I'm thinking of a xmas present to myself in the form of an OEM Sat system for my 2003.5 g35 sedan. It's prewired so I'm not worried about the install but I'm not really sure which service to go with. I live in the northeast and plan to mount the antenna on my rear deck (inside of the vehicle as other posters have done). Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated.

Thx<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small"><EM>Edited by jaz on 12/23/03 02:02 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

You'll hear a lot about who has more stations, less commercials, etc. etc. Both have their advantages- but after deciding most of those points were moot, I went another route in assessing the situation... Go look up XM and Sirius Satellite's financials and see who you'd be subsrcribing to. XM has been solid in the $20+ range for their shareholders, while Sirius has been floating around $2.50. I personally got XM because their larger subscriber base and solid operations are pretty much guarenteeing a future. Sirius was far ahead of XM in terms of their technology, but really fumbled the execution of the business. As a result of some big business flops, they may have to liquidate their subscriber base in the future, and I'm not too keen on owning proprietary equiptment for a defunct company. Sirius also currently has only 20% of the subscriber base of XM, and satellite maintenance fees aren't going down any time soon.

G

2003.5 Black w/ Willow G35
Premium / Sport / Aero / Winter / Navi / Tint

 

Yeah I went back and forth with the two. Sirius was, without question, a better choice for me.

Sirius has commercial free music. XM has some commercial free stations, but the stations I really wanted to listen to all had commercials. Strike one.

Sirius has a lifetime service option. Probably a bad choice for most of the people who buy a new car every ~3 years but I'm going to be keeping my G for a long time, and the lifetime service adds value to the car (OR, I may be able to move my tuner to a new Nissan vehicle if I stick with Nissan). Lifetime service was the best thing I ever purchased with my TiVo, it just keeps increasing in value instead of decreasing. I expect the same with Sirius as long as the company is still around. XM does not have this option. Strike two.

Sirus offers streaming internet radio. I listen to music at home a lot, so this is a huge feature for me. Strike three, XM is out.

XM has a stronger subscriber base, more land-based repeaters, better financials, etc, but I'm going to put my money where I get better value. Even XM customers should want Sirius around, it ensures that the two companies will compete to offer the best possible service. There are plenty of companies that have been in the dumps stock wise that are still around, and plenty of others that looked good but have disappeared. Naysayers were afraid TiVo would go up in smoke too, but it's still around, long after I've broke even on my lifetime service plan.

 

Lifetime Tivo subscription rocks... too bad they're cancelling the offer to new subscribers. We've got 4 Tivo boxes with limetime subs now, and I guarentee we've gotten our use out of them.

I just purchased a 3 year XM plan, as I never know what technology is around the corner (better receivers? new companies?), and who knows if I'll have the car after that [img]/w3timages/icons/crazy.gif[/img] I'd have preferred a lifetime plan if I had a delphi, etc. that was moveable.

As for Sirisu-- It's not just their stock price, it's their entire business in general; they're hemmoraging cash to maintain their satellites, and a possible sell to XM may be in the works. The naysayers were wrong about Tivo because it built up a huge, unforseeable base, meanwhile the others who decided to try and compete in the market with their own services (Microsoft, etc.) lost their market share and eventually, divisions. Tivo (the XM of the DVR world) is still around, while most of the DVR services that started out at the same time fell off the map.

As for the commercials-- I travelled across the country and heard maybe a dozen commercials, I believe. Listened to the "top 40" channels and Fox news.

What's up with the streaming internet radio? I've not heard of the feature... I just use my ISP connection and computer to connect, but I usually just listen to MP3s anyway. Does Sirius offer it through their site/software/etc?

G

2003.5 Black w/ Willow G35
Premium / Sport / Aero / Winter / Navi / Tint

 

Sirius balance sheet blows XM away.. .Their stock is at 2.50 becuase they converted mostly all of their debt into equity... XM owes GM over a half a BILLION dollars, Sirius is debt free with over a half a Billion dollas in CASH in the bank.

All of your info is misleading and not accurate.

Sirius has no commericals, the NFL, NBA, and NHL...

XM is just better radio, but it's still just radio with commercials...


Phil Petracca

 

I may be wrong, but Sirius only has $18M in cash and cash eq. right now, and XM has $9M. Hardly a huge disparity. Sirius had $685k in revenues in 2003 (versus XM's 9M), however common stock lost $166M (50%). Total net revenues for both were just about even (neither is profitable yet). XM's projected revenues out-class by over 10M next quarter (including cost of revenue). Sirius had -45M cash flow, as well, so I'd love to see where they plan to even the playing field with XM's +1M cash this quarter.

XM does NOT have half a billion in debt to GM. Their TOTAL long-term debt is $423M (Versus Sirius' $670M-- hardly "debt free"). They (XM) ALSO have over half a billion, ~510M, more in capital surplus, so... maybe I'm missing something (?).

G

2003.5 Black w/ Willow G35
Premium / Sport / Aero / Winter / Navi / Tint

 

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>

I travelled across the country and heard maybe a dozen commercials, I believe.

<hr></blockquote>Sure, and they only promise a max of X commercials per Y minutes of music. Well, if I'm driving 5 minutes down the road and I start on a commercial block, that's 5 too many minutes of commercials for a pay service, as far as I'm concerned.

If Sirius were to sell out to XM, I expect that there will be a migration path for customers.

Yes, they offer streams of their stations via the web.

 

Do you have commercials on cable? Even on "premium" channels, they tout their own and sister services.

I'm not a fan of getting commercials, either, but my tastes in music are luckily eclectic, so if one pops on, I just press "2" on the radio and switch stations til I feel like another song. For the news services, however, neither is commercial-free, which is annoying.

I checked out the Sirius on the web thing-- cool.

G

2003.5 Black w/ Willow G35
Premium / Sport / Aero / Winter / Navi / Tint<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small"><EM>Edited by geobau on 12/26/03 09:17 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

Do yourself a favor and visit Yahoo.com finance and educate yourself before you go quote a companies financials...

Your numbers are completely FALSE. Sirius has a half a BILLION dollars in CASH in the bank, XM has less than Half that amount...

The BIG problem with XM is the Debt, 773 MILLION dollars in debt, Sirius is virtually debt free.

Sirius market cap 2.35B, XM 3.63...

Both compaines IMO will servive, Sirius just has a MUCH better balance sheet and will surpass XM long term.

XM Commercials - Sirius NO Commercials
XM Same old radio music content - Sirius all original programming
XM has NO sports - Sirius has the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB

for $2.95 more a month I would take Sirius any day of the week.

Phil Petracca

 

Um, my numbers were the 2003 numbers FROM Yahoo! Financial. I'll image capture them here later.

G

2003.5 Black w/ Willow G35
Premium / Sport / Aero / Winter / Navi / Tint

 

A couple of comments. It appears that neither XM or Sirius is in any immediate threat of insolvency. If either did go belly up, I personally believe that the future of the technology is so compelling that the user base would have an option. Given the above, one should choose a service based on what you like to listen to.

For me personally, Sirius is the better because:
1. I can't stand ads, especially ones that repeat.
2. I am more interested in sports and entertainment, and Sirius seems much better for this.
3. Sirius seems to have more stimulating talk stuff, but I'm not sure about this.

I suppose XM has the same thing, but you can listen to many of the Sirius streams at Sirius.com.

Regarding installation, this is what I did:
For anyone interested in satelite with a G35. I just installed the factory unit (Grubbs for about $275) in a prewired G35 (March 2003 production). I was dubious about putting the antenna on the roof or trunk. I had read in the 6MT forum for G35 that someone had just put the antenna in the back window on a metal plate (to increase signal, I guess?). Any way, all I did was put velcro hooks on the bottom of the antenna and stick it to the back deck. It works great. Rarely do I loose the signal in South Carolina. I know that this approach will not work with tinted windows, however.

If you want to do this, just feed your antenna wires through the access available behind the reclining seats. Go out the side nearest the center. It's easy to feed through. In the installation I removed the following in this order from the trunk, floor pieces, the top/back panel (one piece, be careful), and the right hand side (the way I did it you can skip this piece and leave it in). The receiver unit fits behind the back panel, but it really doesn't fit there nicely. You can download instructions from several sites on how to do it, but they describe the much more difficult outside installations. My approach is much easier, and the antenna is invisible. I'm not sure though if it works every where else as it does in SC. If you have specific questions you can post them and I will respond by email.

 

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>

Do you have commercials on cable?

<hr></blockquote>Not on Music Choice. Nor do I have commercials on HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, etc. Commercials during a network television show aren't as bothersome as car radio, because I know I'm going to be watching for a full half hour or what have you. As previously noted, I may just get in the car and drive to the store. I don't want to listen to commercials the whole way. Simply put, "commercial free" is of big value to me. XM not having that in the formats I like is a big strike against them.

I'd also be willing to pay more for primetime television if it meant getting rid of commercials. I do the next best thing, I use a TiVo and skip them.

-- Rob

 

That's cool- everyone has their reasons for their choices. I was just wondering if anyone who argues the 'commercial' stance has listened extensively to both? It appears that's a heavy argument point, and I've got to say that a) MANY XM stations are commercial-free, b) The commercials are few and far between (at least on the stations I've listened to). If I paid $30/mo, I would expect no commercials (HBO, Cinemax), but even then you don't get back-to-back contet; you have to sit to up to 15 minutes of self-promotion in between media.
I was just riding in my friend Jay's car (A4- nice in the snow, btw) about an hour ago, and he has Sirius. When asked for pros/cons, he said his only problem was the "severe signal strength" reductions in inclimate weather (we're talking the mountains in winter). I'm guessing the ground repeaters help XM in that category a bit.

Lastly, it might be worth mentioning that I have both Sirius and XM-- XM in my G and Sirius in the FX (mother's choice). I prefer the content of XM, as they snagged the contracts with the music/TV stations before Sirius was on the market, and that's where my interests lie. I personally haven't experienced the signal probs with Sirius to the extent he has (only half a dozen times has it given me an error), so he may just have a poor antenna connection.

G

2003.5 Black w/ Willow G35
Premium / Sport / Aero / Winter / Navi / Tint

 

Ok, after reading this post I have decided to get SAT radio too. I have a couple comments and questions.

Comments: I just went to Best Buy and played around with both units. Putting the financial situation of both companies apart, I simply based my choice on the content that would best suite me. Both XM and Sirius have alot of stuff, but I like Dance music so I discovered that Sirius would best suite me. They have 5 solid Dance stations whereas XM offers about 3. I even listened to the music on the Sirius stations, and it's all good.

Q1: If I have a 04 coupe do I need to add a new unit (XM or Sirius) or is it already prewired. I read another post suggesting that If the last 6 digits of your VIN are after 321894 on the sedan or 210827 on the coupe, then your car is prewired. <--------Can anyone please verify this??

Q2: If the above is correct and the 04's are already prewired, what's next? Can I simply subscibe to the services or do I need additional parts?

Final Question: Does anyone w/ a Sirius install please give me some info on how they did the setup/install. You can PM me if you like. Thanx alot !


2004 Blk/Blk Coupe - Navi, Premium, K&N Typhoon CAI

 

If you have an '04, then you're prewired. I'm going to go ahead and guess you've got got the receiver/antenna hooked up, in which case you need to get the parts (www.grubbsinfiniti.com has them on sale). Just grab the receiver and antenna, and it's a simple install from there. If you're not comfortably with the install, you can get it done easily for under $50 at any local stereo shop/Best Buy/Circuit City. Since the install is so insanely simple, I'd actually trust BB or CC with it, as long as they knew that I'd cut off their gonads if they scratched my car.

The VIN # thing was accurate, til about 6 months ago when ~5 people on this board alone said "Um, no. I do/don't have it, and my VIN says I do/don't.", so the only 100% way to tell if you're prewired (other than trying to find the hookup) is if you have a sticker on the frame of your car that states that you are. Open the driver's side door and check the frame for a sticker.

Setup for Sirius is pretty simple. Call em or activate online, and you'll just need the # of your unit-- it's on the receiver, etc. After you order the service, it will acquire the channels and you're golden.

G

2003.5 Black w/ Willow G35
Premium / Sport / Aero / Winter / Navi / Tint