811, VOOM, or wait?

[RickO]

I've been with Dish as DHP for over 2 yrs. . I have a HD ready 57" Hitachi and would like to use it to its fullest capacity. Been lurking here for a while, and not sure which way to go. Suggestions anyone?
Thanks, RickO

 

[Don_S]

I was pondering the same question a couple of months ago. In the end I decided to go with Dish because of the teething problems that Voom was going through. Read the Voom forums.. at least until a couple of months ago, it looks like they had not yet found the right size dish antenna for optimal reception, and if I recall right, several people were asking for their antennae to be switched because of this. I therefore decided that I would wait until Voom could sort out its initial problems. I'll stick with Dish for a year (have a one year committment) and then look at Voom again. Hope this helps.

P.S. I did get the 811 and HD pack. The 811 has its shortcomings, but overall I'm happy with my decision.

 

[Bulldog]

I was pondering the same question a couple of months ago. In the end I decided to go with Dish because of the teething problems that Voom was going through. Read the Voom forums.. at least until a couple of months ago, it looks like they had not yet found the right size dish antenna for optimal reception, and if I recall right, several people were asking for their antennae to be switched because of this. I therefore decided that I would wait until Voom could sort out its initial problems. I'll stick with Dish for a year (have a one year committment) and then look at Voom again. Hope this helps.

P.S. I did get the 811 and HD pack. The 811 has its shortcomings, but overall I'm happy with my decision.

A lot of folks such as myself got the 811 HD package with a one year commitment. I agree with you, I would wait until the end of the commitment and let Voom mature a bit. I know that down the line competition will get hot. With both "D" and "E" going head to head and the cables bringing in HD locals and Voom getting up to speed. It is going to be a very interesting year a two.

 

[snathanb]

A lot of folks such as myself got the 811 HD package with a one year commitment. I agree with you, I would wait until the end of the commitment and let Voom mature a bit. I know that down the line competition will get hot. With both "D" and "E" going head to head and the cables bringing in HD locals and Voom getting up to speed. It is going to be a very interesting year a two.

Personally, I don't think Voom is going to make it. It's too much of a niche market, and pricing/channel selection is an obstacle to it being a standalone provider.

Their $9.50 per receiver lease fee on top of the $5 mirror fee for each additional box is going to kill them. If you want a two reciever setup, you are already at nearly $25 before you start adding programming.

No local channels (While I wish DISH didn't carry locals, they would have a much smaller subscriber base without them, IMO)

Requiring a land line phone to even install it... especially with more DSL providers starting to market test naked DSL. (DSL without requiring phone subscription). I have no land line.. we rely on VOIP (over a WISP provided connection) with cell phone as emergency backup.

What will be interesting is when it puts itself up for sale and either E* or D* gets it.

 

[hancox]

Their $9.50 per receiver lease fee on top of the $5 mirror fee for each additional box is going to kill them. If you want a two reciever setup, you are already at nearly $25 before you start adding programming.

I don't know why more people didn't see this coming. After all, it *is* run by a cable company!

 

[mattyro]

$9.50 and 5 is $14.50. Thats for 2 receivers. Is addition a lost art around here??

 

[Poke]

Well just got my Dish 811 installed today on my Sony 57 inch with no problems and have been impressed so far!

 

[GaryPen]

$9.50 and 5 is $14.50. Thats for 2 receivers. Is addition a lost art around here??

Each receiver is $9.50 for the lease, plus $5 for the 2nd receiver mirror fee. The total is indeed nearly $25, as snathanb correctly stated.

Is comprehension a lost art around here?

 

[WeeJavaDude]

Rich,

Lot of this depends what you expect out of HD. Can you get locals in your area with an OTA? Do you want DVR capabilities? type of programming you watch? What will be cost for each option. THese are all things I would consider.

The 811 can provided both OTA and Dish HD. Without OTA, I am not sure if the HD pack is enough. Depends who you are. I have an 811 and I am happy with mine but others are not. Depends on your use case and confidence in getting an OTA signal. If you can get a good OTA signal, feel that you want run into multipathing issues, and you can get the 811 at a good price then it is a good deal.

As for Voom? not sure no personal experience. Personally if I could get HD on my set for around 200 bucks I would do it. But that is me. Opinions on this issue differ and it is personal choice.

Since you already have Dish, Dish would be the less painful process to go through.. I would add that to the equation.

About two years ago, I was faced with the decision to go with a 6000 receiver and get HD now or wait for the upcoming 921 and have HD with DVR capabilities. At the time there was only OTA and HD Discover and HBO HD. It became obvoius to me that since I invested so much on a HD TV LCD 60", that I should have HD as soon as possible. I decided not to wait the 6 months for the 921 to come out and went with the 6000. Turns out that was a good decision for me because the 921 did not come out to over a year later so I would have not had HD for that year.

At the time the 921 came out I was forced with going 921, staying with the 6000, or moving to an 811. I jumped to the 811, sold my 6000 on ebay, and I am not disappointed with my decision. For me having such a big HD TV and no HD is just wrong. ; But that is me. The entry point is much lower that it was a year ago and there is some compelling content out there. Not as much as us HD folks would like, but there is some. At this point it is still a mixed bag, but a bag I am find enjoyable from time to time to make me feel it was the right decision two years back.

Good luck.

 

[snathanb]

$9.50 and 5 is $14.50. Thats for 2 receivers. Is addition a lost art around here??

No, but apparently reading comprehension is...

 

[Rlanham]

I have a 811 on a Hitachi 57", & the HD picture is fantastic.
SD picture suffers if you don't have a DVI input though.
SD on S-Video is unwatchable on my 57" Hitachi with my 811.

 

[texasdiver]

no more 1 year commitment for 811 lease?

Just got off the phone today with Dish and the customer service rep told me they didn't have any 1-year commitment for the 811 lease. Just the $50 "install" fee and the commitment to get the $9.95 HD package.

I'm in the same boat. I currently have a two receiver Dish setup, one PVR and another standard receiver. I'm buying a Samsung DLP and looking at my HD input options. What I really want is a good solid multi-tuner HD DVR for a fair price. Unfortunately it looks like both Dish 921s and DirectTV Tivos are in short supply and the 921 looks flaky so far. Voom doesn't even have a DVR yet. That leaves me looking for an interim solution.

As an interim solution I'm wiilling to live with a regular HD tuner (without DVR) and a separate SD DVR tuner for recording shows since most of the recording is of my kids "Discovery Kids and Disney Network shows. I also don't want to make any big commitments until the market for HD DVRs sorts out and normalizes.

I was leaning at getting a basic voom setup for the HD and keeping a basic Dish setup for my kids shows and the DVR while I wait out the market on HD DVRs. However, after talking with Dish I'm leaning at leasing the 811 on a month-to-month lease basis until I'm ready to decide where I"m ultimately going to park my HD DVR money and with what system.

Anyone know for certain if Dish has dropped the 1-year commitment for existing customers lease of the 811? If so, that is the obvious route to go. It may even be the route to go anyway as the cost of breaking the 1-year commitment is still cheaper than buying something like an interim DirectTV tuner that I will eventually retire when I move up to an HD DVR.

 

[Don_S]

Just got off the phone today with Dish and the customer service rep told me they didn't have any 1-year commitment for the 811 lease. Just the $50 "install" fee and the commitment to get the $9.95 HD package......


Anyone know for certain if Dish has dropped the 1-year commitment for existing customers lease of the 811? If so, that is the obvious route to go. It may even be the route to go anyway as the cost of breaking the 1-year commitment is still cheaper than buying something like an interim DirectTV tuner that I will eventually retire when I move up to an HD DVR.

There is no commitment if you go with the Digital Home Advantage (with this plan you don't own the equipment; you just lease it). I chose to go with the "Free dish" program in which you own the equipment if you commit to a 1 year subscription. The upfront costs are the same for both DHA and Free dish ($49.99 which is refunded to you on the first bill)

 

[texasdiver]

Ahhh. I signed onto Dish 18 months ago and am pretty sure I'm on the digital home advantage plan. In any event, they told me I only need to swap out receivers, I don't need a new dish to upgrade to the 811 so the only installation involved is swapping receivers.

So I'm not talking about starting a new dish plan, only adjusting my existing plan to swap out a leased 301 receiver for a leased 811 receiver.

 

[nick2003]

If you want a good hd picture quality you dont want voom thats for sure, I have had it for a week and canceled it last night its not really true hd its pretty good like a little better then dvd but you will notice little imperfections in the shows. I compaired voom to the ota shows and theres no comparison. They have one channel hdnews or something that looks how hd should look but even the hd discover channel looks crappy and the movie channels like hbo hd dont even look dvd quality most of the time there all grainy, i think its cause they have just so much hd that it takes away the bandwidth which makes it lower quality. You may want to check out this thread before geting voom : http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=21373 Im geting dish now i cant wait cause they have that hdnet channel which is better then anything on voom, Voom has a bunch of fluff channels like stuff like auctions and fashion shows i dunno who would watch that but not me.

 

[dewhead]

had dish, switched to voom, now back to dish

I had dish for several years. I saw the ads for voom and switched over. I had voom for two months and it was ok. Eventually I wound up switching back to dish and getting an 811.

The reasons I left voom are:
1) After about two weeks their original content isn't original anymore. Their concert channel was cool but no new shows were added the entire two months I had voom. Lots of cool stuff to see on it but after two weeks you've seen it all.
2) They don't have anywhere near as many SD channels as dish.
3) Their own HD movie channels never show any decent movies. Most of them I have never heard of and my friends consider me to be a big movie buff.
4) Their sports channel shows nothing but european soccer. Which is all right if you like it, but some additional sports would be good.
5) You only get the locals that broadcast in HD. No SD locals.
6) Their menu system and channel navigation is crappy. I realize this is a bit picky but I spend a lot of time channel surfing and I found this to be extrememly annoying.

I've been back with Dish and had an 811 for about a week now and I like it a lot better. True Dish doesn't offer as many HD channels but the likelihood of them having something I want to watch is greater.

Hope this helps.

L