I plan to go with either the Dish Network or Time Warner Digital Cable. The subscription packages look very similar in price, so I'm not sure which way to go. I've heard that the digital signal from Dish Network will be better than the digital signal from cable, but I'm not sure how that is possible. Any information that might help me decide would be greatly appreciated. Raven
I had satellite till about 3 weeks ago.. Now I have dig cable. I can tell you that it gets damn inconvienent when it starts raining and my dish drops the signal.. So far, I have had no problems from my cable setup... besides, cable allows you to get high-speed (yea!)internet access.. on a related note: What converters do other TWCable customers here have? I have not been able to setup a "custom" guide like I could with my dish..whenever I bring up the guide, I have to scroll thru all the channels that they offer to get to the ones I have access to.. Is it possible to setup the onscreen guide differently? Any help from ppl who work for TW would be appreciated.. btw...Raven, Digital cable has more multichannel premium services than DTV did...(HBO,Show,Max..etc)
What city do you live in? The Austin Time Warner Digital Cable is far and away better than any satellite or cable service in terms of the features and ease of use. Lots of "little" things like being able to watch your show while viewing the cable guide, no time delay in switching stations, etc make it really nice. They also seem to debut and test all their new stuff like video-on-demand here. Plus, the signal doesn't go out when it rains!! Houston TW Cable isn't nearly as nice as Austin - not sure why they don't adopt the Austin setup everywhere. The one area where satellite wins, I believe, is in terms of the digital picture. While its "digital cable" that refers more to the lines than the picture type. It's not HDTV or anything like that. I am under the impression that satellite wins in that regard, although that should change somewhere down the road as everything goes digital.
Ok I didn't think there was a time delay in switching channels for the Dish Network, since it only looks at one Satellite in the sky? Well the funny thing about digital cable is that it will use the exact same cable I've already used for over 15 years in my home, except I would need a new digital cable box. Weird I thought the rain had to be pretty heavy before the dish gave you any problems? You mean even normal amounts of rainfall can cause the Dish Network to black out? Raven
yes...sometimes if it was just reaally cloudy with lite rain...my dish signal would futz out and get screwed...one of the disadvantages of the dish
Time Warner Austin are bastards. They have this special for Road Runner...6 months for $29.95. That's great for new customers but what about old customers. Do we get a break? Nope. Not even college students. College students are smarter than those dumbasses at Time Warner Apologize for the rant but I have to cancel my Road Runner and get a friend to reorder it for me.
Yeah I have Time Warner, and I hate em, but at least with Time Warner I know what I'm getting. I just want the best digital signal I can afford, either Dish Network or TW Digital Cable. Raven
I had digital cable when it first came around in Arlington back in 1997 or so, and it was horrible. Only a handful of the channels were actually digital, on some channels the picture was worse than the over-the-air signal with the antenna. There wasn't all that much in the way of choices, and there was a longer gap when changing channels than with the satellite (and there was no cable modem service to my neighborhood then, either. They kept telling me "no more than six more months" every six months for three years). And it was significantly more expensive than DirecTV at the time. I assume they've upgraded and gotten better by now, but who knows with AT&T and all. I ditched the digital cable around about July of 1998 for DirecTV, and I just loved the satellite. It took quite a heavy rain to knock out my signal (and I know that's not universal as my friend's signal would get knocked out sometimes when it was just cloudy... or when grasshoppers would jump up on the LNB), and I could watch TV while looking at the program guide (and you can do that with DishNetwork now, too). But again, it's been a long time since I've had digital cable (the apartments I live in now don't even offer digital cable), so I'm the wrong person to ask. Personally, I love the satellite. But my understanding is that Time Warner is far better than AT&T (or TCI as it was known then) ever was. Sorry, got off on a little AT&T rant there. As it is, I have a few friends with the DishNetwork, and they love it and would recommend it over digital cable. But then again, they did choose to be friends with me, so that may say a lot about their taste. I don't know anyone with digital cable at present.
A couple of years ago TWC ripped up all of the lines and replaced them with fiber optics. That way many more channels can be transmitted using the coaxial cable. The digital converter allows the additional channels to be decompressed so that they can be fed into your TV.
If you are going to get satellite, consider DirecTV. They at least have NBA League Pass and alternate Fox Sports channels.
I don't have Time Warner Digital Cable, but I have Comcast Digital Cable, since I live in Philly. It is pretty good. The picture is very clear. I would rather have it then having a satellite, because they basically have the same channels, and digital cable is always clear.
Someone alert their local anthropologist/archaeologist. The billing department at Dish Network is run by cro-magnon. The fiasco I had to go through when changing my address on my account with them was insane. They kept billing me 2 bills not understanding that they were both going to the same place. Apparently they didn't delete the first account and added the second account which corrected a slight problem with my address. Voila, I now had 2 accounts from basically the same address. Something as simple as this took about 1-2 months for them to understand/correct. For that reason alone, I'll never buy Dish Network service again. Now it's not like AT&T is that much better (I have them now), but hey... as long as I can get the usual science channels, animal channels, ESPN, and NBA League Pass, I'm cool. Oh, and if you want NBA League Pass, Dish Network didn't have it about a year or so ago, if that makes any difference to you. As for quality of signal, I can't say I really notice that much of a difference, if any. I did seem to have more outtages with Dish Network, though. Especially during heavy rains/bad weather.
No it's not...is it? Personally, I like digital cable just fine. It just seemed like it would be a lot more hectic to deal with getting a satellite installed etc... Plus, I live in an apartment and there is no place I can put the sat to face in the right direction.
Of course, AT&T stole $54 from me when I canceled my account. They keep the meter running even after you cancel the service and return all their equipment until they can get a tech out there to turn off the tap. In Plano, it takes six weeks to get that done, so they kept charging me during that six months. And since I had a credit card on file, it was easy to take the money from me. Even showing them receipts from when I returned the boxes did no good. And they gave me the run-around for about 60 days apparently in an attempt to keep me from being able to get a chargeback through my bank (AT&T kept telling me my refund was on the way). I'll take address incompentence over outright financial fraud any day. But every company seems to have their quirks these days.
Check out this Time Warner incompetence. The customer service rep tells me I don't have Roadrunner anymore when I tried to cancel and turned in my modem last month according to her computer. Umm...I never turned in any modem or cancelled Roadrunner before. It's still working. I'm not cancelling now. Someone dropped the ball here.
my only issue (and its a biggie) with time warner digital cable is that we can't get an nfl sunday ticket type of package... i tried to have satellite set up at my apt. just for a nfl package, but of course there are trees all around my complex so i can't get a signal i live with TW digital cable... there's some macroblocking and signal loss on really overcast or rainy days, but its few and far between in Austin... the onscreen guide is superb... much better than satellites (which i've only used in Houston)... ?#$%$ TW has a 6 month, $30 special for new customers!!!!! aarrgh!!! cable is gonna become a luxury for me soon rather than a necessity at these prices (including all the movie channels plus roadrunner, its one helluva bill every month!)
Put me in the Cable corner. I live in houston and have digital cable including HBO and the HD channels and road runner all for aprox $110. a month and never have any problems with the service. The HD channels are a thing of beauty and my road runner seems as fast or faster than the t-1 we have at the office.
