Hey Guys,

Some of you may already know I've bought a new house that's ready for move-in in 4 weeks. I have to get a few things prepared now so they can be installed during the first week I'm in there.

I'm wondering from those who have experienced it, what are your thoughts between satellite & digital cable. I know there are pros & cons. Remember I'm moving further north to Barrie, one of Ontario's biggest snow towns which makes me afraid of losing the satellite signal. Also from my understanding I need a box for each TV. With digital cable I think I only need a box for the TVs I want the digital service for, small bedroom TVs can just hook up to analog cable right?

I'm thinking Digital Cable is the way to go, thoughts?

i have digital, and ove it

ive ever had sat, but from what ive heard on both sides of the aisle, digital pwns satellite

(and obv where you're moving will affect sat quite a bit)
gl with the new pad!

Depends on your cable provider, but a lot of them are converting service to all digital which means 1 box per TV at some point.

A lot of it depends on price and package options you can get with each, it varies pretty widely by providers so it's hard to say without doing research on your local market.

I've had sat for about 8 years. I think the rain affects the signal maybe 5 days a year if that. Also, I get plenty of snow, usually 10-20" a month in the winter, and I have never had a problem at all when it snows.... only in the rain. You would need to have your dish in an area that is easy to reach though... as you will have to keep the snow removed every few days.

I don't know about your local cable co... but DirecTv is amazingly helpful... and they will provide all your equipment (boxes and dishes) for free... no matter how many TV's you have.

My gripes with digital cable is that while overall, you maintain a signal more often than Satellite (as in, your cable doesn't go out), the picture becomes grainy and choppy at times, more often than Satellite.

You can also factor in that you are paying more money for less channels than Satellite. That is my major gripes about digital cable. Plus rates are usually jacked up more often than Satellite. I am currently working for DirecTV in their Involuntary Wellness department (which means I just call customers to make sure there's no problems with their service, billing, and give them a survey to see if DirecTV is doing the best they can to serve them), and I have heard quite a few gripes from customers about a $3 rate increase in March, because they were shocked it happened. It's usually a slot machine for the rate hikes in digital cable from my experience.

If you have HDTV's, satellites tend to offer more HD capacity than cable, but check around and make sure that's the case in your area.

Like a lot of people said, the weather tends to play an important role in your signal in Satellite, and I've heard complaints ranging from "It goes out anytime we have clouds" to "The only way it goes out is if we have high winds." In my experience, I've had Dish Network and only saw it go out 3 days out of the year.

One thing that I have heard a lot of gripes about with Satellite was shoddy installation. That's more of a crapshoot, because installers are subcontracted out. But I have heard a lot of reports of installers doing a bad job with wiring strewn across the yard, things not put together correctly, and even one woman complaining about an installer stealing $100 out of her purse and the company sending out the tech's refused to compensate her for it. That of course, could happen with cable companies too, and I don't know any statistics.

If it were me, I'd go with satellite. But one other thing to keep in mind is Satellite companies do not (yet) offer Video on Demand. If that's of interest to you, look into cable.

VOD is the nuts

These are the 2 companies & packages:

Rogers Digital Cable
http://www.shoprogers.com/store/cable/ptv/...A41Q0QPVFGH7NQ2

Bell Expressvu (Satellite)
http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpTv_AIO_Pkg.page


To package HD channels with Rogers Digital I believe its $10/m for renting the HD box. Bell has their HD prices on the page. Right now I don't have a flatscreen but will be probably around xmas time.

Thanks, Barrie averages 85" of snow in Dec and 86" of snow in Jan. It's quite heavy and a lot of ice build up, that's what worries me.

I work in the Cable Industry, those guys generally get pretty good reviews on their services from what I have read. I don't know anything about the satellite company you listed.

Yea i just went through all the information on Roger's On Demand channel, that is freakin' sweet. I think that has sold me unless someone else has anything to say.

I have DirecTV and having the NFL Sunday Ticket is the best reason to have it.

But seriously, I love satellite TV overall.

time warner sucks.

that's all i got.

I've had both DirecTV and Comcast digital cable, which I have now.

No real problems with either, but I prefer the cable a little better, mainly because of the On Demand feature.

We have Comcast for cable in our area and they have the worst customer service that I ever encountered. When I moved six years ago, I canceled the cable and decided to look into satellite. It took about six months, many calls and a few walk-ins to finally settle all the billing problems that I had when I tried to cancel the contract. So it wasn't really a feature issue, their customer service turned me off while DirecTV is adequate in that area so I switched at that time and have never looked back.

Weather is generally good in our area so the fact that our Sat stays up almost all the time probably is not useful info. I use the DVR box from DirecTV which is behind Tivo's capabilities but has worked ok except for three cases or "blips" when it failed to record for some reason.

I get a lot of stations on Sat just with the basic & local plan so I can't complain about that. I won't go back to cable until they fix their customer service issues and I continue to see customer problems in the "Action Line" of the local newspaper. Just Today, some lady went thru fifteen months of Comcast hell before the Action Line guy helped fix her problem.

I'm further north in Sudbury and I have Bell ExpressVu. I can't remember the last time I lost my signal.

with HD get a HD capable antenna...yes the same kind you see on large towers outside homes

you can pick up any HD signal within range and will get a much better picture than you will through a compressed signal ie cable & satellite

And you chose THIS as the place to buy a house????

As far as the snow blocking the signal goes, (assuming it's too late for you to back out of the house deal and move south ) I have a buddy that used to install them and he, and several others I've talked to, recommend spraying the dish with PAM or another cooking spray in the winter. Apparently this helps the snow/ice slide right off rather than stacking up on the dish and causing signal loss.

fwiw

hey jason-

my girlfriend has rogers digitial cable and we've never had a problem with it. rogers will also let you bundle internet (which has only gone out for her once ever) and cell phone stuff.

and rogers video on demand is the ****. the. ****.

just make sure you spring for the best cable box you can afford through rogers--the basic ones (like the one my girlfriend has) are frustratingly slow cycling through channels in the guide thingy because the processors inside can't handle simple graphic overlays. gotta spring for a better one (though that's a problem with some satellite stuff, too.).

if cogeco's available, they had some of the best service i've ever had when i was living in the hammer.

as for people touting comcast, that place is horrid. my roommate was forced to pay his bill for cable and internet for over 15 months while they dodged his almost daily attempts to get a serviceman to come over and check out why his cable and internet would both be out for over 50% of every day. he moved out, i moved in, we got satellite tv because comcast is garbage.

good luck in the new place man!

Hey Jamie,

Thanks man, yea I'm definitely going to go for Rogers and I'll look at getting a better box. From my understanding its an extra $10/m to get an HD box which I'd assume should be all around quicker as well. I'll upgrade to that once I get a flatscreen in the place. Also since I need Internet and I hate Sympatico with a passion I'll definitely get that bundled.

Hope Chicago is treatin' ya well.

Thanks everyone for the help, in the end I feel Bell is too difficult to work with. I don't like their customer service and I've dealt with them at 2 places (home & office) for too long. I spent WELL over an hour with them on the phone cancelling services yesterday and have to pay $180 penalty for cancelling Internet 6 months before the contract ends.

Time to switch it up.

Cheers,
Gov

14 FEET of snow in 2 months? Make sure you have a big shovel. Maybe you meant cm?

LMAO.. yes CM sorry my mistake. 171CM = 67.3 in = 5.6'

Still.... the point remains