DISH vs. Comcast?

[KenB123]

Great replies. The DVR and HD-quality are real issues. Enough to consider not being sold on the low Triple-Play price. Right now I am leaning towards just changing to Comcast Internet, getting away from ATT-DSL (as they are raising their rates in my area for DSL). Still like my Absolute-HD package.

 

[thedamaja]

My only current High Speed internet option is Comcast which I have along with basic cable, what a hose job that is. I'm actually considering dumping it going with the much slow 1mb dsl that's available but, a much better value.

I've looked at getting there HD service but, it just doesn't make sense. I'd pay the same for less channels and have to buy a Tivo or Moxi to avoid that thing they pass off as a DVR. I had a door to door guy show up once and I argued with him for a few minutes that the RSN alts they listed are not the same as Big Ten alts in HD.

I read an article the other day about how Comcast is looking into compressing 4 MPEG2 streams into the space they currently cram 3.

 

[TigerpounceTN]

I am using Comcast as my primary provider now and I must say that even on the 3:1 mux channels, quality is no worse than Dish. The On Demand service negates any missing HD movie channels for me and the DVR has the ability to record to my pc over firewire. Quality on the 2:1 muxed channels will destroy anything on Dish. I've tried watching TBS and TNT side by side with Dish and Comcast, since I get both with each provider, and the resolution and encoding differences are glaringly obvious. The Comcast channel looks better. Dish seems to recompress everything to the same washed out color-banding prone standard that looks a little washed out and blurred on a larger screen. Plus, your local channels will look better on cable since they will 99% of the time be exactly the same quality as the OTA feed. I'm not trying to nudge you in any direction, but quality is not an issue and various reports from AVS Forum and others have found that the 3:1 muxed channels are much better than they were when they were first implemented and are now almost indistinguishable from the source.

If you are satisfied with Dish quality, which I was not, there are advantages to staying such as the DVR capacity. On the 722k the storage is twice that of the largest cable box. 500GB versus 250GB. That does not include something like a TiVo. Plus, with MPEG4 compression that Dish uses you can fit many more hours on the hard drive that you couldn't with cable even with the same size of hard drive.

When I went back to cable, my main concerns were quality and channels that I wanted that Dish will likely never get or won't get until a few years from now. Those include MLB Network, ESPNU HD and my RSN in HD full time. You should compare what is available in your area and see if that compares favorably to Dish. That is especially important if you get HD because the lineup can vary greatly by where you live with cable. The quality issue is subjective to each person, but I know full well that a 17 megabit average MPEG2 channel is going to look better than a 3-5 megabit MPEG4 channel. And it does. The 3:1 muxes leave room for about a 12 megabit average per channel. In MPEG2 terms, the quality on those at their worst is at least going to be comparable to Dish HD which uses low bitrates for MPEG4. It was really not a hard decision for me. You should compare them first though if you know anyone with cable and see how it looks to your eyes.

A big disadvantage to cable which had me ready to dump them again and switch to DirecTV is that utility work can disrupt your signal and there is nothing you can do about it. I am now thankful for my ordeal with DirecTV that involved them using my father as the reason I couldn't get their service even though we don't share a name or a residence and he hasn't had their service in five years and I'm over 220 miles away from him. Since the utility work has ended I have been given a credit for the time that my service wasn't the greatest and I'm happy with what I get. That includes internet speeds up to 50 megabits now.


The bottom line is that if you are satisfied with what you have and what you pay then you should keep it. dish's Absolute HD is a great deal in my opinion.

 

[smjbh5]

The only thing good about comcast is their On-Demand. That's the only thing I miss. The moto box sucks (went through 3 of them in 1 year), the remote is buggy, and the interface is pretty bad. But the on demand service was a million times better than dish's.

 

[yaz96]

It's a lie. I have comcast as DSL internet and hooked up there cable to my tv to get the local HD channels and still the quality sucks. I would read the fine print before signing. They told me the same thing that I would get there local tv service for $11.95 and the internet for $42.00 and I got my first bill the local TV was $16.95. still cheaper then my Teleco by $5.00 plus I get MTV VH1 and NICK where with my Absolute I do not get them.

You obviously don't know Comcast. Comcast is CABLE internet, not DSL. Are you sure you have Comcast?

 

[yaz96]

I have been with DISH now for over three years (offered through ATT). Outside of the occasional snowstorm outages, I have been quite pleased with everything. I have the Absolute-HD package. Recently Comcast has made an offer that is quite tempting and would replace all three services I currently have with ATT (phone, DISH, internet).

Replacing the DISH part though is a tough one for me. Is there anybody here that recently switched from Comcast Cable that may offer some advice against such a switch? (NOTE: I actually came to DISH from Comcast because their prices seemed to go up every year. Supposedly this package being offered will lock-in for 2-years).

Is this the $89.99 Alchemy offer? 2nd year goes to $109? For all three, free long distance, and free HD-DVR ? No contract? Not a bad deal. Is your area going to see XFINITY anytime soon? They are doing that here and adding 50 new HD channels in May, at once. They basically switch everything from analog to digital and have room for tons more HD channels. Supposed to have 50mb internet standard by summer for regular price, and up to 100mb available by the end of the year. They just started switching all analog folks over to digital this month.

I would have to say in my area, the HD is just the same as DISH, quality-wise.

 

[KenB123]

Is this the $89.99 Alchemy offer? 2nd year goes to $109? For all three, free long distance, and free HD-DVR ? No contract? Not a bad deal. Is your area going to see XFINITY anytime soon?

I don't know if the package is call Alchemy, but it is the $89.99 Triple-Play. Includes Starz & HBO for first year. I was told I could keep it for a second year at the same price but without Starz & HBO. They said there are 240 HD/Digital channels. Not sure if there is a contract or not. And yes, XFINITY is in the area. It is a tempting offer considering my ATT phone rate just went up $5.00 and ATT-DSL is going up $3.00 next month. Switching is not something I cherish dealing with, but at the price offered, I felt I should at least look into it further.

 

[yaz96]

I don't know if the package is call Alchemy, but it is the $89.99 Triple-Play. Includes Starz & HBO for first year. I was told I could keep it for a second year at the same price but without Starz & HBO. They said there are 240 HD/Digital channels. Not sure if there is a contract or not. And yes, XFINITY is in the area. It is a tempting offer considering my ATT phone rate just went up $5.00 and ATT-DSL is going up $3.00 next month. Switching is not something I cherish dealing with, but at the price offered, I felt I should at least look into it further.

Heck, try it out, there's no contract. Keep DISH until you decide, that way you don't lose Absolute. I'd hate to lose mine.

If you don't like it, just keep the phone and internet.

 

[markd]

I switched from Directv to Comcast a few months ago. In my area Comcast has a good PQ. It's missing a few of HD channels that D* has. Cable PQ varies from city to city, or even block to block in the same city. I'm lucky.

I had to buy a TIVO HD, because there's no way I was going to use Comcast POS DVR. I've done it before and it's just awful. I do wish I could get the On-Demand stuff but it's not that big of a deal to me.

With Dish launching their new sat and adding more HD I'm thinking about going back to them again. But Comcast is still in the process of converting everything from analog to digital here. Plus they haven't started using the switched channel yet. So no telling what they might add in the future.

There's no contract with Comcast so you ought to give it a try before getting rid or Dish and see if you like what you get.

 

[rklimaszewski]

I can take a short weather outage rather than multiple days outage when a tree takes down cable and the cable folks are in no hurry to repair it.

Reminds me when I was living in FL and we lost power for 10 days due to a hurricane. With my generator hooked up, I had lights, fans, water, and satellite w/DVR on my 55" Toshiba (everything but A/C!). My in-laws, who lived a few blocks away, also had a generator--but had cable TV. They had all the comforts we had, just no TV. They ordered up D* after that.

 

[Koilvr]

You obviously don't know Comcast. Comcast is CABLE internet, not DSL. Are you sure you have Comcast?

Yes I do but most people do not. DSL is through ur local landline phone company and High speed internet is what Cable has. Local phone company is direct. Cable high speed internet is on a Node with all ur neighbors. More people in ur neighborhood on the same node will slow ur speed down. I did not have this kind of issue with my local phone company. With comcast my speed always drops around 5pm when my neighbors get home. SO I used DSL cause alot of people think DSL is high speed internet.


With DSL I had a more constant speed since i was not sharing a line. With cable my speed fluctuates with the people i share the neighborhood. Sometimes my cable drops completely and I have to reset my router and cable modem to get back online. But I do love the way way faster speeds u can get with cable then with DSL.

I am 100% sure of what i got and its COMCRAPTIC which caps ur usage to 250gb downloads per month. I also know that I get there basic cable tv package and my quam tuner picks up there HD and its BAD.

 

[KimmiKat]

We recently went from AT&T to Comcrap for the internet, mainly AT&T made some changes and we were having constant outages on the DSL. After having a tech come out, said they moved the distribution box and we were now out of DSL range.

I don't know if the package is call Alchemy, but it is the $89.99 Triple-Play. Includes Starz & HBO for first year. I was told I could keep it for a second year at the same price but without Starz & HBO. They said there are 240 HD/Digital channels. Not sure if there is a contract or not. And yes, XFINITY is in the area. It is a tempting offer considering my ATT phone rate just went up $5.00 and ATT-DSL is going up $3.00 next month. Switching is not something I cherish dealing with, but at the price offered, I felt I should at least look into it further.