Posted on 05/31/2011 5:06:16 AM PDT by 30Moves
I am new to Television - have only had cable for 2 years and the price keeps inching up. I want to change to satellite TV and I keep getting the ads for both Direct TV and The Dish. I can't make heads nor tails of the offers and wanted to know if anyone could point me in the right direction? I am a techno-peasant so please be gentle with me. Thanks.
I have had DISH since 1996, except for a 5 year period where I lived on the south side of a steep valley and could not see the Satellites.
I have every channel DISH offers, including all the HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax, TMC, and it costs me $112/mo. Direct TV is a LOT more than that. Comcast is even more than DirectTV.
I signed up for automatic bill pay and as a result I have free HD for life (saves $5/mo).
I get all my local channels in that price too.
I have a DVR that serves TVs in 2 rooms, that records 30 hrs of HD programming (and I cant even fathom how much non-HD ... like 300 hrs). I can record in one room and watch in another.
To those who talk about DISH going out but Direct not ... thats BS. It is all in the skill of your installer. My house previous to this was in a gap in the mountains where I routinely got 70 mph winds, and I never lost signal because I created a wind break and bolted the dish to the house. My parents on the next mountain over lost signal every day because they installed with metal bands wrapped around thier chimney. Install it to be a permanent fixture and you will be fine.
I’m in St. George, Utah and if I get a big ice buildup, Katy bar the door! LOL I’m only 6 miles from the AZ border.
Thanks for the additional information; I’ll look into it!
Click this link, click ‘choose your antenna’, and enter your zip code: http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx
I live in a rural area near you and get 2 Kingsport stations each with 3 channels in HD (well, 2 of the channels are weather).
You’ll get more, free, with CC and HD.
Skip it. TV is a life-stealer.
Major problem is that despite all the channels there isn't all that much worth watching. If you are looking for movies and documentaries consider instead a Netfliks subscription with their new Internet streaming video option...buy a streaming video box for about $60 and $8 per month for unlimited videos.
TV pretty much sucks; just get high speed internet. Most of what you’ll want to watch is available on the Net or by way of Netflix. More and more, we listen to a.m. radio for sports.
Why fund the left? YouTube and NetFlix ($96/year) give you all you need. Television is a sewer, and, no, sports, the “History Channel”, etc. are not excuses for giving hundreds of dollars a year to our enemies.
No captions on streaming Netflix. We have Roku. I am just a bit hard-of-hearing (more like “hard-of-understanding”, especially if there is a foreign accent)and we get DVDs on our Netflix, as well as streaming, because the DVDs are mostly cc.
We have DSL through a landline, but they are electronic mobile phones. We have one hard-wired landline in the shop in case of power outages. Thee are glitches with streaming. If there is any DSL problem anywhere on the network, we lose the connection. It does come back, of course, and we can fast forward back to our place. It is annoying, but if we get heavy storms to the South, we lose sat TV, too.
We have had DirecTV for ten years. This month it went to $75 for the package that includes FNC and FB. We had already decided to cancel it, so the price rise just added to the problem. There is so little that we watch, it isn’t worth it. We are in hill country and an over-the-air antenna doesn’t always work out here. Our TV is not HD, so there is that problem, as well. We have a business package, so we can’t take advantage of the TV bundle, AFAIK.
I had a deaf worker who had hearing aids and she would always turn on the sat TV for music while she worked. She also insisted everyone just speak normally to her, as she could lip read. Not sure if she could lip read fast enough for TV or if she was missing the speech from off-camera actors.
You don’t get anything new or different on TV, in regard to politics. I usually have the same information they are putting out via the internet and I have it sooner than FNC. Breaking news is online. There are clips from all the interview programs on either the network sites or You Tube. I can get Beck or other shows without commercials via the internet, too.
You might want to look into whatever residential bundle your local ISP offers. I have seen ads that offer Internet and sat TV along with affordable rates. One landline is included.
I install both Dish Network and DirecTV. If it were my money, I would go with DirecTV. Hands down better equipment and they have much higher standards for your equipment to pass initial setup standards. Dish Network does not have such high standards. What this means is the tech who is going to install your satellite has much more training than the Dish Network guy. It also means your dish will be aligned properly and you will experience very little signal loss. I highly recommend going with HD service and that people get a DVR so you can watch what the heck you want to watch when you want to watch it. If you want to get a referral code, you can use the following number: 1-888-869-0616 Use Promo Code “26962” and this will get you a Visa check card for $100 and a friend a Visa Check Card for $100. If you do not know of anybody who has DirecTV, see if Jim (owner of Free Republic) has it and send the offer to him as a thank you. If you have any questions, feel free to send me a private reply.
can you explain what that is? I am a techie caveman
(woman)
Gave up Direct TV when mom died & the cost so I that I couldn’t pay. HUGE penalty ...like about all of contract that they just put on my debit account
I have an antenna but do not even get two of the local stations.(channel 8 & 19) It is a good antenna & I am NOT in boonies.. midway between Cleveland & Akron
I have tried reselecting channels. Wondering if running a wire from the antenna out to roof would help
I’ve had cable, Dish Network and DirecTV. I’m with DirecTV now and not looking back at the others.
I went to satellite in order to bring a dish and TV to our football tailgates. Shifted that setup to HD last year. Left Dish for DirecTV many years ago when I learned that DirecTV had TIVO built into their DVR box. Thats a non-issue now as they all have pretty good DVR software on par with or better than Tivo.
I have very few issues with signal loss. The storm has to be pretty bad to interrupt the signal. But the advice of the previous poster to get a cheap digital antenna sounds like a really good idea. I will have to look into that here.
You're still funding the left with Netflix.
Dish Network is not sports friendly and their HD is downrezzed. Directv has much better picture quality, receivers, interface, all the sports access you could want, etc.
Directv by a mile.
Check out my link in reply 44, it is very helpful.
Your antenna should do way better than that.
True, but to a very minor extent. Giving up cable for NF on average would defund the left to the tune of about $700 per year per subscriber in subscription fees. That is before advertising revenue is considered. In addition, NF gives you complete control over what you watch, which greatly reduces the power of the media elite.
Finally, telling people to go completely cold turkey is not likely to persuade them to give up their “TV habit”. NF is a surprisingly adequate substitute for the usual forms of video entertainment. We only spend $60 a year on it (a limited subscription), but it is all we really want.
yes, I have checked out your link.. it is interesting. I should be getting both CBS & Fox which I am NOT getting. I turned the antenna in 4 different directions and did the channel scan & lost some of the other channels (funny they are mexican ones) but did not pick up the others.
I have another antenna .. a RCA that I will try. the other one was from the store where we got both the Vizio TV & BluRay were purchased in Feb. Brand is Antennas Direct.
A friend of mine told me after I signed with Direct TV, to play Dish off of Direct TV after my Contract was over. He switches providers ever 2-3 yrs and so far he has not had to worry about price hikes
This is the best:
http://www.glc.us.com/site/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=105&product_id=874
No monthly fees,great price, great programing!
I tried the extra RCA & also tried the RCA from the vizio in the other room
that TV also does NOT get Fox or CBS
no change. The one RCA was the same & the other one much worse
I still have the dish on the roof. wondering if somehow I can utilize that for some reception
OR try the antenna outside?
I am not a techie person & just learn as I go
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