Watching the Wings in HD, for sure a good thing!!!
The SD stretch-o-vision I had to deal with last night was almost un-watchable. The feed from Rogers sports net or wherever it was from was really dark to begin with.
Goodbye DISH.....Hello DirecTV.....
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The SD stretch-o-vision I had to deal with last night was almost un-watchable. The feed from Rogers sports net or wherever it was from was really dark to begin with.
Doogie,
There are some pros to the guide on the 722 and 622 in my opinion, but the pros for Direct outweigh them for me. As I said before, the picture quality and full-time RSN are biggies, and the MRV just blows anything Dish has away. With Graves Satellite, they offer the same national package you see on Direct's website, but were able to knock a little cost off of my extra receivers. I called to sign up last Tuesday, 10-12, and they had an opening to install on Friday morning, only 3 days later. I had previously called the DirecTV national number and they said it would most likely be at least a week before install. Grave's sent 2 guys that spent 4 hours at my house getting everything working, and service was top notch. My credit card was not even charged until a couple of days after the install!
Hello - I have been a Directv subscriber for ~10yrs. and have been thinking of switching to DISH. Mainly trying to cut short term costs through introductory offers etc. I called Directv last night to try in essence to re-sign up (currently not under contract with them) with one of the promo deals and upgrade my old HD20's and DVR etc. but they said no special offers are available for exsiting subscriber.
Anyway - Can you give me the 3 main pros/cons in making your decsion?
Thanks FF
I moved from Dish to Direct just last week.
#1 Dish's ongoing channel disputes - Fox interruption didn't affect me too much, but the loss of MSG meant I could not watch Sabres hockey games. THAT was a big deal
#2 Whole Home DVR - this is something my wife has been wanting for a couple of years now. We use our DVRs and this works well for how we use them.
#3 SAVINGS! - I'm saving about $400 my first year and after all promos are gone saving about $3 a month.
The only "con" for me was the actual change. Arranging an install and being there for it, reprogramming my universal remote for the new HR24s, rerouting some cabling in my AV area because the HR24s don't record OTA so I had to rethink how to set a couple of functions up..... stuff like that.
I couldn't believe how much better the HD looks on Direct. I figured satellite is satellite and any claims of there being a difference were probably subjective judgments on the part of the observer. The HD on Direct is noticeably better. Even my wife and kids commented on it with no prompting on my part.
Same thing at home. Everyone said the HD quality was better on Directv.
MRV is fantastic! To accomplish MRV with Dish Network, I had to use more cables, diplexers, splitters, etc and with Directv is just a one cable solution to each receiver. i have a box full of diplexers, splitters and jump cables after switching to Directv.
It's been hard to get used to the guide, remotes and other minor stuff because we've been with Dish Network for so many years. But, we now know that we will not lose a channel tomorrow, we're saving money and the picture quality for HD is better.
Some Pro's of Dish network I liked were:
1. Dish remote access. Being able to set timers and manage your DVR from the computer was a really nice feature. I believe DirecTV's online scheduling can only set timers. Not actually manage the recordings.
2. DVRs. The 722/622 I had were really easy to use. Picture-in-Picture was a really cool option. Navigating through it was very simple and fast. I can't comment on DirecTV because i've yet to use it.
3. Customer Service via online Chat. I don't like being on the phone so being able to get problems resolved while sitting at my computer watching TV was a big plus. I don't remember the last time I called Dish Network. Plus it was documented proof of when a CSR would promise something but another said they couldn't do it.
4. Owning equipment. Upgrading w/o contract is always a nice option. I don't like being locked into agreements. The only agreement I don't mind is one with Sprint since they take good care of me.
The cons of Dish Network are obviously the disputes and loss of channels. If this happens once in a blue moon...fine. But the fact that their rates have gone up while they have been losing big-time programming is just nonsense. How can you charge full price for Center Ice when you don't show as many HD games as you did the year before. They should be subsidizing this package heavily this year.
While I've been with Dish Network i've been generally happy. They provided great customer support, good programming, and great equipment. It is unfortunate they are having these issues with their carriage disputes. But i'm not going to stand by them anymore.
Maybe in a week after I have sampled DirecTV I can give a better comparison. I am excited to get my CI package in HD again and also excited to see the better PQ people talk about.
Here's my tidbit..
As a displaced Devils fan I needed to get Center Ice. After some serious consideration of what to do, I went with Dish, only because it would end up cheaper after the first year.. My install date was Oct 4. I knew about the Fox dispute, but nobody bothered to tell me that they were in a pissing match with MSG/Cablevision too. That meant I wasn't getting a single home feed, I had to watch the opponent feeds. Then there was the fat that of the 7 games I saw, only 2 were HD. When you're paying $175 for the games, having to watch your team on the opponent's channel in crappy SD is unacceptable.
I cancelled the service after 13 days. The rep gave me a schpeil about a $420 cancellation fee, to which I completely lost it (is it even legal to have an ETF with no 'bailout' period at the beginning? I know they can't do it on cell phones). After he got the service cancelled and reminded me that my credit card on file would be charged $420, I demanded he transfer me to someone higher up. I was transferred to someone in the executive offices, and after I explained (in as nice a voice as I could muster given how pissed off I was) that the only reason I subscribed was to get Center Ice, and no one had bothered to tell me that there were two separate contract disputes that directly sucked away all of the value the service had to me, he agreed to cancel the contract with no ETF, and he would put a credit on the account to offset the return labels.. I asked why they couldn't have just done that in the first place rather than getting me all pissed off, and he said there's only a few reasons they will cancel a contract without penalty, and this fell into one of those categories, but the CSRs can't do it.
So for the two short weeks I was a Dish subscriber, here are my observations..
They say there is no fee for the 'second' TV connected to a 722/222 as long as it is hooked to broadband. But they neglect to tell you that if you need a second 722/222 (for 4 TV's, or 2 with PIP), that the lease fee is double what the single TV receiver costs. So you're paying $14 a month extra regardless. And the second TV output is only SD. Yes TV2 out is an RF modulator, but you would think they could simply use an ATSC/QAM modulator to output the signal in HD.
Then there's the fact that if you use the 722 DVR to run two TV's, that it is pretty much impossible to actually USE the TV2 if you schedule a lot of DVR timers. The DVR does ask you which tuner to schedule a manual recording, but 'dishpass' recordings are assigned to the default tuner. That means if you are watching something when a timer activates, you have to either cancel the timer, or watch the timer program, or go to the other TV. There's no way to make it record off the inactive tuner once it's counting down on TV2. And if there's two shows scheduled, you're completely SOL because it ties up both TV's. It's a good idea on paper, but it sucks in practice unless you live alone.
I think the thing that irked me the most was what a disaster the program guide is. Seriously, why do they have to put 3-5 copies of each channel? And why would they think people want to see the SD copies of HD channels? Even on an SDTV, HD channels always look better. And there's no real rhyme or reason to what is where, especially once you get into the 4 digit channels. I had to go through and manually lock out more than half of the channels so it didn't take 18 minutes to get completely though the guide.
Now I've only had D* for a few days (this time). I had them for about 7 years way back when you had to have a separate subscription to USSB to get HBO, but dropped them in 2001 when digital cable came to our area. Things have changed slightly since then..
I will say so far I am impressed with the HD picture quality. I will also say it appears to be better than Dish.. SD isn't that bad, but then again SD always looks worse on an HDTV. Most of the channels I watch have HD, but there are a few that dont, like TruTV, Cooking channel, and GSN are the main ones, and the lack of HD on the movie channels is pretty glaring. But I'm sure that'll eventually be done. I only have movie channels because they are free right now, so it doesn't bother me. Netflix streaming pretty much fulfills my movie needs.
I also LOVE the whole house DVR. It seems to work flawlessly despite the 'one remote feed at a time' limitation. I will be getting a second DVR to fix that and double my space. The only thing I'm not thrilled about is that it doesn't work with SD receivers. Wasn't sold to me that way, but those TV's are going to be upgraded to HD soon anyway.
The On Demand is fantastic. As long as you have a reasonably fast broadband connection, you shouldn't have buffer issues. Mine worked ok on 1.5Mbps, but unless I gave it a 5 minute head start before I started watching, it would pause to buffer several times. Upping my service to 3Mbps solved that, so consider that the baseline you should have. What it does is 'record' your program to the DVR, then it can be accessed through the whole house as if it was a regular recording. Keep in mind, On Demand channels ONLY show up on the DVR tuner.
And then of course there's Center Ice, done the RIGHT way. The MSG feed in HD.. I seriously can't believe you pay the same price for the package no matter what provider you have, and there is such a disparity in what is offered for the same price among the cable/DBS companies. That's just not right. The NHL should start cracking skulls and tell them that if they want to carry the package, everyone has to carry every televised game, in HD if it is available. DirecTV is definitely the best for sports. :up
As a displaced Devils fan I needed to get Center Ice. After some serious consideration of what to do, I went with Dish, only because it would end up cheaper after the first year.. My install date was Oct 4. I knew about the Fox dispute, but nobody bothered to tell me that they were in a pissing match with MSG/Cablevision too. That meant I wasn't getting a single home feed, I had to watch the opponent feeds. Then there was the fat that of the 7 games I saw, only 2 were HD. When you're paying $175 for the games, having to watch your team on the opponent's channel in crappy SD is unacceptable.
I cancelled the service after 13 days. The rep gave me a schpeil about a $420 cancellation fee, to which I completely lost it (is it even legal to have an ETF with no 'bailout' period at the beginning? I know they can't do it on cell phones). After he got the service cancelled and reminded me that my credit card on file would be charged $420, I demanded he transfer me to someone higher up. I was transferred to someone in the executive offices, and after I explained (in as nice a voice as I could muster given how pissed off I was) that the only reason I subscribed was to get Center Ice, and no one had bothered to tell me that there were two separate contract disputes that directly sucked away all of the value the service had to me, he agreed to cancel the contract with no ETF, and he would put a credit on the account to offset the return labels.. I asked why they couldn't have just done that in the first place rather than getting me all pissed off, and he said there's only a few reasons they will cancel a contract without penalty, and this fell into one of those categories, but the CSRs can't do it.
So for the two short weeks I was a Dish subscriber, here are my observations..
They say there is no fee for the 'second' TV connected to a 722/222 as long as it is hooked to broadband. But they neglect to tell you that if you need a second 722/222 (for 4 TV's, or 2 with PIP), that the lease fee is double what the single TV receiver costs. So you're paying $14 a month extra regardless. And the second TV output is only SD. Yes TV2 out is an RF modulator, but you would think they could simply use an ATSC/QAM modulator to output the signal in HD.
Then there's the fact that if you use the 722 DVR to run two TV's, that it is pretty much impossible to actually USE the TV2 if you schedule a lot of DVR timers. The DVR does ask you which tuner to schedule a manual recording, but 'dishpass' recordings are assigned to the default tuner. That means if you are watching something when a timer activates, you have to either cancel the timer, or watch the timer program, or go to the other TV. There's no way to make it record off the inactive tuner once it's counting down on TV2. And if there's two shows scheduled, you're completely SOL because it ties up both TV's. It's a good idea on paper, but it sucks in practice unless you live alone.
I think the thing that irked me the most was what a disaster the program guide is. Seriously, why do they have to put 3-5 copies of each channel? And why would they think people want to see the SD copies of HD channels? Even on an SDTV, HD channels always look better. And there's no real rhyme or reason to what is where, especially once you get into the 4 digit channels. I had to go through and manually lock out more than half of the channels so it didn't take 18 minutes to get completely though the guide.
Now I've only had D* for a few days (this time). I had them for about 7 years way back when you had to have a separate subscription to USSB to get HBO, but dropped them in 2001 when digital cable came to our area. Things have changed slightly since then..
I will say so far I am impressed with the HD picture quality. I will also say it appears to be better than Dish.. SD isn't that bad, but then again SD always looks worse on an HDTV. Most of the channels I watch have HD, but there are a few that dont, like TruTV, Cooking channel, and GSN are the main ones, and the lack of HD on the movie channels is pretty glaring. But I'm sure that'll eventually be done. I only have movie channels because they are free right now, so it doesn't bother me. Netflix streaming pretty much fulfills my movie needs.
I also LOVE the whole house DVR. It seems to work flawlessly despite the 'one remote feed at a time' limitation. I will be getting a second DVR to fix that and double my space. The only thing I'm not thrilled about is that it doesn't work with SD receivers. Wasn't sold to me that way, but those TV's are going to be upgraded to HD soon anyway.
The On Demand is fantastic. As long as you have a reasonably fast broadband connection, you shouldn't have buffer issues. Mine worked ok on 1.5Mbps, but unless I gave it a 5 minute head start before I started watching, it would pause to buffer several times. Upping my service to 3Mbps solved that, so consider that the baseline you should have. What it does is 'record' your program to the DVR, then it can be accessed through the whole house as if it was a regular recording. Keep in mind, On Demand channels ONLY show up on the DVR tuner.
And then of course there's Center Ice, done the RIGHT way.
The MSG feed in HD.. I seriously can't believe you pay the same price for the package no matter what provider you have, and there is such a disparity in what is offered for the same price among the cable/DBS companies. That's just not right. The NHL should start cracking skulls and tell them that if they want to carry the package, everyone has to carry every televised game, in HD if it is available. DirecTV is definitely the best for sports. :up
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I don't disagree with most of what you wrote but I wanted to correct this. Dish has a menu option to show only the HD version of the channels - that's how I set my 622. In fact, it works the same way on DirecTV. You have to choose the menu option to only show the HD version of the channels. FYI.
JerseyMatt,
Welcome to DirecTV. As another Devils fan, you picked the right provider.
The best way to get the info on the providers (ie Dish = no MSG, no YES, inferior CI, no MLB, no ST), is from the info on this forum.
This is how I've gotten some great info during the past coupe of years.
Anyone that has sports as their primary programming interestst, Dish can't compete.
Dish does lead with the HD nat'l feeds and some extra movie selections but for me, they provide enough non-sports HD content for me to stay with them for now.
Welcome to DirecTV. As another Devils fan, you picked the right provider.
The best way to get the info on the providers (ie Dish = no MSG, no YES, inferior CI, no MLB, no ST), is from the info on this forum.
This is how I've gotten some great info during the past coupe of years.
Anyone that has sports as their primary programming interestst, Dish can't compete.
Dish does lead with the HD nat'l feeds and some extra movie selections but for me, they provide enough non-sports HD content for me to stay with them for now.
I searched through the menus for an option like that on the Dish boxes, but I couldn't find one. There were only a couple things I could do to the guide, change ascending or descending channel order, and change the style of the guide. I found the option right away on D*, and it was enabled by default. Dunno.. Moot point now.. Doesen't change the fact that the guide is a friggin mess.
Thanks! Sucks we're off to a rocky start, but I see things turning around.. After watching Boston wiping the ice with them, then getting the shutout in Montreal, it was like watching two completely different teams.. JohnnyMac must've ripped them all at least two new ***holes during that off stretch!
Watching the Wings in HD, for sure a good thing!!!
Yes it is.......right up there with watching Michigan State in HD
Yes sir. He left a few hours ago.
Showed up with a 2 HR24s and 2 H24s. I unpacked and set up all the receivers at their appropriate TVs while he mounted the dish. He hooked the switch up and we were in business. Everything worked perfect. Only problem is DirecTV sent him the wrong DECA. They sent him one that would go behind a receiver instead of the one that connects to the switch. So he is sending me one via UPS since he felt I would be able to hook it up no problem.
I used a local retailer who was an older gentleman that runs his business. He was very nice, very detailed, and did a great job. He did a great job explaining all the features and showed me how to set up the whole room DVR. He works in Northern Virginia and the surrounding areas so if anyone in this area looking for a local installer, PM me and I'll pass along his info.
First impressions is DirecTV has come a long way.
The equipment is very small/sleek looking.
The menus/guide seem to be very fast and easy to navigate.
The Dish receivers are prettier in some parts and DirecTV's in other.
Picture looks clean but it'll be a little while before I can determine if it is actually better than Dish's.
The single line technology, the Whole Home DVR technology, and internet over coax is really cool. Keeps the amount of wires/diplexers down.
The sports score pop-up thing kicks ass. I can't wait to check out the widgets.
Quick-Tune is cool too.
Some things I liked on Dish better:
The swap/pip feature is a lot better than DirecTVs "Double Down". Dish's was a lot faster to swap. Not a huge deal but something I noticed.
The external drive on Dish was a better concept I think. Being able to move shows back/forth is better than what DirecTV uses. But again...not a huge deal
GF is not real thrilled with losing Style HD and DIY HD. Hopefully D* hooks that up soon.
Off to watch my Red Wings in beautiful HD!!!!!
Yes it is.......right up there with watching Michigan State in HD
Had to miss that game today while the installer was here. Glad to see they pulled it out. What a season.
I searched through the menus for an option like that on the Dish boxes, but I couldn't find one. There were only a couple things I could do to the guide, change ascending or descending channel order, and change the style of the guide. I found the option right away on D*, and it was enabled by default. Dunno.. Moot point now.. Doesen't change the fact that the guide is a friggin mess.
There is an option to hide SD dupes...I think its under HDTV...I know on the R22 there is an option but mine is greyed out (SD only and the R22 can be used for HD too if you have an additional HD reciever on the account)
You know, my installer told me the same thing. I wanted him to install the power injector and DECA at the switch, and he said he couldn't do it, they had to be at the receiver. I said fine, do it how you have to (I hate having a rats nest of extra stuff plugged into a cascade of power strips behind my entertainment center), then 5 minutes after he left, I changed the way I wanted it because I saw absolutely no reason it wouldn't work. I just plugged the power injector and DECA into their own ports on the switch (power has to go to port 1) and it works just fine.
Same here ! Goodbye Dish. Tired of losing channels and not getting any e-mails answered and being lied to about getting my local ABC. Had to wait 12yrs for what we have now. Sure will be nice to watch my ABC with Directv. So everyone in the Beckley/Bluefield WV Dma looks like you are going to wait forever to get the ABC. Show Dish you don't have to wait and switch to the # 1 DIRECTV. Install will be Monday the 25th and I can't wait.
The one they sent him didn't have the power adapter for the DECA. So he knew something was up
My D* install went great today. Two HR24's and MRV setup. The installer went above and beyond doing the install during a really hard cold rain. The installer did not want to use the old wiring so I helped him run new RG6. Two runs to the main HR24 and one to the second. The old was kinked in numerous spots and just in bad condition.
We are loving the HR24's. So much faster than the old HR22's. Bye E*!
We are loving the HR24's. So much faster than the old HR22's. Bye E*!
Ordering this week and hopefully will have the installation ASAP so we can finally dump E****. For me sports is what is driving this whole change over. Losing the RSN's was the last straw!
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