Who has Dish Network or DirecTV?
 

I have simply lost all patience with Cox. Their Internet reliability has been horrendous and the cable tv ain't great either, especially for the $115 per month, which is soon to increase. Lo and behold, I got a flyer on the front door today for Dish and Direct. I can't figure out what each includes for how much with equipment charges, bundling and all that. But I'm pretty sure I could get everything I need for less than I'm paying Cox. Who has what service and how do you like it for the money?

I had both in the past, and I preferred Direct TV. Better programming, better boxes/remotes, better pricing. Both suck when it rains or snows, but that's the nature of Ku-band satellite communications for residential TV.

Have DirectTV. It's okay. Personally I think it's a flamin' rip-off and I'd love to pitch it, but the wife likes having it.

The Tivo is the best part, honestly. Pay-per-view and all that nonsense I never use.

Even if it went totally out in rain or snow, where I live that would be less frequent than Cox goes out in nice weather.

Another happy Coxucker Cable customer? Unless you need NFL Sunday Ticket get Dish. Bellsouth 6mb DSL fixes the inet problem. The sooner you do it the happier you'll be. Much better picture. Will go out in a rain storm but it has to be pretty bad. Great tuners, great menus, dvr is the best.

I have Directv and Hughsnet (internet). I like them both but they aren't giving the service away. Some thoughts:

- DirectTv has the best variety of HDTV channels, the picture is insane and a real joy. Their DVR is great as well. The only time the system fails is during embedded T-storms, and then only for the duration of the storm.

- Hughsnet is expensive but very reliable. We connected the service to a wireless modem, which gives use good broadband access on all computers.


Some options I'd look at for internet would be Verison wireless broadband. I bought a months worth ($59.00 for 5 GB) to experiment with and I have been very satisfied. I plan on keeping the Verizon set-up for my apartment in Roslynn rather than cable.

Good luck:)

I have dish network and friends have direct,

IMO it is a toss up, check both out and see which one has the channels and features you want most and go with that.

DVR (Tivo) is the best invention since lesbians. :D

I was paying $160 a month for cable TV and Internet. I switched to Direct TV after my Cable company posted my check wrong and for the 1st time in 10 years I owed them money due to their error.

They turned off my service and sent a collection agent to my door. I brew a rod and canceled them. I really did not like their collection agent coming in my house when my 4.5 year old opened up the door to see who rang the bell and my wife was in the shower. (We have been working on him with this)

Then another agent came to my house and never knocked on the door just proceeded into the backyard to make sure we were not stealing their signal. The dish was already in place and in plain view from the front of the house.

NEVER with I go back to cable TV.

Yes, your signal goes out during severe storms, but come right back as soon as it lightens up. In Florida, after a hurricane passes and your cable is out for weeks on end your satellite is right back up as soon as the storm passes.

The price is more competitive and the HDTV stuff is great.

I switched to telephone company internet light for $12 a month, its a little slow from time to time but no worse than my cable internet that I was paying top dollar for.

Dish for me,
tired of the cable dance..terrible service..
resident terrorist (SAM) has eaten 4 remotes..replaced ASAP(no charges)
weather..if the Dish goes out..cable has been out longer.
not sure if true..Tech. said most cable Co's get their programing of Sat's. anyway.

Rika

Used to have cable. Told them to go pack sand, but not in a nice way.
I've had dish network for a couple of years and have no intention of changing.
My only regret is that it took me too long to dump cable and get dish network.

I got tired of my cable acting up 10 years ago and have been with Dish ever since. I now have 4 receivers spread out in 3 homes and pay a total of $78/mo and that includes my Ti-vo rental.

I have one home where it rains a lot and 2 where it snows a lot. I rarely lose a signal. On my cabin, the dish is mounted on a pole for my deck, so the overhang of the deck keeps the snow off.

I got rabbit ears. it was a 1 time $15.00 investment.

Good luck with that next February.

Actually rabbit ears work great for most OTA HD signals on my Sony Bravia with built-in tuner. All HD tvs produced today have a built in tuner.

P.S. Rick, if you go with Directv, can I be your referral? We get $50 off our next bill.

I'm completely OTA via rabbit ears, which means I get to watch REAL UNCOMPRESSED HD, unlike the Satellite providers...

Large city will give you 5-10 HD channels for free. Why pay for television? That's as silly as paying for the radio (oh...wait...lots of people do that too...)

Oh yeah. I get good digital HD reception. I get about 20 channels, the new digital seems to come in better actually.

How else do you get CNN, Fox, HBO, History, A&E, Military, etc.? Do you live in a city that gives you those for free? Since I don't watch network tv, I have to pay. I must be one of those people.

Funny thing is I live in Los Angeles where most of network TV is produced but by a odd quirk of nature I live out on the coast where a thousand foot hill blocks me from all their antennas.

For me... there is a God.

Started out with cable and switched to Dish Network when I couldn't take the poor reception and idiot customer service anymore. I've since switched to DirecTV from Dish mainly because they have a better DVR (at least at the time, don't know what Dish DVR is like now). Like others have said, the only problem with sat. reception is during very heavy storms.

Very timely thread.

Comcast is raising rates Yet Again here and the service certainly doesn't keep up with the rates.

I'm thinking Dish since they have the best combo of things that I watch and things I want to watch (mostly foreign language). Direct would be an improvement over comcast, but direct is heavy on sports (not interested unless it's auto/air races).

The only thing I've heard here that might be a negative is the rain outages. I find it hard to believe that the rain could be worse than comcast's outages, but just how heavy does precip have to be in order to create signal problems? The other question is how easy is it to record from Dish's DVR to a separate DVD recorder?

Rick,
I had DirecTV for 2 years and hated it and their deceptive billing schemes! I now have AT&T UVerse and it's much better.

Another happy Directv subscriber for about a decade. They have been pretty generous by providing free HDTivo's(3) and other free packages over the years. Every service is getting expensive, so the perks are nice.

I would talk to Dish and Direct. See who offers the most for the least. Commit to a couple years if you can get a sweet deal. Once you sign on, you lose most of that leverage. From all the reports I've read, I would recommend satellite internet only as a last resort.

Verizon has my home phone and my DSL. Verizon offered "Triple Freedom Discount" which essentially lets them charge me for Directv/DSL/Home on one bill. This saves me $330 a year over paying separately. So there are deals out there if you look for them.

If you need a Directv referral acct number to get the free $50. Let me know.

If you go with a dish make sure they offer what you watch. A few years back I went with Dish Network HD. Their DVR is the bomb. Best menus and performance. Downside was they did not offer local SD programming (LA was as local as they got) and ZERO Padres coverage. I guess the Padres signed a cable exclusive = no satellite option. Even with the full MLB package. I'm now back with Time Warner cable, have their 6 MP/S internet, no complaints.

BTW, what's up with the foreign channels? Why are they so expensive? It's something like $25-$35 a month for Chinese or German channels. I'd like to get that, but it kinda saps any savings.

I watch absolutely zero network tv, so I don't need anything local. Well, I guess I watch Seinfeld reruns sometimes, but it's probably cheaper to buy all the seasons on DVD than pay extra every month for its channel.

I forget my monthly bill I'll have to look it up. I upgraded to get Speed so I can watch F1, then I chose to get HBO (at the time Soprano's was on and now I am hooked on Entourage) and I get Showtime (for Dexter) and I think my bill is in the $80 range. A far cry from $160 for cable. Add in my internet fee and I am saving over $60 a month.

BTW - with the rain outage, it has to be a frog choker to interfere with the dish. A dreary rainy day will not affect it.

I have Direct TV.

Works great. Only drops during severe weather. Very rare. A fews minutes a year.


KT

Just got my Cox bill today and it's $120 and soon to go up. I look forward to cancelling them. They suck!

I had Direct TV for 9 years and absolutely loved it. When we moved to our new house, Time Warner was advertising the "Triple Play", which was Cable TV with DVR, High Speed Cable Modem internet and VOIP phone line (only needed for alarm) for $99 per month. That is an incredible price, but their cable TV and DVR absolutely SUCKS!! It is terrible! 200 series channels go off air randomly, the DVR (we exchanged HD boxes at least 6 times) needs to be rebooted (10 minute ordeal) at least once a week...I mean terrible.

Recently, I begged my wife to check into Direct TV again for TV. We could keep Roadrunner cable modem from TW for about $50. From what she said, you have to buy (or lease?) the HD DVR's from Direct TV and they are something like $199 each??? Does that sound right? We have three HD DVR's from Time Warner and I think they are $5 per month? I really want Direct TV back, but I am having a hard time seeing how they are even CLOSE in price anymore. Is this correct?

JA

sucks. worthless when it's raining and no on demand. You have to catch the movie when they play it... more holes in the house too. DirecTV from comcast cable.

Adding extra rooms is a PITA too.

DirecTV all the way - you pay for it but its the best.
I have had the NFL package for 8 years now. The most HD channels.

They now have on demand and a lot of it is free.

Something else I just found out is that you can schedule your DVR remotly via the internet. I think thats pretty cool.

Call them yourself and tell them you're switching from cable to DBS and trying to decide between Dish and Directv. I was fortunate to be considered a beta tester for their newest HD DVR and I got few free. Isn't the lease rate just $5 mo. which is actually the charge for any receiver?

If you were with them for that long, then you probably already know if you don't like the answer you got from one customer rep, just say thanks anyway, then call back and talk to a different one. Eventually you'll get what you want. ;)

The rain thing must be how the dish is tilted. I've never lost a picture for more than a 3 minutes and that happened maybe twice.

Thanks Terry...I think I'll try that.

Thanks Terry.

Are the HD boxes themselves "free" from DirectTV if you sign up for the Tivo service for $5? That is the way Time Warner works, and that is a good deal. My wife thought the guy from DirectTV told her that the Tivo service was $5, but then you have to buy the HD box...$99 for the first one, and then $199 for each additional HD box? That is a deal breaker for me...


JA

I couldn't say what the actually boxes are sold or leased for. I have seen them are all over eBay. Guess I figured they'd be happy to give you a few to get a long term commitment.

It's 4.99 per receiver and 5.99 for DVR service. So for 3 dvr's that would be about $21 a month + programming. I would talk to customer service and work out a good deal with free stuff programming/equipment.

Directv offered lifetime DVR service several years ago. I paid the $200 and no more DVR service fees ever. The lifetime is no longer offered unfortunately.

PS... if you do sign up, pm me for my acct number first and we both make $50. :)

Everything was free with Dish. Plus the boxes are dual tuner which is convenient, especially with dvr. On demand is meaningless with a dvr.

If you're leaning toward Directv, call Dish first and see what deal they will give you. Then take that info to Directv to match or better it.

Someone please PM me their account # and I'll use it tomorrow when I order. I don't know which service I'm getting, but I don't think I can strike up a good deal and then tell them I'll call them back once I've gotten someone's acct. #.

DirecTV for about 8 years.

It's so good I really don't think about it.

Reminds me of a now old saying/analogy about computers and the internet: "It's time to stop talking about the projector and start watching the movie", or something like that . . .

I've had DirecTV for probably 10 years and HD/DVR for the last few w/ no issues. I pull in HDTV OTA via an antenna (best pic without question) behind my entertainment center, and am thinking about putting an antenna in my attic to pull in HDTV from Raleigh & Charlotte too and dropping DirecTV. I don't watch that much TV, and can't really justify the approx. $60 per month although I do like the service. I wouldn't go back to cable if they paid me every month...