Six months from now...

[varaonaid]

We'll be moving in a month or two and plan to switch back to satellite from cable. We were an E* subscriber for several years (pre-HD) and we were generally quite happy with the service but have been with cable for 3 years now.

I'm trying to decide which service to go with. I can definitely understand the current frustration from lack of new HD with E*, especially with all the additions coming from D* but I was wondering what your opinions are about how things will look 4-6 months from now? Will E* have closed the gap with the launch of the new sat(s)? Is it worth the hassle of switching to D* or will it be a moot point later this year with the HD offerings having equalized? I've also heard that E*'s hardware is better. Is that true?

Thanks so much in advance! I look forward to hearing your opinions, thoughts and advice!

 

[Liquidforce88]

I think most will agree that HD is pretty much going to be a toss up between the two. As soon as Dish gets the new sats in the sky you are going to see more HD. It's not really Dishes fault that the satellites are not up now as it was problems at the launch locations that delayed things. Otherwise we may be saying what is taking Direct so long. As untill late last year they were not even close to Dish on HD.

 

[larrykenney]

I have the Dish ViP622 DVR and it's fantastic. It's reliable and works great, and the OTA tuner in it is excellent. You can record two satellite channels and an OTA channel simultaneously while watching some other previously recorded show and it just works.

I haven't any experience with the DirecTV DVRs but I've seen a lot of reports about problems.

I've got about 50 good HD channels from Dish, and they promise more later this year. I'm sticking with them.

Larry
SF

 

[Islandguy43]

We'll be moving in a month or two and plan to switch back to satellite from cable. We were an E* subscriber for several years (pre-HD) and we were generally quite happy with the service but have been with cable for 3 years now.

I'm trying to decide which service to go with. I can definitely understand the current frustration from lack of new HD with E*, especially with all the additions coming from D* but I was wondering what your opinions are about how things will look 4-6 months from now? Will E* have closed the gap with the launch of the new sat(s)? Is it worth the hassle of switching to D* or will it be a moot point later this year with the HD offerings having equalized? I've also heard that E*'s hardware is better. Is that true?

Thanks so much in advance! I look forward to hearing your opinions, thoughts and advice!

All depends on what your looking for. The 722 HD-DVR is great, but then I have not been a DTV sub, so I can't speak of theirs.

I will most likely switch to DTV for other reasons though; namely locals in HD, certain sports nets offered by D in HD, that aren't offered in HD on E* or not even offered at all. Plus the option of getting the NFL Ticket and MLB Extra Innings package.

Like I said, it is all what your personal preferences are.

 

[varaonaid]

All depends on what your looking for. The 722 HD-DVR is great, but then I have not been a DTV sub, so I can't speak of theirs.

I will most likely switch to DTV for other reasons though; namely locals in HD, certain sports nets offered by D in HD, that aren't offered in HD on E* or not even offered at all. Plus the option of getting the NFL Ticket and MLB Extra Innings package.

Like I said, it is all what your personal preferences are.

The preferences thing makes sense. I should have probably mentioned... sports (other than the major events, Superbowl, World Series, etc, etc. which should be available on either sat service, right?) aren't a huge concern. The main thing we enjoy are the Discovery channels and related similar ones, BBC America, and films (including classics). If you honestly believe that Dish will be catching up and adding more HD later this year when the new sats are up, I think we'll look at simply going back to them and trying for an upgrade deal.

By the way, just curious, how's the SD quality on Dish right now? Will that change as well with the new sats later this year?

Again, many thanks for the advice and information!

 

[Minac]

If you haven't had DISH for three years you will probably notice a difference in SD, and not for the better. Of course, it doesn't compare to what it was back in the late 90's. In my opinion of course!

 

[bhelms]

OTOH, when E* converts everything including the SD programming to MPEG-4 then there should be plenty of capacity for maximum PQ on all channels. Will that actually happen is anyone's guess at this point but I believe it will.

Sounds like the OP has been away from E* long enough that you should qualify as a "new" customer, so you'll have maximum availability of options, credits, etc. Too early to tell at this point what those will be. No need to make a decision at this point...

 

[varaonaid]

If you haven't had DISH for three years you will probably notice a difference in SD, and not for the better. Of course, it doesn't compare to what it was back in the late 90's. In my opinion of course!

In your opinion, was it better or worse back in the late 90's? Is SD still watchable now?

OTOH, when E* converts everything including the SD programming to MPEG-4 then there should be plenty of capacity for maximum PQ on all channels. Will that actually happen is anyone's guess at this point but I believe it will.

Will the total changeover to full MPEG-4 be happening in the near future? Are there any projected dates on this? I'm assuming if I have one of the HD DVR receivers that I'll be able to get the MPEG-4 versions of the SD channels as soon as they are available, is this correct?

On a different but related note, do the HD DVR's automatically show the HD versions of a SD channel if available or are they in entirely different channel areas? For any channel that the HD feed is identical to the SD, that would be an awesome feature. Obviously, this would be the case for something like Food Network HD where the programming is on a completely different schedule than the SD counterpart.

Thanks again.

 

[Islandguy43]

By the way, just curious, how's the SD quality on Dish right now? Will that change as well with the new sats later this year?

SD quality is great on a SD TV, under the size of 32 inches. SD looks like crap on my 48 Sony Rear Projection HDTV though. So bad, that I am better off running my 722 receiver in single pip mode, and watch a hockey game on smallers screens to get a crisper picture.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

My answer to the OPs original question, is that I think Dish will close the gap over the next six months, assuming the birds go up.

I love the 622/722 DVR, and love having external Hard Drive archive support even more.

Based on what you like to watch, I think you'd be happy with Dish.

 

[Cyclone]

On a different but related note, do the HD DVR's automatically show the HD versions of a SD channel if available or are they in entirely different channel areas? For any channel that the HD feed is identical to the SD, that would be an awesome feature. Obviously, this would be the case for something like Food Network HD where the programming is on a completely different schedule than the SD counterpart.

Thanks again.

The answer is ... Kinda.

The DVR does map down the HD channel to the same channel number of its corresponding SD channel. So in the case of National Geographic, you will have two channel 186s in your guide. The HD channel has a big "HD" logo indicating which of the two it is. You can also program the DVR to "prefer" to record HD over SD. So if you have a pass to record a game on ESPN, the DVR will automatically pick ESPN-HD over the regular ESPN.

On your local HD channels, the DVR can also be configured to map down the HD channels to the single/double digit channel numbers. So my NBC affiliates HD channel might be 6321 and its SD ch # is 8321. The DVR would map down the HD channel to say ch 004-00 instead of the SD ch.

So to answer your question, the DVR will automatically pick the HD channel to record from (if configured to do so). The SD channels do remain in the guide, so if you do pick one, the DVR will not automatically send you to the HD equivalent. Considering the HD equiv is adjacent to the SD, this should not be a problem, since you likely picked the SD channel deliberately.

There are only a few reasons why you would do this. Perhaps you want to record a show and use less diskspace, or intend to download it to a pocket dish device which does not support HD.

 

[varaonaid]

The answer is ... Kinda.

The DVR does map down the HD channel to the same channel number of its corresponding SD channel. So in the case of National Geographic, you will have two channel 186s in your guide. The HD channel has a big "HD" logo indicating which of the two it is. You can also program the DVR to "prefer" to record HD over SD. So if you have a pass to record a game on ESPN, the DVR will automatically pick ESPN-HD over the regular ESPN.

On your local HD channels, the DVR can also be configured to map down the HD channels to the single/double digit channel numbers. So my NBC affiliates HD channel might be 6321 and its SD ch # is 8321. The DVR would map down the HD channel to say ch 004-00 instead of the SD ch.

So to answer your question, the DVR will automatically pick the HD channel to record from (if configured to do so). The SD channels do remain in the guide, so if you do pick one, the DVR will not automatically send you to the HD equivalent. Considering the HD equiv is adjacent to the SD, this should not be a problem, since you likely picked the SD channel deliberately.

There are only a few reasons why you would do this. Perhaps you want to record a show and use less diskspace, or intend to download it to a pocket dish device which does not support HD.

Thanks for this info. I think I understand what you're saying. Basically, when you're searching through the guide, any channel with a HD equivalent will be adjacent to it's SD counterpart making it easy to choose the HD channel. That would be great and I love that I could have the DVR automatically "prefer" HD recording to SD. On our current cable setup, National Geographic SD is on channel 142 and the HD version is on channel 659! So you *really* have to go to the effort of finding the HD channels (of which there are very few) if you're surfing through the lower SD channels and want to watch a show in HD.

 

[bhelms]

Re: current SD quality - I find it quite variable, and sometimes on the same channel. I do most of my watching on 40" and 52" Sony LCD TVs. I watch a lot of Tru TV. Some programs look great in SD, some not so great. Ch 131 (IFC) always seems to look good and I watch movies on that channel a lot since they're commercial free during the movie. I don't know whether E* allocates different BW (bit rates) to SD channels or if the difference is in the originating station. YMMV.

Re: MPEG-4 conversion, look at the other threads on this topic, notably "Eastern Arc". How soon is speculative, but I believe it is inevitable given the ever-increasing demand for content especially HD in a hardware- and BW-starved environment. The ViP HD receivers/DVRs (211, 222, 612, 622, 722, etc.) will receive the M-4 channels now. Eventually the current generation of SD receivers/DVRs will have to be swapped-out. E* (and probably D*) will likely do this regionally vs. all at once. The remaining question is whether or not some of the additional "capacity" made available by the more efficient compression engines will be used to improve SD (and HD !!!) quality vs. using it all for additional content...