TiVo Community Forums Archives - Switch from Dish/SA to DirecTivo?

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Switch from Dish/SA to DirecTivo?
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Posted by: cdd

I currently use a SA Tivo (14hr upgraded to 60 for about a year, thanks to this forum) in conjunction with Dishnetwork (model 3000 -- about 5 years old). Overall, I'm pretty happy with this arrangement, but the current promotion at orbitsat is really tempting me to switch to a direcTivo. $49 for perfect picture quality and dual tuners is almost irresistable. I do have acouple of questions that I hope some of you can help me with:

1 -- I originally chose Dish over DirecTV because the programming costs were significantly lower. This appears to have changed over the last couple of years, but I'm having a hard time doing a DIRECT comparison. I currently subscribe to AT100, HBO (no cinemax), and PBS, UPN, and WB ala-carte. Have any of you that have switched noticed a difference in price?

2 -- The availability of PBS, UPN, and WB Channels on Dish. These are the only locals that I can't get a decent picture OTA. I _think_ that I read that direcTv is going to start spot-beaming more locals into most markets next year due to nust-carry laws. Is there any information on exactly what channels are going to be added to loacl markets. I'm in the Raleigh, NC area, so the current locals from direcTv are abc,cbs,nbc, and fox.

3 -- I also subscribe to a DVD rental service at rentmydvd.com. I record most of the DVDs to the SA Tivo so I can watch them at a later date. This allows me to return the discs immediately and get pretty good value for the minmal ($13) plan. I would like to continue to use the SA unit to do this, but since I'd basicallY be using it as a glorified VCR, I won't need the guide data or software updates that come along with the tivo service. Is it possible to cancel the subscription for this unit but continue to use it for manual recordings?

Thanks,
cdd

Posted by: feldon23

1. Similar price.

2. No guarantees, but if DirecTV offers locals for your city now, you should probably see WB, UPN, etc. in January-February.

3. Yes you can manually record on the SA.

There's a promotion at Circuit City for a Philips DirecTiVo for $99 with free DirecTV dish and install. Is that competitive with the Orbisat deal? Make sure the CC TiVo has an access card if you go.

[This message has been edited by feldon23 (edited 12-07-2001).]