Ok I finally decided to make the jump to HDTV, and started looking at HDTV's. I am pretty much sold on the Samsung DLP's (either HLP 5663 or 5685) and am now looking at my options for HDTV programming. Currently I have comcast Cable and have inquired about what they can offer me as well as talking to reps from Dish Network and DirecTV. Please clarify If I am correct on understanding what each offers.
Comcast: Currently offer about 13 channels of HDTV programming including the locals (NBC, ABC, CBS, WGN, ESPNHD, FOX, PBS, CINEMAXHD, STARZHD, HBOHD, SHOWTIMEHD) and INHD 1 & 2. They also offer a HDDVR box.
After speaking with Comcast, they supposedly do not offer Dolby Digital on any box, which is a huge negative! I downloaded the Motorola DCT 5100 manual and it does have dolby digital, so I am wondering if there lines cannot carry dolby digital or if the person I spoke to is clueless. But anyhow with Comcast I am able to watch my locals in HD and therefore can watch the Cubs, Bears, and football in HD that are on Fox, WGN, CBS, and NBC.
Dish Network: After speaking to them via they do not offer a HDTV tivo box, so definitely a bummer there. The HDreciever is free and HDTV programming is 9.99 after the free 6 month. They only offer 7 HD channels (ESPNHD, DiscoveryHD, TNTHD,HDNET, HDNET movies, and HBO and showtime HD). According to them you cannot get local channel HDTV content at this time. Is this true? They do have dolby digital, which is excellent.
DirecTV: After talking to expert satelitte they have told me that you must pay for the HD reciever (300.00) and 10.99 for HDTV programming after the free 6 months are up. They offer Fox, ESPNHD, BravoHD, DiscoveryHD, HDNET movies, HDnet as dedicated 100% of the time HDTV channels. However according to a guy at expert satelitte if you have an HD reciever and something is broadcasted on HDTV in any channel on Directv than you will get it in HDTV. This means any programs broadcasted in HDTV will be shown in HDTV. This sounds like the way HDTV should be! Is this true? Also they have dolby digital on their HD boxes, and also have available a HDTivo box, however expert satelitte does not offer it and I am having a hard time finding a price point on it.
Ok there is my long saga and now I am confused as heck. I want to be able to watch sports (I am a sports nut) in HDTV and enjoy Dolby Digital 5.1 sound at the same time. Movies in HDTV and dolby digital would be almost identical to DVDs than, which would be great. Now both satelitte companies did not mention any additional fees for a special dish (will they charge me extra for a special dish to get HDTV?) and now I am confused on how much HDTV programming I will be able to get with each service. I also would love to hear what people think about each company and their services. Thanks in advance and sorry for the novel, I just to want to be informed so I can make an educated decision.
Anonymous
Posted on
If you live in a major city, the satellite co. will give you an outdoor antenna to get local network HD. It would work together with their boxes. Not sure about why Comcast does not provide AC3 sound. It is a part of HD broadcast for many channels.
Should also look into Voom. The downside is that its DVR is still not yet available. DN has been saying that it has a DVR (921) for about a year but it has been very illusive. It is impossible to get one. People are selling it in e-bay with a 50% markup.
Well I live in the burbs of chicago...so I am certain that I will be able to get local netword HD with an outdoor antenna. How does that work? Do you have to change to a certain station or does it just use the outdoor antenna for fox, cbs, nbc, and all the others?
I have not heard that many good things about Voom, and it is supposedly more expensive than Directv and Dish network.
Also can anyone tell me if what the DirecTV people through Expert Satelitte said was true regarding being able to recieve any HDTV content possible on the channels they offer, as long as I have an HDTV and an HDTV reciever.
Anonymous
Posted on
I have Voom and somehow it integrates the antenna signals with the satellite signals in the box. You get to the local network HD by selecting the channel number (e.g., in the area I live in PBS-HD is ch.2, CBS is ch. 4, and so forth). There is nothing extra you have to do.
If you are a regular reader of this message board, you would find that most of the negative comments on Voom were about the installation. I too have some bad experience on installation and scheduling. The guy had to come to my house 3 times before I could watch anything. However, once the installation is done, I found the customer service is actually better than DishNetwork. I don't think Voom's price is more expensive than the others if you compare apples to apples.
Your last question must be a trick question. Of course you would be able to receive the HD content "they offer" with the HD equipment and pay them the fee.
Voom is about 30 dollars more and the boxes either if you buy or rent is much more expensive than either DirecTV or Dishnetwork. For their best package with 5 rooms renting is 155 a month (not including the cost of TIVO service), where as I can get dishnetwork's best package with tivo for 94.95 a month. DirecTV is like 115, and comcast would put me around 100.
Comcast has now told me Dolby Digital is available with HD service through them, so maybe they are the way to go. Can anyone who has Comcast confirm or deny. I have now heard twice that it cannot, and once saying with the new HDDVR box that it can.
Anonymous
Posted on
I have Comcast HDTV. Highly recommend it. The local channels in HDTV is why I chose cable over a dish. I usually only watch these channels anyway. I get ABC, NBC, PBS, Fox, and WB. CBS (Seattle-Kiro) and comcast have not agreed on a contract yet in my area so it is not broadcast, but I'm sure this will change in the near future.
As for Dolby Digital, my receiver has dolby digital. The true HDTV programming is broadcast in Dolby Digital 5.1. I know this because the blue light on my Sony receiver lights up.
My only complaint is sometimes audio and video are slightly out of sink on some HDTV programs. I am not sure if this is just me, Comcast, or if Dish HDTV subscribers experience the same thing.
We have a Gateway Plasma TV. We have HD cable TV connection through the cable tv. It works great, but, we also would like to hook up our TiVo and the coax splitter is not fast enough...What options do we have? We have the TV, HD Cable Box, DVD, and TiVo....The connection through cable is not fast enough for the signals and we currently can't get the TiVo to work with the slower signal
D on the west
Unregistered guest
Posted on
you can get 5.1 with all comcast boxes that have ac3 or optical audio out puts. CBS is not currently on comcast HD. I am not sure about dish and direct tv but the comcast dvr is a dual tunner box that have ac3 and optical out. If you buy a tv with cable card feature you can get HD from comcast also
Liteamorn
Unregistered guest
Posted on
I had Dish Network and I loved it, if it were not for HDTV I'd still have it, I went back to Cablevision reluctantly. Here's the delemas. Dish has a MUCH better picture on ALL of their programing as it is all digital and it is truly digital. They also had a DVR box I bought and can use it for free (only 35 hrs of hard drive but it is enough). Dish hs a very limited HD package and they charge for it as you mentioned. Dish's HDDVR box is way overpriced for my budget(about 900 bucks), Cablevision is installing one today and it costs 10 bucks a month and is High Def. I am a sports fanatic as well and you haven't watched football until you have seen it in high def. If Dish can someday offer all the locals in high def (as does Cablevision) with a DVR I can afford I would switch back in a minute, even with the annoying loss of signal from time to time. Hope this helps.
Bassic
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Dish DVR
Got an email from DishNetwork Wednesday. The High Def DVR 921 is available for immediate delivery for $549. It will be here in 4 to 7 days. Free Instalation available if needed. I can't wait to hook it up.
Hello all - been reading your helpful posts. I just got a great HD plasma and I am trying to decide on a new or upgraded service for HD programming and an HD DVR.
I currently have DirecTV and Tivo, all standard def. And I small HDTV antenna, which doesn't get much here in Boston.
Here is what I found in my quick research (please tell me what you think):
Dish Network: Sounds like the best deal, $550 HD DVR, cheap programming packages, and about 5 HD channels. HBO is an option too.
DirecTV: Easiest option to just upgrade my service. But it's another $12 a month, plus a $1k for a HD DVR box - what a rip! They seem to have made HD pretty complicated.
ComCast: Haven't looked into it, but to switch to cable might be wierd. Who likes the Comcast cable option? Can you get a cheaper HD DVR too?
That's my first thought on this thing. I will be curious to read your thoughts, and more importantly, experiences with the above.
Anonymous
Posted on
consider VOOM - however no hi def digital recording available
however COMCAST does now have a fantastic new Motorola box - 2 tuner model also availble at same price -ITS A HI DEF DIGITAL (hard drive) VIDEO RECORDER/INTEGRATED CABLE TUNER. If you have dvi/hdmi hookups you can make pristine quality hi def recordings with playback indistinguishable from orignals,
The box adds i believe 15 dollars or so to the monthly bill - quite cheap considering the new SONY (Over the air) hard drive box due out for HI DEF will be selling near 1000 dollars
Ben G
Unregistered guest
Posted on
Hi all. We live in Chicago and currently have Dish Network and just bought a plasma and subscribed to Dish Network's HD package with a DVR. The house we have is pre-wired with a single line. I'd really like to get local HD channels with an antenna.
Is it possible to receive both local and Dish Network programming over the same line and using a switch to split into the plasma TV (with built in ATSC tuner) and Dish receiver?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Anonymous
Posted on
Assuming you have not tried this, if you for example have the 921 HI DEF DVR, you s/b able to first experiment by buying a $35 HI DEF (settop) antenna and hooking it into the antenna-in.
Usually near urban areas this works as well as most roof top antennas, and its a matter of finding the major antenna farm in your area
Ben G
Unregistered guest
Posted on
I did try that with Samsung Axession Antenna and also RCA 1250. Even though I live within 3 miles from the transmitting tower, I was only receiving CBS in HD, all other local channels were in analog.
Dish Network offers another antenna installed (free of cost) for receiving CBS in HD. The specialist at Dish I spoke to wasn't able to answer if I'd receive other local channels on HD as well.
Anonymous
Posted on
too bad you don't have Comcast cable, because in most markets they pipe in excellent quality local hi def channels
Anonymous
Posted on
I live in a Chicago suburb and installed a Panasonic Plasma with built-in ASTC HD tuner about a month ago.
With some trepidation, I hooked it up to my 40 year old rooftop antenna. To my delight, over two dozen digital stations came through perfectly, although many still transmit in 480i. To keep things manageable, I selected 15 digital "favorites" for browsing purposes. About half of these currently broadcast in HD.
The over the air HD situation in Chicago is unusual in that CBS broadcasts HD on a VHS channel (channel 3) while all the other HD channels are in the UHF range, which can complicate the antenna situation a bit as many "HD" antennae are designed only to receive UHF.
Although CBS's analog signal (channel 2) is unviewable at my location due to severe mulitpath reflections from the Sears Tower, their digital signal is crystal clear off my old antenna.
I've long subscribed to DirecTV because of poor local analog over the air reception on several channels, but have decided to hold off on their HDTV upgrade until their DVR drops to a reasonable price and/or they greatly expand their HD offerings. The latter reportedly will happen later this year.
Meanwhile, I'm more than happy with the "free" OTA offerings I get, including all my favorite network programs plus local sports on WGN (which transmits demonstration quality broadcasts of home Bulls, Cubs and White Sox games in HD) and beautiful programming on PBS HD. Even some syndicated reruns have been upgraded to HD quality by WGN (WB network) and the local UPN outlet and look amazing.
Bottom line: Try OTA if you can before committing to spending more money for satellite or cable HD programming.