Slightly OT: Comcast vs Dish - Mariners Coverage

by FWombat on Aug 4, 2008 6:06 PM PDT

I'm getting fed up with Comcast - their DVR box is an unbelievably awful piece of garbage, and they just took away my long-standing promotional rate so now I'm paying even more for the same hunk of junk. To add insult to injury, they took one of my favorite channels (Speed), and moved it into a premium package that I have to pay yet MORE for. The one great thing about Comcast is that they carry ALL of the M's games in HD.

It looks like Dish Network will be cheaper....but first I need to figure out if they carry all of the Mariners games. The customer service girl seemed truly baffled by my question, and while she eventually said "no blackouts", I don't really believe her.

I know someone else in the Seattle area has been through this. What's the scoop? Can I get all the Mariners games somewhere other than Comcast? Or do they own my soul?

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We have Dish Network at the store and I hate it for M's coverage.

We’ve missed 15 of the last 16 Mariners games due “A problem locating the signal” and they have yet to start carrying FSN HD and didnt have FOX HD until this June.

by Robert on Aug 4, 2008 6:12 PM PDT reply actions

One of the few things Comcast does well is offer steady Mariners coverage.

As much as I hate them for their internet crap, I’ll give them credit for uninterrupted FSN feeds.

by BrianL on Aug 4, 2008 6:16 PM PDT reply actions

Get Directv.

I love the DVR, and the amount of channels I get in HD is awesome. I won’t go cable for tv ever again.

against Vegas reliever Casey Hoorelbeke, whose ancestors clearly couldn't spell Hurlbeck properly.

by Christian on Aug 4, 2008 7:31 PM PDT reply actions

It took a while, but all my issues with comcast were resolved and i am happy with the service.

I have eight watches. None of them are fake.

by RafaelCarmona22 on Aug 4, 2008 9:52 PM PDT reply actions

My parents have DISH and I had DirecTV

Our DISH has never had an issue not even with signal and I like the DVR….I am used to it

I prefer DirecTV I think…my friends all had it and watched every Mariners game. The place I lived was gay balls and I couldnt get local channels (except cable) so I am not the one to ask concerning their service…

by Smith18 on Aug 4, 2008 10:16 PM PDT reply actions

So I take it the place you lived in was a happy, round community?

Or maybe where you live is homosexual? That seems odd to me, considering that I haven’t heard of any patches of ground with the equipment to have sex with other patches of ground, or the inclination for that matter.

In summary, please choose better words. You make yourself to sound like an idiot, which you probably aren’t.

by Faux on Aug 5, 2008 5:45 AM PDT up reply actions

Thank you for this.

Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.

by pdb on Aug 5, 2008 9:19 AM PDT up reply actions

Go DirecTV

Haven’t had many problems. Way better than Comcast.

by Mariner John on Aug 4, 2008 11:36 PM PDT reply actions

I have DirecTV

I switched from Comcast in May when I moved. I prefer it to Comcast by far—I had the dual tuner HD DVR w/ comcast and had a ton of problems with it. Since 2005, I’d gone through three of the boxes and still would have it just randomly reboot or stop responding to remote control commands (and then speed through them all at once when it caught up).

The DirecTV box isn’t perfect - there’s a lag when you bring up the guide and page up/down, but it’s comparable to the lag I had with the Comcast box. The image quality looks better to me as well - I had a lot of pixelized HD issues with Comcast that don’t seem to come up as much with DTV.

It’s not as smooth as the older DirecTivo was, but it’s pretty nice (plus with DTV, you can get NFL Sunday Ticket, yay).

by Strang on Aug 5, 2008 10:15 AM PDT reply actions

Oh I should add

that with DirecTV, FSN-NW is only in HD during M’s games (not sure about Huskies or whoever else). Regular FSN programming is only on the standard def channel.

by Strang on Aug 5, 2008 10:16 AM PDT up reply actions

My Comcast remote does the same thing as yours did

but that’s the only problem I’ve ever had with Comcast, and they SWEAR that when they roll out their TiVo box that problem will go away.

Nice Guys Finish Third - Hopelessly lost, but makin' good time.

by pdb on Aug 5, 2008 10:20 AM PDT up reply actions

Mine does this ALL the time too.

It’s infuriating. Especially when I’m fast forwarding through commercials, and then it won’t respond to my “play” command and I end up ruining 15 minutes of an F1 race.

Bastards.

by FWombat on Aug 5, 2008 11:02 AM PDT up reply actions

I was holding out for the Tivo box

But the house I moved into already had a DirecTV dish, so I made the jump. But I really wish DTV still had Tivo boxes, I used to have a standard def one and loooved it. It was so much faster and easier to use than any other DVR I’ve had—and that was back in 2003.

by Strang on Aug 5, 2008 12:17 PM PDT up reply actions

But you do get all of the FSN-carried games (95%) in HD?

That’s the main thing I want to make sure of. I don’t particularly care whether all of FSN-NW’s other programming is in HD. Just the Mariners games.

by FWombat on Aug 5, 2008 10:59 AM PDT up reply actions

So far, yep

They add an alternate channel during M’s games—currently it’s 687 for SD and 687-1 for HD.

I do have the special sports pack thing tho, that’s a little extra. And you get some of the other FSNs, but the actual games on those channels are blacked out (unless you get Extra Innings, I guess).

by Strang on Aug 5, 2008 12:12 PM PDT up reply actions

Do you have the problem of losing sound when you choose a show? or load something on your DVR?

against Vegas reliever Casey Hoorelbeke, whose ancestors clearly couldn't spell Hurlbeck properly.

by Christian on Aug 5, 2008 11:25 AM PDT up reply actions

Haven't noticed that

although I did have that problem with Comcast every once in awhile…

To Comcast’s credit, though, they were surprisingly good when something did break—I could just drive up to their office on Aurora and exchange the cable box on the fly (which I did on the day before Super Bowl XL, preventing catastrophe but probably also allowing depression).

Of course, if the DVR hadn’t died, I’d still have the 2005 NFC Championship in HD…

by Strang on Aug 5, 2008 12:15 PM PDT up reply actions