Considering switching from cable to satellite-questions

Hello-


What is the quality of each TV and will they be hooked into any kind of HT reciever? Answering that will determine what kind of receivers you'll need.


To watch 4 independent channels on 4 tvs you need 4 receivers. You'll pay $5/month for each one. I assume you have a large family with teenage kids?


Someone else can tell you how to hook it up...


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After 6 years I am getting ready to upgrade my HT. Research now, purchase in the summer... er, uh, September... grrr...lagging upgrades...

- Rear Channels in...

...now waiting for DPL II

To watch different channels on each TV you will need 5 receivers for 5 TVs. If you only have one HDTV capable set then you only need to buy one dish 6000 + 8VSB.

For the remaining TVs u can buy cheaper receivers. If you search the web you can get good deals on these especially as a new sub. You need

1) 1 dish 500 for regular channels

2) 1 dish 300

3) 1 dish 6000 receiver w/ 8VSB

The first 3 items will come together as a package 6023

4) SW64 switch

You need to make sure that you get two dual LNBs on the dish 500, NOT a Twin LNB bc that can only drive 2 receivers. The 2 dual LNBs can drive upto 4 receivers.


There are some diagrams which show how to connect everything. I recommend going to the Technical Support section of www.dbsforums.com

The members are very knowlegeable. check out this thread http://www.dbsforums.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000254.html


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Eram

Aberk62,


You might want to "reconsider" your decision to move from Cable to DBS strickly from a financial decision. Here is a breakdown of the costs associated with making the move to DBS:


Equipment Costs:


1. DISH 6000 with OTA Module (for HDTV)..........$500

2. 3 additional add-on receivers @ $85 each......$255

3. 1 SW44 and 1 SW21 Multi-Switches..............$100

4. 1 Dish 500 Sat Dish with 2 Dual LNBs..........$100

5. 1 Dish 300 sat Dish with Single LNB (for HDTV)$ 40


TOTAL EQUIPMENT COST: $995 (not including installation)


Monthly DBS Cost:


1. America's Top 100.........................$40

2. Monthly receiver cost @ $5 per receiver...$15


TOTAL MONTHLY DBS COST: $55


This does not include ANY preminum movie channels like HBO/Showtime/Starz, etc. HBO is another $14 per month and does include HBO-HD. Showtime has the other HD movie channel and for both it will be another $25 per month.


These are ALL (except for installation and taxes) of the costs associated with moving from Cable to DISH and will only allow 4 TV's to be independently controlled.


Lee


These



Tony Chick quote:

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Originally posted by kippjones:

Switch from cable to sat., you will never look back!



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I actually disagree with that. I have DirecTV & analog cable on my HDTV set and just cable for the other sets. For the channels that overlap on both such as CNN, HGTV, Food Network etc., if I side-by-side them the analog cable picture is always superior to DirecTV. DTV have compressed these channels to the point of being painful to watch on a good TV.


For me, the only justification for satellite is the HDTV channels.


Tony

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I am not sure I agree with the side by side for NON-Digital Cable, depends on which company where youare both geograhically city and on their lines see
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/Forum20/HTML/004385.html


Could you not use at least one STB with RF remote to drive two TVS and thus save at least a little on STB purchase investment? Or is that why not a total of 5 boxes suggested above?


Bill


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Cranial Nerve II With control by III, IV, and VI

Quote:
Lee,

I was quoted $398 for the 6023 system. My understanding is that this system comes with 2 dishes and 6000 HD receiver? In addition, I'd have to get the 8VSB for $100, quad LNB for $100, and 2800 receiver for $80/per.

Turns out that the guy whose house we're buying, is leaving his DirectTV dish (makes me wonder if I should just subscribe to DirectTV instead).

So you're recommending to save some $$$ and stick with Cablevision?

Aberk62,


No...I am not recommending that you stay with Cablevision (or other wise known as Crapovision).


I just wanted to let you know what the "true" cost of moving to Dish would be. $398 plus $100 for the OTA Module is pretty close to $500.


You can use The DirecTV dish(s) for the 61.5 and the 119. I had this setup with the America's Top 50 which only uses the 119 sat. Then all you need is the SW44.


The reason why I pointed out the "true" costs of DBS is that to go with the Top 100 and HBO and Showtime so you can get ALL of the available HDTV, it will run you $80 a month which is twice what you are paying today. Along with the increase in hardware cost.


Plus understand that there will be times when you WILL lose your DBS service due to severe weather conditions like downpours and heavy snow storms. It doesn't happen often as the weather is "mild" here in Long Island.


What you might think about doing is to have DISH just for HDTV and retain Cablevision for all other services. This would bring your hardware cost to just $498 for the DISH 6000 and increase your monthly programming cost by $25 per month for HBO and Showtime of which would be dedicated to your premier display monitor. This way you can watch HDTV movies without commericials and see The Sopranos, have HD-PPV and OTA HDTV along with HD Concerts and HD Broadway when they are offered (usually on HBO or HD-PPV).


Lee


Lee

Quote:
When DIRECTV's picture quality continued to get worse, I decided to try that test as well. I found analog cable was noticably better on my HDTV display so I dumped DIRECTV after 5 years and went back to cable. It works on all my TVs, too, which is very very nice.


I will keep analog cable but I may subscribe to HBO-HD off the satellite soon.



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Rich Peterson

DBS Consumer Guide Author

Aberk:


Just an aside - you might want to consider DirecTV instead of Dish in your situation. It's definitely a trade-off, since direcTV doesn't have Showtime-HD or CBS-HD. On the other hand, direcTV has sports packages that Dish doesn't, such as NFL Sunday Ticket. Anyway, to set directv up in a similar situation to what you've proposed for Dish, you'll need:


1) 2-LNB elliptical sat dish with the four-way multiswitch. These cost somewhere between $120 - $160, depending on where you buy it.


2) A HD direcTV receiver - this could be about $450 for an RCA DTC-100 and an RGB-component transcoder, or about $800 for one of the sony/panasonic/hughes "new" boxes. They may be a little cheaper now, but I haven't looked in a while.


3) Three additional local-channel capable directv boxes. The hughes models can be had for $50 each, perhaps cheaper.


That's it (with DirecTV you don't need two seperate dishes, and the multi-switch on the back of the dish will handle four seperate tvs).


As far as programming, directv is a little cheaper than dish. "Total Choice" (basically every "variety" channel) is $32 per month. Local channels over satellite is $5.99 (not sure what dish charges for this), and each extra receiver is $5 per month. If you wish, directv will sell you HBO only (includes HBO-HD) for $12.99 per month.


I realize that this makes things more confusing, but it's worth considering your options. Movie people that aren't into sports are probably better served by Dish (assumming they want Showtime), while sports fans are probably better served by DirecTV (assuming you want to subscribe to one or more of the sports packages).


As far as the dish that the homeowner is leaving - you might want to see if it's an elliptical dish. If so, your decision might be made for you. If not, then you'll have to replace it to get HBO-HD.


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ABC = Another Boring Channel. Watch CBS on Monday Nights!

Quote:
Reasons why you won't look back to cable:


1) Here in Chicago the Att narrowband picture quality is inferior to Direct tv or Dish belive it or not.

2) You do not have to pay taxes on your sat bill.

3) You do not have to pay local fees and franchise fees.

4) You own your equipment and are able to choose the level of equipment features you want.

5) Availability of hd programming.

6) More bang for the buck $21.99 for package vs cables $24+.

7) Reliability...my cable would go out every time it rained and then some for hours at a time. My sat service may go out to rain fade once or twice a year so far for 3 years. If it does go out, it usually comes back on in a few minutes..15 at the most.

8) 10 times the ppv available.

9) Customer service is better.

10) No equipment rental charges.

11) Initial equipment investment will pay itself off over time.


Do I need to list more?

It all comes down to personal preferance. It depends what you will settle for.



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Kipp


IS THAT A REMOTE CONTROL IN YOUR POCKET OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE HDTV?

Oops - make that $12.00 per month for HBO-HD from DirecTV (just looked at my satellite bill - Doh!) One other difference between Dish and DirecTV is the variety of equipment available.


For HD boxes, you have 4 to choose from (RCA, Sony, Panasonic, and Hughes (Toshiba and Mitsubishi are Hughes clones).


For "regular" satellite boxes, you have RCA, Sony and Hughes to choose from - with multiple models in each brand.


DirecTV also offers "specialized" satellite receivers with PVR capabilities - TIVO and UltimateTV (microsoft). Dish does have an integrated PVR - I believe it's called DishPlayer, but there'd only one model, at least the last time I looked.




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ABC = Another Boring Channel. Watch CBS on Monday Nights!