And I don't know if this has changed with the newer receivers, but my dad has had dish forever and the lag between channels is brutal. It sounds small, but it REALLY bugs me. With my regular cable I can just flip away. :D

The $35 package for the dish is really more comparable to the $60 bronze digital cable package with Comcast, the $46 is for regular, not digital, cable. There is still lag on receivers, both for digital cable and dish, but I think dish receivers are better and have more features.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.