Directv Vs. DishNetwork VS. Cable

[truebullfan]

Just wondering what do you folks thinks displays the best HD quality (not content) btw the big three.


I know that the whole "we show full HD 1080p" is crap since there is no way they show the uncompressed stuff you can get in a bluray but which provider has the best quality.

I personally have DishNetwork and its pretty nice.

[therage800]

I had cable (Time Warner) but switched to DirecTV; IMHO, it actually looks better.

[kichigaimentat]

I don't personally have ComCast HD, but I have seen it, and it's VERY compressed. Not unviewable, but if anything happens, like confetti or something like that, you'll see artifacts everywhere.

[nextgenxbox]

From what I have read, over the air free HD is actually the best quality.

[callen]

I have been more than happy with the HD quality through Direct TV. Granted over the air HD is probably about the best picture quality you will find, but this will typically be limited to local area network television channels. In my area Comcast is significantly more expensive as compared to Direct TV, so it made the choice bit easier. And from what I've read the most prefer the picture quality of Direct TV over Comcast as well. I've heard the Dish Network is also very good, but can't speak to that personally.

[xfuuey]

+1 for DishNetwork. I'm very happy after switching over from Charter's bs they call HD.

[cyborger]

I don't have an HDTV so I cannot say but I do know that I'm sticking with Cable because of rain fade.

[mic]

You probably won't notice that much of a difference in picture quality between DirecTV and DISH, but you will likely notice a difference in the hardware. If sports channels are important to you, then DirecTV wins, but they are not to me, so for the reason previously stated, DISH is my pick between the two.

The only good thing I can say about cable is, if you happen to have a decent cable company in your area, their internet packages can be very good.

[rharvier]

I live in San Diego and I have Cox cable... it's not very good. Some channels are highly compressed with an abundance of artifacting. What's worse is that NBC HD is absolutely terrible! I couldn't keep the Chuck season finale nor one of the big PGA Tournaments on my DVR because the signal was nothing but blocks.

My mom OTOH, lives on a reservation in Arizona where there's no cable or any broadband internet except for a 512k up/512k down wireless connection, yeah it sucks. She can get the major networks through the ATSC tuner on her TV, but she has Direct TV HD. Everytime I go home to visit, I get jealous. Her picture is so much better than my cable (we have the same LCD TVs). When I move out of my apartment, I'm definitely getting Direct TV HD.

[webpoet73]

I have Dish HD and it's getting better over time... more channels are always welcome. I am happy with the quality vs the HD my mom gets on Comcast... so, it appears that satellite offers better quality over cable in most cases.

[tokenuser]

I am moving, and needed to order my setups so that they can be done the day after we close on the house.

I will be living a little out of town - outside the city limits, on a wooded lot, in an area that is prone to heavy snow.

FiOS is not available in the area, and we are too far away from a local branch exchange for a decent DSL package.

There were just too many strikes against Dish/Direct for them to win. Satellite gives better picture (less compression), but the rain fade, and interference from the trees, compounded needing to go DSL for my network needs killed them for me.

As much as I dislike cable, I had to sign up with Comcast (currently with Time Warner) - I got a great deal price wise, even if the technology is a lesson in mediocrity.

[masherscf]

Cablevision HD looks like ass.

[gadget_nut]

From what I have read, over the air free HD is actually the best quality.

Sat ans cable have a limited pipe through which to pump all the content they provide. Therefore, they have to compress the content to fit. The more content they provide and the more narrow the pipe, the more compression is needed.
OTA broadcasters don't suffer such limitations and can deliver uncompressed content. Thus, better quality.

On the OP, my situation - long-haul truck driver, home about 30 days a year - doesn't lend itself to cable tv. I've used both satellite services and, due to my watching habits, I find it less costly to use iTunes and an AppleTV.

The quality between the two were about the same.

[bigron18]

My current content provider is the best I've seen, but it comes at the cost of other things. First off, I use the term content provider instead of cable because it is a different technology. I have SureWest in Roseville, CA... they exist around the Sacramento, CA market and Kansas City, MO area. I have a switched 100 Mbps synchronous active optical network connection (fiber) connected to my house. This is 100 Mbps of full, bidirectional bandwidth between me and their head-end. Unlike other providers, they do not send every possible channel to every connection all the time. From this 100 Mbps, 20 Mbps of synchronous bandwidth is reserved for Internet. The remaining 80 Mbps is for video, VoIP and overhead. If I wanted to watch the local CBS affiliate, they would send the same 18.2 Mbps MPEG2 signal they received from the station via a fiber connection. They added no additional compression over the signal they received. If you do the math, you can see that if I were to have several set-top boxes tuned to HDTV channels, one could easily fill up 80 Mbps. To combat this, they just recently started compressing with MPEG4. To be honest, I really never noticed when they made the change. I don't know what the current bandwidth is per HDTV stream in MPEG4, but it should be significantly less. They just upgraded my Internet to 25 Mbps bidirectional (from 20 Mbps) and dropped the monthly charge by around $15/month. When it comes to quality of picture quality, I still don't think anyone can truly compete with them.

Some of the drawbacks to their technology is they are the largest company using this technology; seeing as though many of you may have never heard of the company, that means all the other players in this technology are quite small. They offer a DVR, but it is not very refined... my old 5000 series ReplayTV had a much more intuitive operation than the DVR used by SureWest. The hardware set-top-box manufacturers are also quite small... ADB and Amino Communications, as opposed to companies like Motorola. As quality and Internet speed are very important to me, I live through these negatives.

Recently, I've been harassed by DirecTV representatives at both Costco and Sam's Club. They insist they have better picture quality than SureWest... so far, I have not found any of their claims to be true, in fact quite the converse. Before SureWest, I had Comcast... now THAT was a huge difference. Comcast's picture quality really sucked. They had so much compression artifact that it made it difficult to watch sporting events due to pixelation with movement. I have not seen DirecTV's HDTV for live sporting events, but I find this to be the biggest indicator of compression artifact.

[joedubbs]

I have Time Warner Cable here in New York and I have to say I'm really impressed with picture quality. I haven't had any issues with any of the programs I watch (including sports, movies, regular tv). There is a significant delay when changing channels but I can live with that.