cable vs satellite TV
 

Who here has cable, and who has satellite? We have comcast, but it's so damn expensive. Also, the freaking cable box is always pixelating (sp), and the sound goes out. It's really annoying. For the price, it really should work better. I've already switched the box out once, and have an appointment to switch it out again. Does satellite have these problems?

We had Dish Network for 4 years I think, and DirecTV for 6.

My advice is to shop for the programming you want and see how the pricing looks. We have a DirecTV Tivo box, and it works great. The picture will go out in a big storm, but it's usually fine in your average rain or snow. But, our cable went out much more often when we had it. I'd say with the satellite we have maybe 2-3 weather related outages in a typical year.

We have satellite here at the moment and had cable before that. There's not much difference from what I can tell with our two. We get a bit of pixelation every now and then, but nothing I worry too much about.

Comcast sucks. :mad:

Got so fed up with cable we dropped it and picked up NetFlix. Final straw was when I realized that we were only genuinely watching (as in "intently, not just for background noise", etc) four shows and three of them only had new episodes for several weeks out of the year. The rest of the time the TV was being turned on and what was being aired was just... crap.

Living without TV is a mixed blessing. Blah.

I would probably drop cable and just get broadcast TV, but I wouldn't get any TV because of the mountains in my area. I would need to get a BIG outdoor antenna to get any channels. The only thing I like about cable is that I don't have a contract, which is good because I am renting right now.

Do you have FIOS as an option there? I didn't get their tv package when I got the phone and internet, but it was an option and priced very competitively with cable. Supposed to be good quality too.

I have Comcast, mostly for the high speed internet. 4 boxes and more TV's. We have not had that much problem with it. Any problems that we have had are usually fixed within a few days. I can't complain that much.

We have satellite, now. If we kill all the power than it takes it a minute or so to find its satellites again, and it goes out in bad storms - which is exactly when I'd love to know what's happening out there. I bought a weather radio so my biggest issue is solved. Get the best price for the programming provider you don't want, then use it to twist the tail of the other to get it beat. Might work!

Yes, it does. I HATE comcast.

Thanks for the input. I really wish someone would come out with a plan where you only buy the channels you want. We watch about, maybe, 10 or 12 channels, but we are paying for all of them. I asked if I could just buy HBO, but they said no. I hate paying for all those channels we never use.

FIOS TV is simply outstanding... ly expensive. No I kid, it is, but the high-def content is truly high-def (not compressed into a crappy signal, as the cable and dish people do).

Comcast.

Strangely, I do not hate them. I despise the amount of money that I pay them, but I do not hate them.

My signal quality is good, no pixelations, and more importantly, no outages.

We have cable, a smaller company called Sudden Link which sure is a stupid name for a company in the communications business. That being said they are pretty good. We have one of their sub region offices right in our neighborhood and if you call in with a problem they usually get right out and check try to fix it. We get Cable TV and HS internet through them.

The thing we hate as most consumers do is having to pay for hundreds of cable stations you have no interest in watching. And half the time when I do some channel surfing I can't find a damn thing that's worth watching. Mostly we watch DVDs when it comes to movies as we have a pretty big collection.

Have you seen the Comcast HD picture to compare it? We're holding on to our SD DirecTV Tivo box for the moment. We're waiting until we see what Fios has to offer, not to mention the reported appearance of an HD-capable Tivo on DirecTV, before we commit to anything.

I once saw a price breakdown that indicated that if everyone could shop for just the channels they wanted, a huge number of the specialized channels would have to cost so much that you'd be paying the same amount for your 10-12 channels anyway.

We have started to use Comcasts On Demand channels more there are some really great free movies on there to watch. And we get most of the Encore channels for free which opens up a slew of great old movies to watch.

I switched to Directv last year and we really like it. We've got HD in the living room and family room and standard in the bedroom. the HD is excellent and the Tivo works well and holds a lot more than my old cable DVR did. My only problem is the standard signal in the bedroom blacks out for a few minutes sometimes.

FIOS is not available here yet. I checked into it a few months ago.

Yea, I've heard that as well. I don't buy it though. The channels that a lot of people want (like sports, bleh) could subsidize the other ones.

What I want, is TRUE competition. As it is, cable companies have protected territories. Even if there is more than one cable company in town, you don't get to choose which one you want. You have to use whichever one services your address.

I heard something about a new technology about year ago that is supposed to be TV coming in through phone lines, where you could pick the channels you want. Anyone else hear anything about that? What is happening with that?

I work for SL, actually, and this is true. The telecoms pay to retransmit channels on a package basis. The contract price is negotiated by a number of factors, including where in the channel lineup the channels go (limited tier, expanded tier, digital tier), and how many subs you have total (nationwide) paying for those tiers.

So lets say you have 100,000 customers total. All of them have Limited Cable. Most of them have Expanded, but only 60000 have Digital (which can be Limited + Digital no Expanded, or Limited, Expanded and Digital, which is further broken up into optional tiers, structured by interest, like sports or religious). More eyes are going to be seeing the limited channels (total) than the eyes watching the Digi sports tier. The programmers are going to want to put their channels in the tier that will have the most eyes watching thier advertising, so they will make a deal with the companies: You put these 2 channels on the Expanded tier, and these on the Digi Sports tier, and we'll charge you x price. If you don't want to put these 2 channels on the Expanded tier, then not near as many eyes will see our ads, and we'll have to charge you alot more for the same 4 channels to make up for lost revenue.

So:

To offer "a la Carte" channels would remove that bundled (read: discounted) price, and the companies would have to charge ALOT more per channel to just break even from what they pay the channels themselves, because the viewership would drop like a stone, which reduces ad revenue.

On a side note,

Now there is a new FCC rule that says broadcast stations can charge a fee to companies that retransmit their signals, and they are doing that with glee. Most companies have chose to pass that on to their customers, and this has resulted in rate hikes not only for cable, but satellite too.

Good info Onyx. Thanks.

I must agree.

I got DirecTV 8 years ago, and never had a problem 'til a few months ago when the on-screen program guide frakked up.

I like Comcast. The on demand feature and the ease of navigating the menu is way better than any dish. I had a dish. I hated the dish.

<whispering> Stay away from satellite service...it makes it easier for the gov'ment to track your private moments in the bedroom...

Other thoughts...this is worth the time to read it all the way through, then delete your history...:tinfoil:

Which was fixed a few weeks ago BTW...if anyone cares.

Cable has other problems. Cable has all channels. For each channel you don't want, cable must install a filter on your line. For 100 channels, they could not install 99 fllters. Cable companies group channels in certain frequencies groups so that a consumer has maybe no more than five filters to limit their service to basic service.

Bundling is for technical reasons.

We have cable and have stuck with it, even though I hate our provider here (Charter, who will hopefully go belly up soon and get bought by Comcast). The main reason we stick with cable is because in the end, satellite costs almost as much as cable without weather fuckups and ugly dishes on the side of the house.

Once we get our own place again, we might go with FIOS.

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