# HD Woes!!!! Who to go with



## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

I have been a D* customer for about two years now, and just recenlty got a HD LCD and wanted to move to HDTV. I called D* and asked about the service, how much total cost per month would be and up front costs. I was astonished by the price and said I would call back.
I then got on the phone with TWC and asked about their service. With all the channels plus HD my bill is actually 10 bux lower a month.

So...I took this new information back to D*, but this time called the retention department directly. After explaining that I didn't feel like spending ALL that money for HD and that I was happy with TWC's offer....she came up with this.

My current service plus HD....h10-250 with dish..free shipping..free install..and 3 months of HD service for free. 

All for an upfront cost of 275.... Oh, she also noted to offer me a FREE upgrade to a MPEG4 HD DVR and dish when it comes available (since I want HD locals).

It's still alot of money, but I'm half way thinking I whould take it..

What do you all think??

Thanks 
mike


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

omnicube said:


> All for an upfront cost of 275.... Oh, she also noted to offer me a FREE upgrade to a MPEG4 HD DVR and dish when it comes available (since I want HD locals).


Where do you live? Can you get HD locals OTA? Check antennaweb.org. When it shows the list of stations click on "Show Digital Stations Only."


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## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

The reason for the future upgrade is that Yes locals are offered in HD for my region (Houston), but she said they dont' currenlty have a DVR version that will work with HD locals. It sounded odd to me, but I went with what she said.

And yes we do have the local stations OTA for HD..

Good deal????


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

She told you correctly - the only DirecTV HD DVR today is the HR10-250 which cannot receive the HD locals from the satellite in most markets (only LA and NY and then only some of them.)


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## phox_mulder (Feb 23, 2006)

omnicube said:


> The reason for the future upgrade is that Yes locals are offered in HD for my region (Houston), but she said they dont' currenlty have a DVR version that will work with HD locals. It sounded odd to me, but I went with what she said.
> 
> And yes we do have the local stations OTA for HD..
> 
> Good deal????


If you can get the HD OTA locals via antenna, the HR10-250 can record them just fine.

I'd say it's a pretty good deal, considering what some of us paid for our HR10's a couple months ago,
although we own them, and you'd be leasing.
The folks that got them when they first came out paid $1,000+, early adopters.

3 months of the D* HD package is Standard Operating Procedure when you activate an HD receiver, 
so no favors there, although it sounds great on paper.

phox


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

omnicube said:


> And yes we do have the local stations OTA for HD..


Then you will not need the new DVR when it comes out. The new DVR will not be a TiVo. The HR10-250 will record OTA locals just fine. You may be able to save a little bit more on your bill and cancel you locals over the satellite if you can receive them OTA.


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## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

rminsk said:


> Then you will not need the new DVR when it comes out. The new DVR will not be a TiVo. The HR10-250 will record OTA locals just fine. You may be able to save a little bit more on your bill and cancel you locals over the satellite if you can receive them OTA.


Unfortunately I can't. I have one SD DVR downstairs and a SD receiver in the bedroom. So the fee for locals would have to be there anyways to watch them in those rooms.

I really wouldn't mind paying a higher bill if they would give me that HD DVR


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## tbb1226 (Sep 16, 2004)

rminsk said:


> You may be able to save a little bit more on your bill and cancel you locals over the satellite if you can receive them OTA.


I thought the locals were now part of the Total Choice package, at no extra cost?


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

tbb1226 said:


> I thought the locals were now part of the Total Choice package, at no extra cost?


They just don't advertise you can get Total Choice without locals. It saves a few bucks a month.


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## ddeloach (Apr 21, 2004)

If you consider quality of picture, cable might be better for HD.


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## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

Thanks for the replies guys.... 

I actually stopped by a TWC office last night. I took some time playing with the HD receiver and seemed ok. The HD on the system actually was really nice, BUT those *(#&$# 2-79 channels are still analog. Actually about 8 or 9 are moved to digital but I dunno if I could stand watching comedy central or sci-fi in analog.

That right there is what's keeping me up at night...whether or not I should pay the price for the HD DVR from D* or go ahead and make the jump.

If anyone has made the jump in the past can you give me your experience....

Thanks again
mike


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## Guindalf (Jun 13, 2001)

Most people who make the jump to cable tend to regret it from what I've seen here. Of course there are some who are really happy, but there are many options to consider.

Are analog channels as clear as what you receive at the moment? Analog does not ALWAYS equal poorer quality.

Are the analog channels stereo?

Can you live with the interface that the cable DVR offers? Not necessarily a pro-TiVo comment, but it's a consideration.

Are there more fees than they tell you up-front? I know with ComCrap, an HD DVR can work out to close to $25 a month after they add DVR fees, lease fees and other junk!

Is the TWC offering dual tuner?

I'm sure there are other questions, but that should give you something to think about.

Please note that I'm not taking sides. I happen to live in an area where I have no choice. My local cableco wouldn't know HD from a hole in the ground and I don't think the letters D, V and R are even in their dictionary!


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## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

Oh..and to make the decision even harder. TWC offered 20 dollars off my bill for a year and free install since I would switching from satellite.

Decisions...Decisions..


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## GhostDog69 (Aug 16, 2004)

Don't forget they will lock you in for a 2 year contract if you stay with Directv. Personally, I'd lean towards cable. I'm under contract for another year or so, but am seriously considering paying the Early Termination Fee to get away from HD-Lite, and I've been a Directv customer for around 10 years.


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## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

Oh ya..forgot about the new commitment. I HATE COMMITMENTS.

Uh oh...I'm starting to lean to one side...


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## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

GhostDog69 said:


> Don't forget they will lock you in for a 2 year contract if you stay with Directv. Personally, I'd lean towards cable. I'm under contract for another year or so, but am seriously considering paying the Early Termination Fee to get away from HD-Lite, and I've been a Directv customer for around 10 years.


I have heard that HD is somewhat better on cable..but it's mixed reviews I think.

The main deciding factor is that analog channels for TWC...plus my wife loves Tivo....

You would think a decision like this would be easy......


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## ejasons (Feb 28, 2001)

I find it *very* hard to believe that the quality of the analog channels would be any worse than the overcompressed digital versions of those channels on DirecTV. 

SD on DirecTV is generally quite poor (especially color resolution). So, unless your cable system is very subpar, the analog channels should look considerably better...

On the other hand, the cable's DVR then needs to compress those channels back into digital before it puts the programs on its hard drive, and *that* process could be worse than DirecTVs. I would suggest taking a look, I guess...

Jason


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## Sirshagg (Dec 27, 2001)

I was planning to dump D* and go with cable. I recently had both and I'm reconsidering that plan becasue everything else being equal the SD/analog channels on Cox are significantly worse picture quality than D*. On the other hand the HD is much better on Cox - but I can get that OTA anyway.

just my $.02


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## jbradway (Sep 30, 2001)

ejasons said:


> I find it *very* hard to believe that the quality of the analog channels would be any worse than the overcompressed digital versions of those channels on DirecTV.


YMMV.
I had Comcast for a few months last year. Not only were the analog channels worse than the same channel on D*, they were absolutely unwatchable. Total garbage. About the only thing that was "slightly" better were the HD channels.


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## stim (Jan 10, 2002)

Sirshagg said:


> I was planning to dump D* and go with cable. I recently had both and I'm reconsidering that plan becasue everything else being equal the SD/analog channels on Cox are significantly worse picture quality than D*. On the other hand the HD is much better on Cox - but I can get that OTA anyway.
> 
> just my $.02


Yep, I had the exact same problem with Comcast in my area. I recently tried to switch over, and the SD channels were WAY worse looking then DirecTV -- even Comcast's digital channels looked bad. I was prepared to deal with a POS DVR, but not if the quality is worse.

I was worried about getting HD channels from DirecTV with all of the stuff you hear about "HD Lite." Honestly, the channels look just fine to me -- I guess that is a good thing about not having a huge TV (I have a Sony 42a10).  I do see some compression artifacts if I get up close, but it looks just fine at viewing distance (7 feet).

I really do think that DirecTV has a much better upside then cable does (at least in my area). I don't really care about HD locals, as I can get them OTA, but they are going to be launching a new satellite next year that will give them much more room for national HD channels (150 I think) and they've already started adding HD locals for those that care.

From what Comcast told me, their plan is to move all analog channels to digital to save bandwidth, but if the digital SD channels already look like crap I don't know how much more room that they're going to have for HD -- even after they get rid of analog. Im sure if Im wrong on this someone will correct me.

I dont really care about the commitment. At least the cancellation fee is prorated. If I want out bad enough, I will just pay it.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

ddeloach said:


> If you consider quality of picture, cable might be better for HD.


"Might" is the operative term here. If you are comparing cable to DTV, for non-local station programming, possibly, and for possibly only a part of the time (also, the local stations delivered in HD on DTV are not usually quite as good as cable can be, but they require a new dish and STB, or PVR which is not yet available).

But there is no way technically for cable to ever have better PQ than OTA HD, all else being equal. Cable can be slightly better than CONUS HD from DTV, while OTA will be equal to or better than cable (and thus also better than DTV), and all 3 will be very close, to the point where casual viewers will typically not see any difference.

The chief difference is in the amount of compression artifacts seen, but only on fast motion, and also there is occasionally more perceived resolution (for original 1080i programs only) on cable and OTA compared to DTV.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

TyroneShoes said:


> The chief difference is in the amount of compression artifacts seen, but only on fast motion,


It does not have to be fast motion. I can generate plenty of images that mpeg will have a hard time compressing.


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## reh523 (Feb 28, 2006)

Cable is no commitment... Try it for a month then decide.....


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

I'm not a DirecTV customer but check this forum out once in a while..

of course those thinking of switching to cable have to also consider the forthcoming series 3 Tivo. That'll do (dual tuner) HDTV, both OTA and over cable, and cablecard, and analog cable.

There's also the current dual tuner series 2 for analog cable (or cable box for one of the dual recordings).


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

rminsk said:


> It does not have to be fast motion. I can generate plenty of images that mpeg will have a hard time compressing.


I can see how you might assume that, but for DBS much of what you are experiencing as a consumer experimenting with MPEG encoding doesn't really apply here, or certainly doesn't apply in the same manner. The discussion here is typically limited to the constraints imposed by DBS delivery, which are very different than local encoding constraints on a PC or consumer recorder or on the internet. The only reason why you can see differences is because other parameters of the encoding are also changing, which is common for consumer-level MPEG encoding and many internet-quality algorithms. For professional encoding, with all other parameters being set identically, then by definition nothing has changed except the number of bits available at the decoder, and that is the key factor, and the only factor at work here.

For professional-level streaming delivery, images with little or no motion will always appear identical as long as there are enough bits to deliver the signal during transport. For example, an OTA HD image delivered at as low as a 7 Mb/s bit rate will look absolutely and completely identical to an image delivered at the full SMPTE310 19.4 Mb/s bit rate when there is little or no motion, because in either case there are more than enough bits to completely represent the image faithfully. Once you have enough bits, more bits yields zero improvement, all else being equal. Only when there is changing information are more bits required, and only if at that point there are not enough bits, do artifacts begin to manifest.

DTV, just like other vendors and OTA delivery, is right on the edge, meaning that artifacts due to compression only appear when there is quickly changing information, frame to frame. It's just that with their bandwidth constraints, they operate a bit closer to the edge than cable or OTA, so there will be a few more artifacts.


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## rickaren (Oct 30, 2002)

Since I have both D* & E* why not consider going with DISH. Check out the posts! Presently DISH has much more HD and most of it is not HD LITE. Their VIP 622 is as good as the Tivo HD DVR which I have, too. I just can't see ever going back to cable! No issues here, just check into DISH too, you may find that you will be happy you did.


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## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

Well I called customer retention back to see if they could do anymore for me. Unfortunately they are at the lowest that they can offer me.

It looks like I will be switching to TWC and have scheduled the install. From speaking to the retention person, she did let me know that if I decide to come back that a good offer will be made.

For the time being I will keep up my dish and cables until I decide definitely that I will be staying with TWC and then remove them. If not then at least I won't have to have D* come back and rerun everything....

I will post up my findings when I make the switch to let you all know the outcome.

I know I know.....i'm sure some of you are saying I'll be back...  

Thanks for the replies.


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## chris_h (Dec 17, 2003)

TyroneShoes said:


> But there is no way technically for cable to ever have better PQ than OTA HD, all else being equal.


Doesn't this assume that the cable operator gets their signal via OTA? I thought that some cable operators have fiber feeds from the local stations. So it is conceivable that the cable operator could get the 45 Mb/s feed (you probably know better than I if that is the right number) that comes from the national NOC directly from the local station, as opposed to the 19 Mb/s feed via OTA.

I am especially thinking this might be the case down the road for FIOS operators. They might start with the 45 Mb/s feed, compress it down to 19 Mb/s via mpeg4, and I could see that being better picture quality and resolution (maybe even 1080p?) than OTA.


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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

Well, first of all you can't compare SMPTE310 at 19.4 to a 45Mb/s network sat signal as far as amount of compression and resulting PQ. They are apples and oranges, and to assume that 45 is 25.6 "better" than 19.4 would be incredibly naive. If that were the case, FOX's 73 mb/s feeds would look significantly better than NBC or CBS, but they just plain don't. The signals sent as ASI/DVB to the TVRO at a TV station are formatted to take advantage of the particulars of that delivery chain, and the signals sent as 8VSB to your OTA antenna are conformed to take advantages of that environment, and so they are quite different. Not only that but the 19.4 can be split any number of ways as can the 45 or 73 (and is) including lots of null packets, so there is no way to take that number and assume it has anything to do with resultant PQ, or that a higher or lower number is better or worse.

The typically overlooked thing here is that the 45 or 55 or 73 mb signal the stations get includes a primary PES (which ends up as the ".1" channel) that is compressed to a particular level already, and SMPTE310 formatting does not necessarilly change that level of compression or imply recompression. If the station runs multiple sub channels, that could bit starve the primary PES, but other than that, what you get OTA is identical to what is already in the 45 mb net feed to the station. If the station does a re-encode, even that is generally indistinguishable from the original, because stations know how to do this without affecting perceived PQ.

Secondly, the stations usually format to 310 or something with a similar compression ratio before redistributing to fiber for other vendors, so what those vendors see is exactly what the OTA local transmitter sees, regarding the amount of compression. In the rare case where the 45 mb signal reaches a secondary vendor (which makes it nearly impossible for the local station to insert local shows and commercials, so is typically not done) you can rest assured that even that signal is parsed down to a signal very similar to the 310 signal you would get OTA, or what a cable op gets OTA. Remember, OTA is a very viable way to distribute HD to a secondary vendor such as cable or DBS, because OTA imposes no degradation of the PQ. None.

There is no motivation for any secondary vendor to provide HD in any sort of improved format from what OTA does, because more bandwidth costs money, and improving HD beyond what OTA delivers provides them no monetary or customer benefit. Everyone will dumb it down a similar amount, and OTA will always be the PQ standard that everyone else tries to either match or cut corners on.


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## super dave (Oct 1, 2002)

omni let us know how cable is. I am out of my commitment next month and have the HD hang up issue. I don't want to commit for 2 years and buy a box I will lease. In fact, I have run my Comcast cable to the back of my Sony 50" to check out the quality and frankly I don't see a difference in the digital channels that are coming through. And the HD on my locals is better than my OTA (Channel 6 ABC has a habit of dropping out OTA, but not through the cable). I want the capability of recording the HD, but it seems DTV and Dish want some serious upfront coin, and Comcast will credit my bill $25/mo. for 16 months to dump the dish. By then who knows what will be out. Could even have FIOS by then.


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## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

super dave said:


> omni let us know how cable is. I am out of my commitment next month and have the HD hang up issue. I don't want to commit for 2 years and buy a box I will lease. In fact, I have run my Comcast cable to the back of my Sony 50" to check out the quality and frankly I don't see a difference in the digital channels that are coming through. And the HD on my locals is better than my OTA (Channel 6 ABC has a habit of dropping out OTA, but not through the cable). I want the capability of recording the HD, but it seems DTV and Dish want some serious upfront coin, and Comcast will credit my bill $25/mo. for 16 months to dump the dish. By then who knows what will be out. Could even have FIOS by then.


Sure will... I have the install date setup on the 1st for TWC and my directv is set for disconnect on the 7th.. So basicaly I will have 6 days to see if I want to keep it or not. I was able to find a few people at my work that have TWC with HD. They seemed to enjoy it greatly. HD came though looking good and the digital cable was just as good as D*. They also mentioned that the analogs aren't really as bad as people thought. One of the people I asked actually had TWC then directv, and will be switching back to TWC as well.
It looks like alot of D* users I spoke with are getting tired of paying for stuff they won't ever own. Plus alot of them mentioned cable when the Tivo S3 comes out.

Anywho..I will have the TWC installed and give everyone an update.

thanks


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## super dave (Oct 1, 2002)

I am able to pull in 79 Analog channels to compare and I don't see much of a difference between that and what I am getting from DTV. The digital channels are the same, so my main concern is HD, what is offered and for how much. Especially when it comes to an HDDVR. I saw over at DBS that Dish is poised for a big announcement, and I read at AVS that CC is giving us South Jersey folks TNTHD on the 31st. I figure we have until the new season starts, since my wife works nights and can't see any of her shows in HD.


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## chris_h (Dec 17, 2003)

TyroneShoes said:


> OTA imposes no degradation of the PQ. None.


Wow. Obviously, I did not know that! Thanks for the information.
It certainly is counter intuitive that the 45 Mb/s feed is not somehow capable of providing more info/pixels which could conceivably be providing better PQ.


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## joetoronto (Jul 26, 2004)

cable varies from provider to provider and area to area, DBS doesn't.

cable _here_ is not an option, it sucks, hard.


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## sc00by (Oct 29, 2001)

This has been an incredibly weird and even a bit difficult day for me. To top it off, it's my birthday, but let me tell you what I decided when faced with this....

I've been a Tivo devotee for almost 4 years now, and a D* subscriber for 363 days. About a month ago, as a birthday present, I bought myself a 50" Sony SXRD set and HD-upconvert DVD player. 

The picture on the DVD's is incredible, so the search began to upgrade the D* system to HDTV. Therein lie the problems. See? I'm a big local channel kinda guy, even though I watch a lot of movies. Around here, the only way to get HD locals is 1) digital cable 2) OTA antenna. My brother-in-law uses the OTA antenna and to be honest, in my area, that's kind of unacceptable for picture quality and recordability...

So..... This left me with the option of sticking with the d* upgrade and not getting a Tivo unit since -- according to d*, they didn't have them any more -- or going with a local cable provider and getting a non-Tivo "DVR" (which is crap).

To that end, today is the first time in 4 years that I haven't had Tivo running, and while I have a decent (not great) picture and HD locals (my big concern), and I'm suffering Tivo withdrawals...

I honestly think that if and when Tivo actually gets their act together to come out with a 2 tuner HD Tivo, I'll be all over it -- regardless of whether sticking to cable or d*, but I cannot see going back to d* right now, even HD d* at this time because they dropped Tivo. On the other hand, it looks like Tivo dropped the lifetime subscription option, so I'm just screwed any way I turn...

I've had Comcast digital approximately 4 hours now and even though I had to rebalance the colors on my set to the new input, I don't see an appreciable problem with the picture or sound quality. The cost was almost identical either way, so it's not really a factor.

I just MISS Tivo...

Wayne


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## vtfan99 (May 19, 2006)

sc00by said:


> ...-- according to d*, they didn't have them any more -- or going with a local cable provider and getting a non-Tivo "DVR" (which is crap).
> ...


I would call back and talk to someone else. I just got off the phone with D* about adding the HR10-250 to my account....which is a Tivo box. They do have them. Or you can get one from Newegg.com....or ebay....or Weakness...or a dozen other palces.


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## sc00by (Oct 29, 2001)

vtfan99 said:


> I would call back and talk to someone else. I just got off the phone with D* about adding the HR10-250 to my account....which is a Tivo box. They do have them. Or you can get one from Newegg.com....or ebay....or Weakness...or a dozen other palces.


Too late now, but you missed the bigger point of the HD local channels. For some people, that doesn't matter. For me, it's central to the issue. I can't help feeling a little let down by both direcTV and Tivo at this point, but heck, in a year, the world goes around full circle and miraculous things can happen.

Wayne


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## super dave (Oct 1, 2002)

sc00by said:


> Too late now, but you missed the bigger point of the HD local channels. For some people, that doesn't matter. For me, it's central to the issue. I can't help feeling a little let down by both direcTV and Tivo at this point, but heck, in a year, the world goes around full circle and miraculous things can happen.
> 
> Wayne


Why a year? Cable doesn't have any commitment...


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## omnicube (Mar 20, 2005)

Well guys......I am back to D* as of right now.

I had Time Waner come out to install the cable service along with my HD DVR and SD DVR. They installers were nice and effcient with zero problems. I setup my tv to work with the new HD DVR and turned it to a HD local channel and was amazed at the picture. Turned to some other stations like my HD HBO...amazing. Then I got to the lower channels........not impressed. My wife came in and saw it on her face. The PQ isn't horrible, but there was ghosting and it was grainy.

The to top it off..I showed the very colorful SA 8300HD's DVR funtions. It probably took about 2 min for her to nix it right there. Now my wife doesn't setup the season pass's but she does everything else. And even the little things got to her.
The menu setup was BLAH...the not so easy way to record programs BLAH....

So I officialy had TW for about 1/2 day then took it down and hooked my TIVO back up. Suffice it to say I will be returning to the TW store tomorrow. I am wanting to see the look on their face when I tell them I had cable for like 5 hours.   

So....I need to make the decision to spend the money on the HD TIVO or possibly wait for the new MPEG4 DVR.

In either case, I will be enjoying my boing sounds. Sorry TW your HD was great but your equipment and analog channels lost a customer.

Thanks


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