I'm a recent convert (less than 1 week) to D* from Comcast. About 99% of the reason is NFL:ST in HD. I haven't gotten to try that yet, but compared to Comcast and locals OTA, the D* HD channels are far worse in quality.
Here in Little Rock, we had: INHD1/2, TNTHD, DISC-HD, STARZ-HD, SHOW-HD, HBO-HD, CINEMAX-HD and ESPN-HD.
I can say, without a doubt that the D* HDTV package channels we have are being starved for bandwidth and look sub-par compared to Comcast (Comcrap?). To read the posts in this forum and see otherwise reasonable people stand-up and defend this HD Picture Quality is quite saddening. Everyone must understand that there's way more to HD than just high resolution.
And the SD content quality... WOW. All I needed to see was the NFL Network on D* compared to Comcast. Many times on Comcast I was floored by how good NFL Network looked compared to the HD channels. Simply the best SD channel I had ever seen, PERIOD. Compare that to the NFL channel on D* and you literally want to cry. It looks like something you'd download off of Kazaa.
I'm not Comcast fanboi. In fact, I hated seeing my bill every month. But let's call a spade a spade here. D* PQ is medicore for most all of their channels (i'm withholding judgment on the NFL:ST stuff yet.)
But its not their fault and I don't blame them. They flew too close to the sun on wings of LIL channels. They don't have enough Satellite space to deliver their great channel selection AND make it look good. Bottom line.
After the NFL season, I'll probably end up suspending my account for 6 months and going with OTA until pre-season starts. Maybe then the birds will be launched and they'll stop choking their bitrates across the board.
Here in Little Rock, we had: INHD1/2, TNTHD, DISC-HD, STARZ-HD, SHOW-HD, HBO-HD, CINEMAX-HD and ESPN-HD.
I can say, without a doubt that the D* HDTV package channels we have are being starved for bandwidth and look sub-par compared to Comcast (Comcrap?). To read the posts in this forum and see otherwise reasonable people stand-up and defend this HD Picture Quality is quite saddening. Everyone must understand that there's way more to HD than just high resolution.
And the SD content quality... WOW. All I needed to see was the NFL Network on D* compared to Comcast. Many times on Comcast I was floored by how good NFL Network looked compared to the HD channels. Simply the best SD channel I had ever seen, PERIOD. Compare that to the NFL channel on D* and you literally want to cry. It looks like something you'd download off of Kazaa.
I'm not Comcast fanboi. In fact, I hated seeing my bill every month. But let's call a spade a spade here. D* PQ is medicore for most all of their channels (i'm withholding judgment on the NFL:ST stuff yet.)
But its not their fault and I don't blame them. They flew too close to the sun on wings of LIL channels. They don't have enough Satellite space to deliver their great channel selection AND make it look good. Bottom line.
After the NFL season, I'll probably end up suspending my account for 6 months and going with OTA until pre-season starts. Maybe then the birds will be launched and they'll stop choking their bitrates across the board.