direct tv vs digital cable

Home Theatre

Can someone help me? I got digital cable. Could you give me the pros and cons on direct tv?



Also I have noticed some blurs on my digital cable. Is this cause of the tv or the cable? The blurs are like when a dvd is dirty and won't play.


Any help would be great .

zingo

I have never had a problem with digital cable, nor have any friends or family I have talked to. We have Comcast and the picture is great. I have had a few bad experiences with weather and such with satellite and would never personally go that route.

SolidSqual

Direct TV does not introduce any noise into my system. Cable, even with big bucks power conditioners, still manages to introduce hum.

mantis

SolidSqual wrote: »

Direct TV does not introduce any noise into my system. Cable, even with big bucks power conditioners, still manages to introduce hum.

This is completely caused by a poor cable ground. Your problem can be fixed outside where the cable enters the house. Fix the ground there and no more hum will you have.

There is a lot of reasons both ways to go with one or the other. it's difficult to say which is the better choice as both can dictate a answer. I had both and felt cable was a better choice at that time. today I feel I would like to spend alittle less. Cable is expensive compared to Direct tv. In ways I wouldn't mind going back to Direct tv. Now with mpeg4 and there better video quality , I feel cable doesn't offer anything better for me. I don't however look forward to a new bigger dish on my house. I also hate all the wires ran from the dish to my network box. There the Multiswitch to run dual tuner DVR's also suck . I hate all of it.

So which is better? I don't have a clue. I do know one thing, I like direct tv's price better but it comes at a cost.

Dan

polktiger

I had dish a long time ago (10 yrs) and would not go back to dish. I have too many TVs in the house, and I don't want another dish in the yard and will not attach one to my house.

Digital Cable - I quit and went back to analog. Sure it digital/HD was better than analog, but not by enough to justify the price and need for cable boxes. We found the only HD content we watched of available OTA anyway, and OTA is ususally the better less compressed signal.

So, I am being a cable jerk. I am using the less costly analog route which is actually more costly for the cable companies becuase of bandwidth. Once Comcast wises up and starts charging less for digital than analog I will consider switching to digital again. I also want them to start permitting cable cards becuase I do not want their unnessary cable box producing unneeded heat in my entertainment cabinet.

mutelight

We used to have Comcast cable and have had it for many years. (We still have them for internet service and VOIP phone service.) Now that there are 6 HDTVs in our place we wanted HD service on all of them. Comcast wanted $14-21 PER box PER month which is absolutely insane. $7 of the cost of each box per month was for a "digital outlet" when we already have the house all pre-wired with coaxial runs. Needless to say I started to consider alternatives. With DirecTV, one of our boxes is included in our programming fee each month and the rest are $5 a month for mirrored service on each box whether they be DVRs or plain HD receivers.

We have had DirecTV for three months now and are much happier with their service. Comcast tries to claim they have "more HD" but they are very careful not to mention "channels" because they are referring to their on demand section which I personally almost never used. The fact is that as far as live HD streams, DirecTV absolutely smokes Comcast in regards to programming. I literally do not watch any SD channels anymore. (Granted some content on the HD channels are upscaled SD.) Also, their new HR22 DVRs are huge (500GB), they have the capacity for 100 hours of HD recording and 400 hours SD. Not only that, you can plug a eSATA hard drive and make them as big as you please for a huge amount of recording time.

Another nice feature is the ability to remote schedule. Using any device with an internet connection, whether it be your computer at work, cell phone, etc. you can schedule recording on any DVR in your house whenever and wherever you please. The DVRs also allow you to stream media from your computer such as video, music, and pictures. (Albeit it is in the beta stages and fairly limited at the moment.)

As far as image quality, now that they have switched over to MPEG-4 encoding (which is much more efficient) the HD quality is quite good and macroblocking is greatly reduced having moved away from MPEG-2.

Things you might want to look into before considering a switch is whether or not you will be able to get your local channels via a spotbeam or if you will have to use over the air. Also, if you are in an area with really heavy rains, snow, etc. you can experience rain fade. The weather doesn't really get all that crazy where I live but we have already had some storms roll through and I haven't had absolutely any service interruptions. Another problem area can be the install. Also, you pay an upfront lease fee on receivers when you start service with DirecTV. They charge $99 per HD receiver and $199 per HD DVR but when you sign up for the HD DVR package, they give you $100 making the first HD DVR, $99. Essentially in our situation we paid a good amount to get up and running but are saving money each month and are receiving far more programming. They will provide up to 4 free SD boxes though as well as basic install. Also if you are a sports fan DirecTV has everything.

There are a bunch of factors to take into consideration but I can honestly tell you that since we switched we haven't once considered going back. We went from roughly 15 HD channels to over 100.

In a nutshell
Cable:
No upfront lease fees
Easier install
Local channels guaranteed
Fewer HD channels
Higher cost for multiple HD and/or DVR boxes
Typically higher monthly fee

DirecTV:
High initial cost (depending on complexity of system)
Install can be an issue
$5 per addition box, period
Multiple times more HD programming
Local channels in many markets and growing all the time
Typically lower monthly fee
Unmatched sports packages

Sorry about the long post I just wanted to throw as much out there as I could think of at the moment to help you make up your mind.

polkatese

good post, mutelight. I left cable 8 years ago and went straight to DirecTV. Compared to the old cable (Charter Communications), DTV is leap and bound better. We don't have any weather related issue around here, too much sunshine would be my personal gripe, which obviously make DTV and Cable to be on equal footing as far as weather related performance. 'nuff said, anymore praises to DTV would make you suspect I am a DTV fanboy.