Cable vs. Satallite

[Castro's]

Last year my dad decides his 25 inch 23 year old tv is just getting too damn old. Two days before the Super Bowl he goes all out and buys himself a 51" Sony widescreen projection TV. He had basic cable with an analog signal and when he bought it the people told him that the reception would suck with analog cable so he should switch to satallite since he can get all of his stations in digital. For Christmas I buy him a Tivo (well, actually I just helped him pick it out, I can't afford a Tivo) and he then starts checking into satallite because he can get a DVR with satallite, more stations, digital quality, and all that stuff for way less than analog cable with Tivo.

So, two days ago he tells me to check out the satallite providers and line him up with the best deal. I call up DirectTV and Dish Network and find I can get him the best deal for what he wants with Dish Network. I go to his house this morning and the guys come and get everything setup. He's got his DVR, digital signal and everything he wanted. I turn on the bigscreen and think, man, this picture is worse than the analog cable, WTF!? Its not bad reception or anything, the picture just wasn't as good. So, he comes home for lunch all excited and is expecting to see this not great, but more crystal clear picture. He notices the same thing I do and blames it on the sun. Tonight he calls me and says, "What the fuck, I thought this digital satallite shit was supposed to be so much better than the cable I had. You better call them and get this straightened out."

He's an old man and likes his TV, but doesn't like technology so I take care of this sort of shit for him. He's going on a cruise for a week in like 4 hours so I have a week to figure out what to do, (and have a party at his house for the playoff games on Sunday )

Has anyone else experience the switch from analog cable to digital satallite? and was it good or bad?

[Arty50]

I can't comment on Dish, I've only had DirecTV. But the picture quality always blew away cable. I have a general loathe for cable also. While satellite may go out occasionally in a big storm (which I tend to think is more due to a poor mount than anything), cable goes out all the time. Especially during big events. Supporting, maintaining, and repairing a huge wired network isn't easy. Things are always breaking.

Anyway, I at a loss to why the picture quality would be bad. If the dish weren't properly aligned, the signal might get blocky/pixelated. But this is different from poor picture quality. Perhaps the tv settings need to be changed to accomodate the different signal? Dunno.

[Castro's]

Anyway, I at a loss to why the picture quality would be bad. If the dish weren't properly aligned, the signal might get blocky/pixelated. But this is different from poor picture quality. Perhaps the tv settings need to be changed to accomodate the different signal? Dunno.

Thats what I was thinking, but I went through the tv's menu and flash focus and all that jazz, but still the same picture. I really noticed it this morning while watching the World Poker Tour on the Travel Channel. The cards were kinda difficult to see unless they zoomed right in on them. On the analog cable it was always pretty easy to see the cards.

[Snow Dog]

He's an old man and likes his TV, but doesn't like technology so I take care of this sort of shit for him. He's going on a cruise for a week in like 4 hours so I have a week to figure out what to do, (and have a party at his house for the playoff games on Sunday )

Has anyone else experience the switch from analog cable to digital satallite? and was it good or bad?

All the digital sat i've seen is very nice. Not that I have that now.

For starters, verify that the video input and TV is working by plugging in a DVD player. That should be sharp. Verify that the A/V cable is good (use it with the DVD).

If DVD is sharp and all the channels on the sat aren't then there's something wrong with the sat receiver. Are the onscreen menus sharp? They're generated internally and should be perfect. Try a music channel. The text is generated internally too.

With digital the pictures should be sharp or pixelated and stuttering. It should never be out of focus.

[Castro's]

That's the thing. The on-screen menus are sharp and so are the music channels. The DVD player is also working fine. The channels just kinda suck. Its not really bad or pixellated, but it is worse than the cable signal which from my understanding it shouldn't be. I might have to call the installers on Monday.

[interloper]

I'm not a Cable Guy but.......Digital is never out of focus. If TV settings are correct and all the cables have been checked for a bad signal and your dish is pointing to the best signal(transponder)then all that's left is the probe and the box. Got another TV hook it up and see what you get.

[optics]

Catching interference from local broadcast stations?

[goofygrin]

There are two things working against you:

1. Dishnetwork -- this is exactly why I moved from Dishnetwork to Directv about 3 years ago. DN severely over compresses their signal and causes most stations to look ok on a smaller tv, but on a large tv the stations look like crap (almost like watching a bad realvideo thingee on the net).

2. Widescreen TVs have to stretch the video. This "stretching" just makes things worse.

There's a couple things I recommend checking:

- Check the cabling from the receiver to the TV. Make sure that Svideo at the very least was used. Cable (RF, screw connector) or composite (single yellow connector) will look like crap. Svideo and Component (3 cables, red, blue, green) will look the best. Call the installer back if you aren't happy. They should take try and make it ok for you. If they don't get Dish on the phone and start to bitch.

- Call back and see if you can get him the HDTV PVR (if he wants to stay with Dish). It will cost him more $$ (they just were lowered to $550, but you can rent them from Dish, which I recommend, since satellite providers are going to start using a new compression algorythm which will render the current receivers useless), but it will be much better. It will be a dual tuner HD PVR. HD is miles beyond SD.

Just for full disclosure, I now have Comcast cable (I got rid of DirecTv) because I can get a dual tuner HD PVR from Comcast for an extra $10 a month. Compared to the $1000 for the HDTivo and the $550 Dish Network HDPVR, that's a lot better for me.

[Arty50]

I have an idea. How do you have the sat receiver hooked up? Are you using normal RCA cables, or have you at least made the jump to S-Video. I rememeber when we switched our DirecTV from RCA/composite to S-Video the resolution jumped by leaps and bounds. The same thing happened with my PS2. Amazing difference. Component Video is even better.

Here's a rundown on all three:
http://www.projectorcentral.com/component.htm

Bottom line, use S-Video at the bare minimum for all of your video devices. You should get a huge jump in quality.

[powderhound]

sometimes you can have a bad piece of coax. try changing them out at the very least

also, go to menu, then installation(#1 i think), check signal, then from same submenu go to something like "switch installation", and run the "test"

if all else fails open up the reciever drop a screwdriver across the circuit board with it plugged in, close back up and call echostar up to tell them your service quit working

[Castro's]

Ok, so I think goofygrin and Arty may have nailed it on the head. I was there when the installers showed up. They said the only way to hook it up without charging like $200 or more in installation fees was to hook up the receiver in the basement. It is a dual receiver and that is where all the cables originate that run to each TV. The installers said that the only way to hook up the tv's was to put the receiver where all these cables are and that the tv's would not be able to be hooked up using S-Video cables. I'm house sitting for my dad until next Sunday so I would have somewhat of an opportuntiy to try to rig something up using S-video without him objecting. How would I go about this? Wouldn't I have to wire S-Cables from the receiver in the basement all the way upstairs to the TV? The only thing that is hooked up using S-video to the bigscreen is the DVD player. Also, I there are 3 other tv's hooked up that are small ones and the picture looks better, but still not as good as the cable did. This is simply due to the smaller screen size, so in esence, all the screens are kind of blurry. One more strange thing to add, I was watching the Steelers game tonight on the local CBS station but it was through the Dish on the bigscreen and it came in really really good. I find this strange considering the station was through the Dish like all the other stations that don't look very good.