Well, I've been threatening to do this for a year now and pondering it for much longer. We will be axing the dish this week. Wednesday looks like D-Day. Mary was the last holdout as she has little in the way of hobbies and has recently rediscovered the joys of reading.
I did a little research last week into tv antennas and found out that the beast perched atop our home is a long range one. Promising.
This past Friday I went and got a new co-ax end for the old antenna and hooked up the ancient beast. We can get 3 very good quality stations with another 7 very fuzzy ones.
The acid test will be Wednesday as I will go into town and buy a signal booster and a shorter patch cable, as the signal weakens over length and the one I used as a test was 50 feet long. If we get what I believe we will get then it's bye-bye dish.
What precipitated this mad rush to the ways of the past?
Easy.. value for money. We're tired of being hoodwinked and held hostage simply because we live in the country and there is really no alternative to dish programming.
1. Basic service here is $23.95 a month, up from $8.95 of 5 years ago.
2. Our dish network, although we get local news from all over the country, does not furnish the news from our local city of Kingston. One of their quirks. The other dish company does, so this quirk is a decision by ExpressVu itself.
3. $55.00 a month for programming that has upwards to 18 minutes of ads, not counting station ID's, is no longer tolerable, nor acceptable.
4. $55.00 a month will be a payment on a big screen tv...maybe, with luck.
5. Tv producers no longer see fit to finish a series if they perceive a lack of fan base...screwing over viewers. I paid for this stuff...now give it too me.
6. Rates both here and in the States are soon to jump, by a big margin. Why? The producers of the content say that the cable and dish companies do not pay for content and that they will soon be charging them for it. The Dish and cable companies have already gone to the broadcast authority up here and tested out as big an increase in fees as 30%.
7. That same authority has now given official notice that these same companies can now raise the amount of advertising by an additional 4 minutes per hour. Unacceptable.
8. I am tired of the in-show ads, those little computer graphics at the bottom of the screen of the show you are trying to watch. As much as 25% of the viewing area is taken. If you are watching something subtitled or the news tickertape at the bottom...you are out of luck. Another inconsideration in the name of generating ad revenues.
9. I have now found a semi-local DVD renter that carries literally hundreds of tv shows on disk.
10. There are no movies left on regular tv, all have migrated to specialty channels at an extra cost. The better films are on the movie channels, another cost on top. So in order to get a range of films coming into the house we pay three levels of fees. Unacceptable.
11. The very same DVD renter have over 25,000 films on hand...90% of the films are 20 years old and older. 3 sleeves, $5.00, 8 days. In other words I can rent a Karloff collection in a single sleeve with 5 movies and two disks in it and have it only count as a single renter.
Recently I rented a Lugosi collection, a Karloff collection and a Universal Legacy collection...12 movies in all...$5.00/8days.
12. $55.00 buys a whole lot of self programming, no ads.
13. By 2009 all free air broadcasts in the States are legislated to by sent out in HD format...free of charge, we will follow suit in Canada, very soon after that.
14. We will get through the antenna 4 US stations, direct, no forced Canadian content on them.
Yup, we're thinking it's over. Keep your fingers crossed for Wednesday and the results of the signal booster and newer cable.
Tk
I did a little research last week into tv antennas and found out that the beast perched atop our home is a long range one. Promising.
This past Friday I went and got a new co-ax end for the old antenna and hooked up the ancient beast. We can get 3 very good quality stations with another 7 very fuzzy ones.
The acid test will be Wednesday as I will go into town and buy a signal booster and a shorter patch cable, as the signal weakens over length and the one I used as a test was 50 feet long. If we get what I believe we will get then it's bye-bye dish.
What precipitated this mad rush to the ways of the past?
Easy.. value for money. We're tired of being hoodwinked and held hostage simply because we live in the country and there is really no alternative to dish programming.
1. Basic service here is $23.95 a month, up from $8.95 of 5 years ago.
2. Our dish network, although we get local news from all over the country, does not furnish the news from our local city of Kingston. One of their quirks. The other dish company does, so this quirk is a decision by ExpressVu itself.
3. $55.00 a month for programming that has upwards to 18 minutes of ads, not counting station ID's, is no longer tolerable, nor acceptable.
4. $55.00 a month will be a payment on a big screen tv...maybe, with luck.
5. Tv producers no longer see fit to finish a series if they perceive a lack of fan base...screwing over viewers. I paid for this stuff...now give it too me.
6. Rates both here and in the States are soon to jump, by a big margin. Why? The producers of the content say that the cable and dish companies do not pay for content and that they will soon be charging them for it. The Dish and cable companies have already gone to the broadcast authority up here and tested out as big an increase in fees as 30%.
7. That same authority has now given official notice that these same companies can now raise the amount of advertising by an additional 4 minutes per hour. Unacceptable.
8. I am tired of the in-show ads, those little computer graphics at the bottom of the screen of the show you are trying to watch. As much as 25% of the viewing area is taken. If you are watching something subtitled or the news tickertape at the bottom...you are out of luck. Another inconsideration in the name of generating ad revenues.
9. I have now found a semi-local DVD renter that carries literally hundreds of tv shows on disk.
10. There are no movies left on regular tv, all have migrated to specialty channels at an extra cost. The better films are on the movie channels, another cost on top. So in order to get a range of films coming into the house we pay three levels of fees. Unacceptable.
11. The very same DVD renter have over 25,000 films on hand...90% of the films are 20 years old and older. 3 sleeves, $5.00, 8 days. In other words I can rent a Karloff collection in a single sleeve with 5 movies and two disks in it and have it only count as a single renter.
Recently I rented a Lugosi collection, a Karloff collection and a Universal Legacy collection...12 movies in all...$5.00/8days.
12. $55.00 buys a whole lot of self programming, no ads.
13. By 2009 all free air broadcasts in the States are legislated to by sent out in HD format...free of charge, we will follow suit in Canada, very soon after that.
14. We will get through the antenna 4 US stations, direct, no forced Canadian content on them.
Yup, we're thinking it's over. Keep your fingers crossed for Wednesday and the results of the signal booster and newer cable.
Tk
