Bay Area Quality Dish VS. Comcast

curtishd

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Jan 28, 2006
181
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I am try to decide which to Comcast or Dish in the Bay area. Prices seem to be the same as far as programming BUT I like the idea of only paying $10 more a month to Comcast for a HD dvr as I want 2 and with Dish that would be expensive.

So overall which has better QUALITY HD locals and other HD channels?
 
If your priority is local HD channel PQ, Comcast has superior quality. The HD local from Dish currently has too many issues, although the word is they are working on them. You could get Comcast now and dump them later if the Dish quality gets better, no commitment with Comcast.

If your interest is in more HD channels(other than local HD), with the same quality as Comcast, then Dish would most likely be the answer.

It depends also on where you are in the SF bay area, different areas have different channel lineups with Comcast which could be a factor in which provider you choose.

There is a local SF Comcast thread at AVS where you could ask and get a lineup for your particular area-do not trust online info or customer service reps.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7906000#post7906000
San Francisco, CA - Comcast - AVS Forum

There's also a local DBS thread,

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=7895185#post7895185
San Francisco, CA - DBS - AVS Forum

Not to take away from SatelliteGuys, but AVS has more local specific info.
 
Not sure what package you are after or if you have line of sight for OTA but I found Dish to be less expensive and OTA local HD is the best there is.

I have HD platinium and two HD DVR and pay 109.00 a month.
 
curtishd said:
Any word if Dish is going to get the Fox Bay Area Region Sports network here in HD?

Haven't heard anything about it yet. That will rock but personally, I don't see it happening. Bandwith is limited with satellite.
 
Any word on when dish will actually USE mpeg4?
rehtorical question
we all know this answer
i dont live in bay area but the only thing hd i miss from dish is hd-net
cable doesnt have it but they have inhd 1 & 2 at least in my area hdnet is no go on comcast
btw if you end up with comcast and get 6412's those can be upgraded to 6416
6412= 120 gigabytes
6416= 160 gigabytes
it will let yo record a few more hours betten than nothing in my eyes at least
 
Just back from two weeks traveling. Dish appears to have solved the frame-rate/quality issues with 1080i locals. At least in my market, San Francisco, the CBS and NBC affiliates look as good as the 720p locals. They had looked choppy at best during Leno and Letterman, but both look rock solid, if just a bit soft.

Kudos to Dish for improving the quality.
 
who_the said:
Just back from two weeks traveling. Dish appears to have solved the frame-rate/quality issues with 1080i locals. At least in my market, San Francisco, the CBS and NBC affiliates look as good as the 720p locals. They had looked choppy at best during Leno and Letterman, but both look rock solid, if just a bit soft.

Kudos to Dish for improving the quality.

What about ABC (KGO)? I'm still having problems with that channel, lots of pixelations and audio drop outs. It's unwatchable.

Just tuned in to watch the World Cup and it looks better but now I see audio synch problems. Argh!
 
Last edited:
Spent about an hour looking at the SF local HD channels last night.

KTVU-Looked okay but it was the news, no HD.
KPIX-Looked okay, but I thought I saw a few moments of stuttering. The sound was great though, watching Numbers.

KGO-Bad audio-sync problems but I believe this a is a problem KGO.
KNTV-Still seeing the melting faces problems.

PQ on KGO and KTVU seemed okay, same with KPIX, but KNTV definitely has some problems, and none of the channels look as good as Comcast, or even CBS-West from Dish. I really hope they get this stuff fixed as I would love to dump Comcast, and I'd even accept a bit worse PQ, but these channels are not quite there yet.
 
curtishd said:
Any word if Dish is going to get the Fox Bay Area Region Sports network here in HD?

I don't know about full time but for games only I have seen a few Fox Bay Area HD games for baseball with the MLB:EI package.
 
Anyone have an updated opinion on Dish HD vs Comcast HD in the Bay Area with the reduced Comcast quality due to the "3 packing"? I think everyone thought Comcast was better a few years ago.

I have Dish and think the HD quality is pretty good. I was just wondering if anyone has compared to Comcast or Directv recently in the Bay Area and who comes out on top now.
 
Aside from my current beef with Dish over GOL TV, it is vastly superior to Comcast. Picture, channel selection and reliability is better with Dish.

If you can see Sutro tower, OTA locals will be the best bet.
 
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