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Satellite TV vs. CableIt happened about 25 years ago. Before that, you turned on your TV and tried to tune in 4 or 5 local broadcast television stations over your antennae - if you were lucky, your roof antennae might actually get you 6 channels. And then that thing happened - cable TV. Overnight it seems, you could plug a cable from your wall into your TV and suddenly get 30 channels, with no fuzz or static -- channels from New York, Chicago, Atlanta. The era of cable television had arrived, bringing with it the complaint of "50 channels to choose from and nothing good on TV". A flurry of new channels and networks was launched, gaining access to a nationwide TV audience - MTV, Nickelodeon, Fox, HGTV, A&E, CNN. The next technology step after cable TV was satellite TV.
Dish Network Satellite TVDish Network is what is called a direct broadcast satellite service. Started in 1996, their satellites spit out audio and video programming nationwide -- if you can place a satellite dish on your roof or side of your house with a direct line of sight access to part of the sky, you can pick up their service. This was a direct advantage over cable in the early days, especially in rural areas where cable networks had not expanded to. Today, they count more than 13 million satellite TV subscribers. The Dish Network satellite dishes are much smaller than the old ones - about 18-20 inches in diameter. These dishes can pick up signals from two satellites simultaneously, and once properly aligned, they normally don't need to be adjusted.
How Does Dish Network work?Satellite TV works pretty much like cable. Signals come into your house (either by a cable from your telephone pole or via a satellite above you) and into a receiver/decoder box (looks like a tuner or VCR) which then sends the signal to your TV. The DISH 500 and DISH 1000 have largely replaced the earlier DISH 300 satellite dishes. In the early days, common complaints about Dish Network and DirecTV revolved around 2 main issues - the inability to pick up local broadcasts (ie, local news and weather - this required your normal antennae connection) and the need for multiple dishes to bring in programming for multiple TVs. Now, however, you can get local programming in 95% of all households - the cost is $5 per month. Also, the new receivers and dishes allow 2 TVs to get programming from a single unit - so for a house with 4 TVs, you would need two satellite dishes and 2 receiver units. Normally there is a $49 installation fee, but many times you can find deals on free installation if you sign up for a certain number of months of service commitment. Dish Network offers several different types of tuners/receivers. The basic one is just that - basic. They call it "standard", and it lets you view the standard channels. They also make DVR (digital video recorder) boxes (similar to a Tivo) that allow you to record and pause TV as you are watching, and store saved programs for watching later. They also offer HD (High Definition) receivers for receiving and viewing high definition broadcasts. For example, the DISH 622 is a MPEG-4 tuner and high-def satellite receiver, with built in DVR, capable of serving 2 TVs. The DISH 625 is a dual tuner model which allows you to record two shows simultaneously. The standard receivers are the DISH 322 and 311.Best Dish Network PackagesSatellite TV usually markets itself as being cheaper than cable TV for channel for channel comparisons. Dish Network offers a variety of packages to choose from in terms of programming and channel availability. The DISH Family Pack is $19.99 per month and includes 40+ channels. America's Top 60 can also be had for $19.99 on sale, and it brings you 80 channels of programming. America's Top 180 is $39.99 per month for 275 channels. For Dish Network HD programming, you can get the Dish HD Silver with America's Top 120 for $39.99 (you get 1700 hours of weekly high definition HD programs with all the HD packages).The Dish HD PLatinum programs bring you all the HD programs, 240 channels of standard channels, and HBO, Cinemax, Showtime and Starz. Some of the HD channels available include: Animania HD, National Geographic HD, NFL Network HD, HGTV HD, GamePlay HD. The standard channels include most of the popular ones like SpikeTV, TLC, TNT, VH1, Sci-Fi, MSNBC, MTV, Fox, ESPN, etc. If you are looking for NFL Sunday Ticket, you need to get DirecTV, not Dish Network. The official Dish Network website for information and ordering is DishTV.com.
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