I subscribe to both Dish Network and FIOS TV services in my home (Dish has stubbornly refused to carry the YES Network even as a premium service!) and I am discovering more and more that the supposed "superiority" in HD content from Dish has a bit of a dark side to it. There are a whole bunch of channels in HD on FIOS that are only offered by Dish in SD. Things like our NY local Channel 9 (which carries Yankee games when not on YES) and, surprisingly, PBS which has some great content. Also some of the Premium packages (like Showtime) have more HD content on FIOS than on Dish. I could go on and on as I'm discovering more such disparities almost weekly. Dish people at CEDIA claimed that they have plenty of bandwidth available so I can only conclude that this is a monetary consideration and it takes the wind out of the sails regarding Dish's King of the HD Hill claims. The bottom line and not accommodating the customer seems to guide their policies while they claim otherwise.
Another factor in my desire to move everything over to FIOS is the realization that my Dish signal is beginning to weaken because of trees (not mine and not owned by cooperative neighbors) starting to block the path to the satellites. When that signal goes, so does any chance of staying with Dish. Both services offer an excellent picture and generally excellent sound (although some Dish stations can produce funky sound at times which they blame on the source that they are dealing with) so that's neither a deal maker or a deal breaker for me. One area where Dish has a CLEAR ADVANTAGE over FIOS is in the quality and usability of their DVRs. The Dish 722 is so superior to my FIOS Motorola HD DVR that it's laughable. The only solution at this point would have been to get a Tivo for FIOS and all the expense that entails. Anyone who has seen the Dish 722 and the FIOS Motorola knows what I'm talking about.
The Win7 approach (see the Kevin Collins Video casts now up in this section) levels the playing field. Not only do FIOS and DISH under Win7 Media Center share a common interface which in many ways is superior to the Dish 722 and Tivo menus but the whole house control and access to content and recordings makes it easy to switch ALL my sources over to FIOS. And I can, if I wish, even add OTA and selected cable content to the mix by just adding another cable card or other content capture device.
Finally, even all your Media on your Macs can be part of the network. As long as you use windows media center media extenders (there's a use for your XBox 360!) to interface with your televisions, the Win7 menu system doesn't care what IP device the content comes from. So this isn't a PC vs. Mac situation. It's a means of bringing everything together in one (or more) locations to be accessed and displayed from a uniform menu and scheduling system.
