Here's a good 1 (Dish sounds desperate)

[SS]

I have been a loyal E supporter since 96 with the everything package. I found this forum about a month ago and this site is fantastic. Well after reading all the posts here for the last month I made my decision to switch to D soon after the last chat. Charlie (God love him ) looks like a deer caught in the headlights. Well anyway my D gear arrived last Friday to be installed Monday. I called E Sunday night to cancel my programming that ended on the 31st. The CRS asked "why I was cancelling" and told her "I couldn't wait any longer on promises on HD recievers that still had lots of bugs and was switching to D". She asked "what it would take to remain with E" and I said "let me talk to someone who could make a deal". Before she hit the hold button I heard her say "here's another one". After about 2 minutes on hold a gentleman came on said he would send an 811 gratis if I stayed with E. I declined and wished him the best.

I was pleasantly surprised on the D equipment when it arrived. I recieved a NEW Samsung Ti160 and 2 80 gig Tivos for 369 installed with a 1 year commitment of 33 a month. have read some horror stories about the Samsung but after seeing the production date of 9/18/03 I was hoping the bugs were worked out of the new ones. It has been on for 30 hours straight now and haven't seen a glitch. Doesn't run hot like I've read but time will tell.

As far as which system has the better picture I can now make an informed opinion. My brother and I bought Identical Tv's in late October. (Hitachi 57 s500). My brother who has been with E almost as long as I have bought the 6000 with the module (the noise drives him nuts) and paid $275 to have a tech come in and tweak the Hitachi set. The picture was very good on the HD but so-so on the SD. He came over last night after work to check D out and was blown away . The HD and the SD were both superb. We then went back to his place while still fresh in our memory and we both agreed. He has the 811 ordered and hope it is a big improvement over the 6000. Good luck to all in making a choice. Just thought I'd put in my 2 cents

The only drawback is the lack of an RF remote.

 

[bradleys]

Both D* and E* have monthly churn of about 1.5 percent. That means that D* loses about 165000 subscribers per month, and E* about 135000.

These figures are based on 11M subscribers for D* and 9M subscribers for E*.

(I think I'm figuring the churn correctly. If not, I'm sure somebody will gently point that out.)

It's probable that the "here's another one" was on a transfer to some kind of "Retention Department". I think that's fairly common with most companies with a subscription basis.

I'm NOT saying that E* doesn't have problems. I'm irritated that I can't get a 921. Their financial results last month were certainly not good. As a stockholder of E*, I'm irritated about that, too.

It will be interesting to see the churn numbers in E*'s next 10-Q or 10-K report. If they're up from 1.5 percent, then that's a VERY good indicator of potential badness.

 

[video62]

SS, I made the jump too - just installed today. E* customer since '96, was really wanting to upgrade to a 522 from my Dishplayer and get my new locals. Well, my locals meant a SuperDish and I'd have to get new receivers because none of my old junk was SuperDish capable. I began to see sweet deals on DirecTivos and read up on Tivo functionality compared to 'ordinary' DVRs and so I made the switch. Locals were just $1 more instead of $6 from Dish. So net, after rebates and other stuff, it cost me $120 to get 2 DirecTivos (HDVR2s which I can upgrade myself later) and a vanilla receiver. DirectTV had nearly every channel I wanted in their 'Total Choice Plus" so I went with that. My monthly cost is now $12 less than with E* and I get everything on a single 'round' dish.

After reading about the crippled 522 at rollout (which was unavailable to everyone except new DHP subscribers) I'm glad I didn't wait for it.

I got connected to the 'last gasp deal' team as well - they tried to convince me to pay $5/month to keep the account 'warm' until I switched back to E*. No thanks. I told them how much I paid (net) for my two DirecTivos and 3rd receiver and they said they could not possibly match that kind of offer. I might still be an E* customer if the 522s had came out sooner, been available for purchase and not been crippled.

I'll admit that in my case it made sense to switch, but for others it might not. Cost wasn't the factor, but getting two Tivo-based DVRs for cheap was the main bait for me.

I'll be checking on E* again in 12 months to see if they can take care of me better than DirecTV.

 

[dmodemd]

After the last Charlie Chat, and losing a number of long time subscribers, and then delays in the receivers, it sounds like Charlie decided to bite the bullet and doa big giveaway with the 811.

I expect he will be touting this big time on Mondays Charlie Chat (which I should be watching on my spiffy new 811!)

 

[video62]

In my case I have no (current) interest in HDTV, so an 811 wouldn't have done much to keep me as a customer.

 

[Stargazer]

Eventually, both Dish Network and DirecTv will be losing more customers than they will be gaining and their total sub numbers will start dropping. So far they have added more customers than they have lost but if they would not have lost so many customers their gain would have shown up much much better.