Re: Dish vs Cable



"Scooby" <mmscooby1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"The Man Behind The Curtain" <noway@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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Wes Newell wrote:
On Sat, 04 Mar 2006 19:50:40 -0700, Dan G wrote:

I can't imagine anything more mind-numbingly disgusting than watching
only
OTA programming. That's why I pay for Satellite services.
20 channels of disgusting crap is "nothing on" for me and a lot of
folks.

So you never watch anything on the free networks. Interesting. Just
curious what you consider disgusting crap?
This is a perfect example of someone who doesn't know what he's missing
because he doesn't know what he's missing.

I can't tell I'm missing much of anything from scanning the TV guide
that
also list all the major premium channels. I would miss the approx. $100K
I'd have spent if I'd bene watching cable/sat for the last 30 years
though.:-)

I've lived with cable TV as a guest at other people's houses or on
vacation for as long as a month. I also have it at work. There is
little on that floats my boat. Movies I can rent and watch when I want,
thank you. The docs on History and Discovery aren't any different from
PBS, other than there's more of them, and they too are usually available
on DVD if I must have them (and I do own about 30 or 40 sets...I can
watch them any time I want and only had to pay for them once). Don't
care about sports, though if I did that would be strongest draw. Weather?
We've got several local stations here that have 24-hour supplementary
weather channels on a second frequency. Porn? I've never seen
commercially-produced porn that doesn't suck. Reruns of old TV? I'm
going to *pay* to watch something that was free in 1988 and I didn't
watch then? News? Fox? CNN? MS? Give me a break. If I want news,
I'll go to real sources, not Gerraldo or Larry King. If I want a
"probing" interview with a 22-year-old nymphette I'll go to Larry King.
Court TV? Pu-lease. I don't have enough garlic in my house to watch
Nancy Grace and I won't pay to watch 20-year-old reruns of Cops. Reality
shows? Yawn? Home-makeovers? Come make over my home and maybe I'll
watch you. Pool? Poker? Home shopping channels? Maybe when I'm 80, and
in the old folks home. Did I miss anything?



John


John, you've just argued exactly the way Wes does. You've missed the
point and argued the examples rather than address the whole idea of what
the OP was talking about.

The point is, to each his own. Wes has never had pay TV or pay DVR
services. But, he doesn't understand why people would pay for it and
continously brags about his setup of getting local channels and his MythTV
box.. Other people have their reasons too. If you've tried it and don't
like it (or never even cared to try), there is nothing wrong with that.
Some people don't watch TV at all - nothing wrong with that either. It is
all about taste and what people want. There are things that I don't care
to do and don't want to spend my money on.

But, since you listed things about channels, here are some things to
consider. First, even though much is free on locals, some people would
rather pay for service that has locals rather than put an antenna on the
roof. I'll tell you this - if Wes gets as many OTA channels as he says he
does, his antenna can't look too nice on his roof. If you believe that
all the documentary stuff you can see on pay channels is either available
on DVD or PBS, you are wrong - period. Also, while you may consider the
news better from local feeds, it is different. They spend a very short
time on national issues. A one hour news show will cover local stuff,
weather, traffic reports and maybe even a human interest story - only time
left to cover the top national items. If you want true national converage,
you need to go to a news feed instead of a local channel that does some
national coverage. There is better news than the sensationlist stuff that
you've mentioned.

You do have a point about movies, though. I've never been the renting
kind, so I didn't like having to make two trips to the store to watch a
movie. You wouldn't have to rent many movies in a month to pay for the
movie channels and then you'd have to worry about return dates, late fees,
etc... The movie channels show a lot of movies and did fine my purpose.
Now, with Blockbuster delivery and Flix, that has changed. I've cancelled
most of my movie channels and started a movie subscription.

There is plenty of good content on pay tv, or so I think anyway. There
must be something to that since most households have pay tv.

Jim

On my side, I kept a log of what I was watching.
It wound up that I was watching first-run Law and Order.
I was watching first-run CSI.
I was watching NCIS.
I was watching American Idol and not much else.

On DirecTv I was watching--reruns of the same or TCM or AMC, didn't have
HBO/Stars/Showtime. I had them for a while, but they show the same thing
day after day and in a couple of months they were showin' them again.

I traded DircTv in for Charter, whoope! I had stars and had on-demanad.
Never worked right so I gave up Stars. Then DirecTv said 'cut the cable'
and we'll let you have service for $29.99 / month. Lasted for 3 months
then the bill went up to $80.00/mo. We did not have any premium or sports
pkgs. Cancled them again.

We're back to over the air television.
Oh, in the 70's we had to have cable, as there were only 3 or 4 stations
locally. But when we moved to the big city, we had many, many more to
choose from. When we moved to DFW in '84 we thought we had to have cable.
So we got it. We dumped it after doing a log back then as well. We found
that we were watching more that was available for free than what we were
getting on cable. Not only to mention that when it rained, we still had our
television working while the rest of the neighbors didn't.

And now, with DTV I have a 'perfect' picture and the shows that I watch--AND
they are free.

The $$$ that I save on cable/sat, I put it together with the money I am
saving by giving up cigarettes and booze--and guess what... I have a car
payment!

I'm with the rest, who cares about watching Jack Tripper drool again?
Who cares about day long Bonanza marathons?
Never watch XXX, that goes against my upbringing.
Don't Tivo, Netflix we barely Blockbuster. If I want a movie, I'll head to
Wall-Mart or Best Buy and buy one. If I don't like it I'll sell it/trade it
at the used video stores here.

The wife and I have figured out that there is way more to life than settin'
infront of a 52" screen.

Cheers,
Russ



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