# Cable vs. Satellite



## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Knowing full well that DBSTALK is a satellite oriented site, I thought it worthwhile to air my decision to subscribe to Time Warner cable rather than satellite service when I moved from NY into my new home outside Charlotte.

I had switched from all cable service to Dish Network service in New York about a year and a half before moving to North Carolina. I had an 811 HD receiver, 722 DVR and a 301 receiver. I subscribed to what was then Dish120. I had to get my locals either from basic cable or over the air since Dish didn't provide LIL in my DMA and elected to do both in order to have networks in HD. After much coaxing, I was able to get a few remote networks via Dish. On the whole, I liked Dish and wanted to subscribe to satellite service down here. About six months before I moved, I got an offer from Time Warner to switch to all cable, internet and phone service for a year for less than I was paying for just the satellite service. Knowing full well that I'd be moving before the reduced rate period ended, I signed up, and sold my 811 and 722. I returned the 301 to the Dish dealer.

Reality check: In our home (being a widower, I share a new home with my oldest son and family), we have no less than 7 TV's plus a media center computer. When we contracted to have the house built, we had it prewired for satellite. All well and good.
When time came to move in, I went to a local Dish/DirecTV installer and asked for comparative price quotes based on our needs - three HD TV's, four analog TV's. I didn't include the computer in the mix. I wanted up to 3 HD DVRS. At the time, I had a Series 1 TiVo that I intended to use with one of the analog TV's. By this time, both Dish and DirecTV had turned to an equipment lease model, meaning I'd get one receiver at no front end charge, but would have to pay for all the other receivers.

Sticker shock time: Initial Equipment charges would be around $800 with Dish and over $1000 with DirecTV, plus monthly rental charges for six or the 7 receivers -- this high because I'd need individual receivers for each TV. It wasn't going to be possible to use any two tuner receivers to cover two rooms without expensive wiring. Contrast that with less than $100 front end charge for cable and monthly lease charges for two Time Warner HD DVR's. No extra charges for any of the analog TV's.

Fast forward to today: we now have four TiVo DVR's -- the Series 1, a Series 2, a Series 3 High definition TiVo and an HD TiVo. One of the Time Warner DVR's has been returned. The Series 3 TiVo and HD TiVo each have CableCards. My total cable bill is $95 a month. As to the TiVo bill, three of the units have free lifetime service. The Series 1 in my grandkids' playroom costs $12.95 a month.


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## FTA Michael (Jul 21, 2002)

Cholly said:


> we have no less than 7 TV's plus a media center computer.


I'm very happy that you found what works best for you. Any household that needs that many simultaneous channels running is a questionable fit for satellite.

My family has a single primary TV. That doesn't count the backup/sickroom TV (which gets used maybe four days a year), the FTA monitor on my computer (for checking channels for my site), and an old handheld (for four more months of sporting events, plus dish pointing). Our philosophy is that a single TV promotes compromise, and that it makes it easier to prevent objectionable programming.

IMHO, for one or two TVs, you can't beat satellite.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

FTA Michael said:


> IMHO, for one or two TVs, you can't beat satellite.


Absolutely! Even more so if you have HD TV's. I'd even go so far as to say the crossover point may well be four TV's. Beyond that, particularly with wiring/cabling constraints, cable is probably the better alternative, even with the lower number of available channels.


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## EXTACAMO (Apr 7, 2007)

Glad you are happy. Did you find using the TW boxes a bit kludgy after having E*? Also I have found that the quality of cable varies greatly depending on where in the country you are. I know TW in my area is nothing to write home about. No cable cards. No Explorer. No new Cisco DVR. Not much HD expansion. I think it all depends on how affluent the area is. If the customer base has deep pockets you get the goodies. IMHO.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

I switched to cable (Adelphia, now Comcast) three years ago, shortly before I suffered a mild stroke. I had switched primarily because I would get more for less, including more premium movie channels, HD locals, TWC's 'Locals on the 8s' and so forth. As things turned out, it was a fortuitous decision because after the stroke, my ability to do the things I needed to do from time-to-time to maintain my three dishes, five tvs and a wireless network was difficult or impossible for me, due to my suddenly limited physical abilities, so my switch to the dark side was not only fortuitous, but prescient.

Three years later, through answers to many prayers along with physical/occupational therapy (PT/OT) and a continuing exercise program, I can pretty much do what I need to do, including setting up and maintaining my technical stuff -- such as the acquisition and set-up of two new flat-panel displays, moving to a new home and reconnecting everything including three HD DVRs, and setting up a new desktop pc.

Earlier this year, I re-subbed to Dish (HD only) to supplement and enhance my HD choices, but I have kept a full package of cable programming, including many HD channels that have yet to arrive on either DBS provider's HD offerings. A happy bonus was the launch of Comcast VOD, which offers a ton of on-demand programming choices, much of which is at no charge.

Long story short (too late for that?), it suits my lifestyle (or lack thereof) to have both cable and sat.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

> It wasn't going to be possible to use any two tuner receivers to cover two rooms without expensive wiring.


What was going to be so expensive about the wiring? If you were prewired for satellite, you shouldn't have needed to run any new cables for the second tv on a dual tuner, and the parts needed for that are almost negligible in cost.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

puckwithahalo said:


> What was going to be so expensive about the wiring? If you were prewired for satellite, you shouldn't have needed to run any new cables for the second tv on a dual tuner, and the parts needed for that are almost negligible in cost.


I had considered that possibility, but ruled it out as impractical. The house was prewired for satellite to the tech box in the house (4 RG6 feeds) Individual rooms got either one or two coax feeds. The family room, two master suites and my den each got two. The other rooms got one. There were no separate a/v feeds. The rooms with two coax feeds would have had DVR's and the two tuners would have been dedicated. There was no way to use dual tuner receivers in the other rooms without running additional coax. The way the other rooms (2 bedrooms and playroom) are laid out would have meant that the cable had to be installed in-wall and run up into the attic and then back down to the second room. Even if that were done, satellite service would have been more costly than cable. As it stands now, we're using second coax on two rooms for OTA antenna feed. Thus, with the HD TiVo's in those rooms, we can watch an OTA program while recording two others if the need arises or in those rare instances where the cable goes out.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

> There was no way to use dual tuner receivers in the other rooms without running additional coax.


If all your cabling goes back to a central location, you would not have needed to run additional coax. I'm not saying that you could have gotten cheaper than you did with cable, just that I think you are mistaken on the need to run additional cabling. If each room has a cable going to it already, that's all it needs. Its sort of a moot point because cable would have been cheaper either way for your situation, I'm just difficult sometimes. lol, don't mind me.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

puckwithahalo said:


> If all your cabling goes back to a central location, you would not have needed to run additional coax.


But there's the rub. If each room had two coax feeds, you'd be right. With just one feed, it was out of the question. Those rooms with two feeds wouldn't be any help, since they would have had DVR's - watching one live program while recording another would have prevented using the second tuner for another room. I researched it all very thoroughly. BTW - I did all the cabling in my old house, telephone, Cat5 and RG6. Fortunately, it was a ranch with finished basement and the basement had both open, plastered and suspended ceilings.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

> But there's the rub. If each room had two coax feeds, you'd be right.


Why would you need two feeds to the other rooms? I'm not trying to be contrary, I'm just trying to understand the situation. I like to keep myself aware of unusual situations I might run into.


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## paulman182 (Aug 4, 2006)

The high cost of DirecTV was probably due to the fact that you wanted all the equipment at once.

The smart way (if you are patient) is to take whatever is free, or cheap, when you sign up and upgrade as you become eligible for special deals.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

puckwithahalo said:


> Why would you need two feeds to the other rooms? I'm not trying to be contrary, I'm just trying to understand the situation. I like to keep myself aware of unusual situations I might run into.


In order to feed the second output of a two tuner receiver to a second room, you need either a coax line from the receiver to the second room or a/v lines from the receiver to that room. Hence the need for two coax lines to the room containing the receiver -- one from the satellite to the receiver, and one for the receiver output - back to the tech panel, then a jumper to the single line to the second room. Any room having a two tuner receiver that you wish to share has to have a path to the second room.


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## puckwithahalo (Sep 3, 2007)

> In order to feed the second output of a two tuner receiver to a second room, you need either a coax line from the receiver to the second room or a/v lines from the receiver to that room. Hence the need for two coax lines to the room containing the receiver -- one from the satellite to the receiver, and one for the receiver output - back to the tech panel, then a jumper to the single line to the second room. Any room having a two tuner receiver that you wish to share has to have a path to the second room.


Actually, you only need one line going into either room since the cables come out at a junction, you can use parts called diplexors to have the satellite signal and the signal for tv2 "pass" each other on the same cable.

Like this...


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

I hadn't entertained the idea of using diplexers. That being the case, it could have done away with one single tuner receivr. The equipment costs - both front end and monthly rental - still would have been prohibitive.

Yesterday's paper had a Time Warner flyer stating that a large number of additional HD channels were to be available "soon", including the Discovery family of channels , Biography HD and The Weather Channel HD. Nice to know now that Mojo HD is going dark.


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## rustynails (Apr 24, 2008)

I am glad you got what you wanted. Just mentioning the vip 722 makes me salivate. I had to move to D since I had los issues and really don't like the hr21 series dvrs. I haven't had cable in over 10 years and can't really see going back to it.


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## mutelight (Oct 6, 2008)

Glad to see you found the best deal for you. My story was actually the direct opposite. I had Comcast cable service and had two HD DVRs and wanted to get another HD DVR as well as HD receivers for the rest of the TVs and they wanted $14-21 PER box PER month which is absolutely insane. I would have been paying more than my current DTV bill (including mirrored service on 6 receivers and HBO, Showtime, etc) just for the cable boxes alone with no programming. With DTV we pay $5 a month for each receiver. (minus one receiver which is included in the monthly plan)

The startup cost was rather high since every receiver had to be HD with half of them being DVRs but had some of them been SD, DTV would have given us up to 4 of them for free. With that said, they will pay for themselves in just a little over 6 months vs. if we had HD service on all of our displays with cable. Not only that, the DVRs with DTV have much higher capacity than the ones we had with Comcast and there is a TON more HD channels over Comcast as well.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

puckwithahalo said:


> Actually, you only need one line going into either room since the cables come out at a junction, you can use parts called diplexors to have the satellite signal and the signal for tv2 "pass" each other on the same cable..


Because only one wire is required for satellite service on a dual tuner receiver, there's no need to diplex.

In Cholly's case with DISH Network, the family would only need three HD receivers (two of them could be leased, one purchased) and one purchased SD receiver and he could unload all but one of the TiVos. Monthly hardware fees on the DBS side would be about $37.94.

With DIRECTV, you would still need seven receivers, but again, no additional wiring would be required now that SWM is widely available. Monthly hardware fees would be $35.93

Those with four TiVo service shouldn't overlook the fact that with four TiVos you're paying upwards of $33/month just for DVR service over and above the amortized up-front purchase.

Cholly needs another $550 HD TiVo to round out the HD DVR "up to" which is a little less than what it would cost to get into DISH Network's hardware.


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## mutelight (Oct 6, 2008)

harsh said:


> With DIRECTV, you would still need seven receivers, but again, no additional wiring would be required now that SWM is widely available. Monthly hardware fees would be $40.99


For seven receivers it would be $29.94 a month in hardware fees with DirecTV.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

mutelight said:


> For seven receivers it would be $29.94 a month in hardware fees with DirecTV.


I mistakenly counted the first, but I was also including the $5.99 DVR fee which is necessary for a comparison to DISH Network ($5.98 for _every_ DVR).

I have corrected the post. Thanks for the head's up.


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## mutelight (Oct 6, 2008)

harsh said:


> I mistakenly counted the first, but I was also including the $5.99 DVR fee which is necessary for a comparison to DISH Network ($5.98 for _every_ DVR).
> 
> I have corrected the post. Thanks for the head's up.


Ah ok, I guess since I have their HD DVR programming package I only pay the $4.99 each for 5 of my 6 receivers and the DVR fee is included in my base package so it is waived.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

I was trying to keep the playing field as level as possible. Both DBS providers have packages that cover some or all of the DVR fees and those might represent a bonus in favor of DBS.


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## Cholly (Mar 22, 2004)

Three of my four TiVo's have lifetime subscriptions, so I pay no monthly fee for them. The fourth is on a yearly plan.
Two of the Tivo's have CableCards - the Series 3 has two single stream cards and the HD TiVo has a single multistream card. Both those units have external 500 Gig hard drives attached. 

Time Warner has rolled out the first five of their new HD channels locally: Biography HD, Discovery HD, Speed Channel HD, ESPN2 HD and ESPNU HD. I can receive them on the Time Warner SA8300 HD DVR in my den, but not on my two HD TiVo's since the new channels are on switched digital video. TW says they'll provide SDV adapters to customers with cablecards at no extra charge, but they aren't available at this time.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

That's the one downfall I have with cable, the DVR fees should be lowered to a more competitive level. With Time Warner here it's $7.45 for each digital terminal, $9.95 extra DVR fee for the first DVR and $7.95 extra for each additional DVR beyond the first. We have two HD DVRs, the price for the first digital terminal is included with digital cable, so I pay $25.35 in rental ($7.45) and DVR ($17.90) fees for 2 HD DVRs. I have no problem with the rental fees, $7.45 is fine, the DVR fee should be lowered to at most $6.95 per account. 

But it's all relative to what a person wants out of their TV provider. For me, it's pretty much a wash. Time Warner is very slightly cheaper in my current set up. If I had another set top terminal, they wouldn't be. The breakdown:

DirecTV: Premier $104.99, HD Access $9.99, HD Extra $4.99, Additional Receiver Fee, $4.99, DVR fee $5.99, Total $135.95. 

Time Warner: DIGIPIC 4000 $99.75, Encore $3.00, HD Tier $4.95, Sports Tier $1.95, Digital Terminal/Remote Lease Fee $7.45, 1st DVR Fee $9.95, 2nd DVR Fee $7.95, Total, $135.00. 

There is the franchise fee which is $4.30something, but that would be negated by the $5 more I'd have to pay for Road Runner, since I'd be losing the bundling discount. 

Sure I lose a lot of shopping, religious, and public interest channels by choosing Time Warner, but that's okay, I can live  I gain a lot of premium movie channels. I already subscribe to XM, don't need it on TV, I'd rather have Music Choice for more variety, and while I only have 53 channels in HD at the current moment, there are very few HD channels that DirecTV has anymore that I have interest it. Crime & Investigations HD is just about it, which TW has a contract for and will be adding in some areas shortly. 8 HD distant locals that I don't quality for mean nothing to me, 25 HD RSNs that give me blackout messages and a million reruns of Best Damn Sports Show mean nothing to me, and 30 HD PPV channels mean nothing to me. As long as I get my locals in HD, and all of my home RSNs in HD, which I do, that's fine by me.


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## pez2002 (Dec 13, 2002)

steve is your cable account in good standing ? 

if so call time warner and see what they could do for you im sure they could lower your dvr price for ya 


im about to get another comcast hd-dvr my 32 inch sony upstairs looks horrible with the normal box but i really wanna upgrade to a 37 inch tv or mabye even 46 inch


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

Most DVR specials TW has around here are $6.95/month for 6 months or a year and are for new customers only. I'm not really complaining or seeking a deal since I got essentially got that $135 worth of programming for under $80 for the first two years of service. Thanks to a come back from satellite offer I got digital cable with all the premiums and two digital terminals for $51.95/month for two years then add in all the other stuff.


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