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Thanks for clearing that up. Anne read the article and mentioned it to me along with the price tag. I did not sound like YOU!!! I never bothered to read it

I gave up trying to stay leading edge when I went the route of the laser disc player....but HDTV is worth every penny !!

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

I would really wait and see what is going to happen to them. Many people are not aware of this, but Cablevision (who owns Voom) recently sold the satellite assets used by Voom to Echostar (Dish Network). The satellites and broadcast licenses are the real asset (that anyone would really want) that Voom has/had. This sale didn't include any exclusive HD content and the existing subscribers. That put the entire Voom system in limbo as they would within a short period of time (close of Echostar deal) not have a method to broadcast anything. A few days later the rest of the Voom system was bought by some Cablevision executives in a separate deal. It looks like they are trying to save Voom, but it is a long shot IMHO. They would have to arrange for alternate broadcast methods.

Of course I doubt that Voom is saying much about this. All of the deals are not final and I am sure they would gladly sell you equipment and take your money right up until the moment they pull the plug.


http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_si ... _id=665115

http://www.dbsforums.com/vbulletin/show ... genumber=1

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

If you want a service that provides stable costs and guaranteed trouble free equipment....You Want Cable. Personal problems with Time Warner aside...you cannot beat the reliability of the cable system in general.

Cable and sat. use the same major distribution systems....their picture quality limitations are similar.

Cable systems provide the black boxes...they provide new boxes as new services become available. Cable systems have local offices to work out problems faster.

Most satellite companies make a one-time deal on their black boxes...as new services become available...you must buy the new equipment.

Satellite systems have better sports coverage if you are a sports nut.

If you want top quality HD pictures you need to receive local digital HD broadcast via a rooftop antenna and rotator. Yes that is kinda old school and limited.

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Paint don't make it go any faster.

While John looks to be a Cable fan (boo!), and I am a satellite fan (yea!!), I generally agree with him on the pro/con of each.

But regarding the comment above about equipment, it really depends upon what works for you. You either rent the equipment from Cable, or buy outright for Satellite. Some prefer one over the other. The purchase price for Satellite equipment can be $0 or nearly so for a new subscriber. The only "new service" that I can think of that would have required a purchase of new equipment would have been a DVR (which you don't have to have, but you should get) or HD (again an optional thing). Probably 99% of subscribers just use a regular receiver and have done so for years with no need to upgrade. I suspect that standard digital cable customers are in the same boat. Regarding needing a local office, my take is that you can use an equipment protection plan. I personally don't believe in these types of plans, but if you want they would be able to ship you a new receiver if you old one busted. For you cable customers, when was the last time you had to visit a local office? And why?

You can get a DirecTV DVR (TiVo brand) for somewhere between $49 and $99 which is pretty cheap considering what it gives you. As Donnie has said the regular HD receivers are price competitive and do not just DirecTV HD and over the air HD (ATSC), but but also regular DirecTV channels. The most bleeding edge and costly example is the HD TiVo which while VERY cool, I would not recommend at this time.

And I will say that as far as reliable, I would love to see a scientific study done, but I would guess that nationally satellite is more reliable than cable (as far as outages go). But until someone does a study I think it is all personal opinion and full of anecdotal stories. I would also think that they may be so close in "reliability" that might be a non-issue. I know the cable loves to point at "rain fade", but IMHO it really is a non issue.

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

I am also curious about no "Dish vs. DirecTV" questions, comments. My quick summary is that Dish is the lower end of the two. Maybe a lower prices, but worse customer service, less in the way of channels (especially sports) and worse DVRs. DirecTV is the opposite. Probably more expensive, less brain dead customer service, better sports and premium (TiVo) DVR.

You don't care about sports, or DVR and cost is an issue, maybe Dish is for you. You want the best satellite DBS, get DirecTV.

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.

Not true. The local stations submit their feeds to the satellite company (black box here about what exactly happens) and you receive the signal digitally. If you have cable, you have all sorts of line distortion that degrades the signal as it goes out and splits everywhere. Even with signal boosters, you're boosting analog fuzz and the picture never looks good. Going from cable to digital (and back and forth when the satellite guy was there in my old apartment) the difference was huge! I imagine the the signal splitting in an apartment complex isn't too different from what one experiences in a neighborhood either.

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Has no responsibility whatsoever.

read my last line.......^^^^^

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Paint don't make it go any faster.

hate to dig this old thread up, but i still don't believe i have all that is readily offered in the HD market without an antenna. i will admit i do not truly understand what it is that i do have, but at the same time i still feel we in this area are getting screwed when it comes to our HD programming.

and just to piss on an old fire, WRAL is quite possibly the most reactionary right wing, censorius bunch of old farts i have ever had the questionable privilege of being subjected to. so what if they actually own the town.

is it just me or does anyone else notice a slight burp in Homer Simpson's political rants when viewing a repeat? network censorship is a crime no matter your personal beliefs.

now i am quite sure the Fox show Paradise Island was a load of crap, but why should my local affiliate decide i don't need to see that point of contention for myself?

i want my HD.

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BenchWarmer Motorsports

another one of those damn LeMons heads

just another Chump

we are an Autocross Club Dammit............

Wow! Blast from the past.

I looked over the thread and while I am not as up on my research lately as I used to be, but I would summarize things as...

* VOOM is dead, dead, dead.
* DirecTV is switching over from MPEG2 to MPEG4 encoding (more channels in the same bandwidth for a given image quality). They are now offering local HD via sat, but this requires newer MPEG4 receivers as well as a new dish. As usuall new customers get deals to sign up, and existing customers can usually work the system to get deals as well. I expect my cost to switch over to be less than $100 or maybe even zero.
* DirecTV has pretty much gone their own way regarding DVRs. They used to provide a DVR that used TiVo software. They now roll their own. And while it was buggy at first, I am starting to hear good things about their DVRs. They have been adding new features recently and are even going to be adding some select features to the older TiVo based DVRs.
* The older DVRs will never be able to receive the MPEG4 channels, but will continue to receive the MPEG2 channels until those are eventually phased out (no idea when, but probably years from now)
* I continue to use TWC for broadband. I wish Verizon (my local telco) would offer "naked DSL" (DSL without phone service), but they don't as far as I know. I have always felt that my old GTE/Verizon DSL was more reliable than Cable Modem.
* It is very unlikely that I will ever switch from sat to cable.
* Do idea what is going on in the world of Dish (other sat provider)

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Richard Casto
1972 Porsche 914
2013 Honda Fit Sport
2015 Honda Fit EX
http://motorsport.zyyz.com
Money can't buy happiness, but somehow it's more comfortable to cry in a Porsche than a Kia.