Anyone have Direct TV? (or any other kind of satellite TV)

[vegeta1215]

Anyone have Direct TV? (or any other kind of satellite TV) The reason I ask is because these workers who are helping to build our neighbor's new fence cut our cable line (on accident), and we have to figure out what to do now about TV - whether it's worth it to fix the cable line, or get something like Direct TV.

I've seen all the commercials, and each side says they're better than the other, so I need some more opinions. I figured I'd ask everyone here since since we probably have members that have used both kinds of TV services.

[Jakq]

Direct TV is ok, but I miss my cable. For one reason only. ROADRUNNER! I lost roadrunner when we made the switch. But its alright with direct tv, it has never failed due to weather interferance.

[ZTC]

DirecTV is king :king:
for around $40 a month, one can get over 100 channels, multiple PPV channels to choose from, multi start times (or all day-ticket) for a PPV program, but the only time service goes out is when there are extremely heavy thunderstorms, or the dish is completely covered with multiple layers of ice
(incase nobody has noticed,
< DirecTV user)

[Dart Zaidyer]

I would say go with DirecTV unless you can get decent broadband from your cable. Costs less, and you stand to gain a few channels too.

[Glitch]

I currently have Direct TV. I like the TV programming more but I miss my cable for the internet connection. So basically if you are planning on using broadband stay with cable. Oh, and about the cut line....if it is outside of your house it is the responsibility of the cable company to pay/fix, not yours.

[Square]

In the Uk here we have a thing called freeview, which is like a free version of sky - ish. With 30 something more channels, it is run mainly by the main broadcasting companies. There is a BBC 1 and 2 on national tv, and BBC 3 on freeview. Same with ITV.

[ZTC]

I currently have Direct TV. I like the TV programming more but I miss my cable for the internet connection.
one word: DirecDuo
it allows both Sat tv and sat net connection; pretty fast from what i heard of

[Archibaldo]

I have Starchoice. We pay about 40$ a month and we get like 500 channles.

[goKi]

one word: DirecDuo
it allows both Sat tv and sat net connection; pretty fast from what i heard of

Glitch and I were looking at that, it's slow. less upload speed than a 56k modem, i believe.

[Reznik Akime]

DO NOT GET SATELLITE INTERNET! NO, NO, AND NO! ><

I have it currently.. and it sucks ass! ><

You cant access secure sites for shit unless you use their version of Mozilla. (Prettymuch barebones Mozilla) You hit with FAP after about 169mb of download for 12 hrs, which makes it go to dialup speeds, and its constantly NOT WORKING! Also the upload rumor is true. Its slow as hell.. About 1-2kbps.. Super high latency (Although that cannot be helped unless we can get signals to go faster than the speed of light) I have never been this dissatisfied with any sort of internet.. Im so happy im getting SBC dsl this comming monday.. Direcway is utter shit and I have no idea why DirecTV has any association with it. And no, DirecTV does not run it, but Hughes does. Oh yeah.. And its about $60 a month too.

[vegeta1215]

So basically if you are planning on using broadband stay with cable. Oh, and about the cut line....if it is outside of your house it is the responsibility of the cable company to pay/fix, not yours.

We have Verizon DSL, so that's not really a concern.

Thanks for the info everyone. We had a guy come to fix it today, so I don't think we'll be getting satellite TV, but I still like to hear people's opinions of it in case our family gets it in the future. (or I get it when I move out of the house)

[Daarkseid]

According to the cable commercials here, Satellite TV will rob you of all your wealth, kick your dog, and murder your parents. And they routinely ask, as payment, for a newborn child which I assume they feast on.

Likewise, the same kinds of claims have been made by Satellite TV commercials here, but since I have cable and aren't mourning the loss of a loved one, I would assume Cable is alright.

But seriously, when we had DirecTV(we actually started with Primestar which was an excellent service), we constantly had service outages and one of their service boxes actually stopped working entirely. We had no choice though, we weren't within range of cable service and we were actually located where local TV reception was non-existent, so we had to acquiesce and let them abuse our dog for a few hours before we got our service restored. I know I said seriously but I have a dim view of Satellite whereas cable has been dependable and a source of broadband internet access for the past 4 years we've used it.

[AtmaWeapon]

We have a lot of cable problems in our house, mostly due to ancient wiring and undereducated technicians. Channels under 10 tend to come in really grainy.

We got tired of it once and switched to DirectTV. First, I'd like to say if you have trees in your yard that's a pretty good sign you shouldn't try any form of mini dish. The best location around our house got 70% signal, and I had a feeling that since that was the minimum they are required to provide we were getting screwed. True to my predictions, light rainstorms would knock 1/3 of our channels out, and any time medium to severe thunderstorms hit we'd lose everything.

On top of that, the cable companies I've delt with are notoriously lazy. It is my experience that if you have ever paid for many channels and then downgraded to basic, the cable company will send a technician to do whatever to disable your channels. Said technician must be pretty lazy, because we've paid for basic for quite some time now and we get all our provider carries except for the premium and PPV channels. Same goes in my apartment, though one of my coworkers told me it's due to the fact that they can't filter your channels if you have cable internet. I don't know how true that is, but it works for me.

Satellite was a joke when I experienced it. Before digital cable hit, the scheduling and such of satellite was the only advantage. Now cable has caught up and it's really best to just go with whatever provides best bang for buck.

[Gerudo]

you'll really love DirecTV when the weather gets really nasty. you wanna watch that footballl game, but theres a thunderstorm outside, you're fucked.

we've had that stuff before, and well... i'd rather not go back to it.

[moocow]

According to the cable commercials here, Satellite TV will rob you of all your wealth, kick your dog, and murder your parents. And they routinely ask, as payment, for a newborn child which I assume they feast on.

*hides her baby*

I have digital cable. I just pay $6 a month for the box in my room, so I really don't care. We have directv at work, though. It messes up a lot :p

[ZTC]

We got tired of it once and switched to DirectTV. First, I'd like to say if you have trees in your yard that's a pretty good sign you shouldn't try any form of mini dish. The best location around our house got 70% signal, and I had a feeling that since that was the minimum they are required to provide we were getting screwed. True to my predictions, light rainstorms would knock 1/3 of our channels out, and any time medium to severe thunderstorms hit we'd lose everything.

interesting...
my signal is abou 95% and it takes a gigantiac t-storm to take out reception, and for some odd reason, when there's a good deal of rain coming down, the reception goes out for all of the stations except for the locals; it boggles my mind :shrug: :odd:

[Dumb Blonde Elf]

Here in England, I have Sky. :D