F.O.A.D. wrote:
On 9/17/13 8:55 AM, Mr. Luddite wrote:


"F.O.A.D." wrote in message
m...


Every so often, I think about converting from cable to dish, but the two
dish companies here seem unwilling or incapable of distributing info
that is clear and understandable.

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We have cable TV service with several High Definition "boxes" in various
rooms of the house. It's more for Mrs.E. I rarely watch TV other
than some of the cable news channels, the History Channel, re-runs of
"MASH" and "Everyone Loves Raymond". Once in a while I'll watch a
Patriots game and more often this year, a Red Sox game.

I also have the Direct TV box and portable dish that I used to use on
the boat. I installed it in my man cave and use it most of the time.

One thing that I have noticed (and I think I've mentioned this before)
is that the quality of the standard (non-HD) picture from Direct TV
often rivals that of Comcast's HD signal. It's not HD obviously but
when watching a LCD or Plasma TV from a distance, the difference between
the two is not very noticeable. I've been told that Comcast must
compress their HD signal much like mp3's compress audio in order to send
all the channels over a limited bandwidth capacity cable.



We've got "digital" cable and three HD/DVR boxes, and with all that, I
still don't find much I like to watch beyond the news/science/history
channels. Most of the premium movie channels play the same crappy
movies over and over and over, and I have absolutely no tolerance for
the "reality" shows. I do like "Newsroom" and "Boardwalk Empire,"
especially the latter, because it is so dark.
Maybe you can get your basement DVR downgraded to receive the expanded
cable channels minus the premium channels.