DirecTV vs Dish network when used with gbpvr

[bogyver]

Hello All
I have been planing to move to satellite service to get access to more hd programing as the local cable co's offering is a joke.

I am planing to get one of the HD-PVR's to record hd from the box, so I am looking for peoples opinions on using directv or dish with gbpvr.

Also how are people changing channels, I would assume ir blasting but I have no experience with that. I know that you can use serial changing on the directv box and that seemed like it would be more reliable so if any one could also comment on how reliable ir blasting is for them with dish.

Please feel free to leave your opinion about said services.

[sgilani]

IR Blaster is reliable and works well, so don't worry about that. Just pick whichever service has the channels you want at the price you want.

[tvd4d]

I've yet to get mine setup but based off the info I could get off forums, IR blaster is reliable. Serial control via the USB port on the STB is reliable but a lot of STB does not enable the USB port to start with.

I'm sure you're aware that satellite signal are encrypted and you will require one STB per channel. So to record on one channel and watch another channel 'live', you need two STB boxes.

I've read either from some forum or website that signal from Direct TV is definitely encrypted but DishNetwork might still transmit their signal unencrypted. I did not look much into that since I already have Direct TV. Might want to dig deeper into it.

[bogyver]

Thanks for the replies, I think I have a good idea of how I am going to handle this, with dish network there are ways to feed your signal into your computer thought a dvb-s card and be able to decrypt the signal but this isnt the place for that kind of talk.
For the time being I am going to stick with one stb because me and the wife have figured out at the moment we only record one thing at a time from the cable at the moment. I guess I don't really need the pvr 150 I have in the machine.