Horrible First Experience with Dish

[3HaloODST]

Probably a troll thread, however I will say that ANY satellite TV provider will have a slightly longer delay between channel changes, compared to cable. That's just a minor setback of having your TV signal travel 22,000 miles your way. I noticed you said DirecTV doesn't have this lag. Have you ever actually used DirecTV? It's almost the same in terms of "channel switching lag" except most of the DirecTV receivers themselves are a lot slower than the DISH receivers.

Digital cable channel changing will be slightly faster, but the days of the old analog TV "channel surfing" are over, if you want anything more than Expanded Basic cable. Digital cable channel-switching lag is slightly shorter, but again, NOTHING compared to the old-fashioned days of analog TV.

Welcome to the digital age, and the 21st century.

It's almost like those who complain about having to have a receiver for every TV instead of just plugging the coax directly in. Those days on the cable system are numbered, and soon enough cable will require receivers for all TVs as well. Or if you want the digital tier on cable, you'll already need one.

Heck even over-the-air is no longer analog, and has a delay compared to the analog days. It's even shorter than digital cable, however still long enough to prevent "channel surfing."

U-verse TV by far has the fastest digital channel changes I've ever seen, even faster than over-the-air, however still not quite as fast as the analog days. Also, U-verse's mediocre HD quality negates them as an option for me anyway.

Anyway, happy trolling!

 

[KazooGuy]

I find this hard to believe. If this is true I am going to guess it is the television having the problem with the HDMI connection and not the sat box.

 

[TheKrell]

...however I will say that ANY satellite TV provider will have a slightly longer delay between channel changes, compared to cable. That's just a minor setback of having your TV signal travel 22,000 miles your way.

That is not a correct attribution for channel switching delay. All the channels all the time are streaming down from the satellites. There is nothing preventing the satellite tuner from switching from one stream to another in a small fraction of one second. This is particularly true of simply tuning to a different channel on the same transponder. Changing transponders takes more time, while switching between even and odd transponders more still, with the longest lag being changing satellite orbital locations plus all of the above.

 

[Jim5506]

They are streaming, but they are not being analysed. there is a short lagtime while the receiver assembles enough data to display a picture and the forward/reverse buffers it needs.

This is why there is always a slight delay (~1 second) when changing digital channels and it will always be.

Longer delays may occur when the data stream is weak or corrupted or when the OS is bogging down.

 

[Claude Greiner]

The biggest mental thing to change is the way that you watch TV.. It is not feasible to scroll through the channels.. The Lag will kill you.. Use the Guide to scroll the program list.. Find what you want then make the channel change..

I agree, this guy just needs to change the way he watches TV. I usually put on a channel, go to the guide and scroll until I find something intresting.

The same is true for DISH Network, as it is when I had Comcast Digital, and when I use my Directv system

With any provider that provides digital service, its going to be impossible to channel surf.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Using your guide to browse rather than channel surfing will make all the difference for you. Give it a try.

Yes, exactly. I remember 10 years ago when I just "channel surfed" on cable. Using the guide is the best way to "surf" on Dish.