HD Question

When you are looking at the channel guide in DirectTV, the HD channel will be listed right above the SD channel. The HD channel for TNT is 245, and the SD is 245-1.

DirectTV has the best selection of HD channels plus the quality is the best I have seen among providers.

 

This is not an HD question, it's a "channel lineup" question.

Nonetheless, it's odd that the regular channel is NOT the one without the -1 . On an over-the-air antenna, the regular channel is the one without the -1.

 

I have DirecTV and the HD channels have the '-1' extension. The SD versions are just numbers.

 

Does your DirecTV go out when it rains hard?

 

It's happened only a few times over the past several years and it comes back within minutes.

I also had cable for about a year between stints with DirecTV. I prefer everything about DirecTV over cable other than a couple of minor features that cable offered.

Never had U-verse.

 

You can always change the guide options to "Hide SD Duplicates", that eliminates a lot of unnecessary channel flipping.

 

If you're OK with that, more power to you, sir, but that was MY MAIN REASON to change to something other than DiwreckedTV. Two times it rained cats and dogs in Katy in the same month, and I couldn't stand it anymore. DON'T EVEN MENTION the times it rained extremely much or there was a thick cloud cover during the ROCKETs' game . Now THAT, sir, will be a killer.

 

i'll just stick it in this thread, but i was looking for discovery HD channel news online, and found this article.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/209602-Comcast_Adds_27_HD_Networks_in_Houston.php?rssid=20061

looks like comcast is adding 27 HD channels.

 

yep, was just reading the thread on it over at avs

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=16135723&postcount=6431

that thread also has lots of real world comparisons of the multiple providers...might be helpful in knowing if your best course of action is to switch.

 

Most of the time if you are on one of the channels with both HD and SD a simple channel up will go to the next one. Like you get 143 then 143HD then 144 then 144HD.

DISH and DTV are like this. And like was mentioned earlier, at least for DTV you can select an option to hide SD duplicates in the menu settings. Would be nice if DISH could get this on their equipment.


Also, if you enter the number manually thru the remote it usually defaults to the HD version. You only get the -1 channel if you also have an antenna hooked up to receive over the air channels.

 

We have DirecTV and are happy with it. It does occasionally go out when it rains but not so often that we notice. When we used to have cable it would go out for no apparent reason and not come back on for hours. At least with the rain you know why the signal is gone and that it will come back in a few minutes.

During Hurricane Rita and Ike we NEVER lost our Sat signal. We only lost power for three hours during IKE. If I had a generator I could have still watched TV. My cable Internet, however, was out for two weeks!

Regarding channels, you can control what channels are displayed in the guide so you can simply hide all the channels you don't want to see. So for all the channels that have both standard def and HD, we hide all the standard def and only display the HD ones. Makes navigating the guide so much easier.

 

I'm really about to jump the ship and get either Directtv or Dish. I'm sick and tired of the lack of HD channels that Suddenlink offers.

Anyone tried that TurboHD service? Isn't that dish or something?

Which do you recommend? Direct or Dish? And why? (I want HD).

 

i have had both directv and dish


personally i like the way the dish hd dvr works more than the directv but my roommates say the other way.

i have seen more hd channels on directv but i think the quality (bandwidth of the dish network is better) is better on dish


dish network has all the hbo channels in HD
directv does not just the HBO E and W

directv has all the showtime channels in HD
dish does not


i switched to directv because i got more sports in HD...league pass was having issues with dish so i made the switch. before with dish i used to get maybe like 2 games a night in HD last season this season i got about 85% of all the games in HD which was a nice nice bonus.

directv also has the sunday ticket exclusive


other they are pretty similar i did like how dish did have all the HD channels in a separate location in addition to having them next to the SD versions.

both have pretty decent offers for new customers


EDIT: Turbo HD i had that but i really didnt see any difference from Turbo HD and the HD that we had before i think it was more of a marketing gimmick

 

Wow, I've had DirecTV for almost 2 years and cloud cover has never been a problem. Very hard rain has been but it is not a problem every time. If we find a house soon, I'll probably be upgrading to an HD package. How much more is it per month?

 

$10.00 for most of the HD channels and addition $5 for some extended HD.

If youre into sports, go DirecTV.
Turbo HD is a gimmick. There are no SD channels.

As far as DVR's, Dish Network's DVR's will allow you to watch recordings on two different TV's (receiver controls two TV's) but you can not record two shows at once on one TV. Also, if you go HD, one room is HD and the other is SD. You also have to pay an additional $6 DVR fee for each DVR thAt you have.

DirecTV's (HD)DVR's only control one room, but you can record two shows at once. There is only one DVR fee if you have multiple DVR's.

I personally prefer DirecTV.

 

Just to add on, I have TurboHD Bronze from Dish Network. All the HD channels are on 1080i, and none are on 1080p unless you watch something ordered from their Video-on-Demand. Not sure if DirectTV or U-Verse has the same picture quality or better than 1080i.

 

Thanks for the input. Looks like Directv sounds best for my purposes.

 

I didn't think anything was broadcast in 1080p but I'm not sure. I thought the only 1080p sources were video games and movies (ex Bluray).