Pssst . . . Get Satellite TV, Seriously!
Written: May 08 '01
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Pros: Cost effective, NFL ticket, pay-per-view movies.
Cons: Weater disruptions.
The Bottom Line: The universal remote even had a code for our Admiral television set. What more can you ask for?
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| Sloucho's Full Review: Hughes Networks D2532 DIRECTV |
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I'm writing this review for people like me, people who just tend to be a little skeptical about the stuff that gets rave reviews from absolutely everybody. As you scan through the list of review titles on this topic, you may surmise that a bunch of television-addicted numbskulls are urging you to get satellite television because they can't imagine life without their 200+ channels to distract them from the empty desperation at the center of their lives.
Not so my friend. Every now and then the overwhelming majority of people are right about something. They're right about satellite television. And when you finally come around to their point of view, you will feel like a bit of a dolt for having waited so long before removing the scales from your eyes.
I'll give you a little background on how I made my way to my Hughes dish and DirecTV. When my wife first proposed that we consider satellite tv, I changed the subject rather nastily. The way I saw it, satellite was like cable, only worse. Not only were there bound to be more mind-numbing channels that I would have to surf through before determining that nothing was on, but I suspected that in order to set up the dish I would also have to install all sorts of hardware and run cabling through the walls and generally expose myself as the handyman-impaired individual that I am.
When my wife pressed the issue, I told her we could think about getting satellite television when we moved out of our duplex (which we did the following year). I didn't really intend to revisit the issue. I'm not sure what I expected to happen. I think I thought that satellite television would prove to be some kind of intermediate stage between cable and something else (like Web TV) and that in a few years people's satellite dishes would be sort of like Beta VHS recorders.
When we moved, my wife was too distracted to remember the promise I had made about reconsidering the satellite dish. She herself called the local cable company to arrange for someone to come out and hook us up. But since I had more flexible hours at work, I was stuck with the chore of waiting for the cable crew to show up. Even though there was all sorts of unpacking that needed to be done around the house, I restricted my work to the front room of the first floor of our house so as to be sure not to miss the cable crew when they came. I knew that the slightest problem with getting the cable hooked up would dredge up the old question concerning satellite television.
As it turns out, fate did me a favor (though it was disguised at the time). The cable crew never came by. When I called to complain, I reached a manager who infuriated me by falsely asserting that the van had stopped by twice and that a technician had left a "Sorry We Missed You" card on my front door. When I explained that I had spent the entire day unwrapping crystal gewgaws about which I could not have cared less just so that I could watch the street through my picture window, and that not once had anything resembling a service van rolled down my street, the manager simply sighed and asked whether I could be at home again the next day. "Is that all you have to offer me after I took the day off from work to wait around for you guys to show up?" I screamed. "You're going to have to do better than that. You're going to have to explain why there's no card on my front door. Are you sure you had the right address?"
"Sure we had the right address," he said. "We just missed you when we came by."
"You never came by," I sputtered. It was then that I noticed my wife had returned from work. She smiled knowingly as I attempted to regain my composure. When I hung up, she asked if I was ready to explore the possibility of satellite television.
She sort of had me cornered. Although I said that I would just as soon not have any television at all, she knew that I would miss football on Sundays. We got absolutely zero reception with our indoor antenna. In order for an antenna to work, I would have to install one on the roof. That would entail precisely the kind of handiwork that I had feared I might have to do for a satellite. Fortunately, Primestar was running a free installation service at the time.
We called, paid $100 to rent the satellite unit for the year, and paid $30/month for the very coolest television package I have ever had. Apart from Turner Classic Movies, American Movie Classics, and the Independent Film Channel, we got the Discovery Channel, the Food Network, Comedy Central, and MTV in addition to east coast AND west coast broadcasts from the four major networks. I don't know whether packages like this one are available anywhere anymore. If you can get one in your area, snap it up.
When we moved out of that house, we left our Primestar connection behind. But by that time I was hooked. (Robert Osbourne on Turner Classic Movies is sufficient reason, all by himself, for people to go with satellite television.) When we settled outside Philadelphia, we found that Primestar was no longer available. So we went with DirecTV.
I can't say quite as many good things about DirecTV as I did about Primestar. Most importantly, I was unable to get free installation of my DirecTV satellite. I ordered the dish itself for $99 from Roxy.com. They threw in a free installation kit (which included a video that tells you how to install your dish if you happen to live in a wooden shack). The cost of installation in my area was high enough that I figured I would take a stab at putting the thing up myself. Although I won't say the installation was easy, I was able to do it despite my extremely limited abilities concerning all things practical. (If you live in a really old house built of really hard brick, you might want to consider hiring someone to do the installation. I went through two masonry bits and very nearly fried my drill before deciding that the dish was anchored to the side of the house "well enough.")
I was disappointed to learn that the Independent Film Channel isn't part of the basic package that comes with DirecTV. I also think it's a shame that I no longer receive network broadcasts from both coasts. But for the most part it's the same kind of package that I had with Primestar--with one extremely important improvement: The NFL Ticket.
If you like football, get the NFL Ticket and prepare to enter Nirvana. If you don't like football, get the NFL Ticket and prepare to discover that you have secretly loved football and hidden your passion from yourself for all these years. We got the Ticket because my wife is a hopeless fan of the Dallas Cowboys. I didn't really see how it could be worth $149 a year to have access to football games that were being aired free of charge around the country.
But then we got the ticket and I was enlightened. If you've ever watched the NCAA basketball tournament, you'll be able to relate to what is so great about the Ticket. Even people (like me) who don't like basketball can see that the excitement of the NCAA tournament comes from seeing the final seconds of one closely contested game before moving to the final seconds of another contested game before moving to a third and fourth, etc. With the NFL Ticket, you get that kind of excitement every week. From about 3:45 to 4:30 and 6:45 to 7:30 EST every Sunday, I find myself completely enraptured by the ferocity of the competition in the NFL.
Another truly great feature of satellite television is the pay-per-view movie option. If you have ever in your life either paid a late fee for a movie or forced your exhausted frame into the car at 11:30 in order to get your rentals back to Blockbuster by midnight, then you will appreciate the fact that when you order films via satellite, there is never such a thing as a post-movie hassle. (I can also say that after a power outage resulted in an interruption of a movie that I had ordered, DirecTV was very prompt and courteous about reversing the charge to my account.) The only problem with DirecTV's pay-per-view movies is that they tend to be a little bit on the mass market side of the cinematic spectrum. You won't find many films like "Welcome to the Dollhouse" on pay-per-view. If you're a fan of intelligent, challenging films, you will still have to make those trips to the video store to get your fix.
In addition to everything else, satellite television is actually cheaper than cable (at least where I live). The only real downside is that your reception can and will be disrupted by thunderstorms. My wife actually became angry with me for having agreed to satellite when we experienced a black out for about an hour prior to this year's premier of The West Wing. Of course, if you're willing to shell out the money, you can obviate the problem of storm interference by subscribing to a cable service in addition to DirecTV. But I think that sort of thing takes us back to a certain class of television-addicted numbskulls.
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*This is a repost of a review that was deleted during the epinions beta overhaul. If you suspect plagiarism because you remember having seen it before, I can only say bless you for remembering.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99
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Epinions.com ID:
Sloucho
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 - Top 500 |
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Member: Mike Davis
Location: Philadelphia
Reviews written: 199
Trusted by: 248 members
About Me:
Read my reviews in order to heal the sick and control the weather. Seriously.
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