Switching to DirecTV

[kjnorman]

Hello all.

I am currently investigating switching to DirecTV.  I currently have standard analog cable for TV and watch most of our programming via a standalone TiVo.

I'm looking at dumping cable and going to DirecTV with Tivo.  I was waiting for the HD DirecTV but have given up waiting, so I am going standard def for now...  ExpertSatellite.com are currently offering a DHR2 Tivo with a triple LNB dish for $70 installed.  Sounds like a reasonable deal to me, until the HD Tivo is available and reasonably priced.

I have a couple of questions that I hope someone can answer.

1) What kind of picture quality can I expect with DirecTV on a 50in screen?  I know than analog cable is crap (especially sci-fi channel which we watch a lot), but will I expect to see a lot of Mpeg compression artifacts?

2) I would choose the Total Choice Plus with locals for $39.99 per month.  With cable I have the stupid franchise fee and other miscellaneous costs + tax.  Is the direcTV bill just $39.99 + $5 TiVo fee + tax?  Are there any other hidden costs?

3) I have three TVs but I would only get the one TiVo box as we would only ever watch one TV at any one time, so I do not want to pay the $5 fee for each additional TV.  My plan is to pipe the coaxial RF from the back of the TiVo to the other TVs in the house, but does anyone have a cheap way of controlling the Tivo from the other rooms, as I understand that the Tivo remote is not RF compatible?

Thanks
Kerry

[Matt Heebner]

1) What kind of picture quality can I expect with DirecTV on a 50in screen? I know than analog cable is crap (especially sci-fi channel which we watch a lot), but will I expect to see a lot of Mpeg compression artifacts?

Directv will look much better than TWC on a screen that size BUT....anytime you take a picture meant to be shown on a 27" to 36" screen, going larger is gonna be detrimental to the PQ. If your TV has a good line doubler, that will help.  I have gotten used to Directv on my 55", and some SD channels look downright amazing. However there are some channels that look horrid, and probably are the victim of Directv's infamous bandwidth swapping (taking from one and using on another). I don't really see too many artifacting though.

2) I would choose the Total Choice Plus with locals for $39.99 per month. With cable I have the stupid franchise fee and other miscellaneous costs + tax. Is the direcTV bill just $39.99 + $5 TiVo fee + tax? Are there any other hidden costs?

From what I remember just sales tax, etc. Remember that for every satellite box after the first there is a $4.99 mirroring fee in addition to the $4.99 Tivo fee.

3) I have three TVs but I would only get the one TiVo box as we would only ever watch one TV at any one time, so I do not want to pay the $5 fee for each additional TV. My plan is to pipe the coaxial RF from the back of the TiVo to the other TVs in the house, but does anyone have a cheap way of controlling the Tivo from the other rooms, as I understand that the Tivo remote is not RF compatible?

I think there are IR Blasters that you can get from Radio Shack that will send the IR signal to other rooms, etc. I do believe that they are reasonably priced.


I've had Directv for 6-7 years now and have never once regretted switching from TWC. In just about every aspect Directv was far superior to TWC.....IMHO of course.


Matt

[Gregg Lengling]

It's going to depend on the provider and not Directv.  SciFi's offerings are sometimes very poor.  However the standard version of Discovery and Hallmark and the like are fantastic.  I find it very disappointing that SciFi provides the most inferior quality to both Cable and Sat.  As a matter of fact it's really strange that SciFi wasn't one of the first to offer an HD feed as we all know, that us SciFi nuts are the first that would be willing to pay more for SciFi in HiDef.  And when Showtime lost Stargate SG-1 to SciFi I cried.  Just ask my wife, I was just getting used to enjoying it in HD when it switched to SciFi and LOW DEF.....BAH!

[kjnorman]

Originally posted by Gregg Lengling
As a matter of fact it's really strange that SciFi wasn't one of the first to offer an HD feed as we all know, that us SciFi nuts are the first that would be willing to pay more for SciFi in HiDef.  And when Showtime lost Stargate SG-1 to SciFi I cried.  Just ask my wife, I was just getting used to enjoying it in HD when it switched to SciFi and LOW DEF.....BAH!

Its one of the best uses of TiVo!  Just been watching the first two hours of the Monday night four hour Stargate SG-1 marathon!  The funny thing is, is that it was watching Babylon5 all the way through that finally got my wife (then girlfriend) to see the wonders of TiVo.

I too am annoyed at the appalling quality of Sci-Fi's picture, but what can you do?  I just hope that Dtv will be better than TWC.

Kerry

[kjnorman]

I've been researching this further and found an even better deal.  ValueElectronics.com do the Hughes DVR2 with triple LNB for a mere $60 installed.  

I think we have decided to get an additional basic receiver as well to serve our other two TVs and pay the mirroring fee.

For controlling the Tivo, or the additional reciever from other rooms (as I will but the additional reciever in our equipment rack in the living room) I found this remote Xtender that looks very novel.  I was a little sceptical, but it turned out to be a CES 2003 Innovation Award Honoree so I guess it can not be that bad..

I plan on upgrading the TiVo by getting a new mounting bracket from 9thTee and a new 120Gb hard drive (probably a quiet Samsung).

I found that my current Sony SVR-2000 105 hour TiVo with lifetime subscription should fetch at least $300 on ebay, so all in all, I should be "quids in" (english term )

Kerry