Dish VS Cable TV

[deelam]

I currently have Comcast cable TV and internet. For years they were the only choice in my area. I tried calling Comcast to get my bill lowered asking for any promo. They really didn't have too much to offer me. My bill would only drop from $168 per month to $153. I am really thinking of getting rid of cable and ordering a dish. I seen packages offered for $24.95

I've have seen 2 major Dish providors, Dishnetwork and direct TV. Can anyone advise me on how the "dish" compares with Cable? Also are there any dish recomemdations?

Are there allot of problems with Dishes? The cable person said there are and that the customer pays for service calls with Dishes.

 

[JadenLayne]

We had both at one time. Our dish was to get channels that our cable company didn't offer and our cable was to get local channels. In my experience we liked our cable much better. Our reasons were mainly that every single time the wind blew we would lose our connection. It was a pain.

I know some people can get local channels now especially if they live near big cities but what really pushed us over the top with our cable was our local channels and our local weather channel. With the dish there was no way of knowing anything when bad weather came in. Living where there are tons of tornados we couldn't do without that.

We got rid of our dish and still have our cable. Oh and our internet is also through our cable and it is SUPER!!!!!!! They are soon starting to do telephone too and I think we will go with them on that. It sends you emails telling you who is calling, how cool!!!! I just love the idea of everything being in one nice, neat package.

We wouldn't have dish back.

 

[cybrkitn]

We have DishNetwork and love it. Originally we had cable (Cablevision), but then they had a 12% rate increase. We decided at that point to go with DishNetwork.

We still get our major local networks like we did with cable (the major NYC stations). For a little more, we also got our local stations.

We also have KTLA (Los Angeles) and a station from Denver, CO. That comes in handy when we miss a show. We can then catch it one hour later on the other station . There are also stations that we have on Dish that Cablevision does not offer (like Sirius radio).

Our bill from cable was about $87 or so a month. About $20 of it were just taxes and fees. With Dish, we are paying about $76 a month, with no taxes. Just the fee for the boxes we have and the cost of whatever packages we added on. We very rarely have any rate increases and when we have had them, it was only $1-$3.

There is one disadvantage though with satelite. If you want to record something, you cannot watch another channel unless it's on another tv set.

 

[Micca]

I have only ever had cable and have been happy with it. Seems like I've heard quite a few negative stories about Dish users losing their signals during storms (rain & snow). I don't care how much cheaper it might be, losing service would not make me happy. Good luck with your decision.

 

[CourtasanSatine]

Dish over here, worst is the occasional signal loss in storms and The CW is out of NYC since there's no local version(but I can live with that to see Supernatural)

 

[DMickey28]

We had DirectTV in IL before me moved to S. Florida. We loved it. We had some major wind and storms outside Chicago and only lost reception a handful of times for short amount of time each ... hour or less.

We had the Premier package which is $99 a month and our bill was under $120 a month which included a extra box charge. We had every channel you could imagine including all the local channels. It was programmed to our local area ... we actually tried to have it programmed to the Boston area but they wouldn't let us!!! We had a DVR. We loved it ...

We moved to S. Florida and now face NE and couldn't get a signal. We suspended our account and just called last night to reinstate it for our move this coming weekend. We can't wait to get it back. We are getting the HD reciever and moving the DVR to our bedroom (The HD DVR reciever is $299 ... YIKES). Can't wait ... I am curious to see what the reception is like in S. Florida but I have seen a lot of dishes out there so it can't be that bad.

Our current apartment complex uses Dish Network and it's prewired so that's what we have right now. We have only lost recption once this past year for more than a few minutes. Otherwise it's be fine ... considering the storms down here that's impressive.

I hate cable and won't go back ... even though we pay $$$ for our DirectTV there is not a show we don't get. DH get's the NFL package and can watch every single football game that they show unless it's blacked out which just means it's on a local channel to watch. I believe Direct TV also has MLB package now ...

 

[The_Horned_King]

Have direct Tv here and will NEVER go back to overpriced cable.
local station(cbs, nbc, abc, ect.) are like 5 dollars extra a month, but that said it's way cheaper then cable.

If your a sports fan you must go with direct tv...you can get NFL sunday ticket(only on direct tv), mlb, nba, nhl, even a majorleage soccer package that will allow you to watch every game all season long. And for only $12 a month you can get all the normal sports station (like all the fox sports net country wide)

The only time I have any problems with my dish is when we are about to get a bad thunder storm...it will blink out (longer this has ever happened is for 30 min) and it only happens an average 2-3 time a year.

If you have a open path to the southern sky(at least southern here in ohio..may be a differnt direction in other parts of the counrty) you shouldn't have many problems at all.

In the 2 years i've had dish here (and the 5 years prior at my parents) we never once had to call a provider for any service calls. So I can't answer that part of your question.

 

[Nickunited]

im a huge direct tv fan - ive had time warner cable and all but i am getting a new apartment and getting the dish - for 99 bucks a month they have a deal where you get over 250 channels - including movies and lots of sport channels - i added on other channels for my soccer fetish but i think its better off. They offer DVR as well which I got. My parents had direct tv and cable together since 1997 - i cant cound how many times the Time warner guys had to come and play with wiring where I think direct tv has come once since install - and thats not a lie!

 

[Fitswimmer]

I used to LOVE Direct TV, and I still probably would, but for the last few months I've had technical issues that they have not been able to fix. See my thread on Direct TV and valued customer status if you need more info. It's great service until something goes wrong.

 

[deelam]

I called Comcast and told them I was considering switching my service, This time their CS person cut me a deal. I got the internet with digital plus service with 3 boxes for $105. No preimum channels, and no contract. Not a bad deal, but I'm still shopping.

 

[Charade]

I've had Dish since 2001 and haven't had much trouble. We have two receivers (both DVR recorders, one has two tuners) so we can record 3 channels at the same time. I would (if I could help it) never watch TV without a DVR again! We occasionally have a fade out from a storm but it's not as bad since Dish was out to install the second DVR and the realigned the antenna. We have the top 250, locals, 2 DVRs with 2 premiums and the bill is about $90. Another quirky thing (doesn't happen to often) is we have to "reboot" the DVRs every so often. Maybe once a month. We use ours a lot so I don't find that a bother.

We also have cable (Comcast) for internet. That also includes basic cable TV just in case the satellite is out and eventually when we put TVs in the guest rooms, they can watch that with no extra charge. We have our phone service through Vonage.

 

[edcrbnsoul]

I've had DirecTV for 4 years, I wouldn't go back to cable if they offered it for half price. I only lose signal during BIG thunderstorms and then for all of about 2 or 3 minutes I have never lost signal during a snowstorm. The cable got knocked out more than that during snowstorms we would lose for a day or two at times if lines got knocked down.

 

[Demosthenes]

I have had standard cable, digital cable, dish network, direct TV, digital cable and direct TV, and now just digital cable again. All of them have their pros and cons.

Standard Cable is cheap, but the quality is cheap too. The picture is grainy on larger screens, and you cannot take advantage of digital sound and picture. Also, most standard cable packages are limited to a total of 99 channels, and at least 35 or so are nothing.

Dish Netwrok is very good for digital picture and sound. The prices are good as well. The equipment is outdated and not very stylish (if that matters to you). It also does not integrate very well with after-market DVRs like Tivo, but I do like the Dish Network brand DVR (though it will not chase your shows like Tivo). Dish uses MP3 decoding.

Direct TV used to be the best of all worlds with MP4 decoding (a little better picture and sound than Digital Cable and Dish Network), and a partnership with Tivo that made their DVR the best built-in option. They were the first to offer HD DVR functionality. They are also more expensive than cable or dish network, but I found them to be worth it. That is until they went away from Tivo. Their new DVR is awful. So bad that I canceled our service over it. I also didn't like the switch to satellite (XM) radio over digital music channels. I don't think they are worth paying more for.

Digital Cable is good, but again, the built in DVR is lousy (Comcast offers Motorola, which is crap for crap). Still, I like the ability to use a great after-market HD DVR (I use a Tivo series 3) and to get on demand from the cable box (all installed in a central location in our home so that we can watch either the Tivo rot he cable box on either TV...yes, we only have two.) Cable doesn't go out in storms, which only happened occasionally with satellite, but it did happen on occasion.

I don't recommend having both. Don't waste your money. I bought a great HD antennae that was installed at my home (bought it from Tweeter/Hi-fi Buys) for $250. It is in the attic, out of sight, but it gets great reception. The picture never goes out, and the local channels never are gone, even when cable does go out.

 

[edcrbnsoul]

I'm not sure where in NJ you live but FIOS might be an option for you, I think its the only thing I would give up my Dish for. Unfortunatly I will probably never see it Verizon is try to sell off the Northern NE states.

 

[cybrkitn]

I've had Dish since 2001 and haven't had much trouble. We have two receivers (both DVR recorders, one has two tuners) so we can record 3 channels at the same time. I would (if I could help it) never watch TV without a DVR again! We occasionally have a fade out from a storm but it's not as bad since Dish was out to install the second DVR and the realigned the antenna. We have the top 250, locals, 2 DVRs with 2 premiums and the bill is about $90. Another quirky thing (doesn't happen to often) is we have to "reboot" the DVRs every so often. Maybe once a month. We use ours a lot so I don't find that a bother.

We also have cable (Comcast) for internet. That also includes basic cable TV just in case the satellite is out and eventually when we put TVs in the guest rooms, they can watch that with no extra charge. We have our phone service through Vonage.

Charade, you sound like DH and I, LOL. We have DishNetwork (with only one DVR), Cablevision for just the internet and Vonage for the phone.

We used to have the basic cable for my FIL, but he decided he didn't want it anymore. So we got rid of basic cable and only have use their internet service.

I love that you can pause the TV with the DVR.

 

[Charade]

Charade, you sound like DH and I, LOL. We have DishNetwork (with only one DVR), Cablevision for just the internet and Vonage for the phone.

We used to have the basic cable for my FIL, but he decided he didn't want it anymore. So we got rid of basic cable and only have use their internet service.

I love that you can pause the TV with the DVR.

Comcast charges the same amount if you have just internet or internet with basic cable TV so I had them turn it on.

 

[cybrkitn]

Comcast charges the same amount if you have just internet or internet with basic cable TV so I had them turn it on.

Cablevision's internet and basic cable are separate charges. Basic was about $10 per month and the internet is $49.95. However, the $49.95 is reimbursed through DH's work since he uses it from home to fix problems at work with the servers and such.

 

[mzspaz]

Anyone else have any opinions?

I just had it out with Comcast! Called to cancel HBO and Starz and I was told that if I did that, my bill would actually go up about 23 dollars???? Have you ever heard that???? It's because I have a "special" bundle and by removing those I would change the bundle. Right.....

So now I am looking into other options. For Internet we would go with Verizon Fios. They are running a package for $39.99 a month. I wish they would get FiOS TV in here, but that looks to be a ways off.

So my TV choices would be Direct TV or DishNetwork.

So I am looking for some more opinions on this and have been anxiously watching this thread!

 

[Bust*A*Stitch]

I'm a former DTV rep, as for satellite, the only problems we had when I worked there was bad installs, as long as it was installed correctly we never heard from you.

But the big gripe now is the quality of the dvr systems since DTV partnership with TIVO ended. Honestly, they suck.

And for the poster that had problems in Florida, there are known areas of south Florida that has service issues. The stinking state is so flat and so far further south than the rest of the country that there is no margin of error on install, either its perfect or you don't get anything.

Oh and do your research on the packages vs. the chanells you actually watch. The cheaper sat packages are for the traditional 70's family that liked 3 stations of tv and don't watch much, the majority go for the 40-50 dollar packages and are happy with them. they are just more well rounded.

 

[kfeuer]

We've had cable, Dish and Directv, and our favorite has been Directv hands down. We get all our local channels, have a HD DVR (which is a dual tuner, meaning we can watch TV on one channel and record on another), an older Directv Tivo in our bedroom (another dual tuner), and we pay $57 month. I priced out cable when we got our high-def TV and we would have had to pay almost twice that, plus we would have lost our dual tuner capacity which we really use a lot. We rarely lose service (much less often then we did with cable). I do wish they'd kept their partnership with Tivo...we've had our HD DVR a few months now (it's the newer version they launched) and while it's not terrible it's not great, either.

I'm not a fan of Dish's HD DVR. It was a dual tuner, but it was shared between two TV's which didn't work well for us. DH and I watch very different programs and we need to be able to record more then 2 things at once pretty often (mostly due to his sporting events).