ok so i had twc always and got pissed about espnu so switched to dish and it was amazing. waaay more channels on dish. well now i was sick of not having the main channels in hd (i don't have a built in tuner) so today i switched back to twc and yuck. twc hd is nowhere near the clarity of dish. dish is much brighter and clearer. I had to troubleshoot for a few hours to figure out if i was actually watching hd or not.

hdquantity: big advantage dish
hd quality: big advantage dish

its not even close.

11/16/2007 8:42:30 PM

The same could be said of DirecTV HD vs TWC HD.

11/16/2007 9:06:36 PM

uh yeah man, any first year HD owner/user could tell you that.

in this area, sat. is far superior to cable.

11/16/2007 9:07:49 PM

time-warner cable's highest broadcast signal is 480i. barely "h.d.".

11/16/2007 9:26:55 PM

^?

I get 1080i HD from TWC...

11/16/2007 9:37:17 PM

^^wow. are there any plans to upgrade that?

11/16/2007 9:55:35 PM

Quote :

"time-warner cable's highest broadcast signal is 480i. barely "h.d."."

What?

11/16/2007 10:33:41 PM

I just had DirectTV installed 2 weeks ago. Best decision ever. The amount of national HD and HD sports I get is insane and the quality is fantastic. And I actually like the UI of their software a lot better.

11/16/2007 10:55:04 PM

except when it rains...but since it doesn't rain in raleigh ...

11/16/2007 10:56:50 PM

i get like 100 HD channels on directv

even food network is in hd

11/17/2007 1:02:50 AM

^ how much you paying a month?

11/17/2007 1:15:43 AM

Quote :

"except when it rains...but since it doesn't rain in raleigh ..."

I know that satellite reception can be affected by weather, but I have had directv since Feb 2006 and I have never had a problem.

Here's what TWC won't tell you... Now if a hurricane comes and I lose reception, I'll have my signal back after the storm has passed. Maybe TWC customers will get their service restored in three weeks.

11/17/2007 8:28:16 AM

why would they need it restored??

11/17/2007 8:31:27 AM

when the lines snap from the power poles (like hurricane fran and the ice storms)

11/17/2007 8:57:34 AM

I haven't had much issues with satellite in teh rain, it's the wind that screws with mine

[Edited on November 17, 2007 at 9:53 AM. Reason : ]

11/17/2007 9:42:23 AM

i'm so fucking depressed.

11/17/2007 1:58:45 PM

Quote :

"why would they need it restored??"

Haha, we lost cable for about 2.5 weeks after Fran. Combination of down lines, flooded/washed away boxes etc. Not sure why it took them THAT long though but it really sucked. That's when the family decided to go to satellite. Oh noes, a few minutes of lost serivce a month at most! I know some people have more outages than that, but that's usually a lazily aligned dish. There's a large solid-angle in which the meter will say 100% strength during good weather, but there's a big difference between barely being in that solid-angle and being in the dead center of it when it comes to cloudy skies.

11/17/2007 3:22:52 PM

My cable was off for weeks after Fran, was way too busy sawing trees off the top of the house and out of the yard to notice.

11/17/2007 3:48:52 PM

Quote :

"I get 1080i HD from TWC..."

11/17/2007 3:56:30 PM

^how do you know what you're getting.

surprisingly the digital channels in the 100s are stretched with twchd and they acutally look pretty damn good almost as good as their shitty hd.

11/17/2007 4:50:11 PM

Quote :

"how do you know what you're getting."

it says it on the front of the cable box when you're viewing HD content

Quote :

"surprisingly the digital channels in the 100s are stretched with twch"

that's a setting of your TV and/or cable box. The SD channels are broadcast in 4:3.
And no, they don't look anywhere near as good as the HD channels. if you think so, then either you have no eye for quality or your HD settings are messed up (which would not be surprising - you obviously haven't dived into your TV and cable box settings much)

11/17/2007 5:40:26 PM

Yeah, I had heard a lot of good things about DishNetwork's HD channel selection.

How are they when it rains? I was in a Circuit City once while it was raining, and none of their channels were coming through... however this was 2 years ago.

11/17/2007 5:54:00 PM

Quote :

"twc hd is nowhere near the clarity of dish. dish is much brighter and clearer."

Can you elaborate about that? I wonder if its because they have done some kind of digital noise reduction and color enhancing to the signal. Does the TWC signal have a lot of digital artifacts and/or noise compared to dish? Is that improved by TV settings?

11/17/2007 6:07:52 PM

So what are the key differences between dishnetwork and directv?

11/17/2007 7:49:03 PM

Quote :

"Yeah, I had heard a lot of good things about DishNetwork's HD channel selection. How are they when it rains? I was in a Circuit City once while it was raining, and none of their channels were coming through... however this was 2 years ago."

In the roughly two years I've had satellite, it's only gone out due to inclement weather once.

I'd also like to mention that the power went out about 15 minutes later, so it's not like the loss of service was really that big a deal.

11/17/2007 9:11:21 PM

I signed up for Dish last month, but unfortunately there was no where I could put the dish that my landlord would allow (couldnt even dig a hole...apparently there is just no way you can fix a hole in the ground ) Having a place to put a Dish is a high priority for me when I move when this lease runs out.

Ill admit that I havent seen Dish and TWC side-by-side, but most people would argue that cable wins on quality, even though it sucks for quantity. That is definitely true for the DirecTV MPEG2 channels (all their HD before the new satellites), they look God-awful...although I hear the MPEG4 channels do look good.

11/17/2007 10:17:30 PM

^Alot of my neighbors just put a pole in a bucket and poured cement in. Strap the dish to the pole and place it where ever.

11/18/2007 1:12:26 AM

Last time I used DirectTV the slow ass guide drove me crazy. It was like surfing the web on dial-up.

11/18/2007 1:25:48 AM

^^do you think that's heavy enough to keep it from growing legs and walking away?

11/18/2007 2:02:05 AM

TWC doesn't really bother me. I have a 1080i 4:3 tv and TWC HD is 1080i. The better channels look great, when something doesn't you can tell it's because of the braodcast. I would like to have more HD channels though I don't think my landlord would allow it. Does anybody have some quantifiable, actual difference between quality of TWC HD and dish HD they can provide?

11/18/2007 2:02:18 AM

Quote :

"I don't think my landlord would allow it."

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/consumerdish.html

He may not have a choice.

11/18/2007 2:49:00 AM

Most installers will still want a written consent form from the landlord if you do not own the house.

11/18/2007 7:37:19 AM

yeah. i just don't want a dish mounted on my porch

11/18/2007 9:33:22 AM

concrete bucket and a fence pole work fine.

11/18/2007 11:15:16 AM