Cable or satellite?

[torifile]

I'm looking at my HD options since my wife just bought me an HDTV (:D) and my head's spinning with options. Satellite (aka DirecTV and Dish) seem like good deals but it's hard to know with all the options, etc., they've got. My cable company is easy to understand but damned expensive. What do you guys/gals use for your HD needs? TIA.

[rasmits]

I use cable, because I have to, but I like it. What's the cable provider in your area?

[spikeh]

I have Sky HD in the UK, hooked up to a 42" Panasonic Viera. I'm not sure who manufactures the boxes, but it's utter shit - the decoding isn't great and the Sky Planner (the interface you use to navigate channels, set reminders, pause, rewind etc) is significantly slower than the normal Sky+ box that we had before. I'm very, very unhappy with it, and won't be renewing next year.

[Ryan]

Like rasmits said, we need to know who your cable provider is before we can make any recommendations. That said, if its TWC, go with satellite.

[torifile]

Like rasmits said, we need to know who your cable provider is before we can make any recommendations. That said, if its TWC, go with satellite.
Ding ding! TWC it is. What is it about them that makes you say to go with sat.?

Which service would you recommend? I'll probably do some more research into prices and such but my internet is broken right now and I'm using my Treo to tap out this message so googling, etc isn't ideal. Do any of you in the US use sat.?

[alcimedes]

I'd go with sat. anyway if you're looking for HD. DirectTV (i think) is about to triple their HD offerings, and their HD stuff looks a lot better than a lot of cable companies.

Too many companies seem to be obsessed with pushing as much as possible through their pipe, which means the stuff has artifacting etc. when there's a lot of movement. Ugh.

[Shades of Blue]

I use DirecTV and like it, but not HD so I can't speak much to that. I actually have an HDTV, but so far I haven't wanted to 1) pay DirecTV to upgrade my receiver and 2) lose my DirecTV TiVo (since the HD version looks like it's a generic DirecTV DVR, not TiVo which I have gotten used to and like). I've been stuck between either doing that, or waiting for Apple to get the shows that I like up on iTunes and in HD, in which case I'd dump satellite altogether. (I never channel surf; I just watch my couple of shows, so I'm a perfect candidate for switching to iTunes, if only they had everything I want to watch.)

One advantage that I've heard for DirecTV (or satellite in general) is that all of the channels are digital, not yet the HD ones. In regular cable, I guess, the non-HD channels are still analog. I don't really know enough to know whether that matters.

[Ryan]

Ding ding! TWC it is. What is it about them that makes you say to go with sat.?TWC, at least in Houston, has terrible picture quality. I also personally *hate* the company, and there's a thread from June about that in AO, but even if you ignore that, the service itself is just subpar. I switched to DirecTV (not HD) and it's much better.

Now, DirecTV's picture quality is fairly poor on SD channels, and you'll definitely be able to see that on an HD set, but the reports I've read on their HD offerings all say that the quality is much better. Still not as good as OTA, but better. It's also not full HD, but something like 1280x1080i instead. I believe 720p content is still broadcast as 720p. If you only have a 720p monitor, is doesn't really matter. I don't think TWC offers full HD either, so unless you go with OTA, you're probably stuck with reduced resolution HD.

Now, Dish doesn't have the same lineup as DirecTV, but I've heard that they have the best picture quality available with the exception of OTA, so if that's important to you, I'd look into Dish. Their HD boxes are also apparently much better than either DirecTV's or TWC's.

[PKIDelirium]

I've never had quality issues with TWC.

[Yontsey]

TWC is grossly over priced. My family is thinking about switching to DirectTV.

[torifile]

After spending over an hour on the phone with DirecTV and Dish, I decided to go with Dish. DirectTV makes you sign a 2 year agreement and charge $199 for their HD DVR whereas there's no commitment required for Dish and the HD DVR is free and they're actually a few dollars cheaper. The only downside to Dish that I can see is that they don't have CBS in HD here yet! That sucks because the tourney is coming up and I would love to have HD for it.

But all this may be a moot point because we have quite a few trees around our house so we may not be able to have a clear line of sight so I might not be able to get the satellite working.

[NosferaDrew]

I've had DirecTV for years and love it. I'm a big NFL fan and NFL Sunday Ticket is so worth it.

What's the over-the-air HD reception like in your area?
Go here (http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx) to see how many free HD channels are available in your area and what kind of antenna will work best for you.

I've got an EyeTV 500 and a little Zenith antenna for OTA HD and it looks fantastic.

[Meltedbutter421]

Im not sure about DirecTV but an HD iO box is the same price as a non-HD box (i think)

[kretara]

I don't have HD, so I can't comment on the HD quality.

I use Dish and am wonderfully happy. Excellent reception, good to great customer support, short wait times when talking to customer support, hardware that works and is not too crippled.
The only time I have issues with the reception is in the middle of very intense rain storms. I will loose the signal for a few minutes, never longer than 20 minutes. The DVR from Dish is really nice.

I have had a few equipment issues. All centered on the actual dish. The service guys were out to fix it within 48 hours.

I used to have comcast for many years. They were much more expensive than Dish and they had fewer channels. Their DVR sucks slimy monkey balls and they will not let you do a 30 second forward skip (deal breaker for me). I also had many more visual artifact issues with comcast than I had with Dish. I would quite often spend 30+ minutes on hold waiting for customer service, only to be told that they could not have a tech come and look at my line for 4-5 days. Comcast also nickels and dimes you to death with crazy fees. Dish does some of this too, but no where near as badly as comcast. Comcast (at least in my region) will not let me purchase certain sporting blocks like MLS Season Pass (or whatever it is called) despite listing it as an option and sending me snail mail about buying it. Absolutely crazy!


I have not used DirectTV. I did look into them, but when I priced out their package (to match my Dish package) I found that it would cost me an extra $30/month to go with DirectTV. YMMV

[Fahrenheit]

I have Sky HD in the UK, hooked up to a 42" Panasonic Viera. I'm not sure who manufactures the boxes, but it's utter shit - the decoding isn't great and the Sky Planner (the interface you use to navigate channels, set reminders, pause, rewind etc) is significantly slower than the normal Sky+ box that we had before. I'm very, very unhappy with it, and won't be renewing next year.

http://stuff.tv/forums/thread/1478.aspx

[*Joe*]

I have cable with Virgin Media in the UK, we have the V+ box manufactured by Scientific Atlanta (aka the Explorer 8300DVB).
It is a great service and the box is fantastic, very responsive and great to have the PVR facility built in. It can record 2 HD channels while watching a 3rd.

What I like about cable is that you don't need a dish on your house, and you can get the convenience of having all your communications services provided and billed by one company (phone, tv, broadband).

[Fahrenheit]

You can get Virgin Media in Cambridge? Dammit you must be pretty central, in the outlying villages we don't even have electricity! :p