Why even bother to set up a D* install ? If someone wants to be 100% honest, just tell Dish "I'm planning to switch to DirecTV so I need to cancel service...".
Cancelling Dish.....how long does it take?
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I have returned to Uverse after being away for 4 years, much improved picture quality no freeze ups. The installer rewired my home with Cat 5e wire did not use any of the original cable what a difference that made. I hope they did a rewire for you to Cat 5.
I have no idea what Cat 5e is. I know I'm the first at this house with Uverse though. Everything except PQ for sports has been great. Picture quality on stills, slow-moving scenes, close-ups are all good. Forgot to mention that I hate the more TV you watch, the slower your Internet gets. Most of the time it isn't an issue. Hate that it's a possibility though.
I have only had 2 freeze ups in the month I've had it. They were very brief. I'm not sure if one of the times was due to weather (it was raining pretty heavily outside) or due to I had 3 HD recordings going on and watching a 4th in HD. Not sure if it was stressing out "the system" or what not.
As far as I know, Cat 5 has been the standard since well before Uverse even existed. I'm not sure you can even buy lower quality than that if you wanted to. You can pay a bit more and get Cat 5e or Cat 6 though. I would bet that the ethernet cable your installer replaced was already Cat 5 unless it's really old wiring that was put into the house before the original Uverse installation.
Cat5, Cat5e, Cat6 are all network cables. Cat5 is the oldest and is only specced to 10/100mb. Cat5e and Cat6 can support 1G.
You can also turn off PTAT and get that tuner back in you don't want anything in PrimeTime. You Also don't have to record the Entire PTAT you can custom the channels and days if you wish.
In my case, the installer re-used the white coaxial from a previous Comcast Cable installation. Supposedly that isn't as good as Cat 5, but I have not had any problems whatsoever.
Note, I didn't say OTA is "better", just that it will have less compression.Whether a given viewer notices... ???
True and sometimes I can't but overall OTA to my eyes is little sharper. I am surprised there isn't more of a difference, I think having two sub channels or one in HD takes some of the bandwidth?
Even at half the bandwidth of OTA, SAT will look about as good due to the more efficient MPEG4 compression compared to MPEG2.
I have been an installer for 15 years, working for a specialized, local, family owned, company. We have installed both Dish and DTV since 2001. I love Dish, the Hopper is awesome. I could go home and install DTV in my house any time I want, but I have no desire to do so. Dish's equipment is better and their prices are lower.
That being said, I have seen a lot in 15 years, countless installs and systems, and I can state unequivocally that DTV HD is slightly sharper. We have 2 side by side identical flat panels with Dish and DTV hooked to them in the office. My boss (the owner) is a Dish fan also, but he got DTV at home for 2 years just to give it a try. The first thing he noticed when he hooked it up to his high end TV's/projectors was that it was sharper, his wife mentioned the same thing. He did get rid of it and go back to Dish as soon as the 2 years was up, the Dish user experience is just much better.
But, the difference isn't huge, and I wouldn't use it as a reason to switch. I would personally recommend 2 Hoppers, or Hopper & Super Joey.
That being said, I have seen a lot in 15 years, countless installs and systems, and I can state unequivocally that DTV HD is slightly sharper. We have 2 side by side identical flat panels with Dish and DTV hooked to them in the office. My boss (the owner) is a Dish fan also, but he got DTV at home for 2 years just to give it a try. The first thing he noticed when he hooked it up to his high end TV's/projectors was that it was sharper, his wife mentioned the same thing. He did get rid of it and go back to Dish as soon as the 2 years was up, the Dish user experience is just much better.
But, the difference isn't huge, and I wouldn't use it as a reason to switch. I would personally recommend 2 Hoppers, or Hopper & Super Joey.
I don't know specifics, but my understanding is that a station has "x" amount of bandwidth with OTA (around 18Mb/s). With MPEG-2, you're hard pressed to get two HD channels out of that reliably. That's why you almost always see (1) HD feed and (1) SD feed. Since stations will squeeze a 2nd SD feed in there...
I don't know about others, but I wear glasses, so the difference in HD quality between Dish and DTV is minute(DTV does have a slightly better PQ). My glasses make it so I can see things better, but my eyesight will never be perfect(great when I was single and at the bar), so when I look at the difference between tbe companies I compare things that will matter to me, personally. For me, the user experience is a clear winner with the Hoppers and Joeys. I like YouTube on DTV, however the fact that they charge $4 for turning on the whole home feature, while still charging all the other fees, got me. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but is a definite deal breaker in my house. Also, the guide lineup is the worst I have seen. Even TWC and Cox channel orders made more sense. So Dish won there. Lastly, Dish is far superior when it comes to the revolution of TV enjoyment and products. Owning Sling Media(echostar before I catch grief for that), so many package options, lowest cost premiums, and so many opportunities to participate in extra services from them also leans me towards Dish. The overall monthly bill does not bother me with either company, as I feel both prices are fair for the product, and as a consumer I choose to pay a relative amount. Neither company is really charging needless fees, if their financial statements are accurate(I forgot DTV's, but Dish pulled an average of just under $4.74/sub/month). Not a huge profit when you see the average consumer paid just over $80/month.
Ultimately, it's going to come down to 'what is important to you'? I have everything I need, and the history with Dish. My brother "needs" the NFL ST, so he will not leave DTV until it does. If you are concerned about channel takedowns, I would recommend against Dish, as they do have no problem pulling small groups of channels at a time, to manage their position as the lowest cost provider, but you will ultimately pay for it with any other provider in the end. Also, Dish does seem more ready and willing to offer discounts on programming and credits to accounts, then directv and I truly beleive their CS is better then any competition. I cannot stand it when my brother needs me to call in for him to DTV, because the mere thought of him talking to them causes him to almost have a Heart attack.
Make your choice wisely, utilize SG as much as you can as you will get good answers from this and the DTV forum. There are enough people here that have experience with both services, and can lead you to the answers you need.
Ultimately, it's going to come down to 'what is important to you'? I have everything I need, and the history with Dish. My brother "needs" the NFL ST, so he will not leave DTV until it does. If you are concerned about channel takedowns, I would recommend against Dish, as they do have no problem pulling small groups of channels at a time, to manage their position as the lowest cost provider, but you will ultimately pay for it with any other provider in the end. Also, Dish does seem more ready and willing to offer discounts on programming and credits to accounts, then directv and I truly beleive their CS is better then any competition. I cannot stand it when my brother needs me to call in for him to DTV, because the mere thought of him talking to them causes him to almost have a Heart attack.
Make your choice wisely, utilize SG as much as you can as you will get good answers from this and the DTV forum. There are enough people here that have experience with both services, and can lead you to the answers you need.
When I had both HD services a few years back, I always noticed that the pq was a bit sharper on DIRECTV, but that you could see more jagged lines in the background and pixelated blocks ,or what I call more noise in the backgrounds. This is why I think the SD channels on DIRECTV always look so bad. DISH has a bit smoother picture ,but it is more uniform ,with no noise in the backgrounds. I prefer the smoother picture with no noise in the background. I use Sports mode on my tv & turned up the contrast and a little on the sharpness and it looks as sharp as DIRECTV ,but there is no noisey ,pixelated backgrounds that distract me from enjoying the overall picture.
I wish I never left Dish. I had a 2 hopper setup and wife was happy. Switched to Directv and the first day she was asking for Prime Time feature, nope not there. External HD to back up shows, Sirius channels, channel logos. She was upset these weren't on the Genie. Don't get me wrong the Genie HR-44 is very snappy and has some cool features on it but The Hopper with Sling is well ahead of the Genie. It's overall a much better DVR imho.
If you watch a lot of Prime Time, you'll have to record the shows all manually .
Which seems to be more reliable in rain/storms? I have had DTV, and my parents still do. Even in somewhat hard rain (not a storm), we would lose signal. It's kind of a pain. Uverse's PQ is not as great as Direct, but I'm enjoying having no issues with a signal in the few days it's rained in the past month.
Honestly, I would think it would depend on the peak. I have dish, my brother has DTV, both are peaked superbly, and we both lose signal just about as often as one another. And that's not often.
In all of last year, I only lost signal two or three times, and only during NASTY storms.
It's 19.2 if you want to get picky. And actually more and more stations are putting up 2 HD feeds. Newer encoders allow this (How, I don't know). Our local PBS has had 4(?) total channels... one HD and three SD.
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