Goodbye Charlie... (OFFICIAL I am Leaving DISH Thread)
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Congats on your move to Comcast! The softness of Dish Network’s picture quality has always bothered me. I’ve never paid attention to HD, but when I switched to DirecTV from Dish Network, it was like I got a new TV, not a new programming provider. Much better color saturation on DirecTV. Granted this was SD and it was back in 2004, but my uncle still has Dish Network and when I go over there and watch TV, Dish’s washed-out look still bugs me. DirecTV has better color saturation, but was more compressed, Dish Network had poor color saturation but was less compressed. Again this is my observation from SD only and back in 2004. When I switched from DirecTV to TWC in 2006, there was no comparison, SD with TW blew DirecTV away. I cannot comment on HD as I’ve never done an A/B comparison on my TV with HD.
My goodbye to Dish is complete. I went to DirecTV. It took 3 days and 3 techs to get it right (apparently due to a hidden band stop in the line in the wall they were using from my Dish Setup), but in anycase, I now have a whole home DVR with 3 TVs connected to HD programming as compared to my lone 622. The additional box cost me $117 upfront, and I pay $45/month for the first 10 months (referral discount). I get fewer channels over all (Went from Top 250HD w/Platinum) to Choice Xtra, but my bill with Dish was about $80 and I only had 1 HD TV, and 2 SD TVs (I split the 2nd Tuner to 2 rooms). So for half the cost for the 1st year, I have more rooms covered with HD. Plus, the HD quality of Dish Network versus DirecTV is night and day. The PQ on DirecTV is leaps and bounds better and really "pops."
I will say that the 622 was easier to use and more intuitive. There is a learning curve with the 24 series units, which have a lot of nice features. It is just learning how to use them. Now just need to teach the wife.
The one draw back is that the 2 non-DVR TVs cannot pause live TV unless you set the program to record and then watch it from the recording and not live. A few extra buttons presses, but more complicated than the wife likes. So far, other thant he disaster and confusion of the install, I am quite happy.
I will say that the 622 was easier to use and more intuitive. There is a learning curve with the 24 series units, which have a lot of nice features. It is just learning how to use them. Now just need to teach the wife.
The one draw back is that the 2 non-DVR TVs cannot pause live TV unless you set the program to record and then watch it from the recording and not live. A few extra buttons presses, but more complicated than the wife likes. So far, other thant he disaster and confusion of the install, I am quite happy.
Sorry for the late reply, but the limit of 2 at a time was fixed a long time ago. Am in a more limited area, but we can do 4 HD shows in house at once and record 3 HD at once. As usual, YMMV.
I find this reported PQ difference to be very strange to comprehend. I switched from "D" (HR20) 2 years ago and see no difference in PQ with my current 722. I visited two different friends in Indiana this summer. One has Comcast and the other has FIOS. I spent a great deal of time watching these providers on new major brand TV's. I actually calibrated both sets and am sure they were providing the best PQ possible. I could see no differences between FIOS, Comcast, and Dish from a PQ standpoint. I also compared OTA vs provider PQ and the differences were very very slight. All three providers were using meg4 compression. Just my impression FWIW.
Why is it every time someone changes services they always claim better picture quality? I think it's only better mentally, in their head, for a short while.
dish 3D
For those interested, I created a Facebook page called Dish Network 3D to get dish to offer 3D channels. Welcome to Facebook
For those interested, I created a Facebook page called Dish Network 3D to get dish to offer 3D channels. Welcome to Facebook
I've been doing A/B tests since I presently have both Dish and CC active on my setup right now. Both hooked up via HDMI outputting 1080i to my Panny 50" 850U. Dish is somewhat softer than Comcast on HD content, it's enough to make CC look like it has more POP.
SD channels like Nick JR looks considerably better on Comcast...but it has always looked like sh*t on dish IMHO and must be heavily compressed.
The i-guide on Comcast is *terrible*, i mean it's AWFUL. It feels like the old Dish 6000. It is just BAD..and it's SD. :-( I hope the next gen guide which has been in development since 2008 gets released soon. However, the $60 a month I'm saving over having my services separated makes this more than tolerable.
OnDemand has ended up being the unexpected hit. I *love* it and am able to cut about 60% of the shows I normally DVR in favor of just watching them VOD through OnDemand. It's one of those things I never knew I wanted until I had it.
I also have a number more stations that will be nice to have like Sprout...which my kiddo will like. It's also nice to have CBC and CTV again since so i can watch me some Curling!
So far so good. Dish gets the call on 11/18 when my commitment ends.
And on a side note...the digital voice is pretty slick. Some of the internet based tools are very cool.
SD channels like Nick JR looks considerably better on Comcast...but it has always looked like sh*t on dish IMHO and must be heavily compressed.
The i-guide on Comcast is *terrible*, i mean it's AWFUL. It feels like the old Dish 6000. It is just BAD..and it's SD. :-( I hope the next gen guide which has been in development since 2008 gets released soon. However, the $60 a month I'm saving over having my services separated makes this more than tolerable.
OnDemand has ended up being the unexpected hit. I *love* it and am able to cut about 60% of the shows I normally DVR in favor of just watching them VOD through OnDemand. It's one of those things I never knew I wanted until I had it.
I also have a number more stations that will be nice to have like Sprout...which my kiddo will like. It's also nice to have CBC and CTV again since so i can watch me some Curling!
So far so good. Dish gets the call on 11/18 when my commitment ends.
And on a side note...the digital voice is pretty slick. Some of the internet based tools are very cool.
For digital voice, does Comcast do Caller ID on PC and do they have visual voicemail? I never really knew there was a lot you could do to improve phone service, but Time Warner has launched a bunch of cool new online enhancements as part of their 'VoiceZone' feature. Hopefully Comcast and other cablecos do the same.
Comcast has caller ID on PC, caller ID push to their iPhone application, caller ID to the cable boxes (without a telephone wire), etc.
Visual voice mail, yep. And a iphone application to remotely see incoming, outgoing and missed calls...and check/listen to VM. And you can set up call forwarding to your iphone from the application. It's really slick.
The same application has you Comcast e-mail, dvr control (similar to the Dish app), look through OnDemand listings, etc. It's a nice little application.
Visual voice mail, yep. And a iphone application to remotely see incoming, outgoing and missed calls...and check/listen to VM. And you can set up call forwarding to your iphone from the application. It's really slick.
The same application has you Comcast e-mail, dvr control (similar to the Dish app), look through OnDemand listings, etc. It's a nice little application.
I had D* in 05-06. I then switched to cable for a year, and now have Dish. The Standard Def was better on D*, but I see no difference in the HD quality between the 3.
That's cool. We've had Caller ID on TV forever, Caller ID on PC was launched a few months ago using AIM. I don't have AIM installed on my computer, but I do have the app on my Android phone, kind of cool seeing the caller ID info on my cell phone from my home phone in real time. I hope Time Warner can come up with a decent app for both RemoteDVR and overall account management and allow you to do some interactive phone things like you can do with Comcast. Just tried searching for the Comcast app on the Android Market. Looks like they don't have one, too bad they're iPhone only right now, sounds like a killer app and limiting it to iPhone users only should be looked down upon.
Last July I had UVerse installed next to Dish. To me UV was a softer picture than Dish. Dish was the one that "popped". Canceled UV....
My wife dropped the 622 off at the Office Depot today since my Dish cancel. It was not yet noon and it was the 6th Dishnetwork box stacked behind the counter. The UPS Counter girl even asked what was going on. She said she had seen so many she wondered if they were going out of business. That cannot be good for the 4th quarter churn rate.
Yes... U-verse has terrible HD PQ IMO... Any time there's fast motion there's pixelization all over the place. I couldn't wait to switch back to DISH. Now that I have DISH, don't have any problems with HD.
U-verse to me looked more like an "HD" YouTube video.
Not sure if its a matter of location, the equipment in use by ATT where you are, your set or what, but currently have U-verse and the PQ is about the same or better than what I got with Diwrecked and so much better than what I got (and have seen on neighbor's sets since then) on Dish. Was watching ESPN on Dish last weekend and was so poor that the game was unwatchable, came home and watched same games on U-verse and was excellent PQ, although I realize there are others having problems with Dish and ESPN channels PQ http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-network-forum/233047-espn-picture-quality-worse-recently.html, so that may be an anomaly of only those channels at this time.
Oh, well, SIL went with Dish from Diwrecked to lower their monthly costs and it is definitely doing that, even after the promos run out.
Took the Dish receivers out of my rack yesterday. So far so good w/Comcast. Ends up their iPhone tools are pretty decent too, especially the new XfinityTV manager app. My only gripe is that the i-guide is ugly (albeit functional). PQ is definitely better, it was commented on by others in the household who didn't know which boxes I had set up at that time. In essence a double blind test.
Tomorrow Dish gets the cancel call.
Tomorrow Dish gets the cancel call.
Definitely not my set... I'm using the exact same hookup with DISH and there's a night-and-day difference. It's just fact that U-verse HD streams are 5.7Mbps MPEG4 versus DISH 8Mbps MPEG4. ESPN is one of the worst channels you can compare providers with... It's a general consensus that ESPN has bad PQ compared to every other channel. I remember trying to watch football on U-verse... Any time the football was passed it looked more like a brown square being thrown around, and the grass looked like it was "smudged" and was morphing every second or so... I used to browse AT&T's very-own user forum and there are TONS of people complaining about U-verse PQ... Around the DISH forums I go to, there are hardly any...
Made the call today to cancel Dish. They were very accommodating. I expected some heavy handed tactics to try to get me to stay, but didn't get it. They invited me back at anytime and told me I'd be getting a bill for 54 cents...plus the shipping on the 2 receivers I have to send back. They want me to send back the LNBF off my D1000.2 also, which surprised me, but whatever.
I have mixed feelings still as I was a dish customer for a 10.5 years. Maybe I'll be back on day
And with that I bid adieu to this part of the forums. Thanks for all the information over the years.
I have mixed feelings still as I was a dish customer for a 10.5 years. Maybe I'll be back on day
And with that I bid adieu to this part of the forums. Thanks for all the information over the years.
