I hope you don’t feel insulted if I direct a ping your way. You seem to be very well informed on almost every subject, so maybe you can give me some advice here?
And why don’t analog aerials work anymore?
Just curious...
=8-)
We have DirecTV with absolutely no complaints.
On 2 occasions I called to see if they were going to have a special on Showtime and both times I was given a 3 month trial for free.
They have great customer service and do have excellent specials especially if you can bundle telephone and internet.
My mother-in-law has Dish and she used to enjoy watching QVC to do some shopping and she doesn’t have it on Dish anymore. She wanted it and was told she would have to pay for it each month. We have so many more channels she does for about the same price.
I’ve had DirecTV (medium price package) for nearly a year and have been very happy with it. I understand that Dish was not providing some of the sports channels for a while - don’t know what the problem was.
DirecTV has better Sports Packages, including 4 free in-car Channels for Nascar Sprint Cup races.
Apart from ever-increasing prices I have no complaints about DirecTV. I have only ever had one receiver fail since 1996 and it was replaced promptly.
However, DirecTV are apparently currently in some kind of dispute with the Fox parent company. According to ‘screen crawlers’ which ran on some stations over this past weekend, on November 1, 2011, we may lose Fox, FoxNews, Fox Sports, other Fox affiliates, Speed and several other channels.
I have received no official notice from DirecTV about this apparent dispute, but if they permanently drop the Speed Channel then I will be switching to something else in fairly short order. Televised Formula 1 car racing is the MAIN reason I even own a TV.
They probably both have advantages and disadvantages. We chose dish due to picking up local stations and hubby gets the HUNTING channel included in the basic plan.
I understand now that if I make any upgrades then I will have to pay extra for each “local” channel I now have included-WHAT A CROCK- anything to make money I guess.
I don’t watch much TV other than the British comedys for laughs on PBS. You may want to check into getting one of the new TV’s and work off of HD rabbit ears, that works great for me - I get local channels and PBS all FREE.
Dish : I don’t understand the losing channels thing ,, they all start with a base and build??? Dish has higher receiver fees which will really add up if you have 3 or more sets.. Dish has better porn ,,, Dish has worse customer service , local channels included
DTV : better sports (NFLpromo going on) , better receivers and lower receiver fees , I’m freepmailing you my account number so you can get $100 off ... local channels included
Antenna : FREE !! Your “analog” antenna works just fine ,, but you need TV’s with digital tuners. You will get the best HD from a good antenna , better than cable , better than satellite , they all compress the HD where with an antenna it’s 100%
Either one is more of a hassle than cable, but if cable isn't an option that doesn't matter.
By the time you get the same programming you had with cable, you'll be spending about the same price as cable. Getting the local channels used to be a problem in some areas, but I don't know if that's still true.
If you live in the snow belt, make sure you can reach the dish to brush off the snow. Otherwise, you might not get reception until spring!
What are you doing for Internet access? I hope you have DSL, because satellite-based Internet is terrible. If my only choice was satellite-based Internet or dialup, I would probably pick dialup.
Good luck!
Direct TV all the way. No one I know who has Dish is happy with their service, they keep cutting channels and raising prices.
For what it is worth - my brother has had both. He says Direct TV.
I’ve used both, and much prefer DirecTV. I think their guide is much better, and their customer support if better. Other than that, the pricing is pretty comparable for both.
I had DirecTV for several years. Customer service was polite, professional, and responsive. Signal quality was very good EXCEPT when the weather turned nasty. Heavy rain between your dish and the bird up there over the equator will disrupt the signal.
No experience with Dish.
Currently using an old “analog” antenna on top of my very own 30’ tower to receive digital signals from Washington, DC and Baltimordor.
Heavy rain interferes with that, too.
Can anybody tell me which has the faster Internet? I am sure they’re both fine for TV and telephone quality, but I want speed on Internet, so I can watch FR take f o r e v e r to load a page.
OTA HDTV (free) + Internet (HULU (free) + NETFLIX ($8/mo) + You Tube (free) is more choice than you’ll perhaps have free time to watch.
We are happy with dish. Ask any question you want. We have all the channels.
I had dish and it was fine. I think either would be ok except for heavy weather. Also espn and dish are fighting so if your a sports nut you might want to check the sports status of both
I’m just going to say one more thing about OTA transmission ... if you tried using a “regular” antenna when locals were simulcasting digital and analog and were dissatisfied then you need to look again ... especially if you were using one of those horrible digital to analog converter boxes .... when analog went away the signal for digital was bumped up in most cases ... I don’t have a good outdoor antenna right now but with a cheesy indoor set of rabbit ears I get really nice reception on the locals.
We went from Dish to DirecTV and are now back with Dish. Seems a little less pricey and my experience with the techie side has been good. Also, the two-TV DVR is a nice feature except when your children are recording two shows at a time, neither of which you give a rat’s rear about watching in real time. Then you gotta retreat to the inner sanctum and watch on the old TV.
Colonel, USAFR
I’ve had DirecTV for many years now and zero complaints. Signal is strong and consistent (even in clouds/bad weather), I get the locals, etc.
Paying around $90/month for expanded basic and three receivers.
Another poster above mentioned internet through the satellite companies. As far as I understand, you can’t get it through Dish/DirecTV. You would have to go HughesNet and get a seperate dish antenna for that. I inquired a few years ago and that’s what I was told.