TV Service, WTF Options

[impala454]

<rant>

in this day and age of super high speed internet, thousands of satellites in orbit, fiber running all over the place, why is it we can't get some decent f'n TV service? Let me begin with the catalyst of my rant:

as you may or may not know Time Warner has run the cable TV service in the Houston area for a long time, and their service in Houston is being taken over by Comcast. they've been hyping this switchover to the max, talking about all these great new channels we'll get come tuesday. here's the first report of what those channels actually are: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4883763.html

The high-definition channels being added are:

ESPN2 HD. High-def version of the sports and information channel.
MHD. Music High Definition, which Tony Speller, senior vice president for Comcast's Houston region describes as "a combination MTV, VH1 and Country Music Television."
Versus/Golf HD. Two sports networks sharing the same channel number. Versus offers hockey, rodeo and other sports.
Starz HD. Movie channel available to Starz subscribers only.
Cinemax HD. Movie channel available to Cinemax subscribers only.

Fourteen non-HD channels also join the lineup. They are:

The Africa Channel. All-English channel celebrating Africa.
ESPN Deportes. Spanish-language sports channel.
Flix. Films from the '60s, '70s and '80s.
Fox Reality. New and off-network reality series from around the world.
GolTV. Soccer channel available in two different packages, one in English, one in Spanish.
Gospel Music Channel. Gospel music 24/7.
ImaginAsian TV. Movies, animé, sports and music.
Indieplex. Commercial-free independent and art-house movies.
MTV Tr3s. Lifestyle and music channel aimed at Latinos.
Logo. Original series, films and documentaries focused on gays, lesbians and transgenders.
MoviePlex. An affiliate of the Encore movie channels, this one runs movies of a different theme (crime, Western, etc.) every day.
NFL Network. 24/7 football channel offering multiple games during the season.
PBS Kids Sprout. Aimed at preschoolers ages 2 to 5.
Retroplex. Commercial-free classic movies from the '50s, '60s and '70s.

this is f'n pathetic. these are the new uber-hyped channels?!? yay for espn2hd and versushd, and nfl network, but the rest of those suck ass.

so on with the rant: what are the options here?
1. Stay with cable, easily be able to run the cable in my house anywhere I want, without having to have extra dishes/LNBs/boxes. Have higher bandwidth for better looking HD channels, and not lose signal because of storms. Also have extremely slow rollout of new channels, and not all the channels I want. as well as not nearly as many HD channels I want.
2. Go with DirectTV, get a few other channels I don't have that I'd probably watch, a few more HD channels (even though they promise like 150), although they'll pixelate more often because satellite bandwidth isn't nearly as good, prices about the same as cable, and have to rewire the house and get a bunch more boxes. Because their equipment is not proprietary, I have way more options than cable or DISH. But the way they charge for service, if I want HD in two separate rooms I'll get charged out the ass.
3. Go with DISH, same problems as DirectTV except their customer service is 100x worse, and both satellite providers require a contract. proprietary boxes means if you don't like their interface, too bad.
4. Go with some IP based system (FIOS, AT&T Uverse, etc). Ok well they're IP based, i.e. they all run off the internet connection, which means if the internet connection sucks, your TV picture sucks. Uverse runs through archaic DSL type connections which means you end up with a terrible upload speed on your internet connection. FIOS seems to have an awesome channel lineup, and Uverse (from seeing it at kendra's place) looks like it has a bad ass video on demand setup, but I can't get either of these damn services. That may be a consideration in a year or so when I build a house somewhere around Houston.

it's sad to me that we have all these different technologies available, and can't make them play nice together, and still have all the scheming and BS from different TV networks. with the insane amount and length of commercials nowadays you'd figure the shit would be free by now with five thousand channels.
</rant>

[Hartmann]

This is hilarious to me because when I was in Dallas, Comcast was taken over by TimeWarner Cable... freakin' weird.

[impala454]

yeah it was part of their deal. they were jointly running both Houston, Dallas, and I think some Oklahoma markets, but they decided to split up, and Time Warner took over Dallas while Comcast took over Houston.

[cmac]

i've had great service with dish network.
their customer support has been great too.
it does go out when it rains though.

[JRockTTU]

I've got DirecTv, and have had them for about 7 years now. I like them, it's gotta be storming pretty bad for me to lose my signal. If you call them and complain and tell them you're going to take your business elsewhere they'll give you 6 months free HBO (my old roommate used to do this ever 6 months like clockwork).

I don't know what super good channels you're looking for. The ones you mentioned seem to me like they are the recently added DirecTV channels. What channels are out there that you are missing?!

[impala454]

i've had great service with dish network.
their customer support has been great too.
it does go out when it rains though.

just don't ever quit the service

[impala454]

I don't know what super good channels you're looking for. The ones you mentioned seem to me like they are the recently added DirecTV channels. What channels are out there that you are missing?!

I just want more of the channels I like to watch in HD, and some of the channels offered by other providers. Cable has kept up pretty well, it's been nice having FSNHD, and all the locals in HD, but I'd like to see stuff like FOOD, HGTV, history channel, and all the discoveries in HD. I noticed there's a few other variations of the history channel and discovery on some of the other providers as well. if I could have the lineup that the other providers have with the reliability of cable, and the choice of what box/software I want to use, that'd be perfect. supposedly there's some new FCC regulation out that says starting july 1st cable companies have to release proprietary hardware to allow for retail boxes to be made (i.e. sony, toshiba, samsung, etc cable boxes).

[James]

My parents have had Dish for at least 10 years now and, same as Jason's DirectTV, it has to be storming really, really bad for a signal to go out. We get some pretty bad storms at home (Childress County), too.

[Mommy]

My parents have had Dish for at least 10 years now and, same as Jason's DirectTV, it has to be storming really, really bad for a signal to go out. We get some pretty bad storms at home (Childress County), too.

I hear a chainsaw in my head.... TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE

[James]

LMAO. We've had people come up to our house asking my dad take them to where it happened since his marked truck is parked out front.

Then he gets to explain to them that it didn't happen there.

[JRockTTU]

That shit supposedly happened in Childress?

(I know it's all made up)

[James]

Childress County is what some people were led to believe from one of the movies. I never saw any of them, so can't be sure. Maybe some signs put it in the county.

I think it was supposed to have occurred closer to Turkey though, which is a couple counties over.

[Testm0nkey]

i think my parents have suddenlink in houston

[pebkac]

If you're looking for number of HD channels, you're going to have to go with satellite at the present time. It may cost you more, but you have more channels available to you.

The problem with regular cable is that it's a mish-mash of technologies whereas satellite is all digital.

Analog technology eats up a shit-ton of bandwidth that cable companies still have to support at this time and that takes away from the HD channels that cable companies can provide.

[impala454]

If you're looking for number of HD channels, you're going to have to go with satellite at the present time. It may cost you more, but you have more channels available to you.

The problem with regular cable is that it's a mish-mash of technologies whereas satellite is all digital.

Analog technology eats up a shit-ton of bandwidth that cable companies still have to support at this time and that takes away from the HD channels that cable companies can provide.

yeah true. analog is still nice to have though, as I can run the channels 1-70 or whatever it to all the TVs in the house with no boxes or anything. and while analog signals take up a decent amount of bandwidth, the total bandwidth available far exceeds satellite, which means you don't start getting pixelation of HD or even sometimes SD channels like satellite will.

I'm actually fairly happy w/the amount of HD channels we have right now, I just hate how cable will have some HD channels and satellite wont, but they'll have HD channels cable doesn't have. all these damn contracts between the providers and channels are handcuffing the consumer in getting all the available content from one provider.