Cable Vs. Dish....HELP!!

[shep]

Finally gonna get cable, but wait should we get Direct TV...
Help us decide...
Would like to have something with Parental Control but then Cable it costs $7.95 per tv if you don't have it, but I think you can get cable in just about any room for the same cost as if you had 1...
The dish it costs $4.99 extra per tv and you have parental control...

Any advice, pros, cons would be helpful...

 

[joats]

I could be wrong, but I've heard that if you have the dish, you can only watch one program in the home. Meaning if you have a tv in bedroom watching Disney, the tv in living room would only show that as well and couldn't be on another channel. I'm not 100% sure about this, but you might want to check that out. It may have changed. But that's one of the reasons we went cable.

P.S. Please don't berate me if my info is incorrect, just a thought.

 

[shep]

I think it used to be that way with the Dish..My SIL has it and she can watch different programs.. ..Dish has a free setup & equipment deal going on now so that might persuade me....

 

[AllyandJack]

I have Dish Network and we can watch different stations in both rooms - living room and bedroom. In fact, the TV in the living room is turned to Channel 5 when we go to bed to record All My Children during the day and we watch Nick at Nite when we go to bed!

I can't say enough my dish. I love it. I never, ever lose it. In storms, I've lost my lights and never my dish. Even last winter when we had all that snow, never lost the dish. This fall was pretty windy. Never lost the dish. Rain? Clouds? Never lost the dish. I lost it once in a really bad electrical storm. It was out for about half an hour.

We have it in two rooms and pay about $50. per month less than my parents pay for cable and we get more stations. We get the local stations, too.

The only thing with the dish is that when I turn on the Weather Channel, I can't get the "local" forecast. I get a generic forecast for the entire country. Oh...and I can't get cable access. No big deal to me.

Put me and my husband in for Dish votes!

 

[Beauty]

Well DH is the Cable Guy but we had a Dish when we lived in the Country and I loved it. The only problems I had with it was the Weather Channel Problem. Living in the South we get a lot of Tornados and its scary when you can't get local channels or the weather channel. It was kind of scary trying to rely on either my mom to call us or the stupid radio guy if there was bad weather.

Tod don't you live in a big city though, I'm sure you can get your local channels. I tell you though there are so many choices especially for kids that by the time we were through we were paying as much as we would for cable. J.C. loved some of the Cartoon and Nick channels that aren't available on cable here.

 

[shep]

Here is who I'm thinking of getting a dish through..
http://www.nationwidesatellite.com/

 

[wdwnutze]

I have Dishnetwork and think it is much better than cable. We had a very poor cable provider in our area and had lots of problems with reception. I've never had a problem with my dish. We have it in the tv room and bedroom and can watch different stations in each room. The reception is great and we get more channels than we did with cable. I pay $34.99/mo - much cheaper that the $65 I was paying for cable.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

We have DISH network. I don't know about cable. However around here it is more expensive for cable and less channels. (Our cable company needs to put in new towers and they are refusing to do so.)

Right now we have the dish on 2 tv's. It costs per TV. If we want to go to 3+ tv's then we may switch to cable if there was a significant cost savings.

Ultimately we based it on cost and more importantly channel selection. We don't use parental controls so I can't say much about that.

 

[MJames41]

If I had a choice, I would definately choose the dish. Unfortunately, my apartment is facing the wrong way.

 

[Carl]

We had cable for many years and never got acceptable reception. We've had both Dish and Direct TV and never had a problem with good reception. Only exception is during a heavy storm when the thick clouds block out the signal for a short time. You DO have to pay for each receiver and a monthly fee for each receiver.

 

[grinningghost]

After going to our local Dish Network store, and getting the quote for what we wanted (local channels and an additional receiver) - I'm sticking with cable.

It was an outrageous amount of money, and then if the stupid thing breaks, we have to pay for it to be serviced. At least with cable, if something goes wrong, they come out and fix it without an additional charge.

Besides, I have a high speed cable internet service, and with my TV cable, it's a pretty decent deal.

 

[Amy]

We've been with DISH Network for a couple of years now, and LOVE it. The only time we have problems is during a really bad storm we'll sometimes lose the signal (but you're not supposed to be watching tv during a bad storm anyway, right?). We pay around $45 a month for 150 channels and local channels. We only have it on 1 tv (the other is used mostly for the boys playing Nintendo), but if you want to watch different channels on different tv's, you'll need another dish and receiver, but I don't think it costs all that much extra.

Our neighbor has cable, and I swear the cable company is at his house at least once a month to fix something. We haven't seen the DISH guy since our dish was installed!

Oh - the parental controls are great. They go along with the ratings for the movies - you can set the level of control you want, and when somebody is surfing and gets to one of those channels, they have to punch in a password to be able to see the show.

 

[Manda1219]

I have to state the exact opposite...I had a LOT of problems with my satellite...It went out a lot, the channels took a long time to load and would often come up that the information was unavailable...
The cable was a much better choice for my family, channels never go out and they load instantly.

 

[catsrule]

dish

 

[doxdogy]

We use to have Dish Netowork, but now we have Directv. We have a receiver in the living room and bedroom. Directv actually is cheaper than Dish Network in our area. In additon, Dish Network seemed to go out alot.

 

[ToyStory Fan]

Digital Cable has parental controls (Cablevision does). I like it better than dish, due to the limitations placed on the "free" dish installations (No Dolby Digital box, no HD boxes (all avail for significantly additional fees and the local channel restricitions) Also Dish Network doesn't broadcast nearly as much in Dolby 5.1 format or HD compared to DirecTV (more DD, even HD) or cable(more DD, more HD).

 

[JetMom]

We love Direct TV.

 

[Tiger Lily 03]

I am guessing it seems that the area served would be the determining factor. My brother, who lives in the next community--15 minutes from us, went with dish when it first came out and still has a dish, just not with the same company as there were problems. Cousins near Memphis, TN, don't have access to cable so they went with dish and recently changed providers as they were having many problems with their first company. I recall that weather stations as already mentioned was one thing that did not please them besides poor reception. Not sure if it will be the same with the new provider.

We have Cox Cable. We've had them since they came around here and have nothing but priase for their service and assistance. Went with digital cable when it became available. They have parental control. We pay extra for connections per TV for the digital, but can have unlimited basic cable hookup.

Primarily went with the digital upgrade because they did not lock us in for a year contract as the dish providers required. We are on a month-to-month contract. I figure I could live with that better than a year contract with something I would not be happy to have. We are all happy with ours and have had it for over a year.

Recently added the cable Internet connection. Seems like we will be keeping this too.

 

[Lanshark]

We got a deal a few years ago on Dish Network where all equipment was free and the receivers for up to 4 tv's in the house. We've been very happy. One thing I was amazed about was the quality of the picture was so much better than our cable was. We have a 60in TV so it is very noticeable. Each receiver on each TV had the ability to lock out specific programming. Each of our TV's has a different set of parental controls that we've customized.

 

[shep]

I think i'm going with cable so I can get it in 5 rooms... ...
They have free installation for 2 rooms and each additional room is $13.95...rather do it all now than later...

Thanks everyone...