I know there have probably been threads like this before, but I looked 8, or 9 pages back and couldn't find one, so please excuse. I currently have Time Warner cable, and am thinking about going to satellite but have a few questions for anyone that has, or has had satellite. How often does the picture go out on it? The cable companies try to make you think that any hard rain will make you lose your picture. Is this true? How many Rocket games have you been screwed out of this season? How's the picture quality in general? Can you get NBAtv? Right now I pay 3$ a month for it, which I don't mind, but I don't want to have to buy NBA League Pass just to get it. For people in Houston, is there any difference between Direct tv, Dish Network, etc..., etc...? Are they the same? Does one offer a better(cheaper) deal? Better service? Who's the best? For people that have had both, do you think sat. has as many channels in their lineup as cable? Do ya'll satellite users have any problems in general very often? I knew a girl that had problems with reception with her satellite for a couple of months before they finally figured the problem. Or if anyone knows any pros/cons in general for satellite(compared to cable), I would appreciate hearing them. I want to be sure I'll be satisfied before I sign a 1, or 2 year contract up front. THANKS
1) Yes, contrary to what the sat companies want you to believe....bad weather does knock out your service. It used to happen all the time to me...even after double checking the alignment. 2) as far as usable channels(ones worth watching) they are about the same. 3) cost: I currently pay the same amount for cable+highspeed internet as I did for the second to the best package on Direct TV...the only difference is that I dont have Showtime anymore. 4) you can get LP and all those sports channels no matter which you go with. TW cable has them, and DirectTV has them.. Big thing I do like...no contract for cable. No little converter cards that have to be changed out from time to time.. Bad thing about cable...you have to rent the cable convertor instead of buying the equipment like you can with Sat. also, with cable you can hook up any amount of TVs to the basic cable...you do have to have a convertor to get all the extended channles...but with sat, youcan only hookup a limited number of tvs to the same dish...and of course you haev to have the sat box to recieve the signal period. I have tried both...and am pleased with my cable...it has given me zero problems...with either the tv signal or the highspeed internet....(actually, my internet service was interrupted for about 8 hours...but that was a earthlink problem)
I've had DirecTV in Austin for several years and have been relatively satisfied. Very good picture quality and strong signal feeds. Normal overcast or rainy days have little or no effect on picture quality. I get interference during heavy thunderstorms passing between me and the southern sky. Usually temporary but irritating nonetheless. Oddly enough, occasionally the microwave will cause some breakup. I keep lifeline cable for $10 a month for emergencies.
just to be clear on my reply...I did mean that it takes a downpour of rain...or even some light rain sometimes to knock out the signal.. overcast skies normally didnt mess with it...and sometimes after the initial start of the rainstorm it would clearup even if it continued to rain lightly.
R2K covered most of the issues, but rain has only interrupted svc here in austin a few times over the last several years. Our basic cable svc that we have has gone out almost as many times. If you have a large screen TV, you may notice the superior picture quality of satellite. Just depends...when you get digital cable they can basically decide how much bandwidth they want on the channels. We didn't notice much degredation on network channels, but on other we did. In fact, analog cable seemed better than didgital on many. If you're not needing the better quality and don't have a crappy cable company, I don't know if satellite would be better than cable.
