[mythtv-users] Satelite service recommendation for use w/ MythTV

Brad Templeton brad+myth at templetons.com
Sat Apr 2 00:23:17 UTC 2005


On Fri, Apr 01, 2005 at 05:51:04PM -0600, Robert Denier wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-04-01 at 18:35 -0500, Maverick wrote:
> I've no idea about firewire.  Personally from what little I've heard if
> you didn't want to save a little money on programming then directv is
> probably what you want for myth.  I have dish and don't regret that.  If


The cost difference seems quite large particularly if you have an antenna
to get digital TV and HDTV as I do, and just want a source of the major
non-OTA channels.   Dish has a package at $27/month without locals or
$32/month with the locals, and has the channels I pay any attention to --
news, a&e, SF, Comedy, Discovery, Food and a few others.

Compared to about $45 for Expanded Basic cable (which has a few more
channels and of course all the locals) and $42 for DirecTV without locals
I think.

The $60/year for local channels they typically charge may be worth it
for a 2nd access on the local SD channels, or you could of course put
up an pvr-150 card for a full extra tuner card, no direct win here.

Other alternatives are Expressvu (though not on the west coast and
deep south any more)   Their basic plan at $25 CDN -- about $23 USD
after adding 15% of tax -- does not have many of the specialty channels
but they can be added in $5 packs.   I am dropping Expressvu though 
because it only half-works in California now.   You need a Canadian
billing address of course, which is easy for me because I am Canadian,
but there are services which will arrange that for you.  Expressvu
uses Dish network equipment, so no serial port to change channels.

Starchoice has a really cheap mostly-locals at $20 CDN but the more
full featured pack is going to be about $40 USD, not too much less
than DirecTV. 

One big difference about the Canadian services is that you get every
single local channel in Canada, over 5 time zones.  So all network shows
(including all U.S. network shows) are on several times a night.  So you
won't have many conflicts, even with a single tuner, it's like having
an extra tuner.


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