This Couch Potato Blasts Into Space : Home Tech: Our reviewer boldly goes where 3,000 a day are going--DirecTV--and learns that everything comes with a price.

It came from outer space, and the advertisements were simply too enticing to ignore for anyone who has ever strung together the words “home entertainment system.”

Within the last year, a company called DirecTV launched two gleaming satellites into orbit. Their sole purpose: to beam as many as 150 crystal-clear TV channels directly into the homes of monthly subscribers who buy a set-top receiver and an unobtrusive satellite dish the size of a large pizza.

The Digital Satellite System--trademarked DSS--became available nationwide Oct. 28 and is now selling at a rate of 3,000 a day. DirecTV aims to reach 10 million subscribers--one-tenth of all TV households--in the next five years.

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A few years ago, I had dropped a bundle on a big-screen projection TV, only to learn that as my favorite programs were blown up in size, so were the annoying imperfections of my cable TV delivery. For anyone who ever wondered whether it has snowed in Los Angeles--it has, at least in my living room.

I could think of nothing better than to mold in my couch for a few weeks while testing DirecTV, with its dizzying array of 45 cable channels, 14 premium movie channels, 60 pay-per-view movie channels and assorted sports packages offering virtually any pro basketball and pro and NCAA football game, anywhere in the country.

For this review, DirecTV provided the system. For those who want it permanently, the 18-inch satellite dish, set-top receiver and remote control, manufactured by RCA, costs $699, before tax, plus $199 for installation.

For someone like myself who has invested heavily in home entertainment equipment through the years--including Monstro, the mocking, monolithic TV set in our living room--the price tag seemed equitable. But when the installer arrived, my wife, Lisa, called me at work with a bombshell: DirecTV does not receive local programming, including network affiliates.

That’s because if DirecTV were to carry every individual TV station from roughly 240 markets across the country, it would require more than 1,000 channels. (Viewers who live in areas without broadcast reception can receive network feeds for ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and PBS for $3.95 but only at East Coast times.)

So DirecTV subscribers in Los Angeles who want to receive local channels must either continue paying for basic cable or try something novel--stick a TV antenna on the roof. I remember my dad climbing on the roof when I was a kid and fiddling with the TV antenna to get the reception just so, while my mom yelled up to him from inside the house. I found it ironic that, in an age when satellite transmissions from space can be received in the home, such quaint measures might be called for once again.

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Living in the Hollywood Hills, we chose an elaborate antenna that would make a moose proud, for about $150. So much for the unobtrusive selling point of DirecTV.

When I arrived home that night, I turned on the TV set, and the world magically came into focus. Because the DSS signal is broken down into binary bits of digital information, bounced off the satellite and then faithfully reassembled inside the RCA set-top receiver, Monstro finally spit out a perfect picture. The sound, as pumped through my stereo surround-sound receiver, was pristine.

While flipping around, my first impression was that TV has never been presented in a more thoughtful, organized, user-friendly manner. The RCA remote control calls up an on-screen grid, similar to what you see in published TV guides. You want specifics? Check movies on the grid using the remote control, and a list of all movies currently playing emerges. Clicking on individual movie titles produces a brief written summary of each one. Click again, and the movie appears. You can search for a variety of sports, specials or series in the same fashion.

Channel grazing, meanwhile, has been raised to a new level. Every time you flip, a bar briefly flashes, listing the channel and the name of the program, along with when it begins and ends and the time of day. Two clicks will call up a synopsis. The function buttons on the RCA remote are well laid out and easy to use.

I fell into an electronic delirium that first night, as I lazily rode a slipstream of programming into the early morning hours. Unfortunately, in the following weeks, some slight turbulence arose on my river to oblivion.

As handy as the on-screen program guide is, it doesn’t work for local programming. You’ll still need TV listings. Broadcast network affiliates and independent TV stations account for more than 70% of the total viewing audience across America. So if your viewing habits are like those of most Americans, you won’t be enjoying DSS’ amazing picture and sound quality the majority of the time.

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Perhaps the most important concept to grasp when considering buying is that everything on DirecTV comes with a price. The basic package costs $29.95 a month, which covers 40 cable channels--many of which, such as ESPN2, the Sci-Fi Channel, the Talk Channel and Court TV, cannot be found on most cable systems.

We also had access to 60 pay-per-view movie channels, although we had to pop for each selection, usually $2.99 apiece. A modem in the set-top receiver records your choices and mysteriously calls up DirecTV once a month in the middle of the night (kind of a scary thought) to report your selections, which appear on your monthly bill.

New movies generally hit DirecTV about 30 days after they are released on videocassette. We have not once trudged to the video store--where we usually waste 45 minutes selecting one movie--since having DirecTV. Of course, you don’t have the luxury of stopping and starting--or falling asleep--as you do with a video.

Even without buying many pay-per-view movies, we found that our diet of older movies was actually enriched. The basic package includes seven commercial-free movie channels from Encore that are multiplexed according to theme, such as love stories, Westerns and action. For additional charges, premium movie packages are available, beginning at $10.95 for eight channels of programming.

A personal irritation is that the basic $29.95 package does not include a handful of channels that are basic on most cable systems and that I like to watch: MTV, VH1/Nick at Nite and Comedy Central. For those services, plus Lifetime and the All News Channel, tack $7.95 onto your basic fee.

Everything listed above, including all 14 premium movie channels, will set you back $64.90 a month.

And we haven’t even gotten to the best DirecTV has to offer. Around Thanksgiving, subscribers could get the remainder of the National Football League season, more than 50 games, for $49.95. However, local Raider games were still blacked out in Los Angeles, per NFL regulations, if the game was not a sellout. DirecTV also inked a deal with the National Basketball Assn. to offer more than 400 games this season for $149. Baseball and hockey packages are in the offing, assuming there are seasons. And the Golf Channel will be added this month for $6.95 a month.

Sadly, with the holidays sucking down our earnings faster than mulled wine, we could afford to sample none of these things.

One of the nicest surprises, however, came with the basic package. There are 28 channels of digital audio music--sort of a CD-quality radio station without the commercials--with themes as diverse as eclectic rock, contemporary country, hip-hop and classical.

With a third satellite going up this year, DirecTV is planning for the future. In the back of the set-top receivers, there’s a data port built in that will allow DirecTV to add information services, if it chooses, and dump data directly into personal computers. The company has already licensed Sony to manufacture its own DSS decoder box, which will hit the marketplace as a competitor to RCA later this year, and possibly drive down the overall cost to consumers.

We haven’t decided whether to keep DirecTV. The system is fun to use, and the basic monthly fee--provided you have an antenna--is competitive with cable while offering beautiful sound and pictures and lots of pay-per-view goodies. But there’s a considerable start-up investment involved. And we do want our MTV, without paying $7.95 a month for it.

The most pleasant revelation of all? The broadcast reception on our TV antenna is considerably better than what I grew accustomed to with cable through the years--and it’s free. On clear days, it’s not far off from the DSS picture. Of course, on windy or rainy days, I have had to climb on the roof while my wife shouts instructions to me. Oddly, that has proved to be the most entertaining activity of all.