Thinking about DirectTV

[charpman]

Greetings all,

I just found this forum while searching for information today.

The recent software upgrade to TimeWarners cable boxes has been hell on my 4 tivo's and apparnetly I'm not alone and there doens't seem to be a good fix. To those not aware, it is now impossible to reliably change channels via IR from TiVo to the cable box.

To this end, as well as generally being tired of constnatly rebooting cable boxes and bizzare "hickups" in the signal (pixelation pauses etc.) I am seriously thinking about going to DirectTV.

I have some reservations though. I had Direct TV years ago, like 1995-1997. The rain fade was HORRIBLE.

I seem to find mixed results about rain fade today with modern dishes. I will be going for the 24" HD dish since I have a home theater with 100" screen. However I will be using standard def boxes for 5 other TV's at least until they get replaced with HDTV's down the line.

I will be using my existing TiVo's on the standard def DirectTV tuners for the time being and getting the DirectTV HD DVR for the theater.

My biggest concern is rain fade. I live in Powell, off Seldom Seen road. For those of you with DirectTV just how bad is it?

My next concern is local channels in HD. I haven't paid attention to how local channels on DirectTV panned out, when I last had it it was a no-no. I see now you can get them, but what about HD? I really really don't want to figure out how to get an antenna up and running and hear all kinds of problems for people who try it. The one thing I didn't wire my house for when I built it was a rooftop antenna.

Experinces, thoughts and opinions welcomed.

Thanx in advance,

Clint

[jpdublin]

I am a big supporter of Directv. I have it for 8 years and have little issue with "rain fade". Though others seem to have much more of an issue. It takes a pretty wicked storm for me to lose my signal. As for the locals, they are in HD (NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC) not (CW). I also use a small OTA and pick up the locals too, just in case of "loss of signal". I had a Tivo since introduced in 1999, but hated the IR to box. I do own a Directv unit with built in Tivo, which they stopped making. I do however find their DVR's easy to use after getting used to them. IMO Directv just offers much more and now even have OnDemand through an ethernet cable. Good Luck!

[charpman]

I am a big supporter of Directv. I have it for 8 years and have little issue with "rain fade". Though others seem to have much more of an issue. It takes a pretty wicked storm for me to lose my signal. As for the locals, they are in HD (NBC, CBS, FOX, and ABC) not (CW). I also use a small OTA and pick up the locals too, just in case of "loss of signal". I had a Tivo since introduced in 1999, but hated the IR to box. I do own a Directv unit with built in Tivo, which they stopped making. I do however find their DVR's easy to use after getting used to them. IMO Directv just offers much more and now even have OnDemand through an ethernet cable. Good Luck!

That's very cool. I had resolved mysefl to living without OnDemand, one feature I use alot with TW. Is the OnDemand for movies or do they have something like cable's HBO and Showtime onDemand?

CW not in HD, what about SD feed over DirectTV?

[jchiso]

I would say that rain fade has been a non-issue with me for most of the past seven-plus years with the 24-inch dish, but as I type this my signal has been out for the past ten minutes or so during a rather inconsequential storm.

That being said, no other provider comes close to matching DirecTV's content.

[mey]

I have had Directv for close to 16 years. I have 2 hd dvr's and have very few problems. As far as rain fade the local hd channels go first, (and it is rare), for whatever reason. I have an antenna in my attic that picks up locals fine. I am just west of Sunbury. I tried TW, lasted 3 days went back to Dirctv.

[jpdublin]

On Demand has over 2000 shows from Movies to Sports. You need to hook it through internet though and must use the HR20 or HR21 model DVR and it is Free.

CW is in SD.

[charpman]

Very good. I ran 120 ethernet drops and 67 RG6 coax drops when I built the house so I'm set for moving data around.

[Harvey S]

I live in Powell just north of Seldom Seen Rd and have had the DTV HD Slimline 5 LNB dish since October 2007. I only recall 2-3 cases of rain (or snow) related problems and one was that the heavy snow stuck to the dish. Once I brushed it off the signal came right back. It is certainly not the case that every time it rains I get a degraded signal. Nothing remotely like that at all.

Local channels are all available in HD. I also use a small UHF loop antenna to pick up the OTA signals. No need for a roof antenna and no big problem to connect it to either a TV that has an HD tuner or the the DTV HR20 DVR.

I also had my house prewired when it was built but I did not think to run two coax runs to most rooms (my den the exception). To use the 2 tuners in the DTV DVR you need 2 coax runs from the multiswitch they install at your entry point, or possibly they can now give you the Single Wire Multiswitch (SWM) that can feed both tuners through a single piece of Coax.

[charpman]

Excellent news! I'm also north of Seldom Seen so that bodes well. Last remaining problem is the very tall trees I'm surrounded by. My neighboor make the shot so I think I should be okay. Installers come Monday morning.

Question: The Slimline 5 LNB, is it the same one that they are going to install (order info says 5-LNB multi-satellite dish) or is it one I should purchase and replace the one they install with?

[Gimpy McFarlan]

On Demand has over 2000 shows from Movies to Sports. You need to hook it through internet though and must use the HR20 or HR21 model DVR and it is Free.

Downloads typically stay on the DVR for 30 days. Most of the content on VOD is free but some shows/movies are not. There was a $5 charge for us watch "3:10 To Yuma" but this was much cheaper than going to the movie theater! For fee based content, you are not charged until you start watching and once you start you have 24 hours to finish it. Also, some content on VOD is linked to premium channels so you must subscribe to the premium channel to download thhat content.

[Harvey S]

Question: The Slimline 5 LNB, is it the same one that they are going to install (order info says 5-LNB multi-satellite dish) or is it one I should purchase and replace the one they install with?

One and the same. I think they always install the latest greatest dish. Only time you'd want to buy a new one would be if they come out with something new and you want to upgrade.