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DTV vs. Dish HD hardware

284 Views 2 Replies 3 Participants Last post by bfdtv, Oct 24, 2004

swartzfeger

Discussion Starter · Oct 24, 2004

Hi all,

Getting ready to move into our new home where cable service is unavailable, leaving satellite as the only option.

VOOM seems flakey, so the real option is down to either DirecTV or Dish. Overall, who has the better HD hardware? Do either offer a HD box with a Firewire port? (my current Cox HD box has a firewire port where I record HD programming via my Mac [see the HDTV recorders forum])

Also, does one service have a better overall feed? My one fear is that I keep reading that satellite compresses HD broadcasts more than cable, and I worry that I will see even more artifacting than I'm seeing now. Also, any info on HD DVR comparisons woudl be appreciated (damn, I can't beleive I'm crazy enough to even *consider* dropping $899+ on a glorified VCR!)

Thanks for any info you may have!

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Chris Gerhard

· #2 · Oct 24, 2004

DirecTV has the better equipment by a long shot. Neither company offers HDTV receivers with firewire but 169time can modify either adding a firewire port although it is not cheap. There are already lots of comparisons between the Dish Network PVR921 and DirecTV HR10-250 HD TiVo. The easy winner in my opinion is the HR10-250. It appears Dish Network has the better picture quality for the time being but DirecTV has announced satellite launches and changes that should correct that. DirecTV has the NFL Sunday Ticket games in HDTV that requires additional compression and the result is all HDTV picture quality suffers since the current bandwidth wasn't sufficient to handle it all.

Chris

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bfdtv

· #3 · Oct 24, 2004

swartz,

DirecTV has much better hardware, but it's also more expensive. A DirecTV HDTV receiver will run you at least $250-$300, whereas Dish Network will lease you their HD receiver for $5/mo.

Quote:

Do either offer a HD box with a Firewire port?

No.

Quote:

Also, does one service have a better overall feed? My one fear is that I keep reading that satellite compresses HD broadcasts more than cable, and I worry that I will see even more artifacting than I'm seeing now.

Dish Network has slightly better quality on their HD feeds; neither will be as good as you get with Cox. Note that local HD channels -- which you'd get from an antenna -- would be the same for both, although easier to use on the DirecTV HD receivers.

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Also, any info on HD DVR comparisons woudl be appreciated (damn, I can't beleive I'm crazy enough to even *consider* dropping $899+ on a glorified VCR!)

The HDTV DirecTivo from DirecTV is by far the best HDTV DVR available anywhere (and from anyone). Nothing else is close. You can read more about it on the HDTV Recorders forum.

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