SatelliteGuys Live Recap - Dish Retailer Chat 2/4/09

[tigerfan33]

What the hell does adding hd channls have to do with digital switch anyway???

 

[bebop]

Dunno what will happen to turbo but everyone that has the HD absolute will continue to keep it at the current price for the next 4 months.

What happens after the 4 months are up???

And did you see that Congress is trying to push back the digital transition date to June/May?

 

[yaz96]

Hey Rocky!
Now that you've moved, they're lighting up Grand Junction!!

 

[nothing0]

With all the HD bitching, we've gone six pages and nobody has asked about something that jumped out at me immediately:



First, what about Turbo customers who don't get a statement in the mail?

Second, does DDA 200 include DDA 250? I would think it would, since the 250 appears on my statement as an add-on pack rather than a base pack, but then this is Dish we're talking about -- they're impervious to logic.

Third, speaking of being impervious to logic, what happened to dropping the phone-home requirement for a single dual-tuner DVR? I thought it was supposed to happen this month. Did it NOT happen? Is is not GOING to happen? Or are they (and I wouldn't put this past them) offering an incentive to keep it connected anyway, even though there's no rational reason for it?

This is what I would've questioned them about, had I had access to the chat. HD additions? Haven't we learned to not even bother trying to get info out of Dish about that?

By the way, I have a $3 credit on my account, but the last time I looked there was no explanation there for it, it just shows up in the balance. But my 622 is still connected to the Internet, until I need the port in my ethernet switch for something else -- or find out that they never dropped the requirement.

i asked tech support about the phone line/broadband requirement. he said with dvr advantage the phone line was only required with every dual receiver after the first.

 

[DBS Commando]

Well, maybe you could reply back and tell the exec's that their employee's missed the memo about the TurboHD packages being included

Or tell them to fire the employee that's spreading false rumors that's making thousands of subs upset.

D* must love this forum with everyone we get to jump ship over here

 

[M Sparks]

What the hell does adding hd channls have to do with digital switch anyway???

Absolutely nothing.

And did you see that Congress is trying to push back the digital transition date to June/May?

They DID push it back, and that won't mean a thing either.

The transition date was the date that stations would be FORCED to turn off their analog signals. Not the date they had to leave them on until.

Years ago, when the date was set, it was a hardship on TV stations. They had to invest in new digital equipment. But they've already done that. A lot of stations still haven't converted their news studios to HD, and some digital channels don't broadcast in HD at all. But the transmitters are up and running.

More importantly, the budgets are already set for the year. And those budgets don't include powering and maintaining two separate transmitters past February 17th.

Most stations will go ahead and turn analog off as planned. Many already have, and the entire state of Hawaii went digital weeks ago.

This bill is typical Washington smoke and mirrors. When the analog stations go dark, Congress can say "Hey, it wasn't us! Those evil station owners did it. Complain to them!"

This has been years and years coming. How will 4 months make a difference , anyway?

 

[jacmyoung]

If not for the lastest new additions, I would have been totally disappointed by this chat too, but then E* added FNCHD and FBNHD without ever mentioning them???

Can we ever trust anything anymore? Who cares where the sources? Even their own chats failed to tell us many things.

 

[Stargazer]

This is pathetic.... Dish announces the launch of 50+ markets for local HD and people can do nothing but bitch and complain.

This is the sign of the times. We are living in 2009 and had big news similar to this been announced 10 years ago it would be different. People are spoiled and used to having everything made available to them and is expected nowadays.

 

[Fitzie]

Just got my locals in HD today. That's 4 HD channels more than I had. With CI, FoxN-HD, and FBN-HD, that's a total of seven in 2 days. (Or maybe 3 days.) And I'm glad to have all 7. Waaaay glad! I was a little surprised how much better my locals looked in HD. Even a ballgame upconverted to HD looked much better. And I noticed Fox-HD will be carrying some NASCAR racing in the very, very near future!

 

[bkushner]

I just dont understand what they're doing.....if the sat is running and the contracts are signed, you'd figure they'd take steps to make the customer happy. I dont get it.

Well they have raised the rates right? So imagine the money they will make between now and spring by not having to light up those stations? Millions a month I'd venture to guess. Let's face it, with Dish it's charge as much as possible and offer as little as possible and in between is their profits.

 

[cardinalrooter]

DAVENPORT IOWA DMA HD LOCALS, WTF

Since late 2008 Dish said Davenport DMA HD Locals would be up, I see Peoria, Champaign, Rockford, but no Davenport, just an omission, a misspoke, or pure BS!!!!

 

[jhamps10]

I'm happy to pay the $5 for access to locals on two tuners with a full-guide for the DVR. I also use an OTA for a 3rd local tuner (currently the only one available in HD). The Guide service is worth the fee. Sure, locals are standard with DirecTV and cable (ie: included in base prices), but it's nice that Dish offers locals as an option for those customers like you that don't want to pay for local service and don't find value in the Guide.

Of course, many Dish subscribers live in areas where OTA antenna reception is poor or non-existent. My folks live around 30 miles from Evansville, IN. They techically could use a roof antenna to receive locals, but due to topography of the area (ie: hills between them and the city), they get virtually no reception with an antenna. It looks like they'll be waiting awhile for HD locals from Dish. I'd switch them to DirecTV (which added Evansville HD locals several months back), if not for Direct's crappy DVR software and Remote Control, and lack of two-room receivers which cuts down on 'per-box' fees.

30 miles from EVV and having trouble with reception...... that makes little sense unless that 30 miles is NE of evansville up towards the ridge areas... also on HD, most of the stations are STILL on low power with evansville, and with the house today delaying the DT conversion till june, that looks to remain the case since the ABC station's DT signal will take over the Fox affilate's SD channel number after the switch, and all that jazz, trust me it's confusing for sure. although really even at 30 miles unless you have a cheapy antenna there should not be any reception issues from the EVV stations.

 

[bebop]

This bill is typical Washington smoke and mirrors. When the analog stations go dark, Congress can say "Hey, it wasn't us! Those evil station owners did it. Complain to them!"

This has been years and years coming. How will 4 months make a difference , anyway?

I don't think it will make much difference - as I was bringing up the point to settle down tigerfan.

Again - thanks for the humorous comment earlier...

 

[Islandguy43]

This is pathetic.... Dish announces the launch of 50+ markets for local HD and people can do nothing but bitch and complain.

Big deal. In a matter of months, there will be no such thing as an analog local channel anyways. So they are doing us a favor by launching 50+ markets for HD, when basically they need to do it for themselves because cable is already giving it away for free.

The sad part of Dish's snail pace is that TWC is adding more and more channels and those double and triple plays are getting more and more appealing. E* better wake up soon, before they get auto industry like churn numbers. I am tired of having to keep broadcast cable so I can get my home town teams games in HD.

 

[angiecopus]

nice to see dayton ohio coming on the 18th. a few of the dayton stations are making the switch after feb 17th.

 

[Koilvr]

What the hell are you talking about?

What I meant by how popular the turbo packs are they want to see how many people sign up to the HD turbo paks only before adding it to them or adding any new HD. There are more people who have the classic or what ever there called paks, then the stand alone HD only Turbo paks or AbsoluteHD paks.

 

[Jim S.]

i asked tech support about the phone line/broadband requirement. he said with dvr advantage the phone line was only required with every dual receiver after the first.

I got a letter today about the price changes*. It didn't mention anything about needing the phone line connected to get the $3 credit, and it did say that the phone line requirement was waived for a single dual receiver. But why, then, did the retailer chat imply otherwise? Shouldn't they be informing the retailers of what's really going on so that they can properly inform the customers?

*Of course, the whole thing was phrased backwards. Instead of telling you what packages went up, it talked about what packages didn't go up, and just listed the prices for all the other packages with no mention of what the old price had been.

 

[Jim S.]

What I meant by how popular the turbo packs are they want to see how many people sign up to the HD turbo paks only before adding it to them or adding any new HD. There are more people who have the classic or what ever there called paks, then the stand alone HD only Turbo Absolute paks.

OK, wait a minute, I think you're confusing TurboHD and Absolute HD. The Absolute HD package was created about a year ago and discontinued (for new subscribers) shortly thereafter. It was the one that was supposed to have no new HD added after the end of 2008. The TurboHD packages were created after Absolute HD was discontinued and were supposed to receive all the HD versions of channels that were in the corresponding non-HD packages. There were no restrictions on it announced -- other than that, unlike Absolute HD, they wouldn't let existing subscribers switch to it til this year, which I still haven't figured out.

 

[Hall]

Big deal. In a matter of months, there will be no such thing as an analog local channel anyways.

This has NOTHING to do with the analog shutoff. Dish, DirecTV, and the cablecos will continue to provide SD feeds of local channels after June 17th.

 

[M Sparks]

What I meant by how popular the turbo packs are they want to see how many people sign up to the HD turbo paks only before adding it to them or adding any new HD.

You can keep saying the same thing over and over, but that doesn't make it make sense.