Not only was it "professionally" installed, but it was tuned to till the signal strength was close to 97 and it still would go out whenever it rained.
Digital Cable here, I have heard nothing but negative things on satellite tv ???? ...... Im just gonna stay with it
When I had NFL Sunday Ticket, though, I would often switch around and find the most interesting games. At the very least, it was nice to be able to watch something other than the Cowboys during the time the Cowboys are on television (and, here in the Metroplex, when the Cowboys are on, no one else can be on), especially now that the Cowboys games are so freaking boring. And, like you said, if you want to watch your favorite team, you might be out of luck without Sunday Ticket. We had a total of two Texans games broadcast to us last year on local television, that I recall. And one was the Cowboys game that we would've gotten regardless (the other was the San Diego game). We may not see any this year. Quite honestly, I watch significantly less football now that I don't have Sunday Ticket. If I had never had it, it might not make any difference. But now that I've had it and don't anymore, it's hard for me to watch the NFL since I can't choose the game I want to watch.
Curious..how bg is your TV and which channels do you watch? I found that Dig Cable tries to do OK on bandwidth of the most popular stations, but sucks on many others and they will often pixelate on a large TV. We love our satellite. Had it for over 10 years.
i've had directv for about a year after having had digital cable for the previous 2. i personally don't have a preference between the two now that i can get channel 51 on the satellite. as for the weather i don't even think about it, in my area it only goes out if it's absolutely horrible and in that case never more than 15 minutes. rain and clouds have no effect on it at all.
A word about HD: I was buying a new TV and I got hung up on having HD so I got a Sony HD and paid to have Time warner decoder box. Now I never bother to switch over to the HD channel. You have to turn on the HD box, change the input on the television, change the input on the audio/video receiver and then it takes a little while to tune in the HD signal. You have to repeat the process to go back to 2:3 so you can't flip around. Also, the HD picture seems to be tinted yellow. And frankly the picture isn't that much sharper than the synthesized doubler on the 2:3 picture and the viewable surface is larger on 2:3. Ocassionally something like The Stones on HBO is worth switching, but more for the sound quality through the optical output than for the picture quality. If I had it to do over I would wait until HD is the broadcast standad and everything is in the 16:9 format and then just get a 16:9 TV ( probably another 3 years and plasma will be more affordable too.) 16:9 TV's now have too much edge distortion on regular broadcast.
I just got Direct TV, so I don't have much experience with it. So far I love it. It's cheaper than cable, and they have some good deals that enables you to hook it up in two rooms right now. Digital cable would cost more for the extra room hookup. I live in Southern California so the weather so far hasn't been an issue. I've had no signal troubles at all. Maybe this winter when it rains some I'll have a different opinion. They had a deal where I get all the movie channels(Starz, HBO, Showtime Cinemax, etc.) for only $8 a month more than the Starz package that I did order. I didn't take the offer, but I wish I did. It looks like I'll have to get HBO for work, and I'll end up paying more than I would have if I had taken the deal. I also don't have an HD set, so I can't tell you anything about that. After 4 days with Direct TV, I love it.
Time warner has a new box that solves the switching back and forth you had to do before. And as far as the HiDef broadcasts go I'd have to disagree. The networks all rock in HD compared to the normal broadcast, Discovery HD theather is as sharp as anything I've seen, and ESPN HD should be out within the next 2 months (according to TW). I can hardly stand watching anything that is not on the networks in HD anymore. You have to take into account that most of the movies shown on HBO in HD are not true HD but most of the new programing on all the networks are. ABC must have upgraded their cameras this off season because last mondays game was sharper than anything they showed last season.
