DON'T get DISH if You Like Regional Sports Programming

[flyover]

I've been with Dish for about 5 months now after being a long time DTV customer. I have to say, I'm horribly disappointed in the regional sports coverage (or lack of it). The splitting of the regional sports channels into SD and HD and the remapping and duplication of channels makes setting up a recording of a game almost impossible. Not to mention that any FSMW programming that I want to watch that DISH doesn't want to spend the bandwidth to broadcast in HD I have to watch in SD. Then, last night I'm watching the Missouri - Baylor game and it's running past the allotted time of 09:30 PM. So at 09:30 PM it's suddenly switched to the Oregon - Washington game. With 5 minutes left in the MU/BU game. WTFH?! I'm sure that any poor souls stuck with DISH in Oregon and Washington appreciated that, but the BU and MU fans sure didn't I'm sure. I'm going to check and see what my options are & may wind up paying their criminal charge to get out of the contract. I thought I researched DISH well enough before the switch but I had no idea of the insane mess that is sports programming on DISH. I'll keep expressing my displeasure on these boards also, so others can have good information if they're considering switching.

 

[R0ss]

I've been with Dish for about 5 months now after being a long time DTV customer. I have to say, I'm horribly disappointed in the regional sports coverage (or lack of it). The splitting of the regional sports channels into SD and HD and the remapping and duplication of channels makes setting up a recording of a game almost impossible. Not to mention that any FSMW programming that I want to watch that DISH doesn't want to spend the bandwidth to broadcast in HD I have to watch in SD. Then, last night I'm watching the Missouri - Baylor game and it's running past the allotted time of 09:30 PM. So at 09:30 PM it's suddenly switched to the Oregon - Washington game. With 5 minutes left in the MU/BU game. WTFH?! I'm sure that any poor souls stuck with DISH in Oregon and Washington appreciated that, but the BU and MU fans sure didn't I'm sure. I'm going to check and see what my options are & may wind up paying their criminal charge to get out of the contract. I thought I researched DISH well enough before the switch but I had no idea of the insane mess that is sports programming on DISH. I'll keep expressing my displeasure on these boards also, so others can have good information if they're considering switching.

Dish is not a sports oriented provider. Direct is. If you had found this forum before youswitched you would have found that out.
Some of the sports issues are beyond Dish's control ie blackouts, regional telecasts etc. I am big on baseball and a very casual watcher of everything else. Dish picked up MLN at the end of the season but hasn't yet provided an alternate channel. Lots of folks happy and upset at the same time ( regional blackoit with np alternate programming).
The RSN's r part time HD. In most DMA's the record of dish turning on the hd feed on time is good, I can understand your frustration of u set up recording and the hd is not turned on, but what took u so long to realize this?
I stay with dish because for my family it is the best value. Some things aren't perfect but we can live with it. We had COMCAST on two seperate occasions and they too had issues.

Ross

Sent from my rooted DROIDX (Liberty Gingerbread) using SatelliteGuys

 

[KAB]

Someone didn't do their homework.

 

[Rangers484]

I bought a Toyota Camry and I'm horribly disappointed I can't beat a Corvette in a race....

 

[flyover]

I knew I'd get replies like the above. But I do understand that discussion boards give otherwise unremarkable people the opportunity to feel superior if only for a few moments. I did my homework. If you 'd taken the time to see how long I've been a member you'd know that it's been longer than the 5 months I’ve had DISH and that‘s not counting the time I spent lurking before joining. While I read some complaints in these boards, nowhere did I read anything like what I posted. That's why I posted it. The mild complaints that I read on these boards about the regional sports programming don't adequately describe the abject mess that is DISH sports programming. While I don't want my car to outrace a Corvette, I at least want it to get out of the friggin driveway. As childish as they are, keep replying with like posts though, it keeps the thread active for others who might be doing their research and keep them from buying a Yugo.

 

[DodgerKing]

Everything you mentioned in your first post has been discussed here often. I am not even a Dish sub and I knew that Dish did not have a dedicated HD RSN channel for any particular region. I knew that the HD channels were part time. I knew it is difficult to set up timers for local sports in HD. I knew that other programs on your local RSN will not be in HD since it is game only. I also know that on occasion a game goes over the set time and the new game scheduled for that channel is then broadcast instead.

 

[Tampa8]

I got a chuckle out of you post for sure. This has been discussed here over and over again. A search would have found hundreds of posts about it. That is one of the differences between Dish and Direct. Guess what? There are also hundreds of posts of people who are pleased to have most every national channel in HD, and overall like the DVR's alot, or love the superstations, etc etc. So while to some what you are complaining about is a negative, to many others it's not an issue, for some actually a choice to get Dish instead. In fact you are going to encounter several posters who just like Dish to drop any expensive sports.

 

[kenskibum]

The Washington vs Oregon game last night wasn't even in HD here in Seattle which makes no sense.

 

[Bobby]

It was here in Northern California, on an alternate channel. Did you look in the 440s?

 

[DodgerKing]

For those that don't care about sports, Dish is probably the better option for them. More national HD channels and good equipment

 

[rogerpl]

Someone didn't do their homework.

I did a homework assignment with Cliff Notes once and that didnt work out well.

 

[Mr Tony]

Something doesnt sound right...

The 3 FSN games were UTEP/Rice, Missouri/Baylor and Oregon/Washington...all 3 games were on 444 in both SD & HD and one didnt start until the other one ended. That was the national feed from Fox Sports....I could have sworn I saw the Missouri game past 9:30 Central time (I was waiting for the Oregon game to start). Dish uses the 444 channel as the ONLY HD feed for the "national" FSN games like that. So the only difference between the game on 444 in HD and say 436 (FS North) is the logo and commercials.

Timers for the HD feed should be set as 0 early. Although starting 1 minute early I havent seen any issues with the recording of games. I've recorded a few MN Wild games on the HD channel and all worked fine.

One thing I wish Dish would do on the HD channels is to do the guide properly.
Example:The WIld game starts at 7...pregame is 6:30
On the SD channel it says 6:30 Pregame 7:00 game
HD channel shows 6:30 the game starts

No biggie but some folks may not want the pregame. Yesterday the extra Big10 game said it started at 9:30 when in fact the pregame was 9:30 and the game was 11:00


But I have to give Dish credit. On the alternate channels there were 4 games that I could see on Dish that Directv blacked me out of. (no sports package)
Maine/Towson
Idaho/San Jose St
Duke/Miami (another regional FSN broadcat)
Utah/Arizona

 

[dfergie]

I fell asleep watching the UNLV game ...

 

[Mr Tony]

I fell asleep watching the UNLV game ...

I was flipping between that and Hawaii and fell asleep too