TV and what to get?

[stew77]

I have Metrocast Cable currently. I pay about $120.00 + for cable service and that doesn't include ANY premium channels, HBO, Showtime, Encore. I have 4 TV's, One in Bedroon, one in kitchen, one in my "old frontroom" and one in the familyroom. I rent a Cable converter box with DVR from Metrocast, the other TV's are cable ready and new enough that I do not need a box. Now I am looking for feedback on what is best : either Dish or Direct? I want to save money and I see where Metrocast will be going up in the next month, and just can't do it. I hate that this county only has one commissioner in charge of the Cable company and he doesn't even care about what we pay. Metrocast needs to change and by that I mean drop their prices, my opinion, so which is better: DISH or DIRECT and any problems with signals during inclement weather or ?? I do want to record the shows that I normally watch, to see them at my leisure, so I need a DVR.

Please let me know your thoughts??

 

[DEEKAYPEE8569]

I have Metrocast Cable currently. I pay about $120.00 + for cable service and that doesn't include ANY premium channels, HBO, Showtime, Encore. I have 4 TV's, One in Bedroon, one in kitchen, one in my "old frontroom" and one in the familyroom. I rent a Cable converter box with DVR from Metrocast, the other TV's are cable ready and new enough that I do not need a box. Now I am looking for feedback on what is best : either Dish or Direct? I want to save money and I see where Metrocast will be going up in the next month, and just can't do it. I hate that this county only has one commissioner in charge of the Cable company and he doesn't even care about what we pay. Metrocast needs to change and by that I mean drop their prices, my opinion, so which is better: DISH or DIRECT and any problems with signals during inclement weather or ?? I do want to record the shows that I normally watch, to see them at my leisure, so I need a DVR.

Please let me know your thoughts??

Does your $120/month include internet charges?

As far as a $$ comparison cable TV v satellite TV; you can, of course let your fingers do the walking, so to speak. We don't have any of the premium channels, but I believe the monthly bill is better than cable, just for TV. From an end-user perspective, DISH isn't too bad. JMHO

While we do have periodic; I'll call them 'buffering' issues With DISH , the picture if very clear and the audio is in stereo; works well with the newer HD flat screen TV's; and the DVR is handy.
We still have METROCAST, solely for internet, so I think our METROCAST bill is hopefully less than $120/mo.. I don't handle the bookkeeping, so I can't give you $ figures that combine our monthly internet/DISH charges.

 

[Radiant1]

I have Metrocast Cable currently. I pay about $120.00 + for cable service and that doesn't include ANY premium channels, HBO, Showtime, Encore. I have 4 TV's, One in Bedroon, one in kitchen, one in my "old frontroom" and one in the familyroom. I rent a Cable converter box with DVR from Metrocast, the other TV's are cable ready and new enough that I do not need a box. Now I am looking for feedback on what is best : either Dish or Direct? I want to save money and I see where Metrocast will be going up in the next month, and just can't do it. I hate that this county only has one commissioner in charge of the Cable company and he doesn't even care about what we pay. Metrocast needs to change and by that I mean drop their prices, my opinion, so which is better: DISH or DIRECT and any problems with signals during inclement weather or ?? I do want to record the shows that I normally watch, to see them at my leisure, so I need a DVR.

Please let me know your thoughts??

I don't know about costs anymore, but if you go satellite I would definitely recommend DirecTV as opposed to Dish. It's possible you can lose signal during really bad weather for a short time regardless of which satellite service you use.

 

[Natron0915]

I have Metrocast Cable currently. I pay about $120.00 + for cable service and that doesn't include ANY premium channels, HBO, Showtime, Encore. I have 4 TV's, One in Bedroon, one in kitchen, one in my "old frontroom" and one in the familyroom. I rent a Cable converter box with DVR from Metrocast, the other TV's are cable ready and new enough that I do not need a box. Now I am looking for feedback on what is best : either Dish or Direct? I want to save money and I see where Metrocast will be going up in the next month, and just can't do it. I hate that this county only has one commissioner in charge of the Cable company and he doesn't even care about what we pay. Metrocast needs to change and by that I mean drop their prices, my opinion, so which is better: DISH or DIRECT and any problems with signals during inclement weather or ?? I do want to record the shows that I normally watch, to see them at my leisure, so I need a DVR.

Please let me know your thoughts??

Been with DirecTV for around 10 years and would recommend over Dish. I've seen them both and like the functionality of DTV much better. Also, DTV is the only carrier that offers the NFL ticket, if that's important. One caution though, beware of cost creep. It seems once a year or so the monthly bill increases with no explanation. Make the call to customer service and question why...every time they've reduced it back to where it was, occasionally offering to lower it due to their "mistake."

Have 4 TV's that all require a box to use the whole home DVR. If you want to order on demand with the remote, then you also need to connect to your home wifi.

As for losing signal, it doesn't happen very often, typically only in the worst of t-storms and even then not for very long (5-10 mins max).

I have Metrocast for internet but are really getting tired of the outages. Seems like at least once a day, there is a "pause" in service. Unfortunately not a lot of choices where I live.

Good luck!

 

[DipStick]

I'd recommend Dish Network over DIRECTV anyday. Prices are lower and they have that three year price lock guarantee. DIRECTV costs skyrocket after the first year.

 

[Radiant1]

I'd recommend Dish Network over DIRECTV anyday. Prices are lower and they have that three year price lock guarantee. DIRECTV costs skyrocket after the first year.

If I recall correctly when I switched from Dish to DirecTV, DirecTV had better packages and service with less downtime. That was over 10 years ago though so Dish very well may have improved since then.

 

[Chris0nllyn]

I have Metrocast Cable currently. I pay about $120.00 + for cable service and that doesn't include ANY premium channels, HBO, Showtime, Encore. I have 4 TV's, One in Bedroon, one in kitchen, one in my "old frontroom" and one in the familyroom. I rent a Cable converter box with DVR from Metrocast, the other TV's are cable ready and new enough that I do not need a box. Now I am looking for feedback on what is best : either Dish or Direct? I want to save money and I see where Metrocast will be going up in the next month, and just can't do it. I hate that this county only has one commissioner in charge of the Cable company and he doesn't even care about what we pay. Metrocast needs to change and by that I mean drop their prices, my opinion, so which is better: DISH or DIRECT and any problems with signals during inclement weather or ?? I do want to record the shows that I normally watch, to see them at my leisure, so I need a DVR.

Please let me know your thoughts??

So you pay $120 for a single box and one TV has cable right now?

For one, try and contact Metrocast and get a rate reduction (usually threatening to cancel helps, depending if you're in a contract that would issue you a cancellation fee). I pay the same amount for (2) HD boxes, X1 service, internet, and HBO with Comcast.

You WILL need a box for any and every TV you want to watch TV on (or split the output and go to multiple TVs on one box). Metrocast has (or is about to) encrypt their channels to where you can't simply hook up a TV with a digital converter in it to watch TV anymore.

My parents had DirecTV and hated it. It's very cheap at first, but the prices jump and progressively get worse for some reason (my parents probably didn't read the fine print). The install was shoddy at best. They don't offer internet, so they had to keep Comcast internet, but the DirecTV guy cut the cable line below the soil. I ended having to come over and fix his install, put new ends on the underground line and get the internet service back up.

Have you thought about a HD antenna? Depending how much of a TV watcher you are, you could possibly stick with Metrocast's internet, get Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime/etc. for watching shows, and get a nice HD antenna for getting HD local channels.

Internet is probably about $50 or so? A subscription service to Neflix is $9 a month, and the antenna is a one-time install (depending on how nice of an antenna you want, could be a couple hundred bucks). It also allows you to keep watching TV in the event the cable line is damaged in a storm (but you won't have internet obviously).

 

[SamSpade]

Is there any way to "build" your Metrocast package and see how much it would cost? They used to have that, but I can't find it anywhere on their site without typing in my address and requesting service.

I'm wondering if there's a way to dial back what I'm buying. We have a handful of TVs that frankly could be better used with just streaming.

 

[DipStick]

If I recall correctly when I switched from Dish to DirecTV, DirecTV had better packages and service with less downtime. That was over 10 years ago though so Dish very well may have improved since then.

DIRECTV's picture quality is better. Dish is cheaper though and had every channel I watched. Contrary to what DIRECTV claims, Dish Network's HD channels aren't "only part-time". Actually, I had more problems with DIRECTV there. Missed the end to an Orioles game one night because DIRECTV cut MASN2 off at a certain time. One of the Fox Sports channels that aired the NASCAR races was SD-only on DIRECTV too.