Reginald Trent
Screenwriter
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2000
- Messages
- 1,313
I believe DirecTV requires a minimum commitment of one year. So, a one month trial is out of the question.
You learn a lesson, tell the installer when you are switching satellite companies that you are keeping both of them.I'm the opposite, I don't like having a dish farm on my roof. That's why I was upset at Dish requiring me to have 2 dish antennas to gain "ALL" of my locals.
Plus, I had wall outlets put in with cables fished through the walls. In the crawl space, a block terminal was installed which enabled grounds on the RG6 coaxial cables and the antenna ground to all be routed to earth/electrical ground. Since I have 4 rooms wired and use the DirecTV PLUS elliptical dish, the install is quite extensive. I surely wouldn't want that duplicated twice, creating confusion which outlets are in use and which are dead.
I have many Dish Net programs taped to VHS and S-VHS. With Dish, the digital artifacts are very visible and can be used for comparison. DirecTVs artifacts are none existent to minor, they must be looked for. So if you had taped your Dish programming, you can do direct comparisons.
Now with PQ, other than artifacts, the DirecTV picture is punchier to me. The whites stand out and color differences and saturations are more defined. Dish's whites were just not bright, colors were dull, and often mushed together. Overall picture was dull, not punchy, with the aggravation of artifacts everywhere.
As far as sound, the decoding of signals seems to be implemented differently. Dish's digital signals(through optical connector) were always near the digital reference of 0db. However the analog signal was always low in overall level output.
With DirecTV, their analog output is low in level also, but unfortunately, their digital signal is low in level also sometimes being near -12db using the music channels.
However, even with Dish's higher optical digital level, their music and sound quality in general sounded metallic and edgy to me. Not a very smooth sound.
DirecTV in comparison is like a night and day difference. Their music channels sound great for an MPEG format. They don't have the metallic edginess that Dish Net's had. I can listen to DirecTV's music channels all day. Dish Nets were so edgy sounding, I could only handle for a couple of hours before needing to turn them off. I guess once you're use to a smooth sound, edgy and metallic sound quality just isn't very pleasing.
Of course this is what I found, but your initial findings seem to mirror what I found.
Welcome to DirecTV and enjoy.
I lost signal with Dish weeklyDon't get me started. That was my biggest complaint about Dish other than the artifacting. Reginald, I've been a member of dbsforums.com for about 3 years now good forum, James, as far as your picture quality is concerned, I sometimes find that cables can answer the question. When the installer used existing wire to run the signal, he didn't check one of the wires and therefore I was getting signals on the odd xponders and not the even. After reconstructing the wire, all xponders registered now we get all channels in the bedroom. Installers, boy you can write a book on them
Could you elaborate on the Dish HD availability? DirecTV has HBO, HDNet, and Showtime. I would be much more interested in getting the networks in HD without and OTA antenna. What's available in HD on Dish?Dish has HBO HD, Showtime HD, Discovery HD, HD PPV, CBS HD and a PPV Demo channel. HBO and Showtime are available when you subscribe to the HBO or Showtime movie packages. Discover HD is around $7.99 a month and requires a special module for the model 6000 receiver. CBS is only available to customers in CBS owned and operated markets. CBS from LA is on the 148 satellite and CBS from NY is on the 61.5 satellite. The free Demo channel is only available on the 61.5 satellite. The core Dish channels come from two satellites positioned at 110 and 119. These are the same locations that DirecTV broadcasts their HD signals from. Dish's HD signals come from satellites over the Pacific ocean (148) and the Atlantic ocean (61.5). To get both core programming and HD programming requires the use of more than one dish. Some people have actually mounted three dishes to get all four of Dish's signals.
-Robert
but the hyperbole in this thread is starting to make me gagMay I call a doctor for you?
Have a good one.