cable vs satellite TV
 

Who here has cable, and who has satellite? We have comcast, but it's so damn expensive. Also, the freaking cable box is always pixelating (sp), and the sound goes out. It's really annoying. For the price, it really should work better. I've already switched the box out once, and have an appointment to switch it out again. Does satellite have these problems?

We had Dish Network for 4 years I think, and DirecTV for 6.

My advice is to shop for the programming you want and see how the pricing looks. We have a DirecTV Tivo box, and it works great. The picture will go out in a big storm, but it's usually fine in your average rain or snow. But, our cable went out much more often when we had it. I'd say with the satellite we have maybe 2-3 weather related outages in a typical year.

We have satellite here at the moment and had cable before that. There's not much difference from what I can tell with our two. We get a bit of pixelation every now and then, but nothing I worry too much about.

Comcast sucks. :mad:

Got so fed up with cable we dropped it and picked up NetFlix. Final straw was when I realized that we were only genuinely watching (as in "intently, not just for background noise", etc) four shows and three of them only had new episodes for several weeks out of the year. The rest of the time the TV was being turned on and what was being aired was just... crap.

Living without TV is a mixed blessing. Blah.

I would probably drop cable and just get broadcast TV, but I wouldn't get any TV because of the mountains in my area. I would need to get a BIG outdoor antenna to get any channels. The only thing I like about cable is that I don't have a contract, which is good because I am renting right now.

Do you have FIOS as an option there? I didn't get their tv package when I got the phone and internet, but it was an option and priced very competitively with cable. Supposed to be good quality too.

I have Comcast, mostly for the high speed internet. 4 boxes and more TV's. We have not had that much problem with it. Any problems that we have had are usually fixed within a few days. I can't complain that much.

We have satellite, now. If we kill all the power than it takes it a minute or so to find its satellites again, and it goes out in bad storms - which is exactly when I'd love to know what's happening out there. I bought a weather radio so my biggest issue is solved. Get the best price for the programming provider you don't want, then use it to twist the tail of the other to get it beat. Might work!

Yes, it does. I HATE comcast.

Thanks for the input. I really wish someone would come out with a plan where you only buy the channels you want. We watch about, maybe, 10 or 12 channels, but we are paying for all of them. I asked if I could just buy HBO, but they said no. I hate paying for all those channels we never use.

FIOS TV is simply outstanding... ly expensive. No I kid, it is, but the high-def content is truly high-def (not compressed into a crappy signal, as the cable and dish people do).

Comcast.

Strangely, I do not hate them. I despise the amount of money that I pay them, but I do not hate them.

My signal quality is good, no pixelations, and more importantly, no outages.

We have cable, a smaller company called Sudden Link which sure is a stupid name for a company in the communications business. That being said they are pretty good. We have one of their sub region offices right in our neighborhood and if you call in with a problem they usually get right out and check try to fix it. We get Cable TV and HS internet through them.

The thing we hate as most consumers do is having to pay for hundreds of cable stations you have no interest in watching. And half the time when I do some channel surfing I can't find a damn thing that's worth watching. Mostly we watch DVDs when it comes to movies as we have a pretty big collection.

Have you seen the Comcast HD picture to compare it? We're holding on to our SD DirecTV Tivo box for the moment. We're waiting until we see what Fios has to offer, not to mention the reported appearance of an HD-capable Tivo on DirecTV, before we commit to anything.

I once saw a price breakdown that indicated that if everyone could shop for just the channels they wanted, a huge number of the specialized channels would have to cost so much that you'd be paying the same amount for your 10-12 channels anyway.