Archived from groups: alt.video.ptv.tivo,alt.video.ptv.replaytv (More info?)
Hi, everyone:
I would like to offer the following review of DIRECTV with TiVo
service, and to spark reviews of similar pay TV and DVR services you
use. This way, prospective customers can make better choices, and
those of us who only use one service can discover other alternatives.
Pricing:
Let's start with why I chose DIRECTV service with TiVo. It was purely
economical. I compared the two satellite services and my local cable
provider to determine who was going to offer the best combination of
basic cable service plus HBO, the one premium service I wanted to add.
(I just couldn't curb my enthusiasm for HBO's original programming,
such as "The Sopranos"!)
DIRECTV offered the most channels, plus local service at the lowest
price, and offered "digital quality" (more on that later), claiming
superior video quality compared to cable. DIRECTV's Total Choice Plus
(all non-premium channels) with Local Channels ran me $39.99 a month.
Total Choice Plus added a handful of channels more than Total Choice,
maybe one of which I would watch, but it only cost an extra dollar a
month, so why not? (Rates have since gone up. You'll have to compare
current prices yourself, since these things change.)
DIRECTV's TiVo service added the TiVo box with built-in DIRECTV tuners
(so you don't need a separate satellite box), for $99.00 with a
commitment to keep a minimum level of DIRECTV service for a year.
Programming for the TiVo unit costs another $4.99 per month, which is
the same as I would have paid for a second DIRECTV tuner, had I stayed
with my previous VCR strategy. To me, this is a true bargain over
stand-alone TiVo, which charged substantially more for the programming
service. (Consult DIRECTV's web site http
/www.directv.com for their
current promotions and pricing.)
Using the service:
I received free installation, and set up was relatively easy, by
calling the 800 number they gave me, and giving them the information
from my tuner and TiVo units. I will give some advice later on how to
make your installation go smoothly.
TiVo Features:
My TiVo unit is a Hughes Electronics HDVR2. The biggest feature I see
with this setup is the fact that it contains two tuners, which to me
makes it unbeatable if you record a lot of shows. You can record two
programs at once from the tuners, even while watching another
pre-recorded program off the disk. If you are not recording anything,
you can also switch back and forth between the two tuners live, and
pause or rewind live TV on both! (You Letterman fans who also like
Leno will now be able to watch both shows at the same time, and can
rewind one tuner to catch the Jay Walking segment that you missed
while you were watching Will It Float on the other!)
My TiVo unit came with a 40GB Hard Drive, advertised to store up to 35
hours of programming. I found it to record somewhat less than 35
hours, but still more than I can possibly watch without giving up my
whole life to TiVo. Unfortunately, the TiVo does not give any
indication on how full the hard disk is. Because different programs
take up different amounts of space for the same amount of time (an
hour of black and white with no stereo is less data than an hour of
color, DTS Surrount Sound with subtitles), it is impossible for the
TiVo to tell you how many hours are free. Still, something simple,
like percent free, etc. would be a good addition.
TiVo allows you to watch one program from the hard disk while
recording two other programs from the tuners. The instant a program
begins recording, it shows up on the "Now Playing" list (the list of
all recorded programs), and you can begin watching it immediately,
even while it is still recording, without any special procedures.
The TiVo unit is easy enough to use, that you probably don't even need
the manual to get started using it. Recording and watching shows,
rewinding and pausing live TV, and other features were intuitive and
easy to do. Even people who can't program a VCR should have no
trouble recording a show with the TiVo. You can use the Program Guide
to search through a programming grid, or use the remote to spell out
the name of a program, and let the TiVo hunt for it.
It offers features such as "Season Pass"(TM), to record an entire TV
series, which lets you decide whether you want repeats or only new
shows. TiVo also has a feature they call "Wish Lists", which allow
you to select programming by type, actors, directors, or keywords.
Another added feature is "TiVo Suggestions", where the TiVo records
shows it *thinks* you will enjoy. Contrary to rumors I've read
elsewhere, the TiVo will never erase programs you've recorded to make
room for suggestions. Further, suggestions will never be saved over
your own recordings. If, however, something catches your eye from the
suggestions list (identified by a different icon), you can tell the
TiVo to save the same as a program you recorded. When you first get
your TiVo, the suggested programs it records won't make much sense
until you "train" your TiVo by using the Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down
buttons. You can use this feature, for instance, if you like a show
well enough to watch it if you have time (or disk space), but not well
enough to record at the expense of other programs. If after all this,
you find the suggestions just too annoying, you can disable the
feature altogether, and only get the programs you record.
Each program that gets recorded has an expiration date, which you can
program. When you set up recordings, you can choose to save until
room is needed (whereby old recordings get deleted first), or save
until you delete (whereby it will save the program even if it means
not recording anything new). Once a show is recorded, you can choose
how long to save it by setting a date, or "Save until I delete".
Icons on the program list tell you at a glance whether a program is at
risk of being deleted.
You can also choose how many episodes of each show to save. In my
case, I like Letterman and Leno, but don't always have time to watch
them. So, limiting the TiVo to one copy of each show at least keeps
last night's episode available in case I hear something good was on
after the fact, but they won't pile up on me when I'm busy.
The TiVo doesn't allow you to edit programs saved on disk. In other
words, if a sporting event or movie ended 30 minutes earlier than the
recording, there is no way to "chop off" the excess half hour, which
would leave room for more recording. Naturally, editing out
commercials is out of the question as well. I'm hoping that TiVo adds
simple editing in the future.
DIRECTV with TiVo does not currently offer any networking options,
either to program it remotely (a feature that may be coming soon to
standard TiVo's) or to share program files with computers or other
TiVo units. However, my TiVo unit does have two USB ports, possibly
for future expansion.
Because the DIRECTV TiVo unit constantly stores the last 30 minutes of
material from each tuner it is not using to record, you can often
record a program from the beginning if you come in at less than 30
minutes from the beginning, or you can simply rewind live TV to the
beginning and watch it from there. (This always happens to me when I
switch on the TV, and Discovery is in the middle of something that
hooks me in.) I have not confirmed this, but I read that if you
record a program in progress, the buffer is actually longer than 30
minutes, allowing you to catch the beginning of some shows even if you
can't rewind back that far "live". This only works if the tuner was
already tuned to the program. If you switch channels, the previous
information is lost and you can only rewind to the point where you
switched.
I must say that the best feature of TiVo service is, it is now
(nearly) impossible for a TV network to "hide" a show from me that I
want to record. You "Scrubs" fans with VCR's know what I mean!
Sometimes it's on Tuesday, sometimes Thursday. Sometimes it starts
early, sometimes it runs long. As long as the network tells the DVR
service when a show will air (and properly reports whether it starts
two minutes early or runs 10 minutes long), you will get your show.
Note: When I first got my TiVo, I was missing the first two minutes
of "ER", and missing the last few minutes of "Scrubs", due to NBC
playing games with start and stop times. The network has since begun
reporting the actual times (9:59PM for ER, for instance), so the TiVo
has a chance to record the whole show. When they don't, the TiVo lets
you pad programs up to 10 minutes before the start or 3 hours past the
end.
TiVo does not have commercial skip. All programming is recorded as
broadcast, including commercials. Since TiVo service depends on good
relations with broadcasters, who get paid to air commercials, this is
not likely to change. However, you can hunt the web for a TiVo
"Easter Egg" that enables a 30 second skip from the remote.
How DIRECTV with TiVo differs from standard TiVo:
Software:
While the software is written by TiVo, the service is maintained and
updated by DIRECTV, so you must get your support from DIRECTV if there
are problems. This also means that DIRECTV customers don't always get
the same level of software as standard TiVo customers, and may lag
behind by a few versions until DIRECTV qualifies a release for all
it's customers. As of this writing, for instance, DIRECTV does not
offer the version of software that includes folders for stored
programs. The DIRECTV logo and name are prominent on the DIRECTV TiVo
as well as the remote to remind you this is not your ordinary TiVo.
Video Quality:
Stand-alone TiVo units contain their own Analog to Digital conversion
circuitry (standard audio / video inputs from your cable box, VCR,
etc., are converted to the digital format stored on the hard drive),
allowing you to select quality levels for each program, so you can
choose between high quality which takes up a lot of disk space, or
lower quality so you can store more programs. Since DIRECTV service
is already digital, their TiVo unit does no such conversions, so there
is no quality setting. You always get the best quality, meaning what
you play back is exactly the same as what came through the dish.
Inputs:
The DIRECTV TiVo unit does not have external video inputs, and can
only record from the DIRECTV tuners. This means that if you cancel
your DIRECTV service and switch to cable, you will have to get another
DVR.
As far as I know, the DIRECTV version is the only one I am aware of
that can record two programs at the same time. Every stand-alone TiVo
I've seen has only one set of inputs to record from.
DIRECTV Service:
DIRECTV uses Digital Satellite Broadcasting, resulting in very clear
signals to my monitor. However, that clarity also exposes digital
anomalies (see side bar below). I have had numerous incidents where
the signal has gone away for a second or two, or a few. This usually
results in the picture freezing, getting severely pixellized, or
sometimes a truly ghastly effect: I once saw David Letterman's face
look like he was being burned to death, as red pixels from who knows
where invaded his face making the skin appear to melt away! The audio
often survives, but in the worst cases, the audio can come and go as
well. I have never seen these incidents last longer than a few
seconds, though it can happen a few times in a minute or two, and then
clear up.
Summary:
DIRECTV with TiVo service provides the best combination of programming
and DVR flexibility that I have seen. The TiVo unit with two tuners
is a revolutionary way of watching TV, that has forced me to have to
choose programs NOT to watch, just so I can get other things done in
my life.
Picture quality is mostly good to excellent, with the best being near
DVD quality, and the worst being highly pixelized due to either poor
digital conversion or low bandwidth. The worst channel I have seen is
TVLand, however, which is probably a good choice, since new, original
programming is watched more, and should get the best bandwidth.
The pricing was the best I found at the time, offering more channels
than Dish network, and better pricing than Comcast. Consult
http/www.directv.com for current pricing information.
Side Bar:
Digital Video:
OK, folks, here is something you may or may not be aware of: Digital
Video is NOT perfect. Some of us with decent monitors can see video
anomalies that simply are not present in traditional analog video
programs. If you compare DIRECTV with a good, clean off-air
broadcast, you will see pixellation. However, Digital is here to
stay, and if you want any kind of premium programming, you're stuck
with it.
You may think that your analog cable service is not digital, but it is
also digital at the source, though it may be transmitted through an
older analog cable converter or directly to your cable ready TV.
Before I switched to DIRECTV, I was able to see from my basic cable
service (Comcast), that they were indeed processing the video
digitally before retransmitting it to me. Services have only a
certain amount of bandwidth to use for digitized video, and some
premium services (HBO, for instance) will get more bandwidth than, say
TVLand or Fox. (Fox was the worst one from Comcast, and TVLand is one
of the worst from DIRECTV.)
Old school thinking:
Once upon a time, analog cable was all analog. They took TV signals
off satellite dishes for cable channels, or off the air for broadcast
channels, coverted them to their cable channels, and sent them down
the cable. What cable customers saw, then, were defects caused by
rebroadcasting so many channels all together on the same cable,
sometimes interfering with one another. Those with cable, take a good
look at your screen, and notice the faint wavy lines in the picture
that are not part of your original program. That's from being
rebroadcast over your cable in analog form.
Digital video:
Now, everyone decided that digital is the way to go, because with
computers we can do all kinds of things with the video, and if we can
decode it directly to a monitor (not through a TV tuner or analog
cable box), we can lose all the interference described above, as well
as ghosts and other strange anomalies from broadcast TV. However,
digital video has it's own shortcomings, which you can spot even on
high quality DVD's. Look at the sky, or a solid background or dark
scene, and you will see the blotches of color that are not as smooth
as they should be. Well, this is your future, kids.
OK, DIRECTV's service is purely digital, so it has all the digital
anomalies I hate, but so does cable nowadays. With DIRECTV, however,
you lose the added insult of cross interference that you get with
analog cable. I imagine that digital cable should be just as clear as
DIRECTV's, however. When DIRECTV does a good job of encoding a
program, it can look like you've got a direct window into the studio
where they made the show you're watching.
So, with DIRECTV, I will never see analog interference or poor quality
caused by analog signals, right? Wrong! Guess what? If you're
watching local broadcast programming through DIRECTV, you are watching
TV from their off-air antennas (antennae?), so if there is a storm
brewing in your town, your DIRECTV transmitted NBC station will have
the same interference as your rooftop antenna, except that DIRECTV
probably has a much better antenna, much closer to the source than
you. Further, would it surprise you to find out that some cable
channels still transmit their signals over analog satellite channels?
Well, they do, and your service provider has to digitize them and send
them to you.
So, when you see the commercials claiming digital clarity, they are
only talking about how the signal gets from their broadcast center or
head end to your house, not the whole path these signals take.
Side Bar:
Making your Satellite Service Installation go more smoothly:
Many of you probably think that if you get free installation of your
satellite service, the installer will cut through the walls, run cable
inside them (two sets for DIRECTV with Tivo, by the way), and patch up
the wall before they leave. Wrong! Free installation includes
running coax OUTSIDE your house, and punching it through to ONE tuner
box.
If you're like me, you don't want ugly cables hanging outside your
house, and you certainly don't want the installer choosing where to
put the dish! Do your homework ahead of time, and plan where the dish
should go first. In my area, DIRECTV needed a clear, south facing
spot for the dish. If you can avoid it, don't let them put the dish
on top of the roof, on or under the shingles. If you have a sturdy
fascia on the side of the roof, the installer can us a mount designed
to go there. Pick a location close to where all your coax feeds will
come through.
If you are so inclined, I highly recommend running your own coax
inside the walls before the installer arrives. Most houses are
pre-run with either coax or twin lead antenna cable, which will have
to be replaced. Go to your local electronics or home improvement
store (Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, and Home Depot are good choices),
and purchase RG6 coax, which is the best quality for satellite
reception. If you are getting a DIRECTV with TiVo, you will need TWO
runs of coax to the TiVo unit if you want to use both tuners. The
installer can help you hook it all up, or you can research further on
the web.
Dan
Hi, everyone:
I would like to offer the following review of DIRECTV with TiVo
service, and to spark reviews of similar pay TV and DVR services you
use. This way, prospective customers can make better choices, and
those of us who only use one service can discover other alternatives.
Pricing:
Let's start with why I chose DIRECTV service with TiVo. It was purely
economical. I compared the two satellite services and my local cable
provider to determine who was going to offer the best combination of
basic cable service plus HBO, the one premium service I wanted to add.
(I just couldn't curb my enthusiasm for HBO's original programming,
such as "The Sopranos"!)
DIRECTV offered the most channels, plus local service at the lowest
price, and offered "digital quality" (more on that later), claiming
superior video quality compared to cable. DIRECTV's Total Choice Plus
(all non-premium channels) with Local Channels ran me $39.99 a month.
Total Choice Plus added a handful of channels more than Total Choice,
maybe one of which I would watch, but it only cost an extra dollar a
month, so why not? (Rates have since gone up. You'll have to compare
current prices yourself, since these things change.)
DIRECTV's TiVo service added the TiVo box with built-in DIRECTV tuners
(so you don't need a separate satellite box), for $99.00 with a
commitment to keep a minimum level of DIRECTV service for a year.
Programming for the TiVo unit costs another $4.99 per month, which is
the same as I would have paid for a second DIRECTV tuner, had I stayed
with my previous VCR strategy. To me, this is a true bargain over
stand-alone TiVo, which charged substantially more for the programming
service. (Consult DIRECTV's web site http
/www.directv.com for theircurrent promotions and pricing.)
Using the service:
I received free installation, and set up was relatively easy, by
calling the 800 number they gave me, and giving them the information
from my tuner and TiVo units. I will give some advice later on how to
make your installation go smoothly.
TiVo Features:
My TiVo unit is a Hughes Electronics HDVR2. The biggest feature I see
with this setup is the fact that it contains two tuners, which to me
makes it unbeatable if you record a lot of shows. You can record two
programs at once from the tuners, even while watching another
pre-recorded program off the disk. If you are not recording anything,
you can also switch back and forth between the two tuners live, and
pause or rewind live TV on both! (You Letterman fans who also like
Leno will now be able to watch both shows at the same time, and can
rewind one tuner to catch the Jay Walking segment that you missed
while you were watching Will It Float on the other!)
My TiVo unit came with a 40GB Hard Drive, advertised to store up to 35
hours of programming. I found it to record somewhat less than 35
hours, but still more than I can possibly watch without giving up my
whole life to TiVo. Unfortunately, the TiVo does not give any
indication on how full the hard disk is. Because different programs
take up different amounts of space for the same amount of time (an
hour of black and white with no stereo is less data than an hour of
color, DTS Surrount Sound with subtitles), it is impossible for the
TiVo to tell you how many hours are free. Still, something simple,
like percent free, etc. would be a good addition.
TiVo allows you to watch one program from the hard disk while
recording two other programs from the tuners. The instant a program
begins recording, it shows up on the "Now Playing" list (the list of
all recorded programs), and you can begin watching it immediately,
even while it is still recording, without any special procedures.
The TiVo unit is easy enough to use, that you probably don't even need
the manual to get started using it. Recording and watching shows,
rewinding and pausing live TV, and other features were intuitive and
easy to do. Even people who can't program a VCR should have no
trouble recording a show with the TiVo. You can use the Program Guide
to search through a programming grid, or use the remote to spell out
the name of a program, and let the TiVo hunt for it.
It offers features such as "Season Pass"(TM), to record an entire TV
series, which lets you decide whether you want repeats or only new
shows. TiVo also has a feature they call "Wish Lists", which allow
you to select programming by type, actors, directors, or keywords.
Another added feature is "TiVo Suggestions", where the TiVo records
shows it *thinks* you will enjoy. Contrary to rumors I've read
elsewhere, the TiVo will never erase programs you've recorded to make
room for suggestions. Further, suggestions will never be saved over
your own recordings. If, however, something catches your eye from the
suggestions list (identified by a different icon), you can tell the
TiVo to save the same as a program you recorded. When you first get
your TiVo, the suggested programs it records won't make much sense
until you "train" your TiVo by using the Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down
buttons. You can use this feature, for instance, if you like a show
well enough to watch it if you have time (or disk space), but not well
enough to record at the expense of other programs. If after all this,
you find the suggestions just too annoying, you can disable the
feature altogether, and only get the programs you record.
Each program that gets recorded has an expiration date, which you can
program. When you set up recordings, you can choose to save until
room is needed (whereby old recordings get deleted first), or save
until you delete (whereby it will save the program even if it means
not recording anything new). Once a show is recorded, you can choose
how long to save it by setting a date, or "Save until I delete".
Icons on the program list tell you at a glance whether a program is at
risk of being deleted.
You can also choose how many episodes of each show to save. In my
case, I like Letterman and Leno, but don't always have time to watch
them. So, limiting the TiVo to one copy of each show at least keeps
last night's episode available in case I hear something good was on
after the fact, but they won't pile up on me when I'm busy.
The TiVo doesn't allow you to edit programs saved on disk. In other
words, if a sporting event or movie ended 30 minutes earlier than the
recording, there is no way to "chop off" the excess half hour, which
would leave room for more recording. Naturally, editing out
commercials is out of the question as well. I'm hoping that TiVo adds
simple editing in the future.
DIRECTV with TiVo does not currently offer any networking options,
either to program it remotely (a feature that may be coming soon to
standard TiVo's) or to share program files with computers or other
TiVo units. However, my TiVo unit does have two USB ports, possibly
for future expansion.
Because the DIRECTV TiVo unit constantly stores the last 30 minutes of
material from each tuner it is not using to record, you can often
record a program from the beginning if you come in at less than 30
minutes from the beginning, or you can simply rewind live TV to the
beginning and watch it from there. (This always happens to me when I
switch on the TV, and Discovery is in the middle of something that
hooks me in.) I have not confirmed this, but I read that if you
record a program in progress, the buffer is actually longer than 30
minutes, allowing you to catch the beginning of some shows even if you
can't rewind back that far "live". This only works if the tuner was
already tuned to the program. If you switch channels, the previous
information is lost and you can only rewind to the point where you
switched.
I must say that the best feature of TiVo service is, it is now
(nearly) impossible for a TV network to "hide" a show from me that I
want to record. You "Scrubs" fans with VCR's know what I mean!
Sometimes it's on Tuesday, sometimes Thursday. Sometimes it starts
early, sometimes it runs long. As long as the network tells the DVR
service when a show will air (and properly reports whether it starts
two minutes early or runs 10 minutes long), you will get your show.
Note: When I first got my TiVo, I was missing the first two minutes
of "ER", and missing the last few minutes of "Scrubs", due to NBC
playing games with start and stop times. The network has since begun
reporting the actual times (9:59PM for ER, for instance), so the TiVo
has a chance to record the whole show. When they don't, the TiVo lets
you pad programs up to 10 minutes before the start or 3 hours past the
end.
TiVo does not have commercial skip. All programming is recorded as
broadcast, including commercials. Since TiVo service depends on good
relations with broadcasters, who get paid to air commercials, this is
not likely to change. However, you can hunt the web for a TiVo
"Easter Egg" that enables a 30 second skip from the remote.
How DIRECTV with TiVo differs from standard TiVo:
Software:
While the software is written by TiVo, the service is maintained and
updated by DIRECTV, so you must get your support from DIRECTV if there
are problems. This also means that DIRECTV customers don't always get
the same level of software as standard TiVo customers, and may lag
behind by a few versions until DIRECTV qualifies a release for all
it's customers. As of this writing, for instance, DIRECTV does not
offer the version of software that includes folders for stored
programs. The DIRECTV logo and name are prominent on the DIRECTV TiVo
as well as the remote to remind you this is not your ordinary TiVo.
Video Quality:
Stand-alone TiVo units contain their own Analog to Digital conversion
circuitry (standard audio / video inputs from your cable box, VCR,
etc., are converted to the digital format stored on the hard drive),
allowing you to select quality levels for each program, so you can
choose between high quality which takes up a lot of disk space, or
lower quality so you can store more programs. Since DIRECTV service
is already digital, their TiVo unit does no such conversions, so there
is no quality setting. You always get the best quality, meaning what
you play back is exactly the same as what came through the dish.
Inputs:
The DIRECTV TiVo unit does not have external video inputs, and can
only record from the DIRECTV tuners. This means that if you cancel
your DIRECTV service and switch to cable, you will have to get another
DVR.
As far as I know, the DIRECTV version is the only one I am aware of
that can record two programs at the same time. Every stand-alone TiVo
I've seen has only one set of inputs to record from.
DIRECTV Service:
DIRECTV uses Digital Satellite Broadcasting, resulting in very clear
signals to my monitor. However, that clarity also exposes digital
anomalies (see side bar below). I have had numerous incidents where
the signal has gone away for a second or two, or a few. This usually
results in the picture freezing, getting severely pixellized, or
sometimes a truly ghastly effect: I once saw David Letterman's face
look like he was being burned to death, as red pixels from who knows
where invaded his face making the skin appear to melt away! The audio
often survives, but in the worst cases, the audio can come and go as
well. I have never seen these incidents last longer than a few
seconds, though it can happen a few times in a minute or two, and then
clear up.
Summary:
DIRECTV with TiVo service provides the best combination of programming
and DVR flexibility that I have seen. The TiVo unit with two tuners
is a revolutionary way of watching TV, that has forced me to have to
choose programs NOT to watch, just so I can get other things done in
my life.
Picture quality is mostly good to excellent, with the best being near
DVD quality, and the worst being highly pixelized due to either poor
digital conversion or low bandwidth. The worst channel I have seen is
TVLand, however, which is probably a good choice, since new, original
programming is watched more, and should get the best bandwidth.
The pricing was the best I found at the time, offering more channels
than Dish network, and better pricing than Comcast. Consult
http
/www.directv.com for current pricing information.Side Bar:
Digital Video:
OK, folks, here is something you may or may not be aware of: Digital
Video is NOT perfect. Some of us with decent monitors can see video
anomalies that simply are not present in traditional analog video
programs. If you compare DIRECTV with a good, clean off-air
broadcast, you will see pixellation. However, Digital is here to
stay, and if you want any kind of premium programming, you're stuck
with it.
You may think that your analog cable service is not digital, but it is
also digital at the source, though it may be transmitted through an
older analog cable converter or directly to your cable ready TV.
Before I switched to DIRECTV, I was able to see from my basic cable
service (Comcast), that they were indeed processing the video
digitally before retransmitting it to me. Services have only a
certain amount of bandwidth to use for digitized video, and some
premium services (HBO, for instance) will get more bandwidth than, say
TVLand or Fox. (Fox was the worst one from Comcast, and TVLand is one
of the worst from DIRECTV.)
Old school thinking:
Once upon a time, analog cable was all analog. They took TV signals
off satellite dishes for cable channels, or off the air for broadcast
channels, coverted them to their cable channels, and sent them down
the cable. What cable customers saw, then, were defects caused by
rebroadcasting so many channels all together on the same cable,
sometimes interfering with one another. Those with cable, take a good
look at your screen, and notice the faint wavy lines in the picture
that are not part of your original program. That's from being
rebroadcast over your cable in analog form.
Digital video:
Now, everyone decided that digital is the way to go, because with
computers we can do all kinds of things with the video, and if we can
decode it directly to a monitor (not through a TV tuner or analog
cable box), we can lose all the interference described above, as well
as ghosts and other strange anomalies from broadcast TV. However,
digital video has it's own shortcomings, which you can spot even on
high quality DVD's. Look at the sky, or a solid background or dark
scene, and you will see the blotches of color that are not as smooth
as they should be. Well, this is your future, kids.
OK, DIRECTV's service is purely digital, so it has all the digital
anomalies I hate, but so does cable nowadays. With DIRECTV, however,
you lose the added insult of cross interference that you get with
analog cable. I imagine that digital cable should be just as clear as
DIRECTV's, however. When DIRECTV does a good job of encoding a
program, it can look like you've got a direct window into the studio
where they made the show you're watching.
So, with DIRECTV, I will never see analog interference or poor quality
caused by analog signals, right? Wrong! Guess what? If you're
watching local broadcast programming through DIRECTV, you are watching
TV from their off-air antennas (antennae?), so if there is a storm
brewing in your town, your DIRECTV transmitted NBC station will have
the same interference as your rooftop antenna, except that DIRECTV
probably has a much better antenna, much closer to the source than
you. Further, would it surprise you to find out that some cable
channels still transmit their signals over analog satellite channels?
Well, they do, and your service provider has to digitize them and send
them to you.
So, when you see the commercials claiming digital clarity, they are
only talking about how the signal gets from their broadcast center or
head end to your house, not the whole path these signals take.
Side Bar:
Making your Satellite Service Installation go more smoothly:
Many of you probably think that if you get free installation of your
satellite service, the installer will cut through the walls, run cable
inside them (two sets for DIRECTV with Tivo, by the way), and patch up
the wall before they leave. Wrong! Free installation includes
running coax OUTSIDE your house, and punching it through to ONE tuner
box.
If you're like me, you don't want ugly cables hanging outside your
house, and you certainly don't want the installer choosing where to
put the dish! Do your homework ahead of time, and plan where the dish
should go first. In my area, DIRECTV needed a clear, south facing
spot for the dish. If you can avoid it, don't let them put the dish
on top of the roof, on or under the shingles. If you have a sturdy
fascia on the side of the roof, the installer can us a mount designed
to go there. Pick a location close to where all your coax feeds will
come through.
If you are so inclined, I highly recommend running your own coax
inside the walls before the installer arrives. Most houses are
pre-run with either coax or twin lead antenna cable, which will have
to be replaced. Go to your local electronics or home improvement
store (Fry's Electronics, Best Buy, and Home Depot are good choices),
and purchase RG6 coax, which is the best quality for satellite
reception. If you are getting a DIRECTV with TiVo, you will need TWO
runs of coax to the TiVo unit if you want to use both tuners. The
installer can help you hook it all up, or you can research further on
the web.
Dan
Facebook
Twitter