Judge stops DirecTV's HD ads

[Boyd Ostroff]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070820/comca...suit.html?.v=1

Disks are the only battleground in the high def battle...

District Court Judge John F. Grady in Chicago said in an order Wednesday that, pending trial, DirecTV must stop using ads in any Comcast territory that tout the installers' survey from last December as well as the April 2006 TNS Consumer Survey.

[Paul Cascio]

It's about time. Direct TV's HD is horribly compressed to the point of only being HD when compared to DTV's more horribly compressed SD picture.

[Mark Bournes]

I'll take direct tv's service any day over Comcast. From personal experience, my "comcast" internet never worked, and the cable signal had constant issues. During the last couple of hurricanes down here it took the cable company almost 3 weeks to return service. Say what you will about direct tv's HD signal, to me it's a better deal. I'd love to be on that jury.

This just reaks of monopoly. Rememebr when companies couldn't own 2 tv or radio stations in the same market. Well that went bye...bye... years ago, now the cable companies are trying to do the same thing.

I counted the other day how many homes on my street have satellite, guess what, all but 2, out of 20 or so homes. I think this case is going nowhere.

[John Miller]

Good. I have to endure DirecTV's service - including the through-the-nose billing to get local channels. I find their ludicrous claims about "unreliable cable" and "digital quality" laughable and highly inaccurate. The compression artifacts on their SD channels are horrible.

Of course, I may have missed the referenced story on DirecTV during one of the frequent outages due to rain. "Bad weather's coming. Need to know more? Sorry. No can do."

[Boyd Ostroff]

Originally Posted by Mark Bournes

From personal experience, my "comcast" internet never worked, and the cable signal had constant issues.

I don't have any opinion on the lawsuit. But my comcast experience was quite the opposite of yours. Their service was pretty much trouble free and the internet connection lived up to their speed claims. I have some friends who live in different places and their experience is the same. Comcast was on time to install my service and the technicians were courteous and knowledgeable. They had to run 300 feet of wire from the road and there was no charge. I had their service in 4 different homes and was always happy.

Where I live now I can't get any sort of cable (I'm out in the middle of nowhere. I kept putting off getting a satellite dish until I realized that I didn't miss watching TV. A year and a half later I still don't have any kind of satellite or cable TV and much to my surprise this has made me very happy :-)

I owned stock in DirecTV for many years (dating back to when they were Hughes) and did very nicely. Last year I started reading a lot of negative stuff about their service and the stock seemed to be going nowhere so I sold it all. Have also owned Comcast stock for awhile and it has done poorly. I unloaded some recently and intend to ditch the rest soon...

[Glenn Gipson]

My Direct-TV goes out EVERY time it rains.

[Chris Hurd]

You might need a re-point, Glenn. Satellite service should endure a light rain at least. Of course in a heavy downpour one shouldn't expect to get reception from any dish, but an aiming tweak should improve the signal enough so that you don't lose it in a light to medium rain shower.

[Mark Bournes]

I have the new HD dish, and as hard as it rains here in Florida everyday I hardly ever lose my signal.

[Ash Greyson]

It will vary by market and even by neighborhood. All things equal cable will have a better digital picture. In my area, cable is great, internet is super fast and outtages are rare.


Ash

[Jon Fairhurst]

Notice that the people further South seem to have less trouble than us Northerners...

I have the DirecTV Hughes TiVo box. With the old Toshiba STB, we had major problems with rain. The Hughes box is solid. Except that the hard drive is dying, so playback stutters and locks up.

I've got a decision to make: Replace the hard drive for about $200 (not all HDDs are good for DVRs), upgrade to DirecTV HD, or crossgrade to Dish HD. I MUST have SPEED channel for my F1 fix, so I would be pushed into the steep packages. Grrr.

[Daniel Weber]

When I lived in the mountains of Northern California 6 years ago, the only option was satellite. In fact I had so many trees that my only option was Dish Network. They had a great signal. I have friends who have DirectTV and their signal has always looked much more compressed than Dish Network.

When I moved to Maryland in 2002 I went with Comcast, again trees blocked satellite signals. I was bummed because the Comcast service STINKS. The internet went out 4 to 5 times a week. Half of my HD channels never worked. The tech would come out and look at things, say "We've got a problem here. Signal is to weak." They would then leave and never follow up or come back. Not to mention the missed service calls when I would take the day off work and stay home. Their response was to make another appointment two weeks later.

Now I have FIOS and I am paying half of what I was paying with Comcast. The internet is twice as fast and all my channels work. The best part is the HD DVR.

The future is Fiber Optic.

Dan Weber