Jay

camogirl

OMG! You are KIDDING me RIGHT? I can't imagine what will happen if they do this. I personally don't have either anymore however a lot of my family only have those two choices. I can only imagine what they will do to their prices and such! I don't think this would be a good thing for the consumers at all!

djs

I agree, competition is always good especially when satellite is my only choice for getting reception. Are there any other satellite co's out there. I have heard of Hugh's Net but only for broadband internet service.

cowboyup4christ

there are free to air but they only have a few channels because most are foreign programming.

MyBud

I've had a BUD (big ugly dish) for most of my adult life and in fact still watch the 4 channels left broadcasting in analog. I never had decent reception from an antenna and the whole DTV thing is even worse so I've been trying to make a decison about which direction to go; DishNet, Direct, get a mega rooftop antenna, stop watching TV (not a chance in you know where!). This pretty much decides it for me. I'm going to spend my money on upgrading to a 4DTV receiver and tune up my big dish. The programming providers and options are much better and a LOT cheaper. It seems the primary shortcoming of 4DTV offerings is the lack of some sports channels, which doesn't hinder me in the least. I've talked to a lot of people who switched to dinky-dish and they aren't as happy with the quality and stability of the picture but switched either because they could get the dinky-dish free (ain't no free lunches folks, read the fine print) or 4DTV didn't offer a specific channel they wanted. Anybody out there have a 4DTV receiver (DSR922)they'd like to part with?

Aaron62

BUD = Big Ugly Dish, lol

What made me go with DirecTV was the option of a DVR/Tivo for recording shows and being able to skip past commercials. I don't have much time in the day to sit back and relax, and when I do, I want to skip past all of the crap and watch what I want to.

I've never heard of 4DTV, is that a Satellite company?

Taki

This whole issue is why I have big hopes for internet television. It allows the producers themselves to broadcast their shows on the net without having to share revenue with anyone else, therefore allowing them to spend more money on their projects and keep some for themselves too.

Sparks

Other satellite providers are as Aron62 mentioned, available with a big dish. This would be a 6 - 10 foot diameter dish. That is why it is called BUD for Big Ugly Dish.

I understand that the large dishes are not very popular with the neighbors in the suburbs and in towns. I also understand that some housing authorities will not allow them in certain housing developments.

If you are in a place where you can put up a 6 foot dish and point it in a Southerly direction. A service that is being sold by SkyVision is available. The premium package is just under $30. The Basic package is just under $21. In addition; the Starz Encore package is $16 per month. The Showtime, TMC, Flix and Sundance package is also $16 per month. The HBO package that includes the Cinemax channels is $22.50 a month. All of the premium movie channels will total $48 per month. All of these monthly prices are when it is paid annually. For slightly more you can also pay monthly or quarterly. I also understand that you can subscribe to any part of it or all of it that is available. If you only want one movie package you do not have to get the rest of it.

I understand that this service will function anywhere in the 48 states with the six foot dish. I would need to do some research for other areas.

The catch is that you must buy your own equipment and install it yourself or get help installing it. Considering the price difference I think that it is worth it if you want this programming. The entire equipment package, if you need all of it is $329.95 plus tax in Minnesota plus shipping.

You can get all of the details about this at www skyvision com. On the left side of the screen go down to DSR-410 Equipment and Programming. This puts you on a page of information where you can select information to do with getting the receiver box only or the entire equipment package. You can also select the programming packages that I just mentioned.

To get a better comparison in detail of what is available in the program packages. At the top right of the screen select Tech Support. Then go down the left side of the screen and under DSR-410 click on the top item DSR410 Channel List With Technical Information (pdf).

With a large dish it is also possible to subscribe to other services and program packages that are also available through SkyVision. Another place that sells the big dish or what we call C Band programming is at www bigdish com. These other program packages would require yet a different box.

I have subscribed to Directv and Dish Network. I get tired of paying big money to watch commercials. I do enjoy the commercial free movie channels but as a whole I get tired of it. I also get tired of paying for 250 channels and there is nothing on that I want to watch.

What I did was drop the last one that I subscribed to that was Dish Network. I have had a big antenna on the roof all along and with the additional DTV channels. I now have much more programming available. In addition to that I put up a couple of smaller dishes for the more powerful "KU Band" or Free To Air (FTA) satellite TV. This adds a lot of additional channels to view that includes some MyTV, ABC, Fox, RTN, Some independant stations and others. With the RTN stations it is the same programming on some of the RTN stations that I get. These stations do not follow the same schedules and with these stations being in different time zones from New York to Washington state. They are running the show later in the west if you missed it in the East. This is all free and legal. The minimum equipment investment to get the FTA viewing with a dish small enough to put up no matter where you live is less than $300.

I plan to write a detailed description of all of this to do with FTA satellite TV in the next few days. This will have to do with selecting equipment. Determining what is available to view and a little about dish installation. I plan to post it on this forum for anyone that might be interested.

In case you did not know - The FCC has ruled some time ago that housing authorities, land lords and municipal codes cannot prevent or stop someone from installing a roof top antenna or a satellite dish that is not more that 30 inches in diameter.

cowboyup4christ

they now make fta small dishes the same size as the directtv and dishnetwork stuff you can change the lbn on those dishs hook a fta receiver and point at the sat and receive. they also make multi lnb mounts that will catch 4 or 5 sats at a time.
(Free to Air) Satellite Systems
http://www.ftaexpress.com/?gclid=CIf...FQv7agodnEB9zA
complete systems
http://sadoun.com/Sat/Channels/Ameri...V-Channels.htm
http://sadoun.com/Sat/Channels/Ameri...V-Channels.htm
this is a good info site
http://www.ftalist.com/

MyBud

Being able to record without commercials would be cool but I since I had a VCR hooked up to my system I recorded tons of stuff off the dish and just fast forwarded thru the commercials. Movies on the movie channels didn't have commercials so that wasn't a problem and I still have some of them. My problem was, except for movies which I planned to keep anyway, most of the time I never seemed to find the time to watch half of what I recorded and I would not pay extra for Tivo even if I had it.