Anybody else here ever have two providers (excluding OTA) at the same time?

[FLEABttn]

I did Layer3 TV's 2-week free trial in August of 2018. I had both Dish and Layer 3 running concurrently. Using a 1080p source on a LG 65 inch OLEG TV, I could not see any difference in picture quality between Layer 3 and Dish.

I find this incredibly hard to believe as I currently have Layer3 and Dish and Layer3 has an obviously better picture quality. I as well have an LG 65 C7P OLED. The settings are identical for both (both running through my AVR).


Dish


Layer3

The players have no faces on the Dish feed. Look at how the left most players arms almost aren't there on the Dish feed.

I have done multiple comparisons between the two. 720p feeds look closer (though the grass on Monday Night Football actually had definition on Layer3) but the 1080i channels on Dish don't even compare. Dish is clearly still doing HD Lite for them.

 

[jackdemcak]

I saw an analysis of the two compression methods used by Dish and Layer 3. As a result I expected Layer 3's method to produce a noticeably better picture. FLEABttn's comprehensive testing confirms that the Layer 3 picture did look better. I was disappointed that I could not see any obvious difference from my normal viewing position 12 feet from the TV.

 

[shortspark]

I have a nice home theater with projector and 110" screen so I spend a lot of time there both for my own enjoyment and hosting sporting event parties. Because I spend so much time there and it is a big part of my entertainment, I don't mind paying for home theater service. I have Dish, Roku, Fire Stick, and, up until recently, Etex cable. The whole thing came to $400 a month (including my internet service). I dropped the Etex a couple months ago and have not missed a beat. I wanted a back up system like cable in case Dishtv went down or a big storm came through during the Super Bowl or Masters or something like that, especially if I had a party going. That happened so infrequently that I decided to drop the cable service. Bottom line for me is that if you spend a lot of time with your equipment don't be afraid to spend a lot of money on it.

 

[sxmfan2018]

i have dish and i have spectrum the only reason i am keeping spectrum is because it's cheap when bundled. and since i have a problem acct i got them to lower the rates under the 89.99 deal after filing multible complaints with the FCC on there on how the operate!!! and if i disconnect one service the rates skyrocket.

 

[PHXHoward]

I have Dish and would like to keep it. Keep trying different streaming services to see if one of them will be satisfactory. Costs are a lot less but the traditional television experience that I grew up with just isn’t there with the streaming. Right now I am trying DIRECTV NOW as a way to get HBO. Picture quality is pretty good but the beta cloud DVR is frustratingly limited.

Ideally I would love to just keep Dish Network. Everything I want is included in the Hopper 3 and the Dish Anywhere app covers me well enough on the road. My price is going to go up in December when the 2 year preferred customer offer expires. From what I’ve read, the new offer is less of a discount than the last time around and $105 per month is already steep for a single guy. Spending a lot of time agonizing over what to do a month from now when I have to make a choice.

 

[sxmfan2018]

as much as i hate them i am going with spectrum. after pissin and moaning with the retention dept about all of the problems i had with there service and how much it truly sucks let alone them not having any 21st century hardware. the offered mt the gold package along with the home phone and 100 mbps internet for and a free DVR for two years. i will stay with them since there the cheapest now. and i request that they sent a higher up tech out that knew what in the hell he was doing and not a toddler that i had to babysit. the last tech could not belive how bad the other techs screwed things up now it's all taken care of. the only real problem i had was all he had was a dual tuner DVR but that's not his fault!!! i just brought it back into the spectrum store and told them the tech took my old DVR and i came from the the six tuner DVR and they gave me one

 

[pattykay]

For most of the time that I have had satellite TV, I had at least two providers. For much of that time, even with only one set of equipment, it was necessary to have two providers to be able to get all of the programming. (Think DirecTV / USSB, or Dish / All American Direct.) I did have both Dish and Directv for a significant period of time, though. A lot of the time, I kept a minimal package with one provider or the other, just to be able to get different local channels, or different distant network packages. A lifeline basic cable package also helped supplement with some additional local channels, but I gave up on cable many years ago.

 

[Claude Greiner]

I have 3 internet providers at my house.

AT&T Fiber 1 Gig $80/mo, Comcast 150 meg which comes with my home security and tv bundle, and Wow 500 meg internet.

I would keep the AT&T Fiber, don’t care for Comcast internet except it’s like $30 when you add it up my bundle.

As far as WOW, I got them down to $40/mo when I threatened to cancel when ATT Fiber became available. It was over $100.

I really only need 2 internet providers.

Interesting thing is my Comcast home security router is running over ATT Fiber Just fine.