Dish or Direct

[GSH]

I'm a new member so please excuse any indiscretion or reinventing of the wheel. I purchased a Philips 37PF7320A HDTV and now need to select Dish or Direct (only options) for a content provider. Any pros or cons of each would be appreciated. For example I've been told Dish has more HD content since they purchased Voom. I do want a receiver that supports HDMI, however. Not too interested in recording capability.

Also, I plan to connect the STB to the TV via HDMI. However, I guess I'll also have to provide analog connections for non HD broadcasts. Should I opt for merely coaxial or S-video or one of the component types of video cables? Will all/any of these work? I relize it partly depends on the ooutputs available from the STB.

Thanks

 

[mdonnelly]

Welcome

The newer Dish receivers use HDMI to send both HD and SD to the television. They also support component for HD and SD, and composite and s-video for SD.

 

[abricko]

In a E* forum, you'll probably get many people pushing E* to you. E* has the most HD programming and they may even carry your HD Locals (depending on where you are),

PQ of E* is much better than D* and they seem to care a bit more about advancements (launching new sats, offering newer tech) and the 622 is a real nice box (not Tivo quality software) once the bugs get ironed out (and they have been over the past 2 ish months it's been out) it should be a solid contender. D* is still working on releasing their non-tivo HD DVR, I'm sure it'll have a ton of bugs and be limited.

I'd suggest E* over D* especially for HD, they seem to be making it a point to brag in ads they are the HD leader and with the launching of new sats, they should hopefully be able to keep up and add more HD content. Voom is pretty cool, there are some cool channels (and some lame channels). The only benefit I hear for D* is if you're a big sports person, they seem to offer better sports packages (non HD though).

 

[angiodan]

Along the same line as abricko was saying, the first thing I tell anybody if they ask me Dish or Direct, do you want Sunday Ticket. If yes, the discussion is over, you have to go with Direct. If you are a Yankee fan, then Direct because of Yes Network. They also just added the channel the Mets will be on.

If you don't care about that, I think Dish is comparable, and at this point, they do offer the most HD.