Direct TV or Dish Network? Need help deciding.

[Logic n' Reason]

Good points all....I'm thinking it depends a lot on exactly where one lives...the terrain...and who the local cable provider is.

Truthfully (with a deep bow to Murphy's Law), both offer very good service. Outages are usually of short duration. However, they always seem to happen when you're in the middle of a show you really want to watch...or a warning you need to hear!

[Colee1]

I found a great site that may be of interest to you if you’re still shopping for a provider. It matches up several of the biggest TV providers including DISH Network and Direct and compares them all from pricing to channel selection. Besttvforme.com has confirmed my reasoning for sticking with my employee account with DISH and I hope it will help you to choose the best TV provider for you.

[John W]

Wrong on both counts. If your experience was that it was unreliable your installation was faulty.

[John W]

Aren’t all utilities that way? If you are late enough that it gets turned off, should they turn you back on for free?

[John W]

Not true about picture quality, HD and receivers. Total BS.

[Yosemitest]

No.
Directv quotes you a rate, and delivers that rate.
And, ... if you're late with the payment, Directv will let you go until the 15th of the next month, until they cut your service off.
They'll hit you with a late fee, but Directv is much more honorable.
Directv doesn't hit you with a turn-on fee. They're glad to have your business.

[tomkat]

Usenet

[Professional]

Truly, the question of our time...

[Mad Dawgg]

Get a good Internet Connection then Go to radio Shack and buy yourself a nice Big Standard TV antenna (not a special "digital" one) and put it on the tallest antenna base you can afford to install (try and get above any near by trees and houses.

An Antenna and a nice tall tri-sided tower will cost you around 300-400 bucks (maybe more depending on your local cost of living) for all the coax cable and mounting brackets needed. But then you don't have any more costs for Network Broadcast HDTV.

Use your Internet connection for all the other things you like to watch. Netflix is a good choice because they tend to have all the popular Cable series available. Also most of the Networks Host their popular series on their own websites which are usually shown in HDTV (though usually not as good as the HDTV picture you get from an Antenna.) Also there are dozens of sites that Host Older TV shows on the Internet. Hulu is one and there are many others. And Of course don't forget youtube. There is hours of fun available on that site.

[John W]

Never discovered how Dish Network would handle that in all the years I’ve been with them because I pay on time.

[Colee1]

I found a great site that may be of interest to you if you’re still shopping for a provider. It matches up several of the biggest TV providers including DISH Network and Direct and compares them all from pricing to channel selection. Besttvforme.com has confirmed my reasoning for sticking with my employee account with DISH and I hope it helps you pick the right one for you.

[30Moves]

Thanks, I’ll try it.

[bmwcyle]

How much do you pay a month for your service and what service do you have?

[joe fonebone]

got 400 channels, plus showtime, dsl internet, and cellphone for me, wifie and 1 kid....3 boxes with a dvr all for about 200 a month ( most of this is cell phone usage ) you gotta talk to them, they have many packages

[bmwcyle]

How many smart phones do you have on your plan? I have 3 and soon to have 4.

[joe fonebone]

2..... I refuse to get it, hell I hate just having a cell phone as it is....

[Brytani]

We’ve had Directv for over 10 years now and absolutely love it. Currently we have a whole house HD-DVR (records, pauses and slows live shows) in the living room and HD in our bedrooms, computer room, etc. The lr unit controls the entire house, it’s wireless, allows me to watch recorded programs in any room and/or set a show to tape in which ever room we wish. To go with our DVR we also have a RCA BlueRay player that allows us to stream movies, shows, even our pictures from out computer directly to the television. Our direct is hooked up to our wireless broadband for access.

We’re also sports fans and get Sunday Ticket (NFL), MLB etc packages.

Living in South Florida we obviously have a lot of storms year round. A few years ago we had hurricane Rita go over us and didn’t lose the dish even once. Other times a small rain shower will knock it out for a few minutes. That’s the biggest problem with satellite services and it won’t matter which company you go through.

We have never had a single problem with DirecTv’s customer service or support. If our DVR breaks, which has happened, they have a new one to us within a day or so. Installation is handled by a third party but even there we’ve never had problems.

My parents have Dish and comparing our services to theirs, we get more channels, better support and less cost for equipment then they do. Out monthly bill is less although both of us have their top of the line channel line up, all in HD.

I had back surgery a few months ago and have been wheelchair bound since, I’m watching more television then ever because of this. Directv has a great picture, good programming, excellent customer service and we love it. For us, even if Dish or a cable company was running a special, it would not be worth getting rid of our current services.

Hope this helps.