Dish or Direct?

[MrX]

Sky Digital is our friendly rupert murdock media empire owned direct to home satellite broadcaster in Ireland and the UK.

Not a bad service overall. Hundreds of channels and a nice "Sky+" box that has in-built tivo like functionality, only as it's part of the system there is no analogue-digital-analogue conversion going on. It gets the raw MPEG streams so the quality of its recordings is identical to the broadcast.

Also, when you upgrade to Sky+ you keep your existing non-recording box and get a free mirror of your subscription on an extra tv.

It can record directly from the electronic programming guide (menus on the set top box). Pause live tv and then watch it delayed. e.g. if the phone rings, you can hit pause and your show is simply delayed.

Record one show while you watch another, record 2 channels simultaneously. and it will automatically download to your VCR/DVD recorder over night.

Anyway, compared to the pathetic service provided by my local cable company it is amazing. I'll be sticking with them unless the cable co. does something to improve!

I might consider cable again if they could provide me with a cheap and fast broadband option + tv for cheaper than Sky Digital (sat) + DSL.

 

[whirlcool]

Another thing I noticed is that if you have Dish Network and want a HD signal, you'll have a dish farm on your roof, multiple dishes whereas with DirecTV you still only need one dish.

Before I got DirecTV I had heard that they had customer service problems, but several years ago they worked on this and resolved most of the problems.

I think most of it boils down to your local installation personel, if you have contractors you may or may not get good service, but if you have actual employees of the service, you won't have any problems at all. I know DirecTV followed up with a phone survey the day after we had their service installed. They asked questions like was the appointment on time? Were you happy with the installer? Was he polite and did he offer to give you instructions on how to use the system?
So it looks like they are making an effort.

 

[whirlcool]

For What It's Worth.....

DirecTV has the LOGO channel on it (263).
There may be some interest here for that....

Toggle, are you there?

 

[cleanteamofny]

Toggle, Channel 263 belongs to us are you watching!
Scream if you know what I mean?!?!

Anyway, I've been a Directv customer for 9 years and love it to death! I've put in my own system and upgraded to Tivo and the guys that installed the system were shock to see that I had three splitters on my line and according to them, my system should not have worked but I got a TV in the kitchen and receiving basic channel while the living room carries the box. They were ghetto kids from the project that installed the box and done a nasty job installing the wire across my doorway in which I will have to redo when I get a chance but the service is excellent except when there are heavy thunder/snow storms.

I rather have a system that goes down on me for one hour than one that can take up to two weeks to get it up!
Totally frustrating! (pun intended)

 

[frigilux]

I have to vote for DirecTV, too. Better for movie lovers, especially.