Directtv or stick with cable?
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That was one of my problems that forced me into cable. The second is that DirectTV requires a land based phone line whioch I did not want (well at least with verizon)...
John
The phjone line is only required for the pay-per-view stuff.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
charlieg wrote:
Like you, I have Adelphia (you sound close to me... are you in Atlanta by any chance?).
No, I'm not that lucky (I hate the cold). I live in a Pittsburgh, PA suburb very close to the Airport which is around 20 miles southwest of downtown.
charlieg wrote:
The 3 item package deal offered by Bell South for $100 looks like a good dea
Ahh, That was what I was looking to pay for all 3 but no such deal was available in my area. Comcast does offer all 3 for $100 for a year but after that the regular rates apply. Right now my Cable bill is $56 for standard analog cable (no digtial) with $46 for 6M/767 Internet and ~$17 (after tax) for the Vonnage 500 minute plan. All added together it is around $120 with tax.
charlieg wrote:
The DirectTV is the only unknown for me, never having had it.
Knowing how the satellite works I would say that there are three things you must have to avoid signal problems that cause others headaches. One is a good unobstructed view of the southern sky (as the satellites orbit over central America) and the second is a stable platform to mount the dish that is on the roof or at least high on a wall so it is unlikely to be knocked out of alignment. And last but not least the dish must be pointed correctly which is actually pretty easy as the receiver tells you were to aim and there is a signal meter also on the receiver that helps you fine tune once you get a detectable signal.
John
Well, my wife would say it's freezing today (temp's will hit around 50f). :) The interesting thing is that Comcast seems to be upgrading network infrastructure - I believe there is a new ups hung on a pole down the street. The sky view is not a problem - at the top of the hill and house faces SE. Not a problem at all...
Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Whoever said children were cheaper by the dozen... lied. My son's PDA is an M249 SAW. My other son commutes in an M1A2 Abrams
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Well, in chatting with Bell South, the offer is interestingly bundled. The phone and dsl service has no contract, so if it is terrible, I can toss it. The Direct Tv has a min. commmitment of 12 months, but I'm guessing that if performance is terrible - I can toss them for cause. Comments?
Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Whoever said children were cheaper by the dozen... lied. My son's PDA is an M249 SAW. My other son commutes in an M1A2 Abrams
You have a 72-hour return policy on satellite. Otherwise, you pay the disconnect fee.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
You're gonna have to be a lot more specific than "blows away cable". How does it "blow away cable"? I currently have (Time-Warner) cable, and recently upgraded to HD/Digital service for the time being. I gave up on their inetrnet service because they couldn't fix their crap lines/nodes so that I wasn't intermittently loosing connectivity. I'm considering switching to satellite, but here are some issues: 1) Digital cable still allows my other TV's to work without an additional set-top box. (a BIG plus) 2) DirecTV say free installation, but if you don't read the fine print, you're royally screwed. It seems they only make cable runs up to 125 from the dish, and they only go through ONE wall. If you exceed either of those two things, you will get charged for the installation, and the charges are pretty steep. Not only that, but they won't tell you about the extra charges until they're DONE WITH THE INSTALL. I've established that I'm going to have run the cables myself (if I want a decent looking installation) so that the installers only have to put connectors on the coax. Yeah - the install will be free for them, but not for me. 3) Their channel lineup for the $49/month package says 155 channels. However, 55 of those channels are RADIO - NOT TV. Further, you can't shave the radio stations off the channel lineup to save a few bucks on crap you won't use. On the other hand, I don't think I have all of the channels I'm supposed to have on cable. I think I have to call those idiots - again.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001It blows away cable for the live guide info alone. I'm not talking about the "what's currently on"/TV guide thing; with DTV I can hit info and see what show is currently on the channel I'm on, whether it's a re-run, who stars in it, and at what times and what channels it will be playing later; all with a single click of the info button. I can schedule shows to watch or record, purchase PPV right from the remote, a whole host of things I wasn't getting with cable. Also, where I live, I get more channels (real ones that I watch, not the XM radio channels) for the same price. So, for me anyways, it blows away my old Comcast cable setup.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. I'm currently blogging about: Check out this cutie The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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Well, I've been a cable modem user from the first day I could get it (dsl was not available in my area for a long time). Lately, my cable has been less then optimum. I switched my phone service from Bell gouge South to Vonage. Worked fine for the first week, but the IP phone is 50% hype. If you really need to make a call, even 10% reliability loss is an issue. So, wife went on a tirade, and I'm looking at switching back to the phone company for local service. Anyway... they have this deal - phone/dsl (3MBps)/DirectTv. Anyone here switched from cable to directtv and regretted it? Comments?
Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Whoever said children were cheaper by the dozen... lied. My son's PDA is an M249 SAW. My other son commutes in an M1A2 Abrams
We got called about switching to a phone(at&t)/directv bundle as well. I'm on the west coast. Install is tomorrow - switching from time-warner (formerly adelphia here). The cable was fine as long as there was no wind (it's funny how they advertise that they're better than satellite because weather DOESN'T affect it :rolleyes:). The price of cable was a ripoff (always has been, always will be I suppose). If only I could get faster DSL :( I'm 20ft too far from the nearest CO apparently. I have to have my static IPs though :) Mark
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Well, I've been a cable modem user from the first day I could get it (dsl was not available in my area for a long time). Lately, my cable has been less then optimum. I switched my phone service from Bell gouge South to Vonage. Worked fine for the first week, but the IP phone is 50% hype. If you really need to make a call, even 10% reliability loss is an issue. So, wife went on a tirade, and I'm looking at switching back to the phone company for local service. Anyway... they have this deal - phone/dsl (3MBps)/DirectTv. Anyone here switched from cable to directtv and regretted it? Comments?
Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Whoever said children were cheaper by the dozen... lied. My son's PDA is an M249 SAW. My other son commutes in an M1A2 Abrams
I agree with previous posters that DirecTV blows doors on Cable for tv. For the internet I use CableModem from Comcast. No problems. I get the tv I want, and the internet I want. Be wary of the bundled deals though. Often times the billing for DirecTV isn't in sync with the billing of the phone company, I assume the phone company is doing the bundling, and you'll find times where you aren't billed for DirecTV but then billed for two months at one time. If you happened to upgrade to HD and do the Football subscription, you might find yourself with an unexpected $500 bill like I did. I finally removed the bundled offer. It was worth the 5 bux savings to remove it.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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That was one of my problems that forced me into cable. The second is that DirectTV requires a land based phone line whioch I did not want (well at least with verizon)...
John
As said before that's only used for pay per view, which can also be ordered online. But also for Tivo, they require it only to setup. After the initial setup you can unplug it and just ignore its complaints that it needs to make a daily call to report your habits. Heh...
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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You're gonna have to be a lot more specific than "blows away cable". How does it "blow away cable"? I currently have (Time-Warner) cable, and recently upgraded to HD/Digital service for the time being. I gave up on their inetrnet service because they couldn't fix their crap lines/nodes so that I wasn't intermittently loosing connectivity. I'm considering switching to satellite, but here are some issues: 1) Digital cable still allows my other TV's to work without an additional set-top box. (a BIG plus) 2) DirecTV say free installation, but if you don't read the fine print, you're royally screwed. It seems they only make cable runs up to 125 from the dish, and they only go through ONE wall. If you exceed either of those two things, you will get charged for the installation, and the charges are pretty steep. Not only that, but they won't tell you about the extra charges until they're DONE WITH THE INSTALL. I've established that I'm going to have run the cables myself (if I want a decent looking installation) so that the installers only have to put connectors on the coax. Yeah - the install will be free for them, but not for me. 3) Their channel lineup for the $49/month package says 155 channels. However, 55 of those channels are RADIO - NOT TV. Further, you can't shave the radio stations off the channel lineup to save a few bucks on crap you won't use. On the other hand, I don't think I have all of the channels I'm supposed to have on cable. I think I have to call those idiots - again.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001More selection, and I get eastern times in the pacific time zone. They've got decent HD content. But mostly I guess my bias stems from the time zone deal. There are also a few channels that aren't available from Cable. But I ordered everything. 90 bux a month. All channels and all movie channels. Plus I like to watch the NFL Sunday Ticket in HD on a 60" screen. Even with 8 channels displayed at the same time I can see what's going on.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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I had DirecTV for around 10 years and loved it. In 10 years we did not need to make a single customer service call but I would admit I installed dish and added the second dish when we expanded do 4 tuner with the extra channels. Since it's 100% digital the picture quality is excellent on every channel (unless you are in a very heavy storm which you probably should not have the tv on anyways...) With that said when I moved to a new house I got cable because I wanted to ditch the phone company as well and with DirectTV you need an always connected land phone line and then I also wanted HSI. In my area I had Adelphia which at times had serous problems with their HSI (very long delays between packets) so for a the first 6 months of service my VOIP did not work well and onling gaming was impossible. BTW, for VOIP stay very far away from broadvoice. Since they only have 7000 customers world wide when they experience problems (on their end) it takes a long time to fix. During my first few months with them they had a dispute with a phone company that all service off their network impossible and this was a ~2 week outage. After a year of dealing with this and other problems with them I switched to Vonnage and things are much, much better now. I do admit some of my problems were caused by my flaky HSI but not all as at times broadvoice only one person could hear while the other person had 100% silence and then every conversation had a chance of being dropped for no reason at all. Now that comcast has taken over my service is better as my internet speeds are 6M/768 but with powerboost I routinely get 10M to 14M down.
Last modified: 30mins after originally posted --
John
You don't have to have a phone line connected. I don't.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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As said before that's only used for pay per view, which can also be ordered online. But also for Tivo, they require it only to setup. After the initial setup you can unplug it and just ignore its complaints that it needs to make a daily call to report your habits. Heh...
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
That plan ofc assumes you have a land line to plug it into in the first place. My only phone's cellular, and from what I've read fax/analog modem over VOIP is generally impossible because they're much more sensitive to packet timing issues.
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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It blows away cable for the live guide info alone. I'm not talking about the "what's currently on"/TV guide thing; with DTV I can hit info and see what show is currently on the channel I'm on, whether it's a re-run, who stars in it, and at what times and what channels it will be playing later; all with a single click of the info button. I can schedule shows to watch or record, purchase PPV right from the remote, a whole host of things I wasn't getting with cable. Also, where I live, I get more channels (real ones that I watch, not the XM radio channels) for the same price. So, for me anyways, it blows away my old Comcast cable setup.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. I'm currently blogging about: Check out this cutie The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
Judah Himango wrote:
It blows away cable for the live guide info alone. I'm not talking about the "what's currently on"/TV guide thing; with DTV I can hit info and see what show is currently on the channel I'm on, whether it's a re-run, who stars in it, and at what times and what channels it will be playing later; all with a single click of the info button. I can schedule shows to watch or record, purchase PPV right from the remote, a whole host of things I wasn't getting with cable.
I can do all of that with cable.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001 -
That plan ofc assumes you have a land line to plug it into in the first place. My only phone's cellular, and from what I've read fax/analog modem over VOIP is generally impossible because they're much more sensitive to packet timing issues.
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
I didn't have a line either when I installed. The technician just said to ask a neighbor to use theirs with a 100 foot extension cord to do the initial setup. Anyway, I was getting a land line anyway, I don't do cell.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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I didn't have a line either when I installed. The technician just said to ask a neighbor to use theirs with a 100 foot extension cord to do the initial setup. Anyway, I was getting a land line anyway, I don't do cell.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
Local landlines are expensive, the cell's actually cheaper. It only ever leaves my desk at home in bad weather or when I'm on a road trip. Where I'm renting now using a neighbors line wouldn't be an issue, but in the boonies where I want to move in a year or so I'd need more like a 1000' extension and a signal booster. :doh:
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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Judah Himango wrote:
It blows away cable for the live guide info alone. I'm not talking about the "what's currently on"/TV guide thing; with DTV I can hit info and see what show is currently on the channel I'm on, whether it's a re-run, who stars in it, and at what times and what channels it will be playing later; all with a single click of the info button. I can schedule shows to watch or record, purchase PPV right from the remote, a whole host of things I wasn't getting with cable.
I can do all of that with cable.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
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"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001Cool. I wasn't able to do that with my cable previously.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit. I'm currently blogging about: Check out this cutie The apostle Paul, modernly speaking: Epistles of Paul Judah Himango
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Local landlines are expensive, the cell's actually cheaper. It only ever leaves my desk at home in bad weather or when I'm on a road trip. Where I'm renting now using a neighbors line wouldn't be an issue, but in the boonies where I want to move in a year or so I'd need more like a 1000' extension and a signal booster. :doh:
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
My wife makes a lot of long distance and international calls. Her family is in Thailand so I go for the land line. Plus I don't like it that most people get pissed when I don't answer the cell. Heh, just because I have it doesn't mean I have to answer. :laugh:
dan neely wrote:
Where I'm renting now using a neighbors line wouldn't be an issue, but in the boonies where I want to move in a year or so I'd need more like a 1000' extension and a signal booster.
Yep, that's a pickle. But using the cell might work just for the setup. Its only needed to setup for Tivo too. Not for DirecTV in general. But I'm addicted now, so I can't see not getting the Tivo if I have a chance. I'd also like to move to the boonies in a while.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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My wife makes a lot of long distance and international calls. Her family is in Thailand so I go for the land line. Plus I don't like it that most people get pissed when I don't answer the cell. Heh, just because I have it doesn't mean I have to answer. :laugh:
dan neely wrote:
Where I'm renting now using a neighbors line wouldn't be an issue, but in the boonies where I want to move in a year or so I'd need more like a 1000' extension and a signal booster.
Yep, that's a pickle. But using the cell might work just for the setup. Its only needed to setup for Tivo too. Not for DirecTV in general. But I'm addicted now, so I can't see not getting the Tivo if I have a chance. I'd also like to move to the boonies in a while.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
Chris S Kaiser wrote:
My wife makes a lot of long distance and international calls. Her family is in Thailand so I go for the land line. Plus I don't like it that most people get pissed when I don't answer the cell. Heh, just because I have it doesn't mean I have to answer.
I just tell people it's my home number. If you're driving and on the phone you're an idiot, if you're in a restaurant and on the phone your a jerk, so I don't take it with me. Take it or leave it.
Chris S Kaiser wrote:
Yep, that's a pickle. But using the cell might work just for the setup. Its only needed to setup for Tivo too.
If there's any need to send data I can't see it working. At any rate, I've never seen a cell with a phonejack on the side for input, and put the receiver next to speaker/microphones modem style is 20+ years out of date, even if my cell was the right shape to fit in the handset holder.
-- Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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You don't have to have a phone line connected. I don't.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
I know the box can run without a phone line for a few months but after longer than that you get a threatening letter stating that it needs to be connected to a phone line otherwise they will double charge you a complete second subscription for it. I guess this would work if you only had a single tuner. The reason for this policy is that if you don't have it connected to the phone line you can buy extra receivers and give them to all friends and share the subscription.
John
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I know the box can run without a phone line for a few months but after longer than that you get a threatening letter stating that it needs to be connected to a phone line otherwise they will double charge you a complete second subscription for it. I guess this would work if you only had a single tuner. The reason for this policy is that if you don't have it connected to the phone line you can buy extra receivers and give them to all friends and share the subscription.
John
I haven't experienced that. I've never plugged in a phone line. I've had DirecTV for more than a year. No letters, no nothing. Only a Tivo message to upload data. And that is currently at 120 days or something.
John M. Drescher wrote:
The reason for this policy is that if you don't have it connected to the phone line you can buy extra receivers and give them to all friends and share the subscription.
How does that work? They would still need a hard line to your satellite. So you pay for the extra receiver, 5 bux a month, then what? Run a line from your house to your neighbors? You can only do this with someone next door, not all your friends.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
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I haven't experienced that. I've never plugged in a phone line. I've had DirecTV for more than a year. No letters, no nothing. Only a Tivo message to upload data. And that is currently at 120 days or something.
John M. Drescher wrote:
The reason for this policy is that if you don't have it connected to the phone line you can buy extra receivers and give them to all friends and share the subscription.
How does that work? They would still need a hard line to your satellite. So you pay for the extra receiver, 5 bux a month, then what? Run a line from your house to your neighbors? You can only do this with someone next door, not all your friends.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
You can legally buy the dish and all other equipment needed (LMB and cabling) for less than $100 on the internet. All the security and programming is held in the access card and tied to the receiver. You are permitted to have multiple dishes (as we did) and multiple receivers can be connected to each dish. I believe there is a $5 per receiver (could be more it was $5 in 2005) few you have to pay though.
Last modified: 14mins after originally posted --
John
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I haven't experienced that. I've never plugged in a phone line. I've had DirecTV for more than a year. No letters, no nothing. Only a Tivo message to upload data. And that is currently at 120 days or something.
John M. Drescher wrote:
The reason for this policy is that if you don't have it connected to the phone line you can buy extra receivers and give them to all friends and share the subscription.
How does that work? They would still need a hard line to your satellite. So you pay for the extra receiver, 5 bux a month, then what? Run a line from your house to your neighbors? You can only do this with someone next door, not all your friends.
What's in a sig? This statement is false. Build a bridge and get over it. ~ Chris Maunder
Chris S Kaiser wrote:
I haven't experienced that. I've never plugged in a phone line.
We had 4 receivers on 2 dishes and at one point someone knocked the line out of one of the receivers. I am not sure how Tivo models work but the other ones have a modem and each month they make a phone call (1-800) to directTV to announce that they are still connected and since its a 1-800 number the phone number the receiver dials from is given to direcTV.
Last modified: 2hrs 32mins after originally posted --
John
