On Thursday, May 2, 2002, at 07:50 AM, Trei, Peter wrote: > I've been looking into switching to DirecTV, since my local cable > monopoly (ATT Broadband) has such lousy service (their response > to the sat-tv threat is not to improve their service, but to broadcast > FUD about satellite's expense, contracts, etc). > > It's my understanding that in fact, you do get a short period of > blackness when you change channels - you can't surf with any > thing like the ease you can on non-sat systems.
No, there is little blackness, at least nothing noticeable to me. (I just checked: about 1 second of blackness, but I believe this is longer than I used to see. I now have "UltimateTV," a TiVO-like disk system, and it's "always recording and buffering." I believe the 1-second of blackness is related to the buffering. Without it, I recollect the blackness to be less. Never a problem for me, not then, not now.) I've had DirecTV for 6 years and can say it's the best consumer investment I've ever made. I tend to have the t.v. on, with the sound muted usually, even when I'm on the Net, like right now...CNBC is on. Getting UltimateTV (or the equivalent from DISH) has been a real plus. No outages to speak of in these 6 years. No need to call the company to complain, no mysterious noise, nothing but a clean signal. (Actually, twice a year I get poor signals for a few minutes during mid-day, as the sun passes through the Clarke Belt and swamps out the satellite signal.) The biggest downside is that having N televisions tuned to N different channels is not easy. I have only one channel at a time, feeding all 3 of my televisions. I could get 2 simulaneous channels by upgrading my dish antenna LNB to a dual-LNB verson, and running an extra cable to my UltimateTV receiver. I know some friends who rule out DirectTV for this reason, as they have 3 or more potential viewers who want to watch different channels at the same time. The other downside is the FCC nonsense about local channels, about giving them the local monopoly. So if it is deemed that a normal antenna can pick up a channel, satellite can't offer that network to a subscriber. If this is unclear, I can elaborate. Larger "markets" offer these local stations over the satellite, but there's currently a logistical limit to this. (There are 1500 local "markets" in the U.S.). For example, I live in the "Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz" market, and someone has decided that I should be able to receive the local NBC affiliate, KSBW, with a normal antenna. Thus, KSBW tells DirectTV not to enable the NBC network feeds (LA and NYC affiliates) over my satellite. So I have to watch a snowy, grainy NBC signal with my rabbit ears.) --Tim May "The whole of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." -- Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789
