DirecTV to Dish... Opinions?

randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
We have been MAJORLY dissatisfied with DirecTV for some time, and from all available info we have seen, including the entire local market being little by little stolen over by Dish, and all our friends who have had both services, it looks like we will be much happier with Dish for roughly the same or slightly less money. Plus with our new high def TV and the fact that their DVRs work in two rooms I think it is going to be a great move.

Anyone else have any opinions?
 
Inkara1

Inkara1

Well-Known Member
I've been happy with DirecTV.

The thing that bugs me about Dish is that if they get in a tiff with a channel provider (example: Viacom) then they yank the channels and tell the customers to blame the channel instead of Dish. Also, if you watch the MLB network, then you don't want to switch because Dish does not carry it. With those "Dish has hundreds of the biggest NFL games each season" commercials, what they don't tell you is that it's exactly like having DirecTV without the NFL Sunday Ticket package, or having cable if your cable company carries the NFL network. But other than Sunday Ticket, Dish has all the other paid sports packages like DirecTV has (MLB Extra Innings, NHL Center Ice, ESPN Game Plan college football, etc.).

My understanding is you live in a mobile home that has a few years on it, so it probably won't be much of an issue, but here's how the dual-tuner receivers work: You have one box with an infrared remote for tuner 1 and a radio frequency remote for tuner 2 (that remote also has infrared to be able to work your TV and stuff, but the RF is what lets it work through the wall). The two remotes are labeled which is which. You have two separate tuners within the one box, which needs two separate lines coming from the dish. You then have the one cable line going to the TV by the box, and then another cable line that goes back out the wall and around to the room the other TV is in. That means three separate coaxial cables have to go through the wall in the room the box is located in. Having the dual-tuner box gives you the option to not pay the extra $5 a month for the second tuner, but you must have the box plugged into a phone line or else you'll be charged the $5 (the exact way that works was never explained to me when I was selling Dish but I assume there's an 800 number the box calls).

If you do switch, think about which channels on DirecTV you actually use and see if Dish has them all on a plan that's the same price or cheaper, instead of having to go up a tier to get a particular channel.
 
Cerise

Cerise

Well-Known Member
I'm not real happy with the fact that Direct carries al Jazerra news.

I wonder if Dish still has channel 73 -- The 0bama Channel --active.

Decisions, decisions.
 
randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
Cerise said:
I'm not real happy with the fact that Direct carries al Jazerra news.

I wonder if Dish still has channel 73 -- The 0bama Channel --active.

Decisions, decisions.
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Why in the hell would you not want Al Jazerra? Are you only interested in approved propaganda, or would you not like to understand the enemy (as you have clearly defined Islamic peoples in the past) is up to?

Seems to me, they better have it all if they can. I'd be pissed if a service didn't even have Fox News, regardless of my low opinion of it's obvious spin. I want all the sources possible and I will watch them all! Kind of gives one a broader scope.

BTW, yes I guess that makes me a Fox viewer too! It doesn't mean I buy all their BS, but at times yes, I do watch it.
 
randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
Oh Cerise, don't EVEN try to tell me that if Caribou Barbie had her own channel that you wouldn't pay premiums to see it. Actually I have no interest in an Obama campaign channel.....Never would have but why would anyone now? Were you unaware that he won the election and became president?

BTW Inkara, I think everything will be fine. I am only into the Mariners and Seahawks anyway so no big deal there either. Unfortunately we have the "everything but" package with DirecTV, meaning all channels except movies and extra sports packages, so we have to get the "Gold 250" with Dish to get what we wanted. The high def should be nice too and having a DVR from DirecTV we had to have two lines for it but it only works in one room.

In fact the LOUSY DVR is 90% of what we hate about DirecTV. We had a TIVO when we initially got DirecTV, so we fell in love with it because it was all that a DVR should be. Since DirecTV and TIVO broke up we have had a number of VERY POOR DirecTV "DVR+" machines. When they are functioning at all, they have random failures to do even what they were designed to do. After we learned to hate our second one (first one went completely batshit), I demanded that they give us another option for replacement and they finally agreed, just to get us off the phone and then proceeded to send back the exact same terrible unit. We have, in all had 6 DVRs and only the TIVO was decent at all. Worse yet, DirecTV was great on customer service at first, but over the years they have just become nearly unbearable to deal with.

In any case, I am still interested in opinions, but we went ahead and ordered it tonight and the installer is due on Sunday!

:grinyes:
 
Inkara1

Inkara1

Well-Known Member
I just checked my DirecTV channel guide. I didn't find Al Jazeera anywhere. I do only have Choice XTRA but also, my channel guide shows a bunch of channels I don't get (and I can't turn that off, annoying). Also, I checked DirecTV's Web site and they don't have Al Jazeera (English or Arabic) mentioned anywhere. There is also no Arabic package (the closest is a Greek package or a South Asian package).

I checked the Dish Network Web site and Dish does have an Arabic package that includes Al Jazeera (doesn't specify which language but I assume it's in Arabic). But I checked the channel lineup for "America's Everything Pak" which should have pretty much every English channel Dish offers and didn't find English Al Jazeera, nor did I find a channel 73. From what I could find, the Obama channel was paid advertising by the Obama campaign and stopped broadcasting on Nov. 4.
 
Inkara1

Inkara1

Well-Known Member
I will mention that my 86-year-old grandmother has the Dish DVR and can't figure out how she lived 85 or so years without it.
 
ResearchMonkey

ResearchMonkey

Well-Known Member
We had Dish for a while, we had some of the premium content and it was something like 100 channels with a contract. We watched 3-6 channels which in general were entertaining to watch with beautiful visual aesthetic, they were memorizing for 1-hour at a time. After three months we simply unplugged the damn thing because what it offered was sensationalized garbage. I won't even go into what I think about my girls watching the Disney channel.

We later tried cable because they offered a much better internet connection. Again under contract, after a few months, we unplugged it from our A/V network due to the time/value relationship.

We read books, we read a lot of books and we even read some books together.

My opinion. Buy a good DVD player and spend your $60-80-120 a month on books, all kinds of books.

oldbooks2.jpg
 
ResearchMonkey

ResearchMonkey

Well-Known Member
Yes they are the future.

Funny, they generally keep their phones off too, they find the whole texting thing to be silly.
 
Gonz

Gonz

molṑn labé
Staff member
ResearchMonkey said:
Yes they are the future.

Funny, they generally keep their phones off too, they find the whole texting thing to be silly.
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So does my kid (well, all of us). If you want to text, email works & if you want to talk, it is a phone.


Inkara1 said:
The thing that bugs me about Dish is that if they get in a tiff with a channel provider (example: Viacom) then they yank the channels and tell the customers to blame the channel instead of Dish
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They could follow the cable company & just up your price every month. I liked the fact that Dish actually fought to control costs.
 
Mirlyn

Mirlyn

Well-Known Member
Inkara1 said:
Having the dual-tuner box gives you the option to not pay the extra $5 a month for the second tuner, but you must have the box plugged into a phone line or else you'll be charged the $5 (the exact way that works was never explained to me when I was selling Dish but I assume there's an 800 number the box calls).
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The number authorizes the box and programming, as well as keeps a check on moving boxes (taking the box with you to a cabin, another house, etc). There are obvious ways around that, but I've heard that's one of the reasons for the random calls it places.

Just FYI, I believe all the Dish DVRs now have network jacks (the 612s do, so I'd assume the higher models do too), and will communicate via internet as an alternative to requiring an analog line at the box. Thats what we've used in the past installs.
 
randomJACKASS

randomJACKASS

Banned
I am kind of not a huge fan of texts, but so many folks I know use them that I am roped in. Email is much better and one can be much clearer. I see texts causing just as many communication issues as they solve.
 
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