Author |
Message |
Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 4:26 pm
We are about to move and I wonder what we should get. Can you guys tell me what you like or don't like about dishes, cable, etc... Thanks!
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Rupertbear
Member
09-19-2003
| Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 5:27 pm
Well, congrats on your new abode, Julie. My only contribution is...I have cable and it's fairly reliable. Many 'naughty' friends have illegal satellite, so they often have to reprogram cards when they get zapped. I don't watch a lot of tv, so I see no need to have hundreds of channels of what I don't watch! ;)
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Draheid
Moderator
09-09-2001
| Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 6:02 pm
Julieboo: There are so many pros and cons to both, it's hard to pick just a few. Here's a couple off the top of my head though. Cable allows you to hook up all the TVs in the house without additional equipment required (digital cable is the same as satellite though, you must have a 'box' or receiver on each set to receive digital channels). Cable internet access is usually faster and much less expensive then satellite PC service. If you don't have DSL as an option, cable would definitely be a better choice for highspeed internet, IMO. Cable isn't typically prone to problems in severe weather unless the wires are torn down in which case you probably wouldn't have power either. The competition between cable and satellite has brought both to the point of being very comparable for the variety of additional services offered, including Tivo-like digital recorders in the set-top boxes for both, variety of channels and packages available over digital services for both, etc. Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please let me know.
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Seamonkey
Member
09-07-2000
| Sunday, May 02, 2004 - 10:40 pm
I have cable for digital tv (for my provider if you want premium channels like HBO and Showtime, you have to have digital) and also for my high speed internet access. I had DSL for a year and it was thru Verizon and frankly it sucked. In my particular area, cable is much faster. This does, however, depend on where you live and the infrastructure that supports your area. I'm happy. I have friends with Satellite in Illlinois (a more rural area) and she's had to climb up on her roof to dry off her dish more than once.. tsk..
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Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 6:13 am
Thanks! Guess we'll just stick with cable. That is what we have now, but man it is getting expensive. The basic-expanded package is like $50 a month...
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Bob2112
Member
06-12-2002
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 7:08 am
Julieboo: DirecTV with built-in Tivo! Get the Tivo receivers with 35 hours capacity for all TVs (I can help you upgrade capacity more cheaply if you find you need more space), since DirecTivo only charges $5.00 a month regardless of how many DirecTivo's you have. With new setups, 3 room DirecTivo installation costs including hardware are not bad at all. Each DirecTivo can record 2 different channels at the same time, so with 2 or 3 you will never have to worry about having 3-4 programs showing at the same time on a Thursday night. After a month, you will wonder how you ever watched TV without it.
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Biloxibelle
Member
12-21-2001
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 7:15 am
Bob we actually have the direcTV guy coming out today. We moved where there is no cable. We are having 3 receivers set up with one Tivo. Charge of 5.00. Are you saying we can get the other 2 Tivo at no extra charge?
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Bob2112
Member
06-12-2002
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 8:05 am
Biloxibelle:Yes, if you were to add any more Tivos there would not be any additional charge. This is completely different from the way stand-alone Tivo service is priced and there is no option for lifetime service with DirecTivo (but at $5.00 per month, it would take a long time to make up the lifetime cost). Now, good news and bad news for you. The Good News: 1.) Your new dish should come with a built-in 4x4 switch, which will give you 4 output lines. 2 of the lines will go to your DirecTivo and you will be able to record 2 different channels at the same time. 2.) The 35 hour DirecTivo receivers are going for $99 and can be used to replace any of your non-Tivo receivers and can use the existing single line. The Bad News: 1.) You will have to add a 5x8 switch if you want to use the second tuner with the additional Tivos. This switch will take your 4 lines as input and provide 8 output lines. The same switch that BestBuy sells for $150 can be ordered for $75. 2.) You would have to run an additional line to each receiver in order to use the second tuner. Depending on how handy you are, adding 2 lines and the switch can be fairly easy or downright impossible. I told the installer I would be adding a switch myself, so he ran all 4 lines into a grounding block in my basement which made inserting the switch a 5 minute job and pulling the other 2 lines and making the connections took less than an hour. Much of the success of these installs depends on how helpful the installers are. I gave the 2 guys $30.00 a piece and they left me with hundreds of feet of high quality cable for one connection I needed to make through the attic. They even ran the second line to the upstairs loft and finished it with a dual connector plate. This line was left unconnected in the basement, so I just had to connect it to the switch (which was coming in the mail) once it was installed. Overall, the material and extra wiring and finish work was worth more than double what I tipped them. This was my 3rd time dealing with satellite installers over the last 5 years and the other 2 times were much more painful (but that was with Dish Network). Good luck. You will find it hard to watch the other receivers once you start watching the Tivo receiver. 
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Halfunit
Member
09-02-2001
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 8:09 am
Bob is handy!
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Bob2112
Member
06-12-2002
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 8:20 am
We'll see how handy I am this weekend when I attempt to expand 2 of our DirecTivos from 35 hours to 140 hours. Ack! The cost to add a 2nd hard drive (along with mounting hardware) is just around $100, so this would make the cost of the 140 hour DirecTivo $200. I just checked some prices on higher capacity DirecTivo units and they are insane: 70 hours for $200 105 hours for $350 Of course, these units come ready to go, but for those prices, I will spend a few hours on Saturday and save the money.
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Biloxibelle
Member
12-21-2001
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 8:26 am
He sure is Half. A BIG thank you Bob. My handy dandy hubby has the house fully wired for all that. When we were building he did it all. Our keeping room, living room amd master bedroom are already wired for Tivo. The other three bedroom are wired just for the receiver. I can't wait to Tivo tonight and I'm sure on Thursday I will think I've died and gone to TV heaven.
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Draheid
Moderator
09-09-2001
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 8:34 am
Bob: Do you have the necessary Torx driver to open up the DirecTivos? I don't remember the exact one you need and, depending on where you purchased your upgrades from, they may include the tool you need with the kits. Otherwise, you may want to double check in case you need to pick up the necessary driver to open the boxes up. I purchased my upgrade from PTVUpgrades and they included everything I needed including the torx driver. Hope this helps.
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Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 9:05 am
Bob, you lost me at "hello"--just kidding. What is the monthly payment for DirecTV? Then ya add 5.00 for the tivo? My dh is as handy as, well, nothing. At least not much. neither am I. So tell me what the best thing for us to do. As cheaply as possible. I really just want to get local channels and the regular cable channels (Tvland, A&E, TLC, etc)
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Bob2112
Member
06-12-2002
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 9:11 am
Draheid: Thanks. Yes, T-10 for me and I've had the boxes open to confirm that I needed to get both a power spliter and M/S IDE cable. My DirecTivo needs a mounting bracket, so I ordered everything a few weeks ago and have been watching prices on 120GB hard drives and finally purchased 2 of them last week. I had the Torx drivers, so I didn't include those, but I did see a nice set of security drivers that had just about every specialty bit I have ever seen and the price was not too bad. I got my stuff from 9th Tee since they had the cheapest price on mounting bracket I needed. I mostly read the Tivo Community Forum to keep up to date on things like the new HDTV DirecTivos. Maybe if I'm good this year santa will bring me one for Christmas. <...not holding breath for this one...>
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Draheid
Moderator
09-09-2001
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 9:29 am
Bob: So you'll be 'blessing' your new drives yourself on a Linux box I presume. Please let me know how that goes and what type of box you use. I'm still hesitant to pull my drives out and add in the networking functions to the Tivo yet because I'm not sure the old Compaq P166 computer I would use can address the large drives on my Tivo. I would sure like to have the ability to download programs from the Tivo and burn them to VCDs at some point but we're too reliant on the Tivo currently for me to 'risk' taking that step right now. Good luck in your endeavor. I'm also a frequent visitor at the Community Forum and I understand the PTVUpgrade folks market their products through 9th Tee as well.
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Bob2112
Member
06-12-2002
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 9:56 am
Julieboo: The most common DirecTV package with locals currently costs $43 a month. Each additional receiver will cost $5 a month. If you add the Tivo service it will cost $5 a month. So, A basic 3 room setup will cost about $53 a month. A 3 room setup with Tivo on either 1, 2 or 3 of the receivers will be about $58 a month. DirecTV does not charge any tax in Illinois, so this will be your total cost (My actual cost with the 3 Tivos is $57.96 per month). Other states may charge taxes and I know Florida charges 13%. Draheid: I'll be using an older computer (either a P200 or a P2-300, I can't remember) and will be boot to Linux from a CR-ROM that is customized for the Tivo upgrade. I'll have a FAT32 drive connected, along with the CD-ROM, existing 40GB Tivo drive and new 120GB Tivo drive. The process shows how to take a compressed backup of the original Tivo drive onto the FAT32 drive, so I should be able to recover if anything goes wrong. The backup copy may be restored to a larger drive, so the Tivo could be expanded to 210 hours of record time if I decide to also replace the original drive. For now we'll try to live with the 140 hours on 2 different Tivos. I'll update on how the process went, once everything is working. Should this be moved to a more technical area? Feel free to relocate the last few posts or copy them if there is a better place to continue the techy talk.
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Calamity
Member
10-18-2001
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 10:03 am
Julieboo: DirecTV's most basic package with local channels is "Total Choice with Local Channels" for $39.99. DirecTV Package Comparisons FAQ for DirecTV DVR with Tivo Sorry, I see someone else has posted this info already but for some reason the site is really slow for me right now.
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Halfunit
Member
09-02-2001
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 10:42 am
After my birthday yesterday, I'm now FAT34.
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Beachcomber
Member
08-26-2003
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 5:26 pm
Half, you are killing me!!! ROFLMAO!
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Bob2112
Member
06-12-2002
| Monday, May 03, 2004 - 6:06 pm
<...perhaps Halfunit should consider compressing some files?!?...> Calamity is right about that price. We like Nicktoons and the extra Discovery channels you get for the extra $3.00, so I forgot we were getting the Plus package.
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Colordeagua
Member
10-25-2003
| Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 5:19 am
Wish I had a handy dandy hubby. I had one picked out some years ago. Didn't happen. <Sigh. Good auto mechanic, computer techie, heavily into motorcycles, and much much more. Sigh.> I'm getting Tivo box delivered today. Only have antenna -- no cable or satellite. Dra says I won't have problem hooking it up. What you guys think?
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Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 5:48 am
Hey Color, what suburb do you live in?
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Colordeagua
Member
10-25-2003
| Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 6:18 am
Hey Julie, I'm in Lombard. Have you moved yet? Are you still in old house or new? Where?
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Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 6:24 am
Color, I grew up in Lombard!!! Where do you live? I used to live in Manor Hill. I am still in North Aurora. Seems like this move is taking forever! Our new house (should we ever make it there) is in Sugar Grove. We keep going west!
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Colordeagua
Member
10-25-2003
| Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 6:28 am
I'm on the edge of Lombard / Villa Park. Corner of Jackson and Addison. Sort of older two-wing condo building near Eastgate. Grew up in Villa Park -- block from Ardmore Elementary School. (That probably had something to do with my parents choosing that house.) Where's Manor Hill?
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Julieboo
Member
02-05-2002
| Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 6:34 am
I have to go to a store in Eastgate (to get a uniform for my son's school!) Manor Hill is just west of main Street and south of Roosevelt. (kinda behind Sportmart and Kmart.) How long have you lived in Lombard/Villa Park? I went to Montini and Christ the King. Then COD and NIU. What about you? I used to deliver Domino Pizza in Villa Park. That was when I lived in Villa Park (near Brandywine, I forget the name of the apts.)
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Colordeagua
Member
10-25-2003
| Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 6:39 am
I've lived in this area since '50!! When are you going to be at Dennis Uniforms (name is something like that)? Lunch or something? I've got to leave here now for a few hours. Not for whole day. Don't work any more. E-mail me. My e-mail address is on profile. Got to go. Later.
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Fruitbat
Member
08-07-2000
| Tuesday, May 04, 2004 - 9:04 am
Julieboo. I love the satelite. We have never had a problem with the dish. It's best feature is getting both coast programing and the guide. You do not have to go to a seperate station to see what is on. You can continue to view the program you are watching and hit guide. It allows you to see all that is on currently and all night through the next several days. There is no waiting for it to scroll, you have control. You will have to go to someones house and see this because it is difficult to describe. These two features are superior. You can click on any program in the future and the timer will automatically switch to that station so you dont space out changing the station. There are other features that escape me at the moment but I urge you to visit a home with one to see for yourself.
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