[mistamick]

Just bought a home in TV and considering my choices for televison service. Directv looks like a good deal but I had the service a number of years ago up north and had constant service interuptions whenever it rained.
Can anyone tell me how reliable the service is in The Villages and how often is service interupted by bad weather.

Thanks

[cybermuda]

Originally Posted by mistamick

Just bought a home in TV and considering my choices for televison service. Directv looks like a good deal but I had the service a number of years ago up north and had constant service interuptions whenever it rained.
Can anyone tell me how reliable the service is in The Villages and how often is service interupted by bad weather.

Thanks

Florida is known for its rain and thunderstorms, and a heavy cloud cover will cause pixelation and signal loss, but it is usually short-lived

[NJblue]

Originally Posted by cybermuda

Florida is known for its rain and thunderstorms, and a heavy cloud cover will cause pixelation and signal loss, but it is usually short-lived

I have DirecTV and I have never lost signal just from heavy cloud cover. It has to be raining exceedingly hard for the signal to be lost. It does happen however but, as noted above, it is usually for a short period of time. However, almost always if you change channels from the HiDef signal to the standard signal for the same station you can still watch the program without interruptions. Of course this method won't work if you are recording the show on the HiDef channel.

Usually it's a minor annoyance. However, the one time that it becomes more than an annoyance is when there are tornado warnings and you want to keep posted with the local weather coverage but you can't because it is raining so hard that you can't even get the standard definition broadcast.

[goodgrief]

Having had Direct and Dish over the years we finally said good bye to it. Tired of interruption from heavy storm cloud cover or rain. And considering teh storms we get nearly daily down here glad of it. If you're south of 466a I would highly recommend checking out Brighthouse. This was one of the best decisions ever made and has played a decision as to where we bought our new house here in Sanibel Were determined to stay south of 466a to keep brighthouse

[logdog]

Having had Cox and Comcast over the years, we finally said good bye to it. Tired of hours of unexplained outages and poor customer service. DirecTV outages during very heavy rains are brief and usually don't effect SD signals. Plus DirecTV has more HD channels, better picture and a much better DVR. Comcast is okay most of the time but if you have a problem, they are really slow to fix it. I've heard good things about Brighthouse but it's not available in our area.

[jblum315]

If your signal goes out on DirectTV, you can still watch a video or something you've saved on the DVR.

[buzzy]

Originally Posted by NJblue

........ However, almost always if you change channels from the HiDef signal to the standard signal for the same station you can still watch the program without interruptions.......

I've seen this mentioned before. However, I can't find the standard definition version of the HD channels in the guide. How do I make that change during the heavy rain?

[Regor]

press menu, settings & Help, Settings, Display, Preferences, then select "Guide HD Channels" then select Show all channels.

[buzzy]

Originally Posted by Regor

press menu, settings & Help, Settings, Display, Preferences, then select "Guide HD Channels" then select Show all channels.

Good, thanks. Out of town for a while, will try as soon as we return.

[LvmyPug2]

One of the things we noticed after moving here is that rain storms pass through very quickly. In the midwest, it was not uncommon for rain storms to last all day. Here, they last only 15-30 minutes. We love our DirectTV and have had only a couple of very brief outages since moving here a yr ago.

[jnieman]

Originally Posted by jblum315

If your signal goes out on DirectTV, you can still watch a video or something you've saved on the DVR.

I agree. We love our Direct TV. The loss of picture is usually only a few minutes and then we are back on. It's never been a problem for us in the 3 years we've had it. We do have recorded shows on the DVR we can watch during the heavy rain.

[Joaniesmom]

So glad to hear this. We just signed on with DirecTv. Mentioned a friend who recommended and we both got an additional discount. Not huge but nice. Looking forward to trying satellite. We've used cable forever.

[looneycat]

Originally Posted by Joaniesmom

So glad to hear this. We just signed on with DirecTv. Mentioned a friend who recommended and we both got an additional discount. Not huge but nice. Looking forward to trying satellite. We've used cable forever.

just to shore up your decision...comcast here has many service outages, we switched to Prism and only get a few minor stoppages in the worst of weather.

[dkrhardy]

Where I worked in S Alabama, we had sat tv and the rain would knock it off every single time. I cannot tolerate that. Folks say that it only goes out for a few minutes .... uhm why buy something that you can't count on? I'd not buy a car if the salesperson said that it might quit once in a while, but not for long. My $.02
Don

[jnieman]

Originally Posted by dkrhardy

Where I worked in S Alabama, we had sat tv and the rain would knock it off every single time. I cannot tolerate that. Folks say that it only goes out for a few minutes .... uhm why buy something that you can't count on? I'd not buy a car if the salesperson said that it might quit once in a while, but not for long. My $.02
Don

Don, I don't look at it that way. Which would you rather have, Direct TV which goes out for a few minutes and then comes right back on, or Comcast which goes out and stays out (for possibly a few days) until you call a technician to come fix it.

I'll take the few minutes any day.