Stick with Brighthouse or move to Direct TV?

[shenandoah75]

I thought i'd find a bunch of commentary on this here, but my searches didn't reveal a whole lot..


I have a Direct TV dish on my roof from the prior owner, but went cable as we've always used it. But pricewise, i'm paying upwards of 150 a month for cable & internet. I could pay 45 for internet through brighthouse and get the full DirectTV stuff w/HD for 60 (70 after the intro) + startup costs.


Pros: seems like i might have some options for serial control of the STBs (the scientific atlanta brighhouse uses is no go), nfl network

Cons: loss of local channels (esp local news), loss of on demand programming (though it looks like this might be in the works based on some posts i found), rain fade (esp being in florida - but i see mixed commentary on how often/ bad this really is), right now i have not only two signals on each TV via the PIP over the STB cable boxes, but i have a coax input i run after the splitter to each for a third signal - pretty sure that's a no go with Direct TV

Anyway, if i end up going LinuxMCE (or CQC, etc) serial integration would be a big plus over IR i'm forced into with cable and



I'll take any opinions and if i simply am putting in the wrong search terms and there are existing discussion on this as i suspect, i'll take a pointer in the right direction rather than duplicating it all here...


thx
-brad

 

[shenandoah75]

Apologies i could have swarn i created this in Home Theaters which is where it probably belongs... Sorry!

 

[shenandoah75]

1) they are only applying the $100 rebate for the hd dvr once, not to both units - arg
2) if i am buying an HD DVR, why would i get a $5 lease fee on my monthly bill at all?
3) is the final monthly total they quote you for real, no additional taxes/ tag-ons like i get with brighthouse?

 

[cfoxga]

I'm not a Brighthouse customer (Comcast in my area), but I was with DirecTV before I moved two years ago. Here are some random thoughts:

1. If you are paying $150/month and about $45 of that is Internet access, then you are paying around $100/month for cable + STB leases. To compare apples to apples, you really should compare the Programming costs of the two providers, and also the hardware costs. IIRC, DirecTV has some large startup costs for HD + some smaller lease fees, whereas cable tends to have larger STB lease fees.

In my case, both providers were close in overall costs, but Comcast had a HD DVR and DirecTV only had the TivoHD (which was not MPEG4 compliant). I really wanted HD, so I went Comcast. Today DirecTV has more HD channels, and probably better DVRs.

2. I use MythTV (with is included in LinuxMCE) via firewire to control my STB. It gives me access to all channels I subscribe to (including HBO HD). I also get my HD locals in clear QAM. So I can record all channels to my own system for storage (currently 4 tuners, 900 GB storage to 2 frontends). If you have a firewire STB at Brighthouse, it might be worth a test. I can't think of any reasonably priced solutions for DirecTV/Dish for HD recording to LinuxMCE.

3. DirecTV does have OnDemand now. I guy I work with has access to it. They download shows via the internet, instead of the satellite. I'm not certain of this, but it is possible that OnDemand will still work even if you lost signal due to rain-fade (though rain-fade rarely happened to me here in Atlanta).

4. I use URC MX-650 RF remotes to combat the fact that I need IR to my cable STB, MythTV(s), and Homeseer PC. All the equipment is out of sight (actually in the basement), and has IR emitters connected from the RF base station. Works really well for us. I love the power of CQC, but I could never see using touchscreens as a remote control replacement.

I guess my advice would be to figure out and implement your control system first, and then evaluate the TV providers. If you go LinuxMCE, then cable may be your best bet because of the firewire connection. If you use CQC, then serial control would be more realiable than IR...

Chris