Cable or Dish?

I have cable and have had very few problems with it reception wise. However, it is a little on the expensive side. The main reason being that since I live in a small town the cable company that services my area really has no competition other then satellite and unfortunately because of the weather people who do have satellites seem to have quite a lot of problems with them. There is talk of another cable company soon to offer services in my area as well so that may cause the prices to go down a bit.

We had Dish a long time ago and it was nothing but problems. We werealways losing the signal. I've had cable for the last several years and I'm much happier with it.

We had cable forever, but Mediacom is a monster around here and the only cable you can get in our town is Mediacom. I wasn't about pay their outragous prices nor support their global domination Soooo the only choice I had was dish (dish network) and I have NEVER had a problem. The only thing that sucks is that our power flashes if it rains in this town! So it has to reset itself and whatever else it does. Other than that, we've never had it go out in since we got it in October and at work they have Mediacom (cable) and it always seems to be going out, even when it's sunny! Oh and we get 200+ channels, all the HD channels available, AND an HD DVR!!! All for the same price Mediacom charges for local chanels and 100 other channels.

I will NEVER live without a DVR again! It's awesome!!!!

Originally Posted by babyharley

We have cable and never have issues

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Actually, my apt. building does not allow dishes. But even if I moved, I would stick with cable.

They don't offer cable in my neighborhood (nor my last). We've had dish for about 12 years now and yes, it can blip out with bad weather. That's usually the first sign that a bad storm is approaching. The reception is great other than during bad weather.

Neither for tv at the moment, though we have cable for our internet. We're about had it with Direct TV. We moved in October, were told that no one could come set us till December 13th. No one showed up that day! ...We're not going to wait another month or two.

But as far as reception went, never had any problems. Only really bad lightning would affect it. Price was ok for the number of channels we had. It's just customer service, like with most places anymore, that stinks.

We may have to go with cable tv simply for the fact that they have an office in town and you never have to wait to talk to a real person.

We have Direct TV (dish) (We got a new tv about a year ago and had a special offer for their service when we got it). I love it The only time I'm not happy with it is when the weather is bad....sometimes if it rains or even gets too cloudy/etc it will go out. Other than that though i'm very happy with their service!

There are numerous reasons of why you'd have bad service with sattelite but I can tell you that at least in every place I've lived, the benefits of dish and directv FAR outweigh the fractional times I lost service.

The biggest issue is line of site obstruction. if you have a CLEAR view of the southern sky you would have great service with sat TV (dish or directv). There is also some stuff with what's called the eastern arc that will help questionable positioned homes.

I have dish here and had it in phx. also had it in san diego and LA. I would lose service at times of extreme weather, but certainly not regularly. If you live in a place that snows a lot it could get worse, but they also make covers to go over your dish to displace the snow collection.

I would say that on average, I lose service for less than 5 hours combined per year. Most times it's very brief.

On to the next. Cable tv can't hold a candle to sat packages. the HD content is overwhelmingly favord in satellite.

the other part, is the dvr boxes. Dish network has the best DVR I've ever used. the ones I got from the cable company both times were just awful. No features, couldn't even sort recordings into groups, single tuners etc. With dish I can record 2 shows at the same time while watching an OTA channel as well. it also has 500gb hard drives, AND you can attach a USB external drive for extra storage. I get a little over 200 hours of recording time on the internal drive, and about 150 hours extra on my external drive.

Sounds like overkill, but I don't ever watch tv as it's broadcast anymore. I record everything. I don't ever see commercials that way

I won't be using cable again anytime soon.

I also have my box connected to my broadband, so I can download on demand movies, and even 1080p on demand.

Dish for me. I had an awful experience with cable so I won't deal with them again. Besides, I actually prefer the much better mix-n-match options for channels on the dish and it's no more expensive than cable ever was.

Did you know if you spray your dishes with cooking spray that snow and ice will not stick to them, and it won't damage the equipment? I worked for Directv for over a year, and a tech in Michigan told me that during a bad winter.

Originally Posted by fastnoc

There are numerous reasons of why you'd have bad service with sattelite but I can tell you that at least in every place I've lived, the benefits of dish and directv FAR outweigh the fractional times I lost service.

The biggest issue is line of site obstruction. if you have a CLEAR view of the southern sky you would have great service with sat TV (dish or directv). There is also some stuff with what's called the eastern arc that will help questionable positioned homes.

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I was going to say it probably depends on where you live, but you said it SO much better (and you KNOW what you're talking about! )

We have DirecTV in our last house and I hated it. It would go out constantly during the winter and spring (even a strong winds would cause it to go out). The internet and phone were fine (we had the 3 pack deal), but the TV would just freeze into those little squares. It actually became out signal that bad weather is happening. BUT, we also lived in a valley surrounded by mountains and trees so that probably had a lot to do with it.

We have cable now and I only have 2 problems with it. One, our company likes to change the "program" settings every so often with no notice...as in, shows that we set to be saved aren't anymore, and you have to relearn the remote. Two...is probably not the cables fault. It's the way things are wired in our house (DH's fault ) where if the power goes off, or someone turns off the TV I have to use 3 remotes to turn the darned thing back on again! It never fails...I'm on the phone with DH while he's at work asking "so, what remote do I have to use first??" If he was smart he would just write down the directions one day. (Before anyone comments...no, apparently I'm NOT that smart, and anything electronic falls into the husband's catagory in my house).

Another reason I prefer Dish or DirectTV ( I have DirectTV at our in-town home and DishTV out at our fixer-upper: The variety of networks:
RFD-TV - for those interested in programming for Rural America
VERIA- a wonderful channel for holistic living. Has all topics covered, including a show called Natural Companions for holistic pet care
FSTV & WorldLink TV - alternative news and programs for those intereted in issues of moral conscience & a non-mainstream media view on life
University channels (such as UC California TV, Northern Arizona U. TV; Brigham Young U) with fascinating lecture series & documentaries

We have cable at home, and plan to stick with it, as we've had very little trouble with it over the past 24 years. The house in Hungary has a dish, and that has been nothing but trouble due to the high winds there.

My mom in Nebraska switched to DirecTV a little over a year ago, and lost the picture so often that she's gone back to cable.