DTV Satellite Question

[honycutt]

I'm thinking about coming back to Directv from Comcast. I left a couple years ago because of rain fade and outages. Customer Service wasn't very helpful from the onset and I ended up doing my own dish installation because the tech they sent out didn't even have a meter or ladder to do the job. He insisted that the only place for the dish was on the front of my house. That's when it came out that he didn't bring a ladder and didn't want to get up on my roof! Of course the subsequent tech problems I had could have been due to my own installation

I'd like to do it RIGHT this time. I live in North Fla where tall trees abound and frequent heavy rains. I'd like to know what's the best equipment to get for max signal strength and to eliminate rain fade. I've been looking at 30" dishes. Would that be the way to go? Definitely going with HD and it would be a three room installation.

Would appreciate any advice/suggestions to make it work this time!

Thanks

 

[boba]

Stay with Comcast, you weren't happy before and you won't be now. The only dish you can use is the Slimline and you will have rain fade in FL thunderstorms. CSRs aren't any better now. Mastec is still going to be the HSP used so just stay where you are.

 

[jtn]

Eventually Comcast and other carriers will have the same quantity of HD programming. Comcast has contracted with a California company that will allow them to add 100's of HD channels. This company (forget the name) has also had contracts with DirecTV, and helped them too. Comcast is capable of MPEG4 also, it's not restricted to just satellite. Comcast is also updating as an option for customers who have the HD Motorola DVR's and and even the SD boxes to have firmware updates with the Tivo GUI. So if you like Tivo, and cannot afford to buy the $800 retail Tivo that works with cable, then you can get it soon without having to shell out that money. Keep in mind the Tivo retail boxes S3 cannot get video on demand or PPV. So it may be wise to just use the Motorola boxes and update with Tivo firmware provided to you by Comcast.

 

[randyk47]

The only other suggestion I could offer would be to see if you could find a private installer and have him give you an opinion on placement of a dish and quality of signal. I had a D* installer waste a day's worth of my vacation time deciding that he couldn't install a Slimline for me. On my own I found a private installer. He did a top-notch job and I have extremely good signal across the board. We're not faced with the rain problems.....though you wouldn't have known that this past July.....so rain fade is not an issue here. Trees, steep roofs, high placement requirements, difficult cabling challenges, etc., are issues and private installers, at least a good one, can find ways to make things work. I paid out of my own pocket and it wasn't cheap but was eventually able to leverage that with D* for some new equipment. Barring that kind of committment on your part I'd say stay with cable.

 

[IcEWoLF]

Honestly, to me DTV is better than any cable companies(charter in this case in my area)
DTV gives you NFL Sunday Tickets, more FSN channels than any other providers, yes that means more college games weekly, I am able to watch pretty much all college games with the 5$ sports package, also NBA games! DTV has better DVR's well the space its much bigger than whatever comcast will offer, I mean I had the latest DVR from Charter which is the DCH6416 from Comcast, and after recording 1 show in HD it took 9% of my storage.
We had some heavy rains here in Reno,Nevada and been cloudy most part for the last month or so, and I haven't experienced any rain-fade yet.
Now it all comes down if you *care about sports* then DTV its the better option, and honestly it would take comcast years to add the amount of HD channels DTV is offering right now. Cable companies are always slow adding channels. And there will never be a day were Cable would ever catch up with Satellite TV in PQ(in my area at least) unless you get FiOS.
Cable its much cheaper for some people if they bundle.
I have Cable Internet and Cable Telephone, and I will never go back to Cable TV ever again unless its FiOS.
I admit one thing that I miss the most is VoD, cable VoD its the best thing they ever came up with and I liked the cable guide a lot, but thats a small price for me to pay compared what I get with DirecTV.
Here is my advice to you, don't ask others for opinions for your area, If you have a neightbor go to his house and ask him about his DTV and ask him if he is happy with it and ask him if you could check out the channels* If you like it go ahead, and also you might want to ask him if PQ gets worse in rain.

 

[boba]

IcEWOLF you seem to have missread Honycutt's original post. He already left D* because of rain fade and wanted to use a larger dish to eliminate rain fade. Because he wants HD he needs a Slimline dish there is no larger dish capable of receiving the HD channels. Because FL. is surrounded by water they are subject to frequent heavy afternoon showers which is one of the original reasons for leaving and going to cable.

 

[iwc5893]

IcEWOLF you seem to have missread Honycutt's original post. He already left D* because of rain fade and wanted to use a larger dish to eliminate rain fade. Because he wants HD he needs a Slimline dish there is no larger dish capable of receiving the HD channels. Because FL. is surrounded by water they are subject to frequent heavy afternoon showers which is one of the original reasons for leaving and going to cable.

Don't cableco's also use sat signals to get their programming, even though it goes to a central distribution point before being sent over the cable lines? Wouldn't this make them susceptible to rain fade also?

Not to mention, with cable you can lose your programming for several days if some drunk decides to run into the pole/pedestal with his vehicle.

 

[boba]

Don't cableco's also use sat signals to get their programming, even though it goes to a central distribution point before being sent over the cable lines? Wouldn't this make them susceptible to rain fade also?

Not to mention, with cable you can lose your programming for several days if some drunk decides to run into the pole/pedestal with his vehicle.

How many cable head ends or network affiliates have you seen with small dishes? Most have large dishes you wouldn't ever consider for your back yards.

Yes Cable does have signal losses also, never said they didn't.

 

[Slick Vic]

if you do go with d* ask for a lead tech if its a problem with installation and ask questions before he installs it. your not obligated to have the system just because you ordered it. or if you don't feel comfortable ask for a supervisor to come out there to look at your house, the majority of supervisors in the ne fl office have nothing else better to do anyways.

 

[Joe Diamond]

Go to Dishpointer.com..............locate your house from the satellite photos they show............plan to cut trees........confirm with a site survey as SlickVic mentioned. DTV has better reliability when installed correctly that cable in many areas. You gotta wonder why the CATV guys will not repair their systems?

Like Tinkerbell...........every time a dish goes up another cable guy looses his beer money. The trees will grow back.

Joe