Green Bay now a test market for DISH Network's "eastern arc"
Northeast Wisconsin TV viewers who haven't been able to get DISH Network service on their property because of a bad line-of-sight to the satellite may now be able to join the satellite service.
As of August 20th, Green Bay has been one of a small handful of U.S. markets to be included in a test rollout of DISH Network's new "eastern arc" service, according to Multichannel News. The new service requires a new satellite dish (model 1000.4) and a new receiver. The new service is transmitted entirely in the MPEG-4 format, which enables higher quality at less bandwidth. All programming found on the traditional DISH Network "western arc" service will be simulcast on the eastern arc, except for some Latino programming.
For the time being, it appears that the new eastern arc service is limited to new customers in the twenty-one test markets, due to the need for new hardware.
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I have a neighbor who has
I have a neighbor who has Dish and I went over tonight and spent about an hour playing around with his DVR/receiver.
Looking at the Southward direction his dish is pointed and comparing it to my yard, I don't see any way that I'd get a clear signal pointing towards the South. But I have a big open line of sight to the East so I think I very well may be switching from TWC to Dish Network soon.
The receiver my neighbor has was about 100 times better than the TWC box. Simple features like being able to set up a favorites list and an easy to use search feature are miles ahead of anything TWC offers. It also incorporates his over the air antenna into the guide and he can use the DVR to record OTA shows. I wouldn't say that the HD channels looked better than TWC's HD, but there were a lot more HD channels and flipping through them, I never once got a TWC "this channel us currently unavailable" type message- all the channels came in and channel changing seemed faster than TWC.
Now I just have to do some research to find out if DirecTV offers the ability to pick up channels Eastward and if so, which service is offering the better deals. All of the DirecTV dishes around me are pointed Southward, but it never hurts to research.
2 other quick comments on Dish:
1) Much of Dish's SD did look better than much of TWC's SD (although it's hard to make a fair comparison on two different TVs in two different homes).
2) The only thing I don't like is that while the DVR that my neighbor has (the Vip722, which I believe is the standard one that Dish is using now) has two tuners, that might be a problem if we're recording something and the wife wants to watch one thing and I want to watch something else. Due to my wiring situation, I don't really want more than on receiver, so that may just be something we have to live with.
Doing my research on
Doing my research on DirecTV, it appears as if they only has one satellite towards the East and it's only used for local channels in certain markets.
Dish has 3 satellites in the East that duplicate most of what's on their 3 satellites to South (supposedly the only channels missing are much of the Latino programing and my Spanish isn't that great so those aren't channels I'd be interested in anyway).
Found the coordinates that a dish would need to be aimed and pulling out my old camp compass, it appears as if the Eastern Arc is definitely going to be an option for me.
Now I have to research Dish Network's pricing and packages.
One thing I learned
One thing I learned researching about Dish and their new TurboHD service that I thought I'd pass along- their claim to provide HD in 1080p isn't all it seems to be.
I figured that was the case since I don't think any HD channels actually broadcast in anything other than 720p or 1080i.
What you can get in 1080p from Dish is PPV movies. You order the movie, it downloads the movie to your DVR and will play from the DVR in 1080p. The downloaded movie has time limitations and I didn't pay much attention as to what those limitations are because my HDTV won't do 1080p anyway (couldn't see paying an extra $600 when I couldn't really tell a difference between the 1080p and 720p models of my set).
Dish Network's Website does
Dish Network's Website does a horrible job of communicating which channels are in which of their HD packages.
This website makes it a lot easier:
http://www.turbo-hd.com/
Website is for a reseller of Dish Network- they do the installations and I'm sure get some kind of commission- no idea where they are located, just putting the website out there as a resource for looking at channels and packages as their HD channel list is better than the one on Dish's own web site and their listed prices are the same as Dish Network's.
Gonna have to think long and hard about this. The additional HD channels would be great, but in order to make it affordable I'd almost have to go with an HD only package. Might have to wait longer than I was hoping and see what they add to the HD only packages because there are some SD channels that the wife would really hate losing and the SD plus HD packages (when you throw in the DVR and no phone line fees) get kind of ridiculous.
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