Ask Slashdot: The Dish

Figured I'd step on Cliff's toes and ask my own question. I live in an area with poor cable service and have pretty much accepted that if I want the Sci Fi channel and all the other cool channels, I'm going to need to get a Dish. Net access would be nice, but its not going to be a deciding factor. Ideally I wouldn't need cable- I don't care about local channels but I need the networks too (FOX for the X-Files and Futurama especially). So here it comes: Which Dish? I see many networks with many features, but which one is best? I want lots of channels, but I'm not rich. But I'd like my surround system to sound really good (course first I probably better get a center channel and some good rear speakers *grin*).

Comments

DSS overview

[jandrese]

Well, I don't have any experiance with other systems, but I can tell you about the RCA DSS system.

First, the picture quality is very good, and stays that way even in stormy weather...to a point. Once the weather gets bad enough, the signal is broken and the decoder just stops, freezing the current picture on the screen until the weather clears up. This happens very infrequently where we live though.

Secondly, the basic offering has quite a few channels, although most of them are crap. Sci-fi is included in the basic package.

There is quite a selection of pay-per-view movies as well, at a reasonable cost ($2.50, or about what you pay to rent from a video store).

The guide is a nice feature, just poorly implemented. The interface is slow and rather clumsy, although this may be fixed in newer boxes. The one we have is also quite ugly (it looks like the preview channel with its squarish blocks of programming. All said though, the guide is about 100x better than those preview channels, since you don't have to wait for your channel to scroll up.

You won't be able to view local channels on the DSS (you will have to use the rabbit ears), unless you live in an area that has no local TV service, and then it takes an act of Congress to get broadcast channels (not to mention a monthly fee). Supposedly this will be changing in the near future, but don't bet the farm on it.

All in all though, we are very happy with the system, especially compared to the rip-you-off-at-every-corner cable service I have up here.

Dish TV from Echostar of course

[Jim Buzbee]

I'm a bit biased (I now work for Echostar) but I signed up for Dish TV long before I started work here. The programming options seemed to be better. With Direct TV you had to select from two different companies for channels and they only came in "packages". So if you wanted channel "A" and channel "B" you might have to order one channel package from USSB and another channel package from the other company (I forget the name).

But the best reason to support Echostar and Dish TV is why I signed on. We are starting a project to put Linux on our set-top boxes. We already have a Web TV/Windows CE box, but we obviously don't want to rely only on Microsoft.

So I throw a question back at the Slashdot readers, What would you want to see in a Linux based set-top satellite receiver ? We are considering a Web TV type of operation with a local cache fed via our very fat satellite pipe. Home-networking is another option. We will have a browser on the box of course (Mozilla?). Anyone have any thoughts on how to utilize a very fat pipe comming in, but a thin pipe going out ? We haven't yet decided on a CPU. Anyone have any thoughts on that ? This is going to be a very cool project and I'm looking forward to getting it on-line !

In the same boat.

[Ken Hall]

A lot of this is covered in other postings, but I'll summarize what I've found out looking into this over the past few weeks:

1) You probably won't pay any less for programming on satellite than would for cable if you have only one TV and one decoder box. You will probably get more channels.

2) Dish Network is better for Movies, etc. DirectTV is better for sports. Most of the below applies to Dish Network, but Direct TV has similar deals.

3) You can get "local" stations (meaning networks and regional broadcast channels) if you live on either coast and don't get good broadcast reception. (I live in a rural area of NJ, in a valley.) You're supposed to have no cable for 90 days to qualify, but in practice they don't follow that very closely. The add-on package costs extra, and (for now) requires a second dish. If you let them install the whole works for $99, they throw in the second dish free.

4) If you only get 1 receiver, and sign up for the full boat programming package, you get the first receiver and dish "free" (via rebate).

5) If you have multiple TV's (or VCR) each needs it's own receiver to pick up different channels concurrently. You can get a "dual LNB" dish and hang up to 3 receivers on it. To add more receivers, you need a "matrix switch". Each receiver adds $4.99 to the programming bill, but you get all programming on all receivers. A basic model receiver costs $99. Fancier ones are more.

I started this because my wife wanted to watch HBO in the bedroom. The cable company told us we'd have to get a second box and pay for HBO a SECOND TIME, a policy I found "objectionable". During my research process, I got a good deal on a big (54") TV that made DSS look even more appealing, but lately I've been having second thoughts because I have kids, multiple TV's, and other complications. I might just stick with the cable and get a DVD player. It depends on how the cable reception looks on the new TV. They're delivering it tomorrow, so I'll find out pretty quick.