Hey Everyone!
I just had a question I was hoping you all could help me with. I am moving into a new place in the middle of next month and am questioning on whether or not I should upgrade from cable. Would you be able to give me a little insight on what I should go with and what some of the costs are like? Right now I am paying $65 for full cable but someone was mentioning that I would be better off going with Digital while another person has told me I should go with satellite.
Any information would be great
Thanks!! 
I don’t live in Rupert anymore, but I assume the services you’re looking at are pretty much the same as my options. We’re moving into our place on the 31st, so I can’t give you a hands or eyes-on review of quality yet, but generally there is no picture or sound difference between digital cable and satellite.
I went with digital cable in my area, for a number of reasons. It costs a lot less than Bell or Starchoice, but offers the same channels, including movies and HD packages. You won’t have jitter or signal loss during bad weather. There is no contract, just pay as you go. Starchoice and Bell like to charge cancellation fees and are difficult to deal with. Starchoice allegedly double bills people on a regular basis, and I find their system, menus and guide suck. Bell has a good system, but the PVR sucks and will send you to live TV when watching some HD content. For example, we were watching the Playoff games on the Bell PVR and we would pause during intermissions or commercials to grab food, drinks, play wii or whatever, so we cold start the second or third period whenever we wanted, and we would. The problem is 5 minutes in or whenever it’ll jump to LIVE TV which might be the end of the game or the next commercial break and you’ve either lost the entire stream between those points, or seen a major score change, or outcome which totally ruins the game. This sucks for movies too. I can’t say if Starchoice is guilty of this but the other issue I had with Bell was the very expensive PVR that handles two TVs only actually sends HD to one of them, so you need to decide what TV will look like crap all of the time, unless you want to fork up for two of them, which is insane.
I’ll let you know what I think of Digital Cable when we have it, but I think it’ll be better than my previous satellite experiences. If it isn’t, than I don’t know what to tell you, because our two available satellite providers suck.
We’ll be paying 64.95 a month for all of the basic channels, plus every HD channel, and 5Mb cable internet for the first year. After the promo is over it would cost roughly $15.00 a month more, so ~$80 a month for cable and internet, which is what most people might pay for either satellite system on its own.
edit- This includes an “HD DVR” for two TVs, and Persona doesn’t nag at you for downloading ridiculous amounts of stuff, nor do they send out emails threatening you if you download movies, etc, like Telus does.
We have Star Choice which is now listing as Shaw. For the basics plus three specialty packages (we have the home and garden, sports and childrens) it costs 48.99. Of course you initially have to purchase the hardware. We never have had any issues except for the odd snowfall when we have to knock off the buildup of snow on the dish. This only happened once last winter. I have had zero problems in dealing with Star Choice, no billing issues either. Hope this helps.
I have digital cable and I am very happy with the service. The cost is about 30 dollars more than regular cable with the works but it is worth it. I used to have satellite and unlike abetterway I had nothing but problems every time the wind blew the signal disappeared. I think it matter what area of town you live in. Just my opinion.
i would probably get satellite because i order wrestling pay-per-views and it dosen’t work and when i try to call customer service theior not open!!!
We’ve been using StarChoice for ten years now, like the previous poster who uses it the only problems I’ve ever really had were because of wet, sticking snow. When we moved to the Island, we got the dish installed in an easy to reach spot and it’s been fine.
Yeah, I’ve also been a happy Star Choice, now Shaw customer, for at least 10 years. I’ve had no issues except wet sticking snow on occasion.
digital cable everything works great on and you dont have an ugly dish on your house and worry about your neighbor kids knocking out the signal or snow knocking it out
Are you a member? Send me an invite, please.
Otherwise it was a useless post.
We pay around $90 a month for Starchoice/Shaw.
Plenty of Movie channels with NOTHING WORTH WATCHING. You can watch “You’ve Got Mail” and “Independence Day” every single day if you want to.
DISC is split over two different packages
We got a digital HD receiver to discover they’ve split half the digital channels into separate packages.
We have hundreds of channels, and haven’t watched more than 1/2 an hour all day since May. We rent as many DVDs as ever.
Going back to our 14 channels of over the air free tv.
$65 for cable sounds like a no brainer.
They do the same thing on cable. There might be 3 or 4 channels that I watch at most. All on different packages. It’s on purpose.
I’m hoping for the day when the CRTC finally comes down on the side of the consumer and “instructs” the cable/sat companies to allow us to “pick and pay” for only the channels we really want.
They can make us take a certain quantity of Canadian channels if they wish, but really these tiers are a pain in the butt, out of the six or seven channels per package I find I watch two maybe three and even then many of those at less than a frequent basis.
As for the sat/cable debate, been a subscribert to Star Choice for a few years now, at least four I think, and have never had a problem with the machinery or the service.
They have always been helpful and quick when I’ve had a question or wanted to switch some of my “extra” channels.
If your home is able to pick up the satelite signals (some aren’t down on the west side close to the mountains) Star Choice, now shaw direct would be a safe choice to make…
I have cable without the movie channels and as I watch the TV info. scroll by, I realize there isn’t anything that I would have bothered to watch. Glad I didn’t subscribe. They do run the same movies though repeatedly, Sleepless in Seattle, Independence Day etc.on various channels. Hard to live without my faves though, 15,16 ,17 and during CFL season, glad to have 29…Go Ti-Cats, go Ti-Cats…
Probably people more deserving of an invite then you.
I am actually moving into this area of town, I wonder if the satellite would even work there?!? Be kinda pointless to purchase one and not be able to use it properly, does it never work in that area??
Thanks everyone else for your input, it really did help a lot. I am just trying to decide what it is I want to do. I am leaning toward satellite but now am a little worried about it not working on the West side of town.
I live on the west side of town near Pineridge school. My dish with Shaw works just fine. 
Oh I wouldn’t worry too much, there’s only a few gaps in town, just check with Teddys downtown on Fulton, they can tell you if you’re in one of the unlucky spots.
Just bought a PVR from Shaw, should get here in a week or two…heh-heh, looking forward to retiring the VCR. 
That’s one of the things on my “gadgets to get” list, they seem like quite a helpful little invention eh… 