[jgbama]

Was always wondering how Dish worked there. We have Dish at the golf course I work at here and normally lose local channels at the thought of rain! I like the idea of both, with Comcast for internet and only the basic channels.

[BogeyBoy]

Originally Posted by Golf-Tinker

Our Comcast connection (in Hadley) remained on (we have cable and Internet) throughout the Wednesday and Thursday storms. No outage whatsoever. Don't understand why Hemingway would be impacted.

I can't speak for Hadley or even the guy next door. As I said earlier mine went out - I turned it off almost immediately and went to the TV with Directv so I have no idea if it was out for 2 minutes or 2 hours.

[NJblue]

It's interesting the different levels of outages with DirecTV. We lost signal multiple times this morning with each outage being at least 10-20 minutes.

It never occurred to me that standard def channels would get better results than high def, but I tried it this morning when I lost signal for a high def channel and sure enough, when tuning to a standard def channel it was still getting a signal. However, unless there is some secret that I am not aware of, the local channels that broadcast weather information are only available in high def.

[loonlovers]

I love TOTV....thanks for the info about tuning into non HD channels! Hubby did that this pm and voila....we're back! Feeling much better about keeping Direct TV now.

[JenAjd]

We've had DirectTV for over 12 years and we LOVE it!!! Yes we do have those outages...but with the lightening...the radio people were telling us to disconnect our t.v.'s, computers, micro-waves etc. Frankly I found the radio to be more informative anyway as the weather-people could tell us exactly where the worst of it was, as per The Villages etc. We don't watch alot of daytime t.v. anyway...so for us it wasn't a huge disappointment. When a signal is lost, we generally revert to watching our TIVO'd programs. Wouldn't change it for anything!!! Just mho!!

[Dbinac]

We have been lucky as we have had very very few blackouts for bad weather and then only for a few minutes. Have had directtv for about 20 years.

[logdog]

Originally Posted by John_W

I've had Directv for about 5 years and would never go back to Comcast even if it were free. I find that during heavy rain you'll lose reception first on the HD channels but the basic channels usually only go out in a severe storm, maybe for 10 minutes at the most.

Hopefully you've already gone through the channel set up and have only selected the channels you're interested in watching for your favorites list. On about 95 of the channels on my favorite list, I have the HD version selected. So for example, if I'm watching TNT, TBS, ESPN2, Bravo, etc. then I'm watching the HD version. When the picture begins to freeze during a rain storm, hit the yellow button on your remote, select 'change favorites list', and then select 'all channels'. Now all those channels that you've deleted will now be visible on the on-screen guide. Hit the 'BA' version, or basic version and the channel should reappear in the non-HD version.

Thanks for the tip. Always wondered why my HD set loses signal for a few minutes in heavy rain but my SD set hardly ever freezes up. I also would never go back to Comcast. They may be more reliable during storms but when they do lose signal, it's for hours at a time. DirecTV seems to be much more reliable, especially in SD. And when it's not really storming, DirecTV HD has much better picture quality, offers more channels and has a more advanced DVR.

[BigLew]

Every storm we get plenty of pixelation and outages with comcast, wanted to get u-verse but att is frozen out of the villages by verizon...I wonder if their fios service is any good?

[jblum315]

I have Dish satellite TV and I had no outages during the storm. I still have my internet and phone with Comcast.

[aljetmet]

Originally Posted by BigLew

Every storm we get plenty of pixelation and outages with comcast, wanted to get u-verse but att is frozen out of the villages by verizon...I wonder if their fios service is any good?

I bet New Yorkers would say FIOS is very good!
Is FIOS available in TV?