Anybody here have Direct TV?

chrose · #1 10-18-2006, 09:41 AM

Heyo, Last year I got fed up with Time Warner cable and got a great deal to go to the Dish Network. It's okay, but of course after the year was up so did went my price. Now Direct TV keeps wooing me with these great deals. I know of course after a year that price will go up as well. What concerns me the most though with Direct TV is the fine print. It seems to be a whole lot of mumbledygook that if I don't read it well enough will likely take my house and left eye if I miss a step.
Anyone have any feedback positive or negative? Remember you are talking to someone who hates and doesn't have a cell phone (yet) and despises paying for tv, but if I want to watch anything.......

Jim · #2 10-18-2006, 11:17 AM

I have DirecTV. It's fine, I suppose. Reliable service, good selection of programming, but I am not that much of TV watcher. We have 3 receivers and pay about $65 a month. Free installation, equipment. I think they are offering DVR service for free, as well. It is cheaper than cable, but you are locked into a contract.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you want more info,
-Jim

Nentony · #3 10-18-2006, 01:36 PM

I had DirectTv for years and loved it. Absolutly no complaints. I had to change to cable this year because of internet issues with bellsouth and their DSL, but as far as the tv service, I prefer DTV.

Tony

chrose · #4 10-18-2006, 02:33 PM

So Tony, you had no issues with them on leaving? Just pack your bags and go? What happened to the dish? I presume you just ship them back the recievers?

panini · #5 10-18-2006, 03:22 PM

Time Warner just took over our cable and are screwing it up pretty good. Going to a dish soon.

boosehound · #6 10-18-2006, 07:15 PM

the island i live on has island cable wich consists of mmmm about 18-22 chanels. most of which S*CK, and the good ones got taken away because they were "to expensive" ---> HBO,ESPN. so my roommates told me they were getting direct tv it would cost the same as island cable and we would have a lot more channels(a couple hundred including music channels and such). i think paying $65 is way more than we do but i also think direct tv is doing that to bump the island cable company(which as i said s*cks anyway!) so i say YAY to direct tv.

notoriouslyKEN · #7 10-19-2006, 07:11 AM

I have DirecTV with TiVo and 3 receivers and have no problems with it. We get the basic cable (which is probably around 200 channels). When we first signed up we got all the premium channels for the first 4 months, that was the sweet life. I miss those days, but it's too expensive for how much I watch TV. I am waiting for Verizon's FiOS TV service to come into our area, then I will drop DirecTV and Verizon DSL and combine them into the fiber optics.

deltadoc · #8 10-19-2006, 07:35 AM

Small dishes don't measure up to large C-band dishes. In fact, much of the "small dish" content is taken from C-band satellites, and is re-beamed up to the small dish company's small dish satellite, from whence it is beamed down to all who own that particular small dish company's small dish and have a contract with them. At best you're getting a secondary or tertiary signal. A small dish hooked up to a TV next to another TV hooked up to C-band showing the same show, does not have near as quality a picture as the C-band picture.

If you decide to go to another small dish company instead, you will have to have one of their dishes installed, or at least their equipment which will only work with their dish.

In other words, like one of the posters above pointed out, you are contracted in and have no recourse.

On the other hand, a large 8-12' C-band dish, receives everything that is on C-band satellites and at last count there were over 20 C-band satellites. There are, of course many scrambled channels on C-band, but a subscription can be obtained from many sources, thus encouraging competition and keeping prices in check.

A second benefit of C-band satellite is that you can pick and choose exactly what you want, instead of being limited to "pre-selected" programming packages.

A third benefit is that many of the "basic" services that small dish/cable companies charge you for are "free" on C-band.

A fourth benefit is that C-band signals are not affected by the rain as is the case with small dishes.

I've had a C-band satellite dish in my back yard since 1984 and I have the high definition primary signal beaming right down into my 65" Diamond Mitsubishi rear projection TV.

I'm tellin' ya, it doesn't get any better than this. At least for the present!

doc

Nentony · #9 10-19-2006, 11:50 AM

Chrose,
I own the dish and reciever. I paid something like $159.00 for them way back when I 1st got it. My only obligation was to pay the bill every month, about 40 bucks. I had to buy a new dish the year before last due to a hurricane and it was $60. I still have them and as soon as they offer high speed internet around here for a reasonable rate I'll go back happily.

Tony

MikeLM · #10 10-29-2006, 06:14 PM

Yeah. I bought Hughes receiver and 2 antannas for DirecTV about 6 years ago. Mounted one antenna on the house, carried the other in the RV all over the country. Just moved the receiver into the RV and took it with us. Fine service all over the country.

Would have used it for broadband, but Consumer's Report says the DTV internet service is the least good of all other alternatives. So, switched to Comcast package of broadband, phone, and cable TV. Saving quite a bit from the three separate services we paid for before.

If we go on the road again, we'll reactivate the DTV service.

Mike

Culprit · #11 11-10-2006, 11:50 PM

I've had DirecTV for about ten years. I am not a great fan of television and purchased only the basic package along with three "local" channels that I watch with some regularity. Inasmuch as my basic package include HGTV, the Food Network, History Channel, FOX Network, BRAVO and VS there's enough to keep me entertained with what I presently have. Service has been great (they even replaced a remote at no charge) and they have responded quickly and effectively to the two minor complaints I had over the past ten years - even came out and relocated my dish when a tree had put on five or six years of growth and interfered with my signal reception. Some friends have DishTV and their package/service isn't as good as what I have so I'm sticking with DirecTV.

bluedogz · #12 11-14-2006, 08:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrose

So Tony, you had no issues with them on leaving? Just pack your bags and go? What happened to the dish? I presume you just ship them back the recievers?

We switched to Comcast cable about a year ago, and DirecTV told us the dish was ours. We're currently debating making a vary large chip'n'dip out of it. They even let us keep the Tivo.

starlord · #13 01-05-2007, 12:07 AM

I started out in Coolidge, Arizona with nothing but regular broadcast TV, which truly sucked. Then, Channel 15, in Phoenix offered what they called On TV. At six o'clock in the evening, channel 15's signal was scrambled, and oyu had to have the box to unscramble it. It waan't perfect, but it was better than the 4 stations we had then. In time, On expanded until it replaced channel 15, and gave us a number of choices, including a few that cost extra to access, such as Playboy channel.

Eventually, we got American Cable which offered a huge improvement in the available programmming. We left the are for a few years, and when we came back, we set up in an are in the country south of Coolidge. We tried to get cable, but both Cox and American stated they had no plans to cable our area, as there were not enough people her to make it pay, and a number of the people had the old huge dishes.

We finally signed up with Dish TV, and it was not really bad, but the price kept increasing, while the quality of the service got worse. We finally signed up with Direct TV, and get a much better signal, better service, the rates don't go up as fast as cable or Dish, in all a great deal. We got the DVR service for it, and that really helps, like this past season, when they ran so much good stuff on the same nights. I mainly watch the Food Network, the educational channels, and a few movies, so we are talking about cancelling the movie channels and signing up with Netflix.