OT (kinda) -- Dish, Direct, or cable?

I'm gonna piggyback on this thread and include Arlington. Anyone in Arlington have Gol TV and want to tell me how to get it?

 

I had COMCAST when I lived in Alexandria - the only Fox channel I could get was FSE. Not bad, but not optimum if you don't habla.

Now I live in an area where cable isn't an option and I had to get a dish. I have DirecTV and I'll never go back. I get FSW, Comcast, plus about a dozen ESPN channels. I get Univision and a few other spanish language channels which menas I have several options for Mexican league games, and usually I get at least 2 or 3 live games a weekend. I also get the EPL pay-per-view package and MLS Direct Kick. I don't have Gol TV (although to be honest I haven't looked to see if it's available as an upgrade, but about the only channel I don't get is FSE because it costs a few more $ and I get about all the soccer I can handle.

IMHO, if you have a choice, get DirecTV.

 

There was a lengthy discussion about this over the early portion of the summer. Many people discussed a package that COMCAST (aka filthy thieving bastards) offered which was a Sports Tier Package. It finally became available up here in baltimore and I got it and I have to admit I am thoroughly happy I did. I am not sure if it is offered in the district but it is very inexpensive.

If you order or already have extended basic cable you simply (and I use that lossely as this is COMCAST) call COMCAST and tell them you want to Sport Tier Package it is 4.99 a month. You trade your regualr basic cable box for a digital cable box. you will then get all the channels on extended including CSN/ESPN2/Univision this will cover a large portion of the DC matches and the Sunday 1pm Mexican matches. You also get FSW which will cover a large majority of EPL matches, Bundesliga matches, French and some Italian matches. Not to mention some MLS as well. GolTV which will cover a large amount of Bolivian, Brazilian, Mexican, Italian, Spanish matches. Also has CSTV COllege SPorts TV which you can watch College matches, and about three college sports channels stacked with College pointy ball and an NBA channel.
You also get access to about 25 digital music channels (so-so) and PPV matches, of course double and triple check with COMCAST because they are always hit or miss, just ask Lowecifer and the three other guys that ahd to get updates on the US/El Salvador match online because the PPV didn't come through.
It gives me my fix quite nicely and quite inexpensively.

 

I'm in Montgomery County, MD and I have Comcast with the Sports Tier. I get the Fox Sports World, Goal-TV, the NBA channel, the NFL channel, the speed channle, and some regional sports channels. It's not a bad package. They offer the MLS package, but you obviously don't need it for DC games on CSN, or MLS games on ESPN2 or FSW. Fox Sports Espanol is part of the spanish-language package so I don't have it.

Everyone I know with DirectTV w/ integrated TiVo loves it. If your apartment has a view of the south and your building allows DirecTV, get it. I would if I could. (Although, that's also driven by DirecTV being the only provider with the NFL package.)

 

That's my next step. I knew getting DirecTV would lead to harder stuff. TIVO is like crack for TV junkies.

 

Do either DirecTV, Dish, or COMCAST have ESPN Deportes as an option? BTW, he also has StarPower as an option for cable as well.

 

DISH 180 channel package has Gol TV as well as FSW and the usual Comcast, ESPN2, etc. If you miss Ray Hudson, you have to get Gol TV.

TiVo is not dependent on DirecTV.

 

Thanks for clarifying the issues Dustin. I'm glad that you saw and posted on this thread.

 

You would think if he is that smart he would root for DC!!!


I am a Dish subscriber with a standalone Tivo on one of my TVs. I chose Dish over DirectTV 4 years ago or so because at that time to get 3 TVs hooked up with all the channels I wanted, Dish was a good bit cheaper per month. I have not gone back and looked to see if this is still the case. The only problem I have using Dish and Tivo is the Tivo Remote does not work 100% on changing channels. If you hit the 3 numbers too quickly it may miss one and go to channel 30 instead of 300. Other than that it is a great system.

 

If you are attempting to get High Definition DC and MLS games, your best bet is Starpower. They carry HDNet and CSN-HD. Comcast does not have HDNet. DISH and Directv do not have CSN-HD. Starpower has Fox Sports World and espanol. I don't know if they have the shootout or not, but they might, I don't have nearly enough time to catch anymore soccer than is on HDNet, espn2, and FSW.

The one advantage that I've found for Starpower is that they are actually pretty cheap if you get internet, phone, and TV all in one.

Now, just to put the argument to rest: CSN-HD carried 7 DC home games in high def. This obviously is not as nice as having away in HD. However, they do replay all of these high-def games the night of or day after, so you get a chance to watch yourself pick your nose on TV the day after. For me, it came in mega handy as I had to miss two home games (sick for one, had a car break down for the other) and got to watch them live in HD on CSN-HD. It was quite a pleasure.

Cheers,
Tim

 

Don't discount the DishNetwork DVR out of hand. One advantage to the Dish DVR is that it has a 100-hour recording capacity, which I think is considerably more than the Tivo offered by DirectTV. It also seamlessly operates as both the receiver and recorder. And if you buy a fairly comprehensive programming package (like America's Everything Pak--which is 180 channels plus all the movie channels) they waive the monthly DVR fee. I think DirectTV does this as well. I really can't speak to what the technical advantages might be of Tivo over the Dish DVR, but I'm pretty damn happy with my Dish DVR/receiver.

As mentioned, only Dish carries Gol TV. I really enjoy getting to see Ronaldinho and Gol seems to carry a Barca game pretty frequently, maybe every other week. In fact, yesterday, they carried Barca's Cope del Rey game.

Also, at least one year (this year? last year?) the MLS Direct Kick package offered by DirectTV was not as inclusive as the one offered by Dish. But this changes from year to year.

 

Oh yeah, one other thing. Dish subscribers now are also SIRIUS satellite radio subscibers. You only have to buy the receiver. I have not done this yet, anyone here tried it?

 

Comcast Montgomery County DOES have HDnet..at least its on my channel listings when I flip through, although since my TV is regular it obviously cant watch it..

 

A couple of points from a fellow D.C. apt.-dweller:

Before you look into DirecTV, make sure you can get it. Unless you live in a big building with a universal hook-up for residents, a dish might not work for you. It didn't for me, and I blew off a half day of work waiting for installers to tell me that my building isn't facing the right way to get the signal from somewhere over Texas.

Someone already posted that DISH network pulls in more MLS Direct Kick games than DirectTV. From what I've seen of the schedules, the difference there is only one or two games a year. But for some reason, both the satellite networks offer more Direct Kick matches than In-Demand, which is what you'd have via Starpower or Comcast. Down the stretch, In-Demand/Comcast kept skipping Wednesday games that the two satellite networks carried. Regardless, Direct Kick is a great bargain, IMO, at $60 or $69 a year (they just added SJ@KC to this Saturday's sched).

In the District, both Starpower and Comcast offer FoxSportsWorld, but Comcast requires that you pay $5 extra to get it, in a soccer tier that also includes Gol, but not FoxSport Espanol. Gol seems to be expanding their coverage--they showed the US Open Cup final between KC and Chicago, and showed Sunday's AC Milan-Inter match live (and how cool is it to hear Ray Hudson doing color for a Brazil-Argentina WC qualifier, trying to find clever English ways to call Ronaldo "fat").

Alas, Starpower isn't available in my area, and my windows face Iceland instead of Texas, so Comcast is the only option I have.