The Best Premium Movie Channel
By anniepa
@anniepa (27955)
United States
March 6, 2009 11:07pm CST
For those of you who do or have ever subscribed to any of the premium movie channels such as HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, The Movie Channel, Starz or Encore, which one would you say is the best if you had to choose just one? Also, if you get any of these channels currently do you get just one of each or do you have multiple choices? For example, I get 9 HBO's and several of all of the others I get. I was getting just HBO for quite awhile and I couldn't believe I'd ever "survived" with just one...lol. Then, my cable company ran a special for the other movie channels plus I now have my cable, internet and telephone all on one bill so I'm saving quite a bit there, so I decided to splurge and I'm now getting them all except for Cinemax. There's no particular reason I skipped that one, it just wasn't included in the specials and since they don't have any original series I like I just didn't bother with it. Anyway, now I've got so many movies recorded on my DVR and so many set to record, plus many more coming up that I want to record I don't know how I'll ever watch them all!
Yet, there are still those times when there's nothing on I feel like watching...go figure...lol! Do you have any favorite and do you still sometimes find there's just nothing worth watching?
Annie
2 people like this
7 responses
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
7 Mar 09
We get The Movie Channel, HBO, Encore, plus Starz. I would love to get Starz, but we cannot afford it, and it does have the newest ones on. We do not get the Showtime movie channel but we do get the regular Showtime up here, but do not like it that much. We do pay almost $200, and get almost the whole package, but we have two computers, and we have high definition. Mind you, I wish we could just get rid of some of the channels and just have them in high definition, but they will not allow that.
And since we live in Canada, there are some channels we do not get, like TNT and the U.S.A. network for instance.
1 person likes this
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
28 Mar 09
We got The Closer for a while on our Mystery cable, then they decided to put mainly movies that I call "Women in Danger" that for some reason are either based in Seattle, Vancouver, or Toronto (I had no idea that Seattle is now part of Canada 
) plus the usual documentaries about Canadian RCMP going after vicious criminals, some British shows, and some half hour crime shows. There was another show from the States I liked that we no longer get.
I have not seen In Plain Sight. But I did love the USA network that we used to get on our Big Dish, more so then TNT. There is another channel that my husband was to get, that THIS channel that they are just talking about on Fox. It is supposed to show old Tv movies and movies that were made before the actors became famous (you know the kind that they do not want anyone to see because they are so embarrassed. )
) plus the usual documentaries about Canadian RCMP going after vicious criminals, some British shows, and some half hour crime shows. There was another show from the States I liked that we no longer get.
I have not seen In Plain Sight. But I did love the USA network that we used to get on our Big Dish, more so then TNT. There is another channel that my husband was to get, that THIS channel that they are just talking about on Fox. It is supposed to show old Tv movies and movies that were made before the actors became famous (you know the kind that they do not want anyone to see because they are so embarrassed. )1 person likes this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
27 Mar 09
We pay about the same as you but I don't have high definition. I have cable internet and telephone service so I only pay one bill for those 3 items. I've wondered if you got all or most of the same channels in Canada as we get here. I've gotten the impression you get the major networks (ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC) but I didn't realize you didn't get channels like USA and TNT. I watch both of those a lot, mostly for their original series like The Closer and In Plain Sight. I think you're right about Starz having the newest movies. I've only had that for a short time so I'm not positive but it seems that way, plus I like the different categories of movies.
Annie
1 person likes this
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
• United States
7 Mar 09
I haven't had premium channels in ages. Actually I haven't paid for cable in probably over 2 years. We had it at one point, with a bunch of pay channels, and the DVR and all sorts of other stuff. Then we couldn't afford our bill so it got shut off, but oddly enough, it wasn't completely shut off. For 2 years or so we still had pay channels on our TV, but we weren't paying for it. We even had HBO. That was the only premium channel we had so far as I know, but I rarely ever watched it, because there really wasn't ever anything on. What I do miss about having cable was that they had "on demand" channels. Like since we subscribed to HBO, we had an HBO on demand channel, where we could choose any movie HBO was showing and watch it anytime we wanted. I got a lot of use out of those in demand channels.
1 person likes this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
27 Mar 09
I'm not sure if can get HBO On Demand or not. They always say after I watch some shows that it's available at any time but I'm not sure how to get it. That's really no big deal since I have the DVR and can record stuff and watch whenever I want.
Annie
@katsmeow1213 (28717)
• United States
27 Mar 09
It's on a particular channel. Just go to that channel, pick the movie, and play anytime you want. I had the DVR at the time too, but that was always full because hubby and I recorded a ton of shows!! The on demand movie channels were great for keeping the kids occupied when there was nothing better for them to do.
@sarahruthbeth22 (43143)
• United States
29 Mar 09
Once upon a time my mom got cable for us, The year 1981. We got HBo and Showtime. HBo had the pG ans G movies I liked but Showtime showed the rasier R films. Then came Cinimax. At that time, cinemax seemed to play more of the films I have been waiting ti to come to cable. And they would air older movies. Then we got digital cable and with it came EEncore. and all its channels. they play great movies but they only have a good handful and they play them over and over. Since it is a cheaper package, I now have HbO, Showtime and Starz.Starz play maybe one or two films I wanted to see , but usually I don't see any of their films. From time of the time I miss cinemax. Which One channel? I would choose Showtime. It has some good movies and they have the Tudors. But then again, HBO has In Treatment.Funny that is is the series that I would miss and not the movies. 20 years ago, there were so many films I wanted to see that I had a list. I would try to see them in the theater but if I didn't, I would wait for them to come on Hbo or Showtime. These days I am lucky if there are two films I want to see a year. So all the new films on HbO and Showtime are the films I didn't want to see in the first place.
@skyblue (1299)
• India
7 Mar 09
According to me , the best movie channel is "BINDAS".Its a indian channel.I like the channel very much.The channel just not serve only indian movie in this channel, they also broadcast english, japanise, rusian and many other movie.They convert english or any other movie in hindi.I enjoy this channel.When ever i have time to watch movie, i switch on the tv to watch bindas movie channel.
Thank you..
1 person likes this
@arcidy (5005)
• United States
7 Mar 09
Well Personally I think Starz is the best premium movie channel. It has all the new movies faster then anyother channel and it has more of a choice of movie and the movies are better. So if you want it just for movies I would say starz even though hbo is probally 2nd best.
1 person likes this
@iriscot (1289)
• United States
7 Mar 09
Years ago I was in the electronics business and we sold and installed the large dish satellite receiver systems. There was anothe movie channel back in those days named "Spotlight" you probably never heard of it. We no longer subscribe to the movie channels, we pick and choose our movies using Netflix. I used to believe that "The Movie Channel" had the best selection of movies, the rest of them simply ran the same movies over and over. By the way, when the satellite receiver business first started up the movie channels were free. Later you could buy a subscription of at least 7 channels of your choice for about $50 a year. Things sure have changed.
1 person likes this
@acematthews71 (1084)
• India
7 Mar 09
my favourite movie channel is hbo it shows some awesome & cool movies & also axn is a very nice movie channel . moreoever i miss animax channel as i am fond of watchimg daily cartoons - the anoimated series from japan.
