CNN HD on BHN vs. DirecTV

[skottey]

Today I did a comparison between CNN HD on DirecTV and the newly added CNN HD on BHN.

My hookup-
I currently have my BHN box hooked up via HDMI (looks better than component on my Sony HD set) and my fairly newly subscribed DirecTV box (about six weeks) is hooked up via component still (I have an HDMI 4 device switch on the way for both HDTVs). Having had both BHN and Dish Network, I stand behind the HDMI looking better than component on this particular Sony HDTV with any tested source (including Xbox360, Dish Network 622, BHN HD box). I have not yet hooked my DirecTV H21 up via HDMI. But in general, HDMI is known to look better than component (I realize not always) but this has been the case with my Sony HD television.

The comparison-
I tuned to CNN HD on both my BHN box and DirecTV. I then switched back and forth between video inputs, in a non-scientific eyeball examination of CNN HD on each source. Keep in mind, DirecTV is using the component connection, which in general looks worse on this television.

The Results-
1- CNN HD on DirecTV is about 5 seconds ahead of CNN HD on BHN. I'm not sure why BHN has such a delay.

2- CNN HD looks far better to the naked eye on DirecTV than it does on BHN. In fact, I got macroblocking on BHN during my trial. But even when it wasn't pixelating, the BHN picture was washed out and not nearly as sharp.

My thoughts-
I hope this is not a sign of things to come with BHN once they start using SDV (if this isn't SDV already). It is entirely possible they are feeling pressure to add channels and reducing bandwidth (think HD Lite) in order to squeeze in channels. I often (almost always) found BHN HD to have a better picture on the same channels as Dish Network HD last year when I subscribed to both, but that is clearly not the case when comparing DirecTV to BHN. DirecTV is far better to the naked eye. I'll test again when I have both hooked up via HDMI later this week and compare some other channels. DirecTV looks great now, it should be even better with HDMI.

Your thoughts-
Anybody else do a comparison test yet? How about BHN vs. FIOS. Oh wait, I don't think FIOS gets CNN HD yet. But you could test other channels.

 

[Chucky Cheese]

My personal thoughts, Direct TV or Dish has better picture quality than cable. Which do I prefer?? Cable. Why? Reliability. Whenever I had bad weather I couldn't watch tv because I'd lose signial. Im not much of a TV person but when weather is bad that's when you want to see TV. Never had that problem with cable.

 

[Kevin1514]

My personal thoughts, Direct TV or Dish has better picture quality than cable. Which do I prefer?? Cable. Why? Reliability. Whenever I had bad weather I couldn't watch tv because I'd lose signial. Im not much of a TV person but when weather is bad that's when you want to see TV. Never had that problem with cable.

You must have had a bad install, I only lose picture about 2-4 times a year due to weather and I live in the PNW where it rains all the time and we get some pretty bad storms in the winter.

 

[Chucky Cheese]

I was locked at 96-98% according to the box. Doesn't matter much now..

 

[skottey]

My personal thoughts, Direct TV or Dish has better picture quality than cable. Which do I prefer?? Cable. Why? Reliability. Whenever I had bad weather I couldn't watch tv because I'd lose signial. Im not much of a TV person but when weather is bad that's when you want to see TV. Never had that problem with cable.

I lost Dish Network a lot last summer. This summer the storms have been just as bad and I have lost DirecTV only a few times. The difference being that DirecTV was only out for a few minutes, where as Dish would go out much longer, like, until the rains stopped.

DirecTV also put a huge dish on my roof, where Dish Network gave me a pair of smaller ones. I'm sure that makes a difference.

 

[razorphreak900]

well , when it comes to different companies, there will always b a delay. even as much as 10 second delay. depending on their personal feed/distance/signal quality.

technically, when i see people say, why such the delay. well being quite honest, why would anybody care. if YOU the person see it just fine, in your own home. why care about, why my friend or my other carrier is faster or slower with the delay. i mean, thats just plain like compulsive lol.

as for the quality. well idk. I dont have dish service. so i cannot compare. but...

different company,model of boxes,wiring, will always have somewhat of an impact on how a quality is being feed.

the only way to properly compare, is using same type of wires of course, and most importantly, same cable and dish box models.

example, when i had the 8300hd, lets just say, the box in itself is quite crappy. but with the same service, same wires, same ol CRAPOLA lol. with the 4250hdc box, everything *even if i was to use component, wich i have used* the picture quality is ever so much clearer and the speed of channel changes are far better.

now one thing i do get bothered, as other has mentioned around here. is when a channel is somewhat new and in hd. they make it look the same and or worse than the regular digital broadcast.

I remember when tbs hd came out. gosh did it ever looked so horrible, i used to stay with the "regular" tbs channel most times. thats how SO NOT hd it was. but of course, with time now all of that has been properly fixed and or updated. so I am hoping with the 4 new channels we have gotten, they upper to true hd quick.

I saw disney/cnn for example, and gosh they look crappy. i mean all that omg i cant wait to have this channel in hd. but then when u do, its like, OH!? it looks ummmmm well idk lol, they still even broadcast it in 4 by 3 picture mode.

but anyways.

who in the pinellas county area, would consider fios and give it a try, for when it comes out?

I have no issues with bhn what so ever, but giving something "newer" a try, wouln't hurt.

has anybody used it? or with a friend that has it. what is the pq like, speed and u get as much goodies with fios like u would do with bhn?


well im done for now, peace! =-P

 

[skottey]

I saw disney/cnn for example, and gosh they look crappy.

Actually, CNN HD is a very sharp, nice looking picture during its HD programming. That is why I compared CNN HD and not something else. No, it isn't the best channel in HD, but TW has done a far better job launching CNN in HD than they did TBS or even TNT.

Honestly, I don't even watch CNN on a regular basis. I watch Fox News and Fox Business. I have watched some CNN because it is in HD. I can't wait for Fox News in HD. Fox Business Network in HD looks nice on DirecTV.

 

[razorphreak900]

Actually, CNN HD is a very sharp, nice looking picture during its HD programming. That is why I compared CNN HD and not something else. No, it isn't the best channel in HD, but TW has done a far better job launching CNN in HD than they did TBS or even TNT.

Honestly, I don't even watch CNN on a regular basis. I watch Fox News and Fox Business. I have watched some CNN because it is in HD. I can't wait for Fox News in HD. Fox Business Network in HD looks nice on DirecTV.

You are right, I have personally yet, to see a true hd recording on those channels, so i will give it time and see what is all about. thought for channels like those, especially cnn, even thought to me it isnt such a big deal channel anyways. shouln't all their recordings b on hd?

dont we have on bhn fox in hd??? i thought we did lol, *i will double check*

do you by anychance have the hd package from directv, where they have like TONS of hd channels, if so what is your personal input?

 

[skottey]

dont we have on bhn fox in hd??? i thought we did lol, *i will double check*

BHN carries both Fox News and Fox Business in the SD format. DirecTV carries Fox Business in the HD format but Fox News in the SD format until the fall when they get their new satellite operational (so I have read on here). Fox News has been live in HD since May for a few TV markets, but not BHN or DirecTV.

do you by anychance have the hd package from directv, where they have like TONS of hd channels, if so what is your personal input?

I have the DirecTV Premier package plus a second HD DVR. I also pay either $5 or $10 extra for a handful of HD channels in an HD extras package (this includes MGM, HDNET, HDNET Movies and a couple others). The rest of the stuff DirecTV gives you with the HD package. I basically have everything. (except extra sports packages like Sunday Ticket, Playboy TV, and PPV, I NEVER buy PPV) All the movie channels they offer, all the regular sports channels (65 or so regional channels and their alternative feeds, blackouts apply). I am a huge movie person, so it is nice to have 10 or so premium channels (HBO/MAX/Sho/Starz) in HD, plus the rest in SD (still fewer multichannels in SD than BHN). I am not a big sports fan, but I do love hockey (go last place Lightning!) and enjoy my local Tampa Bay Buccaneers football. I won't get the Season Pass for anything, but even if I was a die hard fan I would have to think long and hard at a cost of $250 a year for out of market games (in the case of the Sunday Ticket NFL). I would consider getting the NHL Center Ice maybe, just because I love hockey, but I get enough Lightning games that I doubt I would watch too many out of market games, unless they were some big [FONT=&quot]rivalries.

I am very happy with DirecTV. My bill is around $118 before their discounts that I get for the first year. I also keep BHN around as an old friend with an HD-DVR and digital (no extra paks or premiums) for about $68/month. Yes, it is a rip off. I just feel guilty getting rid of them after all these years. Plus that, I want to be there when they go SDV and add a bunch of channels. I am a wasteful geek I guess.

But yeah, I love DirecTV.
[/FONT]

 

[razorphreak900]

BHN carries both Fox News and Fox Business in the SD format. DirecTV carries Fox Business in the HD format but Fox News in the SD format until the fall when they get their new satellite operational (so I have read on here). Fox News has been live in HD since May for a few TV markets, but not BHN or DirecTV.




I have the DirecTV Premier package plus a second HD DVR. I also pay either $5 or $10 extra for a handful of HD channels in an HD extras package (this includes MGM, HDNET, HDNET Movies and a couple others). The rest of the stuff DirecTV gives you with the HD package. I basically have everything. (except extra sports packages like Sunday Ticket, Playboy TV, and PPV, I NEVER buy PPV) All the movie channels they offer, all the regular sports channels (65 or so regional channels and their alternative feeds, blackouts apply). I am a huge movie person, so it is nice to have 10 or so premium channels (HBO/MAX/Sho/Starz) in HD, plus the rest in SD (still fewer multichannels in SD than BHN). I am not a big sports fan, but I do love hockey (go last place Lightning!) and enjoy my local Tampa Bay Buccaneers football. I won't get the Season Pass for anything, but even if I was a die hard fan I would have to think long and hard at a cost of $250 a year for out of market games (in the case of the Sunday Ticket NFL). I would consider getting the NHL Center Ice maybe, just because I love hockey, but I get enough Lightning games that I doubt I would watch too many out of market games, unless they were some big [FONT=&quot]rivalries. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I am very happy with DirecTV. My bill is around $118 before their discounts that I get for the first year. I also keep BHN around as an old friend with an HD-DVR and digital (no extra paks or premiums) for about $68/month. Yes, it is a rip off. I just feel guilty getting rid of them after all these years. Plus that, I want to be there when they go SDV and add a bunch of channels. I am a wasteful geek I guess. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]But yeah, I love DirecTV. [/FONT]

thats koo, i will for sure look into it more then. how about them storms and stuff? how is your dish holding up?...thanks for all the info btw =-)

 

[Curtis0620]

My personal thoughts, Direct TV or Dish has better picture quality than cable. Which do I prefer?? Cable. Why? Reliability. Whenever I had bad weather I couldn't watch tv because I'd lose signial. Im not much of a TV person but when weather is bad that's when you want to see TV. Never had that problem with cable.

When the hurricanes came through here a couple of years ago, cable was out for weeks.

With satellite, it may have been out a couple of minutes.

 

[skottey]

thats koo, i will for sure look into it more then. how about them storms and stuff? how is your dish holding up?...thanks for all the info btw =-)

For example, it rained like hell in St. Petersburg yesterday afternoon and we lost DirecTV for about ten minutes. My mother-in-law was down watching the baby while I worked from home and she was a little moody about the outage, but more annoyed with my wife's beagle (it came as a package deal with my wife) for his five hours of straight barking that started with the rainstorm and kept waking the baby up. But yeah, the DirecTV was only out about ten minutes and we are talking about one hellava rainstorm.

I was in the process of hooking up an HDMI switch in the bedroom during that brief outage and it seemed that whatever SD station I had the box tuned to was up and running while the HD A&E or TNT that she was watching was getting "searching for satellite." So it is clear that the HD channels are pickier but honestly, with all this rain, DirecTV is not nearly as bad as Dish Network was. I haven't tried but I am sure you can still watch the DVR'd stuff during an outage, so if I had to watch something, I could put on a half hour recorded show during the outage. No big deal. I know cable uses satellite outages as a selling point but it really isn't that bad at all. The channel selection in HD more than makes up for it.

 

[jcarrera]

I don't see how you could be storing it on the DVR disk if the signal coming in has gone bye-bye.

You know, if the sat's had an on-demand like channel where you could go back and re-see anything that was on say in the last hour, that would be cool--and would almost erase any of the cable non-outage advantage.

 

[skottey]

I don't see how you could be storing it on the DVR disk if the signal coming in has gone bye-bye.

I am not exactly sure what you are saying. I am talking about playing back DVR recordings that were recorded during a non-outage. For example, you are sitting there watching TV in a storm and the sat goes out. Rather than turn the TV off like somebody who has a life, you then pull up The Simpsons, which you recorded on Sunday, and watch the show while your satellite reception is out due to bad weather. I am saying, I have not tried it yet, but that I am sure you can watch your DVR recordings with or without a good signal. I am not talking about watching the same program you were watching off live TV.

You know, if the sat's had an on-demand like channel where you could go back and re-see anything that was on say in the last hour, that would be cool--and would almost erase any of the cable non-outage advantage.

Actually, DirecTV does have a pretty good On Demand (still in Beta). It requires a broadband connection and it has just about everything that BHN has except HBO, Cinemax, Showcase on Demand, and some of the other crap like Howard Stern and those pay On Demand services. It has Showtime, Starz, Discovery, and probably 60 or so more, including stuff BHN does not have. Of course it has PPV too, but I never order PPV On Demand or not. I am not sure if the On Demand works during a weather outage though. I mean, you could play back something you downloaded, but you may not be able to download something new. I think it uses the satellite while browsing the stuff and then uses Ethernet to download it off your broadband connection.

There are downsides to the On Demand with DirecTV....

1- you have to wait until it is 66% downloaded before you can play it, as opposed to starting nearly instantly with two way cable.

2- everything so far is in SD, which is basically the same with BHN, with the exception of PPV movies On Demand in HD and HD Showcase on Demand. Nothing is in HD with On Demand on DirecTV yet.

But given everything I just said, it really doesn't matter because the outages with DirecTV do not last long. My longest one was ten or fifteen minutes. What would really get me steaming mad is if I recorded a movie while I wasn't home or in bed and I had no idea there was a storm and went to watch it and during the last ten minutes it had no signal and just gave me a black screen. That would make me pretty mad. For all I know it lets you know if it lost sat during a recording. It hasn't happened yet, thankfully.

I really love DirecTV so far. I hardly use the BHN HD DVR in the bedroom anymore. I just don't want to let go though (yet).

 

[jcarrera]

You were talking about the outage, then said...

... but I am sure you can still watch the DVR'd stuff during an outage....

so I concluded you were talking about DVR recording whatever you were watching at that time.

 

[stevenl]

When the hurricanes came through here a couple of years ago, cable was out for weeks.

With satellite, it may have been out a couple of minutes.

Well that is relative. Some people never lost cable. Some people had there dish blown off the house! So it really depended on where you were and how the cookie crumbled.

 

[skottey]

Well that is relative. Some people never lost cable. Some people had there dish blown off the house! So it really depended on where you were and how the cookie crumbled.

You are such a company man. I'd hate to be BHN, should they decide to lay you off or fire you someday. Such company men are the worst employees to let go because they house so much emotion. When it turns from positive emotion to negative, LOOK OUT!!! I could see you turn on them on a dime and really rip into them. For your economic sake, I don't want to see that, but boy would that be entertaining.

I wonder what my techs say about me. I wonder if they are so positive about my company and their experience working with me. I hope so.

 

[jcarrera]

haha.. You are right about stevenl being a devoted company employee, but I like him. He knows a lot, and he has taken BHN to task a few times (very few <G>), but is always honest in that he never says anything false. He does tend to emphasize the elements of the issues that favor BHN though. Nothing wrong with that as I see it. There are enough contributors on here that you usually can get both sides of the story by reading the whole of discussions.

steven, here's to you! Too few people care about their employer at all, and their work quality and level of effort shows it.

 

[stevenl]

I do tend to emphasize the BHN side of things because thats the side I know the best. I cant argue the side I do not know I only bring out the side of the argument I know the most about.

What I said above was 100% true. Just like I lost power only once during the 4 storms and that was during Jean (and I only lost power while Jean was over us once gone power quickly resotred) I also did not lose cable. It really depended on where you were. In downtown Windermere area, its full of huge trees, and everything is overhead. They were without cable for a couple weeks! but a few blocks away in the other subdivisions they never lost cable. It was really hit or miss, of course if you went through it you only remember your experiance. I thought it was easy because I had power the whole time, I would really have a different opinion if I was without power for those few weeks though.

So what I said was completely true. Id bet more people lost cable then sat service. Even not considering the fact BHN has at least 600+k more customers in this area then the DBS providers. Simply because it only takes one pole being knocked down to knock out a few hundred homes. Whereas if a single dish is knocked off a house its only that 1 person affected.


I do tend to lean toward BHN and it seems like I do it heavily, but often times I am only stating their reasoning. Or the reasoning any business owner would come to. Like my stance on NFL or FSN etc. Its a business decision. I do lean toward BHN and am very proud of the company I work for they do great things, an example.

A guy who works out of my office, we have worked at that office for 2 years together and have a good relationship. He has decided to join the military, for a few different reasons. BHN is holding his job for him, for the 3 years he will be gone, they are keeping his benefits going, and carrying them over, they are also paying him the differnce of his Army Salary vs BHN Salary. So the money he loses by getting Army pay, BHN is going to pay him the difference . So he will be in the army still getting a check from BHN! Its just a great company to work for one that really cares for its employees and its customers, as much as sometimes it does not seem like it, but they really do try the best they can, do deal with 3million customers your bound to have stuff slip through the cracks. Its impossible not to. But BHN Has always scored extremely high on any Customer survey they even have the HIGHEST score in the industry for the "customers who would refer the service" I forget what the fancy name for it was.

But the one thing I will never do for this or any company I work for is lie. I will always be honest, and I always have. When BHN f**ks I will be there to jump on their ass. Like that sh!tty software they were trying to push, Yea it still sucks but its a 180* difference from what it was so its "acceptable" now just needs more work.

 

[stevenl]

You are such a company man. I'd hate to be BHN, should they decide to lay you off or fire you someday. Such company men are the worst employees to let go because they house so much emotion. When it turns from positive emotion to negative, LOOK OUT!!! I could see you turn on them on a dime and really rip into them. For your economic sake, I don't want to see that, but boy would that be entertaining.

I wonder what my techs say about me. I wonder if they are so positive about my company and their experience working with me. I hope so.

I'll keep you in mind if I am ever in Tampa and in need of a job