But DirecTV just sent me an offer claiming they will add over 23,017 HD channels in 2008- surely they aren't lying to me!?

I never knew anyone who used satellite. OnDemand seems to cancel out any of cable's shortcomings in my eyes. Plus in a FIOS free area, if you want fast internet you gotta play ball with your cable provider.

@matto: nooooooo, certainly not. Its just that by "HD" they mean channels featuring "Huge Dooshes" (preferred spelling, itll catch on.)

@ matto - I don't understand that either. All their ads play up their massive HD content.

So lame.

@Darrone: You're on to something. "Huge Dooshes" certainly has been my impression of DirecTV.

Satellite only gets you pixelated crap. Cable rules with their crisp images.

Satellite was the only competitor to Comcast in my City. So I went Satellite.

I was a happy DirecTV customer for 2 years...then I upgraded to HD. I dropped them 9 months later. Their HD blows. I had frequent pixellation, black screens for 1-2 seconds at a time, and periodic rasping metallic audio oddities.

I had 4 different techs come out to fix it, none could. One even said they have problems with all the HD.

So... those ads for the satellite tv where they say they carry more HD channels than cable are still true.

But the satellite versions are no better than SD?

Thanks. The more you know...

I get 10x more HD channels with DirecTV than I ever got (and still can) with Time Warner in Cincinnati. Not sure what pixelated crap you're referring to, but my channels look no different on DirecTV than on Digital Cable. However, I watch almost no SD channels any more thanks to DirecTV. Plus, for most people, you can't beat the price with a stick. ;-)

Honestly, I've never seen a satellite service that comes close to comcast's on-demand. My girlfriend's DishNet service and PPV selection is appalling.

I always thought that satellite TV was for suckers, and now the pudding of proof flows forth! A lot of HDTV owners will be pissed that they'll be relegated back to the stone-aged resolution era.

ok, why are all the posts disappearing??

I'm wondering if you pixelation issues are a product of your TV. My first HDTV couldn't keep up with the signal and I would get pixelation even on OTA HD signals. Since I purchased a new set 18 months ago, I never see it anymore. I love DirecTV and would always recommend it over the quality of cable most of the country gets. If you're a big on-demand watcher, then I agree, satellite is not for you. I get my movies through Netflix, so PPV is never used at my house.

i get pixelation on my TimeWarner cable HD for most popular shows.

And this probably means that satellite providers will throttle unpopular channels broadcast in HD to slightly better than SD, which sucks for individuals, but for the majority it will be ok.
So:
FOX American Idol = starpower HD.
Food Network = cowboy stew.

I wonder if this is grounds to bail on my contract with dish network. . .

I have had DTV for over 10 years and except for the occasional rain fade (which I also got sometimes on Comcrap) it's been great.

I recently spent some time with my brother in Arlington, VA who has Comcast and I thought the pixelation on his HD channels was worse than anything I have seen on DTV. This was on his 50" plasma vs my 96 inch projection system.

My only complaint with DTV is with all the rain we have gotten here in Missouri my dish won't stay upright. The pole keeps falling over in the soft ground. But I don't think they can do anything about the weather.

@toddgarvin: I'm with you. I've had DirecTV for 6 years and now have their HD DVR (which is now WAY better than my Tivo ever was). I don't see pixelation or audio flutter like others do and I certainly have way more HD channels than Comcrap. No way I'm giving this up. Plus the price stays reasonable.

I can't possibly complain.

DOCSIS 3.0 (switched cable - where only the channel you are watching is sent over the wire, not all shows all at the same time like DOCSIS 2.x does) is going to bail out the cable co.'s.

Direct TV needs to develop something like this for satellite. I don't see how, but thats about all that can solve this problem.

Didn't DirecTV just launch another satellite this week? Anyone know what effect this new satellite will have on their service? I just signed up 3 months ago and I get a crap load more HD channels than I ever did with Cumcast (I mis-spelled it for a reason as I can't F'ing stand them!). True some HD channels don't look like high quality but I'm not expecting 1080P quality. As for their SD channels, they seem to look better than the SD channels in Cumcast ever did. Also, most of the channels I frequently watch are on HD so I'm happy.

To tell you the truth, I'm glad I have neither Comcast nor satellite. The problem is lack of competition where I live. Just like Comcast had a stranglehold on the coax market where I used to live in NorCal. Cox communications has the coax strangle-hold where I live now. They have great HD reception and maybe not quite as much of an HD selection of some sat providers, but they are adding new channels all the time.
I just think competition breeds good things for the consumer. Competition is defiantly lacking in this arena.

I want you to pay attention for the next 60 seconds. Soon direct TV will have 800,000 more HD channels than cable. So many in fact we had to down convert them to get enough bandwidth to get them into your living room. But don't worry, we won't tell you about that. You'll be amazed that you locked yourself into a contract with us for a sub-par picture, and ultra laggy channel changing. We are better than cable... because we used a sub-hot model and a British dude in our commercials. Now pick up the phone, and fuck yourself today.

@toddgarvin: Agreed.
I had dishnetwork for two years..and every few months or so I got additional hd channel. Very few were pixelated...if not most came out outstanding. I recently moved, couldn't have satellite, and got stuck with timewarner...very sad. Very few hd channels, quality mostly just blah..most stuff shown in SD even though hd channels...and not even Discovery Channel in HD!!!! WTF? I would have to say for hd purposes and even quality/quantity..stick with satellite. I miss it.
Panasonic Plasmid 1080p set for viewing.

@apeguero: You may want to use Comcrap, Crapcast or Commiecast if you want to make it sound negative. Cumcast makes me think of porn....lots of porn.

@AndyMac: Better get a bag 'o cement.

@Kaiser-Machead: You're right. I stand corrected. I still hate them none-the-less.

DirecTV's latest satellite did indeed launch yesterday, and is doing well. Expect nothing but HD goodness from in a few months when it goes online.

@trendspotter: Nah, I think I am just going to have it mounted it on the roof. There's a mast up there already from my DirecWay days and I won't have to mow around it anymore or worry about trees blocking the signal.

That 5LNB dish is pretty big and heavy and without some sort of counterweight it just wants to pull that post right over.

I don't get the directtv hate. I've had them for years, I never have wind or rain fade, and the picture quality stomps cable's. If you're having rain/wind fade, check your install.

Plus, I am a big NFL fans, and Sunday Ticket (especially the Red Zone channel) just cannot be beat by any other provider.

I guess not many sports fans here - DirecTV is the best for sports.

Little talked about, but still... Dish transmits all their HD in 1440x1080i (or 1280x720p on ABC, ESPN, others?). DirectTV I think still uses 1280x1080i on most HD channels to save bandwidth. Most of the cable co's transmit in higher-res, "less soft" 1920x1080i. Up until a year ago many of the HD channels on Dish were in 1920x1080i; but now, none of them are.

I was talking about "HD Lite"

[en.wikipedia.org]

Nice to see that indeed Dish did move from 1920x1080 to 1440x1080 last year. Glad I was able to watch all Star Wars I-VI in 1920, however, prior to that *complete resolution screwing of the customer* :)

I'll take my DirecTV over the Mediacom that I gleefully dumped ANY DAY. The picture and sound quality is much better. They offer dozens more channels in HD. Best of all, DirecTV actually has some form of customer service. I dumped Mediacom when they missed service call after service call. I'm taking time off work to be there, wasting my personal days; and one of their people actually had the nerve to inform me that "it wasn't their job to call me and let me know" when they couldn't make it for my scheduled service call.

Then watching DirecTV at 1:00 AM during Hurrican Ivan (winds were a steady 90mph with gusts well over 100mph at that point,) several hours after power (and I am certain cable tv) had been lost, made me a true believer in the power of satellite.

i have had DirecTV for 6 years now, never had a problem - HD looks great - service has been awesome. Unlike "other" cable companies you don't need to be hooked up to a phone jack to get service.

@robinandtami: This is going to make me sound like a smartass, but how were you watching TV with the power out? Much less SatTV? Not only do you have to power the TV, but the box for the Dish too, then the signal boosters in the house where the Sat signal comes in (which is almost always downstairs...)

FIOS excluded because I have no expierence with that, DirecTV's HD-Lite still stomps the Time Warner here in Columbus. My buddy in Naperville Ill has Comcast and it rocks that too. It's not as nice as OTA but its a hell of a lot cooler than watching cable companies try to shove HD programming through a 30 year + infrastructure. Oh and then have the same network used for data and now IP telephony.

I don't know about his case but we've got several large UPS devices in my rack in the basement that have the satellite, cable modem, and wifi running through it. I get (Furnace be damned)

I have had both DirecTV HD and Comcast HD. Comcast HD's signal looks slightly better than DirecTV's, but only slightly. There was far more pixelation with Comcast than DirecTV, but pixelation is generally not related to how it is being broadcast from the source.

I suppose if you have a brand new 1080p TV, I could understand wanting the highest quality possible and using an antenna (air signal), getting FiOS TV, or possibly enduring cable. But, the latter would be my last choice. If you are looking for selection of HD channels, then cable is not even an option. (DirecTV is the current winner.)

We are currently with DirecTV and going to switch to FiOS TV in the coming months. We'll see how that works out.

Downconvert yes, but by how much? Does it actually say it will be in SD? There are a lot of options between SD and 1080p. That's the problem with the HD roll-out(s), there should have been one standard: one resolution, one connector, one disc, and one time frame. There are just too many options and therefore too much confusion.

I happily converted to DirecTV from cables years ago and never looked back. I have 50" 720p DLP, but the only HD I watch is right now is over-the-air. I'm having a problem with switching over to HD, I'm just not sure it's worth the extra $$$ yet, especially when OTH is free.

So, I'll probably just wait until 2013, and see what has floated to the top before I drop my bucks on anything new.

"Since the FCC didn't tell them which markets the rollout would have to hit, people out in the sticks are going to be stuck with sub-HD signals on some channels for the longest, since the competition out there is softer than stiff."
What are they going to do? Point their dishes at different satellites?

I have had DTV since the beginning of 2007 and have been happy for the most part. The picture on the Cox HD DVR was okay but I did have some pixelation issues. They (Cox) blamed the home wiring until I pointed out that I had all new RG6 with quad shielding (pulled it myself). I switch over to DTV and I was amazed at how much better the HD was. I have had no pixelation issues at all. The picture is bright and clear. I am very happy with the technical part of the service. Their DVR (HR-20) blows the Cox DVR out of the water. That being said I really wish DTV would get their stuff together as far as customer service. Also I am not happy they just raised prices. I would also love to get a box with 3 tuners. Oh well. I do think that the HD on DTV is better. YMMV.

This is a great thread. I've been thinking about upgrading for quite a while but couldn't find any good reviews on-line. Does anyone have a link to a recent intelligent comparison between comcast and DTV or Dish?

At least once a year I think about switching to cable, so I see what it'd cost to get what I'm getting now from Comcast, and I gag. It'd cost me $30 more to get what I'm getting now from Directv than I do from Comcast, and that's why I've never changed back. Is the video quality worse on DTV, yes. Not enough to make me change and pay more money though. And I've never had problems with DTV, certainly less headaches than I've had with cable companies.

That's funny, because not 60 seconds ago I saw a commercial for satellite claiming that cable was lying about their bandwidth and that they couldn't support as much HD as satelite.

I was watching it on cable of course, which means the cable company does not perceive the slightest competition and gladly accepts money for airing smear commercials.

@