Satellite vs. Cable


I'm comparing my local cable company (Patriot Media) to the regional phone company (Verizon) for combined TV/internet/phone. Verizon resells Direct TV pending completion of fiber-to-the-home in my area. Surprisingly after negotiating the two offers are practically the same price (well below either company's published rates!) So I'm looking for a reason to favor one over the other.

1. Is HDTV over Direct TV satellite any better than CATV HDTV? On some CATV digital channels I've noticed compression problems and poor blacks & grey-scale, but I have yet to install an HD set to see if these problems occur with CATV HDTV.

2. Is Satellite TV still problematic in bad weather?

3. Is the phone company's dedicated DSL service at 3MB down/768MB up faster than CATV's advertised 3MB shared-media ethernet?

Any other considerations?

Thanks,

Dave

dgarretson

Showing 1 response by bmcleod

I have the Dish HD lineup as well as HD locals via Dish and their 622 receiver/DVR; I'm pretty satisfied. I also have OTA locals which the 622 can also process. The 622 is a nice unit and regular software updates work out bugs little by little (check out dbstalk.com for more info.)

I only have weather dropouts in very heavy rain and usually only for a few seconds or a minute at max, obviously this would depend on how often you have heavy rain. I know our Dish bill just went up ~ $5 or so but I think their price is still pretty good.