D - Seattle area?

[cebbigh]

I've been an E customer for over 10 years but am contemplating changing to D. The successful launch of D10 and stated HD planning are certainly plus factors. While I've been generally happy with E overall, there are certain problems specific to the Pacific Northwest. Chief among these is the failing E5 sat that they have chosen to use for HD programing.

I'm curious if there are any problems with D signal strength in the Seattle area? Also general impressions of PNW D subs, especially concerning HD. Can Seattle area subs get FSNW in HD?

I'd appreciate any advice or shared experience. I think this is the first time I've ever posted on the D side of the forum. Please except that I am just looking for information and want nothing to do with the sniping between sides that too often takes place. Just looking for friendly advice. I'm just in the "thinking about it" phase at the present time. Thanks in advance.

 

[jcrandall]

I am not in seattle, but I have never heard of any sgnal issues with d like e has on their 129 sat.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

KOMO, KING, KIRO, KCPQ and FSNW in HD all come from the Spaceway 2 satellite at 99 degrees. These all look great here. FSNW is only HD part-time (mainly Mariners home games) but should be full time eventually (it will also probably switch to a national beam on Directv 10 or 11, covering a larger area than the spotbeam supports).

 

[cebbigh]

Thanks for replies. Good to hear that D gets all the locals as well as FSNW in HD. E still doesn't carry KCPQ-HD and that gets crazy sometimes during the football season because the OTA signal is weak. Just found out that they are adding FSNW-HD this Wednesday.

So there isn't a problem with constant signal loss on any of the current D Sats? That would be quite an improvement.

I'm off for the next two days. Will be doing more research. Very glad on any input either pro or con. Also general impressions of the HR20. Does it do name based recording? Does it do a decent job with OTA signals? Lots of things to mull over...

 

[Bob Nielsen]

Thanks for replies. Good to hear that D gets all the locals as well as FSNW in HD. E still doesn't carry KCPQ-HD and that gets crazy sometimes during the football season because the OTA signal is weak. Just found out that they are adding FSNW-HD this Wednesday.

So there isn't a problem with constant signal loss on any of the current D Sats? That would be quite an improvement.

I'm off for the next two days. Will be doing more research. Very glad on any input either pro or con. Also general impressions of the HR20. Does it do name based recording? Does it do a decent job with OTA signals? Lots of things to mull over...

They have carried KCPQ since November and KOMO since (I think) April or so. I didn't have much luck with either OTA. The picture quality of the MPEG4 locals is quite good. I have had my HR20 since January and with the latest software it is working pretty well (they have been updating it a lot recently and VOD should be coming soon). It has a search function by name, keyword, etc. Not quite up to the Tivo wishlist, but still very functional. OTA is almost as good as it was on the H20-600 I had previously (it has one of the best ATSC tuners available). You can't have two simultaneous outputs like some of the E* DVRs, but it has dual tuners for both satellite and OTA.

 

[trellaine]

KOMO, KING, KIRO, KCPQ and FSNW in HD all come from the Spaceway 2 satellite at 99 degrees. These all look great here. FSNW is only HD part-time (mainly Mariners home games) but should be full time eventually (it will also probably switch to a national beam on Directv 10 or 11, covering a larger area than the spotbeam supports).

OMG I think FSNW HD looks incredible! Of course only Mariners home games seem to be in HD.

 

[cebbigh]

OMG I think FSNW HD looks incredible! Of course only Mariners home games seem to be in HD.

I'd be very happy with "only" home games. Very glad to hear that the FSNW PQ is good with D. I'd almost rather listen to Niehaus on the radio than watch SD.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

I saw one Mariners away game a month or so ago in HD on FSNW, but it was the exception to the rule. Someone on dbstalk said that Fox Sports is very limited in their ability to handle HD. Hopefully they are upgrading their facilities to permit much more HD soon.

The other day there was a M's home game in HD (ch. 94, I think) but it was blacked out because KSTW was carrying the game locally (in SD only). The score banner looked like one from FSN with "Mariners" superimposed.

 

[Rassilon]

I'm currently considering ditching comcast to get in on the NFLST deal DirecTV is running. Having just moved up here from Florida I was wondering is there any issue w/the rainy fallls and rain fade for satTV? I know that it's not supposed to be too big of an issue anymore but figured I'd try to get some local seattlite's opinions on the matter since we have more rainy days then most.

Mike.

 

[Brewer4]

I'm currently considering ditching comcast to get in on the NFLST deal DirecTV is running. Having just moved up here from Florida I was wondering is there any issue w/the rainy fallls and rain fade for satTV? I know that it's not supposed to be too big of an issue anymore but figured I'd try to get some local seattlite's opinions on the matter since we have more rainy days then most.

Mike.

We in Hartford CT have more overcast and as much rain as you guys (Syracuse NY has the most). No issues with lost signal unless we are getting a Noreaster downpour which questions if you should be watching TV anyways. The cable propaganda of losing signal is a misnomer. If your dish is done right, and no trees blocking you should have no problems 364 days a year.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

I have had only two brief (a few minutes) dropouts in the past year. Most of the rain in the Seattle area is a constant drizzle (like today) with no effect, but there are exceptions. When I lived in Arizona and had cable, there would often be prolonged outages during thunderstorms (once I saw lightning strike a pole with a cable amp--I'm sure it didn't recover).

 

[trellaine]

When people talk about rain fade do they mean actual rain on the dish itself or just the fact it's raining?

Reason I ask is my sat dish is undercover since I am on 2nd floor of a condo/apartment.

Thanks

 

[Bob Nielsen]

When people talk about rain fade do they mean actual rain on the dish itself or just the fact it's raining?

Reason I ask is my sat dish is undercover since I am on 2nd floor of a condo/apartment.

Thanks

It usually due to rain in the path from the satellite to the dish, although snow or ice on the dish might be a problem.

 

[trellaine]

Ugh! It's a tight squeeze where I am now I think so hmmm we will see once all the rain starts coming down in buckets for 5 months.

 

[Brewer4]

I have had only two brief (a few minutes) dropouts in the past year. Most of the rain in the Seattle area is a constant drizzle (like today) with no effect, but there are exceptions. When I lived in Arizona and had cable, there would often be prolonged outages during thunderstorms (once I saw lightning strike a pole with a cable amp--I'm sure it didn't recover).

Thats exactly the difference in Seattle and here. You guys get more continous rainy drizzly days and we get the massive bucket downpours sometimes 2-3 inches an hour. And thats not hurricane or unusual storm. Either way, only massive downpours will disrupt and cause signal drop.

 

[trellaine]

OMG! If you only experienced last winter. The weather all over the world has been going bonkers. I had so many wind storms last winter and power outages. More than I have ever seen. I do know back east though "thunderstorms" are much more prevalent.

But we get tonnes of rain.

 

[Brewer4]

Thats why I dont like the term global warming. Its more like freeky non-normal weather patterns. Even this year our summer has been like early Fall or late September. Real nice but not summer. And the winter, its not snow anymore. Its tons of freezing rain, ice storms, sleet, cross over crap which I absolutely hate. And this is the second year in a row we've had hail in the middle of summer not during a massive storm. Just hail that piles an inch or so. Its really weird out there.

 

[cebbigh]

I think I'm getting closer to making a change. But it is a big move for me if I do. I've had 2 622's for a long time and would like to get as close an equivalent with D as I could. When I do the online order estimate at the D site including 2 HR20's it comes up with an initial cost of 498.00. I'd like to err on the side of caution before making such a big change.

I think I've read that you can now connect an HDD to the HR20 but it shuts down the internal drive...is there fix going on to remedy that? Can you link multiple HDD's to a single HR20? If so I can probably get along fine with just one receiver and that would make the costs a lot more palatable.

Seeing the new uplink list for D has really peaked my interest today. If I lived in a part of the country where E didn't have such a big built in disadvantage created by E5 I'd feel a lot less pressure. Also the new football season is almost here and E still isn't providing KCPQ-HD.

 

[Bob Nielsen]

I think I'm getting closer to making a change. But it is a big move for me if I do. I've had 2 622's for a long time and would like to get as close an equivalent with D as I could. When I do the online order estimate at the D site including 2 HR20's it comes up with an initial cost of 498.00. I'd like to err on the side of caution before making such a big change.

I think I've read that you can now connect an HDD to the HR20 but it shuts down the internal drive...is there fix going on to remedy that? Can you link multiple HDD's to a single HR20? If so I can probably get along fine with just one receiver and that would make the costs a lot more palatable.

Seeing the new uplink list for D has really peaked my interest today. If I lived in a part of the country where E didn't have such a big built in disadvantage created by E5 I'd feel a lot less pressure. Also the new football season is almost here and E still isn't providing KCPQ-HD.

You can probably get a better price from a CSR than the website indicates (there is a CSR roulette factor, however).

The way the eSata drive is implemented, it replaces the internal drive. Possibly they may change the firmware later, but I haven't heard anything. I understand some people are using multiple external drives in a Raid-0 setup. There has been some talk about MRV (multi-room video), but nothing has shown up yet.

Tribune was slow to negotiate with Directv (and even slower with E*). They are in the process of being sold and the new owners may want to speed things up.

 

[cebbigh]

Curious what kind of signal strength people in the Seattle area are seeing on the new Sat? Went into BestBuy today hoping to see how good the new channels looked and they had it stuck on ESPN HD. I'd have asked them to change the channel but they didn't seem set up to do that because they had their side by side SD HD comparison going.