New here and to DirecTV, few questions

[scottydsntknow]

Hi all,

I've never had satellite before although my Parents have Dish Network and the picture/channel selection was awesome. I have had both Comcast and FiOS. FiOS was simply AMAZING, picture quality is great, channel selection is second to none and the On Demand works instantly just like Comcast. I probably would have gone with them again except that I moved to a location that does not have FiOS in any shape/form and I will NOT pay Comcast's ridiculous prices for garbage channel selection and only one (yes only one... no idea) HD channel per premium. Like HBO=HBOeHD and everything else HBO in standard def... I do have them for internet since, again, no FiOS and it is ok but I'm only paying for the 20 meg service so whatever. Its about 1/4-1/2 as fast as FiOS...

So it came down to Dish vs Direct and obviously I could not turn down DirecTV's Sunday Ticket for free and also getting all the FSNs (which nobody else offers around here apparently). So my questions are:

1 - Is there any way to get Cinema to work faster or am I just limited by Comcast's speeds? I know an uncompressed HD movie is going to pull alot of bandwidth but I figured they'd be able to make it work like FiOS did since Verizon also brings in the movies/shows through the modem.

2 - Did anyone else have issues with the equipment... I guess burning in when they first got it? My HD quality was HORRIBLE when I first got the service on all my TVs, like... pixelating, blurry facial features etc... to the point where I was considering canceling and all of a sudden it got better on its own and is now the clearest picture I've ever had even better than FiOS was.

3 - Is there a way to use CinemaPlus from any TV besides the one actually hooked into the whole home DVR? I can set recordings via the guide but I'm a bit dissapointed in Cinema as far as ease of use and also the fact that I can't just watch a movie immediately like I could with FiOS or Comcast... I guess that is what Netflix and Torrents are for lol.

All in all I am satisfied, it is for sure better than Comcast but if FiOS was available I'm not sure I would go with a satellite.

 

[MikeFr]

First, Welcome to SatelliteGuys! Hope you enjoy your new service and always feel free to ask any questions you have and use search to see what has been asked already.

1. From what I've read on here the VOD speeds are actually capped by Directv. Many people have said that having ISP speeds starting @ 3mb/s and higher generally have the same download times. If you're going @ <3mb/s an upgrade may help a bit.

2. From my experience I enjoyed pic quality better than my previous service, Dish, from the beginning. The only problem showed up a few weeks in when only one of my receivers were getting pixelation and signal loss. This turned out to be caused by loose wiring and it was fixed with one house call. If Directv is the same as Dish, you have free service calls for 30 days after initial install, so use it if you need it.

3. What receiver models do you have in your setup? In my setup any tv can watch a downloaded movie. Only HD DVR's and HD receivers can use the Whole Home features but if your receivers are all that type I don't see why you'd have issues seeing the movies in different rooms.

Also, when downloading anything from VOD you can start watching it almost immediately. I usually wait till it hits 5% downloaded and press play and can watch a full length movie without being delayed.

 

[JerseyMatt]

I have 10Mbps fiber, and my VOD downloads top out at 6Mbps (presumably the cap at Directv's end). That is approximately realtime for an HD program in 1080i and 3x realtime for an SD program. So given a small amount of buffering time (as Mike said a few % should be fine) you should be able to start watching immediately so long as you have at least a 6Mbps pipe.