Weather on the 8s

dhageremtp

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Oct 2, 2006
183
3
North Dakota
Remember all the hype about E* weather on the 8s from TWC...well after a visit to the neighbors, D* has the better weather on the 8s. Puts the service we got to shame. Since I came onboard to E* seems like its been full of disappointment intermixed witha few (stress few) reasons to celebrate.
 
Just because someone has complaints about Dish doesn't necessarily mean they want to switch.

One suggestion to dhageremtp, though... If you do leave for DirecTV, do not under any circumstances post here that you're leaving. That is unless you want a bunch of people hassling you for your decision.
 
Nothing in his post said he was going to or wanted to switch. I'm probably one of the most vocal critics of Dish on this board but it doesn't mean I'm going to switch.

They're still better than the competition but their "used-car dealer" mentality causes a lot of needless frustration.
 
Nothing in his post said he was going to or wanted to switch. I'm probably one of the most vocal critics of Dish on this board but it doesn't mean I'm going to switch.

They're still better than the competition but their "used-car dealer" mentality causes a lot of needless frustration.
:up
 
Not sure how much better D* is based on screens posted, but it does have some more info. So how do we convince E* to improve theirs?
 
My problem with E* is that they promised one thing, took two years to enact their plan and in the end it was missing the only component that I remotely cared about (i.e. real weather on the 8's.)

In effect, their weather supplement is entirely useless (not to mention my 508 will not remember my zip code and I have to go through the new city process every time I load the application.)

Weather is not a deal breaker for me (been with Dish since '98) although I will say I am annoyed that promises were made and as usual not kept.
 
My only question is...If Cable can do a decent "Local on the 8's" Why can't the Sat companies. Doesn't the info come from the same place?
 
Would it be possible for sat companies to add the "on the 8s" info to local market spot beams? I mean, to put up local on the 8s for hundreds (if not thousands) of municipalities around the US would definitely be a waste of bandwidth via CONUS, but might not be as rough if slipped on the spot beams.

((a more techie questions, would it be possible for them to download the locals video clip into the dvr via one of the data "channels" similar to how the guide data is downloaded and call on the dvr based receivers to pull that clip when the "Locals on the 8s" is triggered?))

Personally, since I am doing the antenna for HD locals thing anyway, I go to NBC Weather Plus (8.2), next best thing. [and with NBCU buying the weather channel, might be about the same info before too long]
 
Would it be possible for sat companies to add the "on the 8s" info to local market spot beams? I mean, to put up local on the 8s for hundreds (if not thousands) of municipalities around the US would definitely be a waste of bandwidth via CONUS, but might not be as rough if slipped on the spot beams.

This is not a bandwidth issue. For instance, my entire detailed weekly forecast from the NOAA website (minus images and style sheet) is a paltry 4KB (and they would only use 1/2 of that in showing the next couple days. ) So 10, 000 municipalities x 2 KB = approx 20MB. I can move that amount of data in three seconds over my connection...

We are talking about text. Now live radar data would be much more demanding (but entirely within rational bounds with the technologies in hand.)

In the end this is an implementation issue and Dish has decided that development costs outweighed the perceived advantages. They can say, "We offer the weather channel for your locale over satellite" as it stands, so we spend more?
 
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Go over to you tube and type in D* weather on the 8s and see the video posted, its exactly as the neighbor has. Never did I say that I was going to leave. I am happy that I finally got some local stations here, in a place where I cannot get cable, nor can I pick up OTA locals (I've tried). I was attempting to point out that what dish told us we would get and what we got were two different things.....It was no better than the old interactive weather that we had. D* made the same claim as E* in terms of weather on the 8s, and they actually delivered. How many of us were eagerly waiting for the weather on the 8s day, and were sadly disappointed when it came? I for one was, but weather is not the prime reason that I have dish......its location. I cannot get cable, nor OTA locals. Dish carries part of my local lineup....that’s why i am here.
 
I go online to get weather info or to the weather channel and record my local news on the DVR to look at my forecast. It is not a deal breaker for me but would really be nice to have.
 

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