How many of y'all have a dish instead of cable? I'm thinking of ditching the cable because its getting too expensive. The dish looks like a better deal but I wanted to know what experiences those of you with a dish have before I switch out. All input is appreciated.

Cable over dish, but I abandoned both in favor of over the air. Its free, and I can watch LOST in high def. Initial investment, $400 and no more bills afterwards.

I just replaced cable with directTV last year and didn't look back. I heard bad weather messes it up, but have yet to see that for myself. Even with 190 channels, their still ain't anything good on though.

I am starting to hate my cable Co, but as far as hi speed internet they are the only game in town.

Still I think I will be converting to dish tv in the very near future....

I have cable everything (TV, internet and phone) and one bill for all. Never had a dish.

I bought my dish ten years ago. I love it. You get your dollars worth. Plus more of the extras like Sunday ticket, etc.... That's gotten a little expensive. But if you like football or other sports, that's the way to go. Every game played.
The only time I have trouble with it is during a thunderstorm or heavy snow. The picture will freeze frame occasionally.
But the real differance is if you have trouble with the box. Now you own it. If something goes wrong there, you either fix (too expensive) or replace it. I had to replace mine once. So now I bought the extended warranty,and if something goes wrong they replace it free. You can't expect your cable box to last ten years either. Some do, but I wouldn't expect them to.

DirecTV here (althought I do have cable for internet). On a big screen, the satellite has less artifacts that the digital cable in this area does, plus all of the channels are digital, where the lower 50 or so on cable are still analog, and weak. I had way more outages with cable than I have with satellite.

One disadvantage is that subscribing comes with commitments, like getting a cell phone, as they are subsidizing the equipment you own. Even adding additional recievers extends your commitment.

PDFCHevelle: the next time you have an equipment failure, call them and tell them you are cancelling your service becuase your equipment failed. They'll transfer you to a customer retention rep who will send you a new reciever for free (with a two year commitment attached, of course).

Cable for TV and computer. I looked at getting a dish several months back because I was having so much trouble with cable service but the computer was the overwhelming drawback to giving up cable. No way I would go back to using a phone modem. Anyhow, for the last few months (knock on wood) the cable has been problem free. Quite a few years ago I bought a house with one of those monster dishes that could track multiple satellites. I swear that dish looked like one of the Johnson Space Center versions, but I lived in a really remote location at the time so the looks of the thing wasn't really a big deal. The think was you could pick up these random wild feeds on this thing, so you never knew what you were going to see when you cranked it up. Sports with no commercials, downloads to local networks of every type you could imagine, news reporters that were on location and practicing their report. They were so vain they were constantly fixing their hair and checking their tie and their nose, LOL. It was hysterical. Right now I'm happy with cable but I will always keep an open mind for a better product that may be out there.

Direct TV for sure. More channels, less cost and zero reception problems. Screw time-warner.

Plain ol' roof-top antenna. It gets one channel really nice and the rest are pretty bad. That's OK., there's nothing worth watching anymore besides The Simpsons and 24 anyway. The time I used to waste zoned out in front of the T.V. I now waste zoned out in front of the computer.

A friend of mine has had a few satellite providers; service hasn't been totally reliable and occasionally they hit you up with rate increases. No thanks.

PDFCHevelle: the next time you have an equipment failure, call them and tell them you are cancelling your service becuase your equipment failed. They'll transfer you to a customer retention rep who will send you a new reciever for free (with a two year commitment attached, of course).

To Gene McGill:
My origonal NEW receiver went failed three months after I bought it. I had a 1 year commitment then. Direct-TV replaced it with a rebuilt receiver. (They claimed it was thier procedure)Which of coarse failed also. To make a long story short, after three rebuilt receivers which Direct-TV claimed were fine, I threatened them with court. That's when they finally sent me a new receiver. That one lasted eight years without trouble till it failed. I feel that one was hurt by a nearby lightning strike. I think they've changed thier policies since then. I bought a second one a few years ago with no trouble at all.
Thanks for the advice, but I've been down that road with Direct-TV.

PDFCHevelle: the next time you have an equipment failure, call them and tell them you are cancelling your service becuase your equipment failed. They'll transfer you to a customer retention rep who will send you a new reciever for free (with a two year commitment attached, of course).

To Gene McGill:
My origonal NEW receiver went failed three months after I bought it. I had a 1 year commitment then. Direct-TV replaced it with a rebuilt receiver. (They claimed it was thier procedure)Which of coarse failed also. To make a long story short, after three rebuilt receivers which Direct-TV claimed were fine, I threatened them with court. That's when they finally sent me a new receiver. That one lasted eight years without trouble till it failed. I feel that one was hurt by a nearby lightning strike. I think they've changed thier policies since then. I bought a second one a few years ago with no trouble at all.
Thanks for the advice, but I've been down that road with Direct-TV.


Thanks for the heads up. I've never had to us them to get a reciever, and now I won't . I first heard about the program as a way to get a new HD reciever, but can't see going that route with the limited number of HD channels they have (and out of range for OTA signals). Also, they will be switching to an MPEG4 format as they get more HD birds up there, so I'm not investing in any new equipment until that's all sorted out.

I have had direct tv for many years now. I will never go back to cable (at least as long as the NFL Sunday Ticket is on DTV). I have rarely had trouble with reception except during hurricanes in North Carolina and HEAVY snow in Montana. I had many more outages when I was on cable.

As far as customer service, my experience has been very positive. I have learned, however, to deal only with the customer retention dept, as I seem to get knowledgeable people more often.

I'm using cable, I've looked into satellite a few times, but the cost is really the same comparing to my cable company (Cox). I pay about $40 a month for basic and expanded which is 74 channels, I'd pay the same price for 60 channels with satellite, even though I only watch about 5 channel that both include, but it'd cost me $10 a month more to switch to dish since my cable internet is discounted $10 a month by having TV service.

All I want is for the gov't to pass a bill that'd require that they let people purchase individual channels. Even $40 a month to me is silly no matter who provides it when all I want is about 5-10 channels and never watch the other 60+.

Our local scam of a cable company like to take certian blocks of channels and package them together and add a small fee to each months bill. Speed, OLN, Fuel, are a few part of some sort of sports package. VH-1 classic, Fuse, and some other channels are part of some music package that they want extra money a month for.

When I found that out I told them to go pound sand since the package I looked at from Directv offers all those stations for less then the price of cable.

Dont get me started in our cable companys customer service.