POLL: After VOOM, who will be your provider?

[James Long]

Is cable winning because they have more HD in some areas or because people dislike E* and D*?

JL

 

[Shawn95GT]

Is cable winning because they have more HD in some areas or because people dislike E* and D*?

JL

For me it was no MPG4 on E* / D* and you get hosed unless you are a new sub with them. I'll wait until they get MPG4 in place / more HD content to jump.

Cable for me gives about the same HD offerings as E* / D* with no contract & a leased DVR. I called late last night ot order, picked up the DVR as lunch today and was watching it tonight.

 

[Tvlman]

My local cable (TWC) has 14 HD channels compared to only 11 on DirecTV. And they have TNT-Hd which means NBA playoffs.

 

[FunkyBoss]

I will take some satellite "time off" until D* or E* gets their HD act together! I am already paying almost $60 to my local cable company (Mediacomm) for internet and the regular 65 channel basic cable analog package. I'll save the $100 I was paying to Voom until an HD-DVR comes out that won't be obsolete in 6 months or whatever.

Luckily, my TV has a built-in digital tuner so we'll continue to enjoy OTA in HD.

 

[DucTape]

One word of warning about D*, they will be switching to MPEG4 this summer and equipment you buy now will become obsolete (at least for new channels in the short term).

And your source for the summer MPEG4 conversion timeline?

 

[pmalve]

I went with cable because right now because no commitment and to see how things shake up in Satellite business. If mpeg4 was now I would have went with E as we watch TNT a lot more than UHD. Charter here added TNT, Starz and Cinemax HD this week. No HDnets or INHD though. With summer comng tv viewing is less so I will reevaluate in the fall. Also saved a good deal of money. Waiting for installer now. Will be able to compare pq with Voom as both will be hooked up. Am staying with ota for locals as Charter only has NBC and Fox here. Hope Voom box keeps working for ota or I will have to go buy one on EBay.

 

[jgantert]

Is cable winning because they have more HD in some areas or because people dislike E* and D*?

For me it was because of no commitment and no up front fees.

Personally, I'ld prefer D*, but I'm not going to pay $300 (or just $100) for a HD STB that will be obsolete in a few months!

-John

 

[jgantert]

No one is offering me any kind of deal.

If there's one thing I've learned from working at Northrop Grumman...

Make sure to lube up before bending over!

I think it applies in your situation as well!

-John

 

[mikenewy]

I did comcast for satellite customers a special offer of $45 per month gets me two hd converters a third sd one for a year. Thanks to this forum I save a bunch of money.

 

[mdanderson]

Going with Comcast

All right! I finally got a deal that is worth something. I was about ready to give up on everyone such as Dish, DirectTV and Comcast when I decided to call Comast one last time. I saw some previous posts about the "dish win back" offer or whatever it is called that is being offered by Comcast so I asked them about it and the CSR was very helpful and knowledgeable. He was the first one I have talked to at Comcast that has even mentioned this program.

Well this is what I am getting: Digital Plus package with free installation, 1 HD digital bothey are out of DVRs right now), and this will only cost me $24.99 a month for 12 months. It does go to the regular price($59.45 a month) after the 12 months but there is no committment involved during the first year or after. They are scheduled to install May 1st. Just thought I would let anyone know that might be interested.

 

[scottie_h]

For me it was because of no commitment and no up front fees.

Personally, I'ld prefer D*, but I'm not going to pay $300 (or just $100) for a HD STB that will be obsolete in a few months!

That was definitely the way I was leaning until D* announced the $200 rebate.

A few things have swayed me back towards D*, although the E* HD-DVR is still VERY tempting...
1. All the talk of buggy E* software. I work in technical support, so I could probably live with the frustration from time to time. But if there are any problems with scheduled programs that someone else in the house scheduled (like The OC), it would be MY fault... I'm playing it safe - for my sake.
2. We've had a stand-alone Tivo for well over a year, so no learning curve (more important for the WAF and 5 year old than for me) learning a new DVR
3. I've always wanted Sunday Ticket! (at least that offers a lot of HD...)

I haven't placed the official order yet, but $150 for 4 rooms installed (with 1 HD receiver and 1 Tivo) after $250 in rebates has swayed me back toward D* (but not by much). Of course, one week ago, I was 90% sure I was going with E*, so I could change my mind again...

We can also drop our $12.95 Tivo and $30 basic cable (just for Fox Sports for local sports teams) as soon as we switch, so will still be saving money each month vs what we've been paying.

(I should also point out, HD is not available from cable in our area)

 

[Maple Red]

Thanks for your post, mrhph. I will keep all that in mind if I really get desperate for TV. I just can't believe how bad the Comcast channel offerings are for our area, especially for the price compared to VaVaVoom. Big rip off! Probably why I came to Voom from analog basic cable. But there is no going back to analog basic cable now!

We will save the $95/mo, rent more SD DVDs, catch more movies out, and lay low until HD is more available, or until the Voom21 comes to E* or D*.

Non-Voom TV isn't worth the money.

I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[jgantert]

1. All the talk of buggy E* software.

I also thought this after hearing so many bad reports here. But after having comcast for a week, I'm convienced the E* stuff can't possibly be any worse than the Comcast stuff. Ugh...

-John

 

[nicholassjenkins]

Ditto

I'm going with Time Warner as I have 3 HDTV's and can lease 3 HD-DVR's and not have to buy equipment. I also get a $20 off my bill for a year with no contract. If VOOM comes back in another form I not tied to cable.

I left Time Warner 4+ years ago, due to no forward-looking HD. To show you how behind the times they are...in my area, they just got HBOHD. No SHOHD, CINHD, UHD, etc.,etc.

But, considering the poor state of E* and D* HD options, seemed better to me to benefit from the ~$23/mo savings for 12 months (or less) and see what shakes out. And to your point, the package I took comes with a HDDVR for no extra charge. So, limited content, but good technology at a better price (for 12 months...). I hope the distributed DVR model VOOM had in mind delivers via another provider, or that the head-ends work equivalently well, and that at least one of them support MPEG4 by the end of my exile.

 

[Plasmata]

And your source for the summer MPEG4 conversion timeline?

No specific announcement from D* but plenty of speculation in the HDTV Programming forum on AVS. Its all based on the new mpeg4 capable sats going up over the next few months. Its rumored to be a 2 or 3 year transition. So I guess I should've said that D* HD receivers are likely to become obsolete in 2 to 3 years and they may not be able to receive new HD channels as early as this summer. So if you're about to purchase D* HD equipment (especially the DVR) its something to consider. For this reason I went with cable until this plays out.

 

[snaggerbob]

cable won

I'm switching to charter cable. I thought I was though with it....but I was wrong. The advantages are the availability of local programming....uh, that's about it for the advantages. They did give me a good deal....up to 20 months of everything they have for $48 per month. I hope to keep my voom box for ota...we'll see. Sure wish voom could have done a better job of selling their product! People do not know what they could of had. Come on mpg4, I'm sure I will be ready to switch back after watching a crappy cable picture.

 

[GreatMac]

Without the Voom 21 programming, I am not going back to E* (was with them for over 7 years, blah). The others are not even an option: D*'s PQ IMHO is worse than E*, and my cable is the worst of them all.

So I just got an AverMedia HD Tuner card for my MCE 2005 to be able to get all the OTA HD channels (not that I really watch them, but just in case.

Other than that, will stick with Netflix and will try Greencine.com in addition: then I'll have 6 DVDs to rotate at any one time for $40 a month. At least it will be stuff I watch.

 

[smata67]

Cox Cable in Fairfax, for the PQ

I'm feeling a tad better about the whole situation after picking up an 8300HD receiver and hooking up Cox cable in Fairfax, VA this past saturday. I had never had digital cable before, I switched to Voom some 15 months ago from DishNetwork. At that time I believed the Dish SD channels to be slightly better than Voom's, but still not that great on a 60" Grand Wega. The PQ on Cox cable is definitely superior on all the SD digital channels to varying degrees and comparable on the few HDs. There wasn't even a need to cross check, the difference is significant.

A few things to note: 1. The "lower" channels categorized as Basic and Expanded are still coming in as analog. I was surprised about this, I was expecting all channels to be digital. Some come in about same as/better than satellite SD, some not. I am getting a tech in to see if they can be improved. Seems like the crappy shopping channels have the best analog picture. 2. The "Digital Tiers," as I mentioned, have better picture than the VOOM and Dish SD, no doubt about it. There is great variability in PQ as you scan through the channels from analog to HD. Even within the cable SD digital, some come in better than others, but all better than satellite. 3. Cox is running a deal on the premiums ($5/mo for 3 mos) so I got HBO, the picture quality on the HBO SD is even better than their SD digital, somewhere in between the SD digitial and the HD in quality. 4. The local channels are coming in as HD, but there was quite a bit of breakup going on, it seems to be impacted by the weather. 5. No OTA capability on any of the Cox receivers. The SD box has a DVI connection, the 8300HD box I got does not, it has component (I am using) and HDMI (not available on my WE610).

Conclusion: On a larger screen (mine is 60"), cable may very well give you a nicer picture on SD than any of the sat services, I am glad I didn't go through the trouble of re-hooking Dish. Your results may be different on a smaller screen. It is going to take a whole mess of commercial free HD on the satellite networks to pry me from cable. Who would have thought?

 

[webtent]

E*

 

[wase4711]

According to the "poll", it looks like most folks are jumping to cable...
I know the PQ varies by location, but I am pretty satisfied with the signal from comcast outside of Chicago..
Just one question; I have the Moto 6412, and the PQ is fine on the HD channels and the stuff that is "digital", but the lower, analog channels look pretty lousy. I have read in some cases, that if you split the cable signal, and run a line DIRECTLY into your tv for the lower analog channels, bypassing the HDDVR, you get a much better PQ on those analog channels.
Doesn't putting a "splitter" on make the PQ worse on the stuff coming out of the HDDVR, or is the loss not noticable?

There is some stuff on the lower channels that we watch, (cartoon Network, E channel, comedy Channel, etc) and the PQ is pretty awful on those channels..