Speaking of Primestar?

[iafirebuff]

Why did Primestar go under? I thought it was a neat idea...even though Mediacom was involved

 

[Mr Tony]

They didn't go under. DirecTV bought them out.

I was one of their customers but when Direct bought them out, we became Pegasus (pegasuck) customer. Pegasus was in rural areas and basically was a reseller of Direct.

Bill came from Pegasus
Pricing was higher
couldnt go through Direct directly...had to use them
Locals were availble through Direct but Pegasus didnt have them

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primestar

 

[drhydro]

I had pegasus for my DTV to, they really sucked. Primestar was pretty big up here, all of the 4 houses here on the hill had primestar.

 

[iafirebuff]

Thanks! I remember shortly after I switched from Directv to Dish that Primestar was popping up.

 

[swampman]

I never had Primestar, but I think they did have good equipment. Seemed like quality made dishes(love the elevation fine tuning) and also had a great remote control. Different buttons accessed certain groups of channels like news, movies, variety, cinema, sports, spanish, etc. Sort of a "favorites list" right there on the remote! Very nice.

 

[Mr Tony]

That was the coolest thing on Primestar is everything was in groups

Press one button and you got to the 1st channel of sports
Different button was music

 

[cablewithaview]

The only bad part was they used DC I which hurt them on expanding there offerings. I think the FCC wanted them to upgrade to DC II as well since DC I was an outdated method of delivery.

 

[MrMars]

Oh the memories, I loved Primestar, the picture quality was much better then DirecTV/Dish (even at the time), Never mind now lol.

Like Ice I also loved those group buttons

I still have a Primestar receiver in my garage!

 

[Mr Tony]

The only drawback of Primestar is most installs needed 2 wires because of the H & V

but on the plus side, you could add a second box with just a couple of splitters

 

[techpuppy]

Primestar also only had a scrolling program guide (kind of like the TV Guide Channel). It wasn't interactive. I remember that Consumer Reports hated that disadvantage. Plus Primestar required that huge dish compared to the 18" for Directv or Dishnetwork.

 

[ddeloach1228]

Also, once DirecTv bought them out the two Primestar lines were there so DVRs were no big deal to install.

 

[avediswolf]

That was the coolest thing on Primestar is everything was in groups

Press one button and you got to the 1st channel of sports
Different button was music

That was awesome! Wish todays service had that.
Brings back memories...

 

[Stargazer]

Themes and Favorites is as close as you can get. Wasn't Primestar planning on getting an EPG? I had them back in 1995 for three months but my service was $36 back then and that was only for 20 some channels. They charged me extra for The Weather Channel and Sci-Fi. When Dish Network advertised 40 channels for $19.99 on tv at the end of 1996 and had a phone number that was really easy to remember (1800333Dish) I gave them a call and got my system through a retailer. If they would have done more advertisting back then on tv then they could have risen their customer base a bit more even in my opinion. I got their TOP 60 Package for $26.99 (I think that is how much it was) for a year prepaying for it and getting the $199 system which had a 3000 receiver. Tuned it in myself and finally got the signal in.

Lots of people have Primestar out here but lots of people got rid of it because of how high their bills got and for PPV's that they did not order. I had some issues with them myself although for its time it was a great service to have if you could not get cable or if your cable sucked (only 12 or 13 channels then in my area).