Basic Cable, Digital Cable or Satellite?
 

My dad went through all of the satellite companies and cable companies in the area over the past 4 years -- namely Dish Network, Direct TV and Comcast.

Which type is your favorite?

BASIC CABLE: 60-70 channels, non-digital, very fast channel flipping, no guide.

DIGITAL CABLE: Hundreds of channels, digital, slower channel flipping, a guide, doesn't go down in thunderstorms.

SATELLITE: Hundreds of channels (seemingly more than digital cable), digital, slower channel flipping, a guide, goes down sometimes in mass thunderstorm.

I think I like Satellite the best because of the amount of channels and the fact that the receiver you get or the DVR+HD receivers you get are very fast. The digital cable receivers they give you are slow. Moving through the guide is slow. Hitting "pause" means a lag time of 5 seconds before it actually does pause. Satellite companies invest in excellent receivers. The only downfall to satellite is that it goes down from time to time if there is a massive storm. I would say that's about 3-5 hours per year that it goes down. Not much at all at least.

Share your experiences and opinions on cable companies. :)

Basic BASIC Cable. Maybe 13 Channels. Any TV worth watching (not really aware of anything other than House currently running) is just as easily downloaded, and they screw me enough on Broadband Internet.

I have Sky Digital, it has a couple of hundred channels, shame I don't get enough time to watch TV.

I have digital cable. I'll probably switch back to regular cable in a few months. Cost too much for nothing.

Definitely basic. At least with the package offered here, there aren't any channels on the digital lineup that I'd actually watch, so what would be the point in paying for them?

I only need 6 channels: History, Discovery, ABC, Fox News, Spike TV and Sci-Fi. Seriously, why does anyone need 200+ channels?

I don't really have any preference. I don't watch much TV and I usually download the few shows that I do follow. I would like to have digital cable right now though as my satellite provider doesn't carry The Fight Network.

Simple antenna TV is all I need really.

If there was a way to just choose the channels you want, then I'd sign up, but, the good old metal arrays that double as lightning rods are sufficient.

I coulda made Antenna an option but I wanted this to be a cable television discussion thread.

Doesn't go down in thunderstorms? Says who? My sister has that in her room, and not only has it gone out during thunderstorms (and I'm not talking about a power outage), but it has actually gone out even when the basic cable in the rest of the house hasn't.

I picked basic cable. I've never been interested in satellite, and digital cable really isn't needed. The extra channels aren't even that good, and it's pretty slow compared to basic. The only reason I would get it is for the On Demand channels, but even those aren't enough to warrant getting it.

I have basic cable, which I split into my radio for bitchin' reception. I have all the channels I need, like History, Discovery, Comedy and all those. I would like to have G4, but its not a big deal.

I've got satalite, I like it because if I missed the fox sunday line up I can catch it again in an hour or so. I don't watch TV much except when a new South Park, or new Family Guy comes out so basic cable is better suited for me. My parents seem to like it so its no big deal, I don't pay for it

THen that means the cable company in your sisters area goes down in thunderstorms because all of the coaxial cables in the area are hooked up to a weak dish that goes down in storms. Digital cable companies like comcast don't go down in the rain because their dishes are powerful.

I've only had basic and digital cable. I like the quality of digital and the amount of channels to choose from. I have analog cable in the same house and sometimes when both TV's and are on the same channel I notice that digital cable is somewhat delayed by a few seconds. I've had a few problems with digital cable like signal deterioration and downtime(only happened once). I like how basic analog cable is very easy to use and almost problem free but I still prefer digital cable because of the quality and the amount of channels available.

Well, we have Time Warner for our cable company, so I wouldn't imagine they would use a weak dish, especially in such a highly populated area. It seems to me that regardless of the company, any dish could be affected by weather, no matter how powerful it supposedly is.

We have digital cable in our den, and basic cable in the rest of the house. The digital gets more channels, but we rarely watch them besides an occasional on-demand movie. We've recently been having lots of problems with the digital though. It seems to be a faulty splitter in the basement; we've replaced it two or three times, which works for a while; but then it gets soaked somehow and we lose the digital until we replace the splitter again.

As for the TV in my room, it rarely gets used at all except for DVDs, videos from my computer, and video games. I'd rather watch what I want, when I want it; and DVDs/downloads allow me to do just that, where most other options don't.

All I need is a wire to act as an antenna for my tv and I get basic cable since I get signals from somewhere. It gets static but its better than nothing.
I liked digital cable when I used to have it though. I didn't have a chance to enjoy dvr but On Demand was awsome but comcast is a bastard. Cable is too fucking pricy.

I don't watch TV any more. Even though I do have a decent TV sitting at home, the only thing that it ever plays is video games and that is rather rare these days.

The only way cable tv is worth the money is when it is free with your boadband connection.

I've been on the satellite plan now for quite a few years. Started with DirecTV but was having issues every time a small cloud rolled by... so I dropped them and went with Dish and have not had any problems since then. Hell, I've been sitting on my couch during the middle of a heavy downpour with thunder and lightning (ok, not a smart thing to do) and never had any sort of interuption while my neighbors (all on DirecTV) lost their signals.

Only issue I had with Dish was that they didn't carry OLN for some reason, but that somehow was corrected in the past week or so once the Stanley Cup playoffs began. Guess enough of us bitching was enough...

I plan on getting Basic Extended when I get my own place later this month.
It's basically $30 a month for 60 channels or some such, including the only good cable channels: Sci Fi, Comedy Central, Spike, History and Discovery (even G4 but lol who cares).

I only plan on getting that to score a deal with cable internet. Unless I find DSL for cheaper. Then to hell with it all, I'll just get NetFlix or something.

No cable at all I guess would be the case. What's the point of cable? More channels to flip through, more crap to wade through, and, for the more despeate, late night skin flicks.

Then again, I guess that explains why there's a lot of subscribers.

Here, we have digital cable, at least on one TV anyway. However, I don't really see why. It's not like we ever use the pay-per-view channels. The guide is a nice feature, mainly because TV Guide is almost never downstairs.

I have Digital Cable myself. I love having the interactive guide with it whenever I'm out to waste some time and want to find something interesting to watch. The little descriptions of what program is currently on is nice too, and Digital Cable is becoming as inexpensive as Expanded Cable is in most US regions.