Friday, August 11, 2006
Dish to Comcast
We've been long time Dish subscribers--over six years--and somehow our bill had gotten larger and larger. We were happy enough with the service, although the bedroom unit became quite unreliable. Comcast approached us with the Dish buy-back program and we bit. We were already Comcast broadband subscribers and they offered us a deal that increased our bandwidth and now allows us to have all our ReplayTVs on cable greatly increasing our capacity to record shows, avoid conflicts, and so forth.
They set up two digital recievers--one in the family room and one in the living room. I split the connection into the family room into 4 connections--most of which are being used now.
They didn't take the Dish equipment, but they did use the existing wiring to setup the cable rendering the Dish connection useless.
The ReplayTVs picked up the new lineup quickly and are working well with the new equipment, but it did take some digging on Planet Replay to figure out what IR code I should use to control the new cable boxes, Motorola DCT 700's which turn out to be a bargain box. The connections on the back are a little insipid--you can do coax or composite, but no S-video. Still, I haven't noticed a huge difference in our picture and the box is about 1/8th of the size of the boxes we used for Dish.
My only complaint is that we were supposed to get two premium channel lineups, and we currently only have one. I'm in the process of protesting, and hopefully everything will get worked out otherwise I'm going to end up being very very unhappy.
All in all though, the cost of TV and Internet are now costing us less than just TV a few days ago. We're saving a bundle of money.
They set up two digital recievers--one in the family room and one in the living room. I split the connection into the family room into 4 connections--most of which are being used now.
They didn't take the Dish equipment, but they did use the existing wiring to setup the cable rendering the Dish connection useless.
The ReplayTVs picked up the new lineup quickly and are working well with the new equipment, but it did take some digging on Planet Replay to figure out what IR code I should use to control the new cable boxes, Motorola DCT 700's which turn out to be a bargain box. The connections on the back are a little insipid--you can do coax or composite, but no S-video. Still, I haven't noticed a huge difference in our picture and the box is about 1/8th of the size of the boxes we used for Dish.
My only complaint is that we were supposed to get two premium channel lineups, and we currently only have one. I'm in the process of protesting, and hopefully everything will get worked out otherwise I'm going to end up being very very unhappy.
All in all though, the cost of TV and Internet are now costing us less than just TV a few days ago. We're saving a bundle of money.
