Satellite Dishes?

[Francis]

Okay,

So I've tried so-called digital cable, and it sucks in my opinion. I have a choice between two Canadian providers - Bell Expressvu or Star Choice. I don't watch too much tv, but I do want dolby digital sound where possible and as little headaches as possible too. Just curious what if any differences there are between the two?

[Andrew Pratt]

Cost is one difference since one is more expensive for a similar channel selection (though I forget which is cheaper...bell I think) I'm starting to look into this as well so I'll be keeping an eye on this thread...hopefully some of the other canucks can provide us with the inside scoup.

[ThomasW]

The compression used with any digital signal, cable or satellite screw up the image.

Also satelllite dish owners face the additional problem of loss of signal when snow collects on the dish. The vinyl covers don't offer much help. A heated dish would be a must in colder climates. Also very heavy rains can cause what known as 'rain fade'.

I don't use my dish for TV it's only for internet access, but it's weird enough at times so as to keep me subscribing to regular cable TV.




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[brucek]

Francis,

I've had ExpressVu for many years and I'm quite pleased with it.
I don't like to disagree with Thomas, but what he's forgetting is that the further you travel north, the lower the angle of inclination, so when you get up into the freezer where I live, the dish is almost vertical. Ice & snow doesn't have much of a chance of sticking. Add to this that the vertical pan is looking directly south at the sun, it's always being heated. Some people car wax their dishes every fall to ensure that no wet snow will stick, but generally it's just not a problem. I think I lost my signal twice last year for about 30 seconds each time in thunder storms. I'm a little further north than Toronto (Ottawa), so you'll be fine.

For sure, the extra compression that digital cable introduces is quite unacceptable, but in their defense, they've got a heck of a lot of information to jam on that wire - the worst offender being the analog channels that pony along with the digital ones. They have to compress the heck out of them to make it all fit.

Satellite has the advantage of not only having the "head end" in your back yard, but you only have the digital channels to transport. The amount of compression is minimal, although the movie channels are less compressed than the networks.. I find the satellite picture quite good. I wouldn't even consider cable.

One of the disadvantages of Star Choice is that you require two physical boxes for HDTV. I believe for AC-3 you also require the second box. With ExpressVu (which actually just uses all Dish equipment) has all the HDTV and digital PCM/AC-3 capability in one box....

I suspect both companies have similar channel offerings and pricing packages....

brucek

[Lex]

I have had little image problem with my directv. Fact is, it blows away my analog cable signal for quality. I have not tried digital cable. I keep my cable for the local channels, and use the basic cable package for rounding out my selection. I am not happy with directv's recent price jacks, to make it not worth keeping the lowest end package. Now, instead of 10 bucks or so separating the two packages, it's like 3-5. Also, new subscribers can't even get the old limited package I have now. I will likely upgrade to the next package or turn it off. I really hate to be done like that.

Bruce, a fine post, and very infomative for all Canucks! I hadn't thought about the angle of the dish difference at all.

Lex

[ThomasW]

Hey Bruce ya know it's ok do have info different from me

When comparing digital satellite/cable vs analog use a live feed for comparison. During sporting events that that have high speed camera 'pans' there are tons of artifacts on the digital signal compared to analog. It's a funtion of the compression.

Unfortunately the cable companies are moving all the good channels over to digital to force people to 'upgrade'

I beginning to think that it's time to invest in "C" band equipment 8O




theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[brucek]

Yeah, it funny to take a drive in the country and see all the places with the old "C" band dishes sitting dead in a yard. Then, beside the house you see an old antenna tower with no antenna on it, with a little 18" satellite dish mounted.

I guess I've gotten used to the artifacting caused by the Mpeg-2 compression. Certainly, the larger and more resolute the display device, the more it's noticeable. It's definitely worse on cable. I know the cable companies would love to get everyone off the analog channels and recover that bandwidth, to make the playing field a little more even. They take up a lot of room on that wire. No doubt, they're making the analogs less desireable by not offering certain channels and features to hurry that transition along.....

I find all the "SD" super definition channels on satellite quite good. Usually ExpressVu will have CBS or another network copying a program to the SD channel, plus all the movie channels are "SD". My understanding of this is that they assign these channels a higher bandwidth and keep the chroma and luminance signals separated throughout the entire distribution chain. At least on my TV these channels have very few artifacts. Usually, it's the movies I watch the most, so I appreciate the "SD" format for sure.

ExpressVu transmits all its movie channels in AC-3 Dolby Digital, but usually only one of the five channels is "3/2/.1" encoded. All the rest are "2/0/.0" encoded. When they're "2/0/.0" I just use DPL decoding and it seems to work fairly well because the encoding of the two channels is proplogic encoded. When the movie is in "3/2/.1" it's very effective along with the SD picture. It ain't a DVD, but it's darned close in my opinion....

brucek

[Andrew Pratt]

I thought that I'd seen that both Star choice and Expressvu had receivers that had s-vid and optical outs in the same box so I don't think you need two box's anymore...well unless you want HDTV which is a separate box me thinks.

[ThomasW]

Bruce

Actually I wasn't joking about moving to C-band. :!: It's very much alive and offers the best picture available. As with most things the price of admission is higher that the small dish services

[Daryl Furkalo]

If have a Bell 5100 so I can tell you that it has an optical DD out, as well as s-video, and it is a PVR, which is awesome, even with its quirks. If you want HD, you will need the 6000 receiver.

For *choice, you will want the Navigo 401 atleast, since you can plug the HD receiver into it, which is extra. The 300 Navigo does not allow this. I think the price for a 6000 or 401/HD receiver combination is pretty close.

Channel selection is very close, as well as price. The biggest differences are the radio stations, but I never tune in to those anyway, so I can't comment on which has a better selection.

[Sonnie Parker]

I thought C-band was now called BUD (for big ugly dish)....???

Okay, bash me... just having a little fun.

I'm way to lazy and impatient for the BUD though. My parents had one, once upon a time, and it was awful to operate and slow as molasses. The picture was so-so, but I'm sure they didn't have it set up the for the best and I understand the receivers are much better today.

We've had DISH Network for about (how long has it been out less one year?). We are very pleased and have a 61" RPTV. Yes, there are glitches all along and the picture is not like DVD but it sure beats the cable we use to have. Now that we've moved we don't get cable offered but it wouldn't matter. We also get the east and west coast networks and love the ability to watch a program late if we miss it early. We also have a regular antenna for OTA local networks and with my 5000 receiver there's no swapping inputs.

All in all, for the convenience and size, we are very pleased and very satisfied.






SONNIE

Cedar Creek Cinema

DVD Collection

BFD Comprehensive Setup Guide

[brucek]

Originally here, if you wanted locals you had to go the OTA route also, but now they've got just about every local station across Canada on the satellite....Kind of interesting to watch local news from about everywhere in the country.....

brucek

[Clive]

The problem I'm facing in regurds to choosing to go with Bell expressVu is that for years I've gotten so used to Internet on Cable with Rogers and I've rarely experienced any huge lenghty problems with them. Now the twist here for me is that my wife works for Bell Mobility and can get ExpressVu for less that the regular consumer, we don't want to pay for two services. Internet with Bell suck a bit and is much slower that Rogers. So I guess we'll wait till we've finally purchased our television to make the move.




CLIVE




HEY!! Why buy movie tickets when you can own a Theater?