Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with TV and satellite

Will Satellite work with leaves off trees?

priested — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:09:23 -0800

Will a Hi-Defintion Satellite Signal go through tree branches in the winter months? Just moved and found out the trees in my backyard will interfere with a Direct TV or Dish Signal (my request for them to move the satellites went ignored). Now I have cable and am just not a big fan as I don't get the international sports channels Direct TV offered (namely Gol TV) or the NFL package for free as Direct TV offered. It is also really expensive.

A Direct TV technician came out and said the trees in the back yard would've needed to have been cut back about 8 feet or cut down. This was in mid-Summer. I don't believe in cutting down trees for the boob tube (yeah, my relationship with TV is dynamic).

Here's the question... When the leaves fall off the trees (in about a month in my area), can a Hi-Def signal get through? My plan is to get Direct TV for about 4 months a year and possibly got on TV sabbatical for the other 8 or switch between cable and Direct TV. Any experience with this? Thanks in advance.

Will I get a a refund for the time spent lauching a new satellite?

Jimbob — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:44:41 -0800

What happens when the satellite my pay-tv satellite-dish is pointing at dies? Like tens of thousands of people in my part of the world, I get my "cable" TV via a satellite dish on my roof, pointing at a geostationary satellite. By my understanding, satellites have a limited life-span - am I right in thinking that this is probably more relevant to orbital satellites that will eventually fall out of orbit? - but in any case, a stray rock might hit my Austar satellite and render it useless.

Will my cable company then devote itself visiting every subscriber and pointing their dish at a new satellite? Is there any precedent for this?

Have Satellite Dish, Will Watch TV

Effigy2000 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:57:42 -0800

The house I'm renting has a satellite dish up on the roof, and I'm pretty sure I know where the wall-plug for it is indoors. What kind of equipment and cables would I need to do/buy to easily (and importantly, cheaply) access satellite TV and watch it on my television set? I'm in Australia, if that matters.

Foreign TV channels via computer?

fantasticninety — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:48:26 -0800

Is there a way to watch foreign television stations on your computer or via High Definition antenna? I'd like to find a way to watch French TV stations. I was thinking that there might be a way with a TV converter to my iMac and some sort of HD antenna.

I know that there are a few free channels that you can stream online but in general the quality is not very good.

Any ideas here? I'm looking for a solution that would not cost 100 dollars a month by renting a satellite.

Thanks!

Help me with satellite provider parental controls.

drstein — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:16:19 -0800

Help me figure out which satellite provider has the best parental controls, specifically restrictions on time of day. We're moving to a new place at the beginning of June and the only viable choice for TV is Dish Network or DirecTV. The girlfriend has a 12 year old boy who is generally good.

We don't mind him having a TV in his room since we know we can use the V-Chip and block certain channels, but what we'd really like to do is set up restrictions on the time of day that the TV can be viewed. He's an ADHD kid and if you have a squawking box powered on at 3am, he'll zone out in front of it and won't sleep.

I'd like to know if any of you have experience with the time of day restrictions on the Dish Network or DirecTV hardware.

* Yes, I have searched both websites but cannot find anything beyond basic information. I'm interested in personal experiences.
* Please, no "Why does he need a TV?/Take the TV away!/etc" types of answers. I see nothing wrong with kids watching cartoons on a Saturday morning, but watching Cartoon Network at 3am on a school night is another story.

name that documentary!

ddaavviidd — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:15:01 -0800

Help me find the title of this documentary with pirated, never-seen tv clips. A couple of years ago in a movie class I saw a documentary that presented a bunch of clips which were not meant to be shown on screen: a guy had set up his satellite dish to pick up the signal from live broadcasts. We basically saw what was going on during commercial breaks, or rehearsals. There were clips from Larry King talking about his pharmacist, and another one with a us presidential candidate preparing for his speech, and asking his assistant to go get some stuff at the corner store.

Anyone know what I'm talking about? I'm trying to find the title of that documentary. Thanks!

Torn between two TV lovers, feeling like a TV fool

unSane — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 19:28:04 -0800

ExpressVu vs. StarChoice -- help me choose. I am about to move into a house I built in a rural area in Ontario. I have clear line of sight to both the ExpressVu and StarChoice satellites, but no cable and (currently) only satellite internet.

I am now torn between ExpressVu and StarChoice for my Satellite TV.

Here are your data points:

-- I've had StarChoice for the last five years and am sort-of satisfied but I would like better HD choices and better picture quality overall
-- I've had endless, horrible experiences with Bell customer services. I've never had a call that ended well with them. I would like to limit my exposure to them as much as possible
-- I want to buy an HD PVR in the new place. The reviews for the Bell equipment are generally much more positive than the reviews for the StarChoice equipment
-- I already have some StarChoice equipment (a conventional STB and an HD decoder)
-- I like MSNBC but Bell doesn't carry it
-- the relative cost of services is sort of irrelevant to me

I guess what it comes down to is that I'd go with SC but I have a sneaking suspicion that BEV has better picture, more HD choice and a better PVR. But does that balance out the excruciating pain of dealing with Bell customer service?

You tell me!

Satellite TV Interference

booksprite — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 02:32:52 -0800

I'm thinking of getting Satellite TV (Sky+). Does anyone know how susceptible it is to interference from signals from nearby mobile phone transmitters? If there is a problem, what are the best solutions?

Can I view CC information on my monitor?

jlub — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 17:03:28 -0800

Can I view the closed caption information on my plasma monitor which is hooked up to my dish network receiver? I have a Panasonic plasma monitor that I use for my TV. I bought a monitor instead of a TV because I didn't need an intergrated tuner or speakers. The one feature it doesn't have that I would like is to be able to view the closed caption information. I have a dish network 501 receiver, hooked up through s-video. None of this is HD.

Is there any good solution for this?

Oh my God, you killed Mega Cosmos! You bastards!

evariste — Sat, 02 Dec 2006 14:34:28 -0800

Greeks and Greek-Americans: what happened with Mega Cosmos on Dish? Are they moving to cable or to a different satellite company, or are they simply not going to be available in the US any more? This sucks.

Live streaming TV on the Internet

Jase_B — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 09:33:30 -0800

Is it possible to pick up free-to-air satellite TV signals via Internet streaming? I'm in Japan and the subscriber company that provides the satellite channel 'Australia Network' is cutting the service at the end of the month, which means I can't watch Australian TV at the pub anymore.

Australia Network, however, is actually a free-to-air satellite service run by the non-commercial Australian ABC, and broadcast over Asia. So if I had my own satellite dish I could tap into the signal and pick it up no problems, without having to go through a subscriber at all. Unfotunately I don't have my own dish and there's no way I can set one up.

So this got me thinking. If it is indeed a free-to-air service, then maybe I could sign up to some website that broadcasts live, free-to-air TV from around the world via Internet video streaming?

I did an Internet search and a whole bunch of kind of seedy looking websites came up claiming exactly that. Some saying that they have over 3000 channels!

So now I'm wondering if it is indeed possible? If I sign up to one of those websites could I watch the Australia Network channel (and potentially other channels) live? Does anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks!

XP Media Center & DirecTV DVR connection/set-up

Mrs. Smith — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 08:37:17 -0800

Need help connecting my DirecTV DVR and my new laptop with Windows XP Media Center. I would like to make this a wireless connection, if possible, so I don't have to be near the TV to watch a program. (It seems pointless to me to have to plug in my laptop to my TV to watch my TV.)

The computers are networked, running on an SBC/Yahoo! DSL connected router...all XP computers.

I would like to be able to watch and record TV on my laptop. (I'm not as interested in using the laptop as a giant remote control.)

I would also like to be able to burn a DVD on my laptop of programs that I've recorded on my DVR.

Any help and/or advice you can give would be greatly appreciated.

I don't know much at all about Media Center Edition at this point, so any tips or tricks that you would like to pass along would also be appreciated.

Thanks!

How do I save money on television?

shagoth — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 15:42:38 -0800

At risk of seeming picky, how can i reasonably reduce my cost of television? Cable and DirecTV have the same base cost for "extended basic" or "Total Choice" and then both nickel and dime up to $60-65 dollars per month to support 3 household viewing stations and a DVR. That seems like highway robbery since I want my local broadcast only and ultimately if I could get the NBC news channels (MSNBC and CNBC) could be happy. Additional stuff like Discovery and SciFi would be nice but are not worth $30/mo to me. Is there some way to get the news channels streaming off the net that I have missed?

interference between wireless devices

funambulist — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 03:22:08 -0800

Is there a way to avoid a wireless router interfering with the signal from a wireless audio-video transmitter? I have one of those video transmitters that broadcast the tv signal from a satellite receiver to another room. After I got wireless broadband, I noticed that when both are active the wireless router interferes with the video receiver, causing noise and the tv picture to "bounce" with lines in the middle. So I can't use both at the same time.

The router is a Belkin 802.11g (this one), the audio-video transmitter is a few year's old, I've seen newer models but I suppose they'd work the same, right?

So is the interference simply unavoidable? Or are there any video transmitters that would not create this problem? Or any other solution or workaround?

Thanks in advance!

satellite TV in Manhattan

Lizzle — Tue, 12 Apr 2005 15:43:14 -0800

I'm sick of paying Time Warner's unreasonable rates for cable TV. Has anyone in my part of NYC (Yorkville) had any luck with satellite TV? Or is it impossible here?

Will satellite give me the same features as digital cable?

Juicylicious — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 09:43:52 -0800

Digital satellite? Digital cable? [mi] I HATE Time Warner Cable. These are the most incompetent group of people that I've ever had to deal with. That said, I love digital cable itself. I particularly like the On Demand service and DVR boxes. Currently, I share the cable internet and digital service with the guys downstairs. It costs aprox. $185 pre mo. Unfortunately, the On Demand doesn't work most of the time and the boxes have to be constantly rebooted. I'm totally fed up.

Will satellite give me the same features as digital cable? Can I have DVR boxes and view different channels on different tvs at the same time? Is it more cost effective than cable? What about installation? Does satellite have On Demand?

how is satellite tv in bad weather

thomas j wise — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 12:36:59 -0800

Economic considerations make switching from cable to satellite look more and more appealing every day (as in same run of channels for about half the price). But there's a problem: I live in western NY, which has, shall we say, weather. Most of my acquaintances have cable and I haven't been able to run down any honest assessments of what it's like to have satellite TV in areas with significant quantities of white stuff. Can anyone out there share their experiences?