Satellite or CATV?

Thedautch-
You're a Bills fan? Cool. I grew up in WNY and have been a fan since the early '60s. I've moved around a lot, and currently reside in the Phila. area. I remain a die hard Bills fan, through all the broken hearted Super Bowls, lame salary cap decimation of the roster, terrible way they treated Doug Flutie (went to college in Boston at the same time Flutie won the Heisman at BC) in favor of Rob Johnson...

Blueswan- Sorry about hijacking your post.

With a Sony HDTV I receive signals 3 ways: cable, used with RoadRunner, DirectTV and antenna reception over the air. The best signal by far is over the air, A Bugs Life last night was just plain spectacular, next best is DirectTV, HD Net, HBO and Showtime HD is glorious and the usual non-HD channels vary but usually are very good. In comparison cable is so poor as to be pathetic. I have had the cable serviced and replaced by Time Warner at least 3 times, even replacing the cable service to the house- it made no difference.

Bills fans... I like the turnaround Drew Bledsoe has made and I think he will take them to the playoffs! Also, if Doug Flutie starts that Tennessee game, the Homerun Throwback would have been just a footnote to a Bills victory, and I am a diehard Titans fan!

Elsewhere, thanks for all the comments on DirecTV.

I understand your situation, I was in an identical situation a few months ago and this is what I did -

I had the Time-Warner "Analog" cable replaced with Dish Network in my house. I was disgusted with the quality of cable and their frequent underhanded price increases. In a previous house I had a full size (10') satellite dish which was an enormous improvement over cable.

Much to my surprise I found that the quality of the signal from Dish Network was not significantly better than the analog signal I received from my cable provider. Even the installers who came repeatedly to "fix" the Dish Network signal agreed and eventually gave up. The quality was apparent in all the televisions in my house but most obvious on the 100" Stewart screen/ CRT projector I own. The problems are typically greater degree of color bleed, loss of sharpness, signal strength, black level etc.

I am still living with the satellite system because of the variety of programming it offers. Just few of the channels make it worthwhile to go the Dish Network route such as National Geographic Channel, Worldlink TV, History Channel etc. but don't expect a tremendous improvement in quality. I, for one, did not get it.

FYI, I have four separate receivers (including a PVR) wired with high quality Belden video cable. There are no splitters in my system.

IMO, yes Dishnetwork is better than cable but a full size satellite dish beats the pants off both. I should know, I have had all three at one time or another.

Remember to fine tune your system using the largest tv you have in the house because it magnifies every nuance of the video signal.

Regards,

Erider

Going back to Bflo. for the Ptriots game (from DC). I'm from Williamsville, and my parents (and our little family business!) are still there. Beef on weck, here I come!

--Brian